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Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)
The Secretary of State for Wales (David T. C. Davies)
We are delivering unprecedented support to protect households across Wales from the cost of living. We understand that people across the UK are worried about the cost of living, and this winter we will stick with the plan to spend £55 billion to help households and businesses with their energy bills—one of the largest support plans in the whole of Europe.
Ben Lake
I welcome the right hon. Member to his role as Secretary of State for Wales. As he will be aware, off-grid households and businesses have experienced quite rapid increases in the price of their heating. That is a big concern in areas such as Ceredigion, where 74% of properties are not connected to the mains gas grid. Quite simply, when does he expect those households and businesses to receive support for their off-grid heating costs?
David T. C. Davies
The hon. Gentleman is quite right to raise the issue of off-grid domestic premises. The Government have heard the issue being raised by Members, including him, and we have increased the support available from £100 to £200. I would be happy to come back to him with details of exactly when that payment will be made. It was because of calls from people such as him that that increase was made.
Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)
This is my first opportunity to congratulate the Secretary of State on his promotion, and I wish him well in his new role. Serving in government under his third Prime Minister since September means that he has the dubious honour of collective responsibility for all the decisions made. Of the highest tax burden in 70 years, the biggest forecasted drop in living standards since records began and the longest pay squeeze for more than 150 years, which does he think is doing the most damage to households in Wales?
David T. C. Davies
I am delighted to take full collective responsibility for all the excellent decisions that the last three Prime Ministers have made. May I remind the hon. Lady that we are committing ourselves to spending £55 billion to support the least well-off households across the United Kingdom? Yes, we have had to raise taxes because we have had to pay for a covid crisis that has cost £400 billion; we have had to deal with the effect of the disgraceful invasion of Ukraine, which has pushed up energy bills and pushed up inflation across the United Kingdom; and we have raised taxes to support the most vulnerable. I am yet to hear what she would do to raise money to help people.
Jo Stevens
The Secretary of State cannot hide from his record. He mentioned tax rises. I will make it easy for him: which of the 24 Tory tax rises in this Parliament did he not support?
David T. C. Davies
I am quite happy to support a tax rise to make sure that the living wage goes up. I will support tax rises to make sure that pensions and benefits can go up in line with inflation. What I still have not heard from the hon. Lady, or indeed from the many Labour Members whom I hear on the radio talking about taxation and borrowing, is where exactly they would find the extra money that they want to use to increase spending on public services.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
I too welcome the Secretary of State to his place. I am sure that he will join me in expressing llongyfarchiadau—congratulations—to the Wales football team on their performance. If there had only been a third half, we would have been the winners.
The Chancellor told us last week that his financial statement was based on British values. The Wales Governance Centre calculates that, because of failed economic strategies—mostly by his Government—average Welsh incomes will, by 2027, be £10,300 lower than if pre-financial crisis growth levels had been sustained. As the Conservatives prepare to squander another decade, should the people of Wales take it that the British values of the Secretary of State’s Government stand for relentless grinding poverty?
David T. C. Davies
In the first instance, I thank the right hon. Lady for her kind words. Of course, I will be happy to say llongyfarchiadau i’r wal goch—congratulations to the red wall—in a few days’ time.
As far as the Government’s economic policies are concerned, I remind her that the Government have had to deal with the after-effects of a financial collapse partly caused by the previous Labour Government, the effects of a covid crisis that has cost £400 billion, and the effect of a land war in Europe. Despite all that, this Government have quite rightly prioritised the least well off in our society, and I am very proud of our economic record.
Liz Saville Roberts
Today of all days, we must look forward to how the democracy of these isles will best serve our people, particularly the people of Wales. In June, I asked the Deputy Prime Minister whether his so-called Bill of Rights would include the right to self-determination. He did not give me a direct answer, so I will ask the Secretary of State. Will he support the inclusion in the Bill of Rights of the right to self-determination for the peoples of the devolved nations, or does he not believe that Wales should have the right to decide our own destiny?
David T. C. Davies
Wales has decided its own destiny in several referenda recently. It decided that it would like a devolved Administration, which is something that this Conservative Government will fully support. Wales voted to leave the European Union, which I fully supported, but I am not sure the right hon. Lady or her party did. I fully respect the self-determination of the Welsh people to leave the EU, and I look forward to her support on that one in the future.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Dr James Davies)
The Government are carefully considering the business case for the sale of Channel 4. Whatever the outcome—as I heard from the chair of Teledwyr Annibynnol Cymru at the recent S4C 40th anniversary event, the quality of Wales’s independent television production sector is unparalleled—I am sure it will continue to thrive.
Chris Elmore
I welcome the Minister to his place and wish him well. He will know that Channel 4 spends more in the nations and regions than any other production company that works in the United Kingdom. Does he not agree that it would be absolute madness to reduce that funding to the Welsh broadcast and television sectors and privatise Channel 4, and does he welcome what it appears will soon be the Prime Minister’s U-turn on that rather strange decision?
Dr Davies
The hon. Member will know that the independent television production sector in Wales is thriving, with at least 50 organisations. That needs to continue into the future. The important thing is that Channel 4 can survive in a new landscape, with streaming and competition from abroad.
Liz Twist
I too welcome the Minister to his place. Channel 4’s training, apprenticeship and digital skills programme, 4Skills, has reached more than 100,000 people since 2015. How will the Government ensure that this door for young people into the industry is not slammed shut?
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend take this opportunity to praise the work of production companies, not only in Cardiff but Aberystwyth and elsewhere in Wales? Is he aware that some of those companies are frustrated with Channel 4 and feel that they cannot get a look in? Some of them would welcome a change of management.
Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
I welcome the appointment of my hon. Friend, who is surely one of the ablest Ministers in His Majesty’s Government. I would be interested to know of his recent assessments of the television production industry in Wales and the ever-expanding Media City in Greater Manchester.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Wales (David T. C. Davies)
The Bill of Rights will continue to protect the same rights and freedoms currently in place, but will restore a common-sense approach to human rights, safeguarding the public interest and respecting the will of Parliament.
Deidre Brock
Secretaries of State, previously and just now, have failed to answer the question from the Plaid Cymru leader, the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts), on this, so I will have another go. The right to self-determination is set out in article 1 of the international covenant on civil and political rights. Will the proposed British Bill of Rights uphold that by enshrining the right to self-determination for the peoples of Wales, Scotland, England and Northern Ireland?
David T. C. Davies
The Bill of Rights is clearly a reserved matter for the UK Government. The UK Government will always respect the right of devolved Administrations to legislate in areas for which they are responsible, and we would assume that the devolved Administrations will respect the right of the UK Government to legislate in areas for which they are responsible. That is what respect and self-determination are all about.
Owen Thompson
Again, I do not think that got to the point. The Joint Committee on Human Rights recommended in its report last year that the UK Government should “not pursue reform” of the Human Rights Act
“without the consent of the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Senedd and the Northern Ireland Assembly.”
As the UK Government have failed to get that consent, does the Minister not see the vital need for devolved nations to have a right to self-determination enshrined in law?
David T. C. Davies
I think the devolved nations, such as Wales, will be very pleased that my right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary is bringing in legislation that will stop the ridiculous time-wasting of people taking endless appeals, at public expense, to the courts to challenge judicial decisions. The Bill of Rights will not take away fundamental freedoms, such as the right to wear the suffragette colours in the national Parliament, which Members of the hon. Gentleman’s party should support in their own Chamber.
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Bill of Rights places the Supreme Court at the top of the decision-making tree for rights, and so does our constitutional settlement as regards the devolved nations? Does he agree that we would look to the Supreme Court for correct, rightful decisions in this area, as we have just seen in another context?
David T. C. Davies
I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend. It is incumbent on all of us in this Chamber to support the decisions of the court, as I am sure all of us do.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Dr James Davies)
I was delighted to hear that the first shipment of British lamb left Wales for the USA last month. The USA lamb market is estimated to be worth £37 million over the next five years, with over 300 million consumers who can now access and enjoy our world-renowned Welsh lamb.
Mr Hollobone
It is great that Welsh lamb has now been exported to the United States for the first time in 20 years. The National Farmers Union has set out a detailed strategy outlining its ambition to grow the UK’s food, drink and agricultural exports by 30% by 2030. Will the Minister work with the NFU to realise this laudable ambition to drive the total value of British agrifoods exports to more than £30 billion by that date?
Dr Davies
I certainly will. I look forward to attending the royal Welsh winter fair next week, when I will be meeting the NFU. Wales has a major role in achieving increased exports and, when it comes to lamb, trade deals with the Gulf Co-operation Council, among others, could be key.
Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
I too welcome the Minister to his new role. He will know how important lamb exports are to Welsh farmers and the Welsh economy. Exports to the US are a drop in the ocean compared to the damage his Government have done with the Australian and New Zealand trade deals. We know his colleague the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) said:
“I no longer have to put such a positive gloss on what was agreed…the Australia trade deal is not actually a very good deal…We did not need to give Australia or New Zealand full liberalisation in beef and sheep—it was not in our economic interest to do so”.—[Official Report, 14 November 2022; Vol. 722, c. 424.]
Will the Minister now admit his Government have sold out Welsh farmers?
Dr Davies
The hon. Gentleman will recognise that we import more from Ireland than from Australia. In fact, the Australian and New Zealand markets are very much in the rapidly expanding markets of south-east Asia. We need to look at the pros and cons of trade deals, and there are certainly many pros to the trade deals for the British economy.
Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Dr James Davies)
Wales plays a critical role, with two of the UK’s three liquefied natural gas terminals supplying gas through Pembrokeshire to the grid. Wales is well placed to build on that record, with prime sites for new nuclear projects in north Wales and floating offshore wind in the Celtic sea. We will continue to champion these opportunities across Government.
Tonia Antoniazzi
Off-grid households in Wales, including many in my constituency, are still waiting for an announcement on how they will receive support with rising costs. The ongoing cost of living crisis is not the only issue. People who rely on off-grid energy are hostages to what has become an increasingly unstable market, and it is only set to get worse. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, does the Minister believe that, where the previous Government have failed, it is finally time for this Government to back new renewable energy, such as Swansea Council’s Blue Eden lagoon project that will get a grip on a tidal lagoon in Swansea?
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
At the Welsh Affairs Committee this morning, we heard from the Minister for Energy and Climate on the enormous potential of floating offshore wind to contribute to UK energy security. On a day when Port Talbot and Milford Haven are launching their joint freeport bid to deliver this new industry, I urge my hon. Friend to throw his weight behind unleashing the potential of floating offshore wind in the Celtic sea.
Dr Davies
I thank my right hon. Friend for the question. I had a meeting yesterday with a developer who is interested in floating offshore wind, which has the potential to contribute massively to the renewable energy requirements of this country, and south-west Wales is key to that.
Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Wales (David T. C. Davies)
I have frequent discussions with my ministerial colleagues on a range of matters, including the cost of living. I am pleased to say that this year, as a result of the autumn statement, the Government will be spending £55 billion to help households and businesses with their energy bills. We have also announced further support for 2023-24 so that the most vulnerable households will continue to be supported.
Carolyn Harris
Swansea East-based charity Faith in Families supports 500 households a week who are struggling to pay for food, energy and living costs. Currently, it raises money to provide vouchers for toys so that children will be able to open a gift on Christmas morning. The Everyone Deserves a Christmas campaign, which is also based in Swansea, is desperately trying to raise funds to provide festive hampers for those families. Community organisations are doing their bit to ensure that nobody goes without this Christmas. What will the Government do?
David T. C. Davies
First, I commend the hon. Lady for her support for the hamper campaign. I believe that my office has sent out hampers, possibly as part of the same campaign that she has championed, and I am sure other hon. Members may want to do so. On the wider issue, we all accept that a Christmas hamper is not going to solve economic problems, so I refer her back to my earlier answer, which was that the Government have done absolutely everything possible to target help at the least well-off in society. That is why in addition to the inflation-linked increases to pensions and benefits, and to the living wage, the Government have made sure that those on benefits will receive a payment of £900, pensioners will get £300, and households where there are people with disabilities will get £150. We are proud of our record on doing our best for those with the least.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend to his position. He just highlighted the range of generous support that has been made available to households facing the energy crisis, but park home residents are still waiting for clarification about how they will receive their support. The Government have clearly made strong, warm commitments to park home residents. When will they be in a position to explain, technically, how the money will be paid to those households?
David T. C. Davies
I thank my right hon. Friend for his kind words. I note that he has raised the issue on a number of occasions. I am told that details are forthcoming imminently on that particular point, and I am sure that other colleagues on the Front Bench, who are more directly involved in that, have heard his question and will respond to him shortly.
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Wales (David T. C. Davies)
I have regular discussions with Cabinet colleagues on a wide range of transport measures, including High Speed 2. HS2 will enable quicker and more train services to north Wales via the Crewe northern connection, and will improve connections from north Wales to the HS2 network, potentially bringing passengers within two hours 15 minutes of London.
Tony Lloyd
The Secretary of State must recognise, though, that north Wales in particular can obtain the benefit of HS2 only with proper connectivity, which means electrification of the north Wales line. Will he guarantee that that will take place? If not, will he accept that that is a betrayal of the interests of the people of north Wales?
David T. C. Davies
I do not necessarily think that it would require electrification of the north Wales line. With respect, there are proposals at the moment to make improvements to the north Wales line that are based more around changes to signalling, which will allow more trains to run on the track. I do not pretend to be a rail engineer, but the proposals I have seen do not include electrification. They would decrease journey times across the north Wales line and, feeding into Crewe, would therefore decrease journey times between north Wales and London and bring benefits to all passengers.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Dr James Davies)
My right hon. Friend has long championed a deposit return scheme since her time as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs regularly discusses co-ordination of the implementation of the scheme with the Welsh Government, and it was an agenda item at the recent EFRA inter-ministerial group, which I attended.
Theresa Villiers
This is a really important scheme that will help tackle plastic waste and litter. People want it to be introduced, and it will be much more successful if it is co-ordinated between Cardiff, Edinburgh and London. Please can the Government make progress on delivering it right across the United Kingdom?
Dr Davies
I could not agree more. Non-aligned deposit return schemes across the UK risk creating barriers to trade, breaking up supply chains, increasing costs to business, and reducing the choice and availability of products in Wales. In recent days, I have met the Society of Independent Brewers, British Glass, the Wine and Spirit Trade Association and UKHospitality to discuss these issues, and I will be doing all I can to encourage UK-wide co-ordination.
Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Wales (David T. C. Davies)
I met officials from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities last week to discuss this very subject, and I feel confident that there are going to be several high-quality bids from Wales. The bidding process closes tomorrow at 6 pm, and I look forward to the announcement being made early in 2023.
Virginia Crosbie
I welcome the Secretary of State to his place—croeso. Will he join me in thanking all those who support Anglesey’s bid to become a freeport, and does he agree that a freeport in Wales delivers on our Conservative manifesto commitment and will strengthen Wales’s bond with the UK Government and our important Union?
David T. C. Davies
I am absolutely delighted to agree with my hon. Friend, and indeed to thank all those who have been involved in freeport bids across the whole of Wales. Freeports have the potential to spread wealth across the areas in which they are established, they deliver on the Government’s commitment to level up and they are an example of the benefits of Wales being a part of the Union. I would like to congratulate my hon. Friend, who has spoken on this issue on 26 occasions, and I look forward to that announcement being made in February.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
We have seen many claims about the number of jobs that will be created in Holyhead. Can the Secretary of State give me a precise assessment or even a wild guess as to how many jobs will be created, how many of them will be new and how many will be merely transferred from other areas?
David T. C. Davies
I have certain powers as Secretary of State, but the powers of absolute clairvoyance are not among them. Therefore, I find it rather difficult to give an exact figure for the number of jobs that would be created as a result of any one of the many projects that the Government are doing to level up across the United Kingdom. What I can tell the hon. Member is that, where freeports have been trialled in Humber and Teesside, they have created thousands of new jobs, and I look forward to seeing something similar happen no matter where a freeport is established in Wales.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Wales (David T. C. Davies)
As a keen sportsman, I was absolutely delighted to visit the new 3G pitch at Baglan field. It received funds from the UK Government’s multi-sport grassroots facilities programme, which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister championed when Chancellor. I look forward to meeting Welsh Government Ministers next week to discuss this and other issues around sports, as we cheer on our heroes in tîm Cymru a’r wal goch—team Wales and the red wall.
Simon Baynes
UK Government funding for grassroots football facilities in Clwyd South this year has included £57,000 for upgrading the pitch at Ysgol y Grango for the community hub, and £20,000 for Penycae football club, which is helping re-establish a girls team. Does my right hon. Friend agree that grassroots sport is vital for the health, wellbeing and quality of life of all our communities?
David T. C. Davies
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and that is why we have allocated £1.3 million to 17 projects in Wales to make vital improvements to changing room facilities and artificial grass surfaces. Sports clubs are at the heart of every community in Wales, and Wales is at the heart of every decision taken by this Government and this Prime Minister.
Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
As people up and down Wales celebrate Wales’s success and wish them the best for the next couple of matches, this is an ideal and unparalleled opportunity to galvanise that enthusiasm and develop grassroots football in Wales. The Football Association of Wales tells me that £12 million has been earmarked by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport for the development of the sport over the next few years, but it could be threatened by the cuts announced last week by the Chancellor. Will the Secretary of State please speak to the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and beg her to safeguard that money for the development of grassroots football in Wales?
David T. C. Davies
The Government have already shown their commitment to sport—not just football but many other sports—through the funds disbursed by DCMS across the United Kingdom. I am sure that right hon. colleagues will have heard the hon. Lady’s comments, but I assure her of our commitment to grassroots sports across Wales and the United Kingdom. I look forward to joining her to support tîm Cymru a’r wal goch wythnos nesaf. Diolch. (Translation: I look forward to joining her to support team Wales and the red wall next week. Thank you.)
Mr Speaker
That completes Welsh questions. Before we come to Prime Minister’s questions, I point out that the British Sign Language interpretation of proceedings is available to watch on parliamentlive.tv.
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
The Prime Minister (Rishi Sunak)
I know that Members across the House will want to join me in wishing both England and Wales the best of luck in the World cup.
This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
Jonathan Gullis
People in places such as Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke are not getting the help that they need quickly enough when it comes to mental health. Fellow campaigner James Starkey and I were delighted when the Prime Minister, who was then Chancellor, said he would back our campaign every step of the way to get mental health nurses into GP surgeries. Will the Prime Minister deliver on his promise, back our “No Time to Wait” pilot scheme developed by the Royal College of Nursing and help get people the support that they need?
The Prime Minister
May I thank my hon. Friend for his continued campaigning on this important issue? I am pleased to tell him that all 1,250 primary care networks in England are entitled to recruit up to two mental health practitioners to work in surgeries. I know that the British Medical Association and the NHS are looking at expanding that, and I look forward to working with him to ensure that his constituents in Stoke get the mental health support and care that they need.
Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
Congratulations to England and Wales on their start to the World cup, and good luck for the rest of the tournament. The World cup does not belong to FIFA, and it does not belong to the host nation; it belongs to everyone who loves football. It is totally unacceptable that, during this tournament, gay football fans are unable to acknowledge who they love, and players have been threatened with suspension if they show solidarity with those fans. Shame on FIFA.
Britain faces the lowest growth of any OECD nation over the next two years. Why?
The Prime Minister
Since 2010, this country has experienced the third highest growth in the G7; this year, the fastest growth in the G7, and unemployment at a multi-decade low. We are getting on to deliver more growth. We are delivering freeports. We are investing in apprenticeships. We are protecting research and development. If the Labour party is serious about supporting growth, maybe it should get on the phone with its union paymasters and tell them to call off the strikes.
Mr Speaker
Order. We want to get through Prime Minister’s questions and you are not helping me.
Keir Starmer
The Prime Minister is in total denial. We are bottom of the 38 OECD countries, which are all in the same boat when it comes to covid and Ukraine, and he wants a pat on the back. It is like a football manager, bottom of the league at Christmas, celebrating an away draw three months ago—it will not wash. [Interruption.] Conservative Members do not like their record—that is the problem. So, let us try another way. Why is Britain set to be the first country into recession and the last country out?
The Prime Minister
I am pleased that the right hon. and learned Gentleman brought up the OECD report, because it contained three very important points. First, it made the point that in the years following the pandemic we are projected to have almost the highest growth among our peer countries. It also made the point that it was crystal clear that the challenges we face are completely international in nature. Thirdly, it supported our fiscal plan because it is credible and ensures sustainability. The right hon. and learned Gentleman would have known all that if he had actually read the whole report, but he is not interested in substance. He is an opportunist.
In four weeks, I have strengthened the economy, we have put more money into the NHS and schools, and we have delivered a deal to tackle illegal migration. In the same four weeks, all we have—
Mr Speaker
Order. Prime Minister, when I stand, you have to sit down. You came to me, quite rightly, and said to me, “We want to get through Prime Minister’s questions. I’m going to give short answers.” Please stick to what you said.
Keir Starmer
There is only one party that crashed on the economy and it is sitting there on the Government Benches. And I noticed this, Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister will not say why Britain is set to be the first into a recession and the last out, so I will: 12 years of Tory failure, followed by 12 weeks of Tory chaos. For a decade, they let our economy drift aimlessly, before suddenly cutting the parachute ropes and slamming it to the ground. And because of the changes he has made, a typical household will end up with tax increases of £1,400. [Interruption.] Tory Members do not want to hear about the tax increases of £1,400. Contrast that with a super wealthy non-dom living here but holding their income overseas. How much more—
Mr Speaker
Order. Mr Young, I do not need anymore—I do not need shouting, I do not need pointing. You are meant to be a good example when you sit on the Front Bench. Just because you are on the second, do not spoil what you are meant to do.
Keir Starmer
Mr Speaker, I do not think Tory Members want to hear this. Because of the changes the Prime Minister has made, a typical household will end up paying tax increases of £1,400. Contrast that with a super wealthy non-dom living here but holding their income overseas. How much more has he asked them to pay?
Mr Speaker
Order. As I said to the Prime Minister, so I say to the Leader of the Opposition: I have to get through this list. I need you both to help me and to think of other Members.
The Prime Minister
Labour had 13 years to address this issue and did nothing. It was a Conservative Government who took action and tightened the rules. The problem with the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s idea is that it would end up “costing Britain money”—not my words, but the words of a former Labour shadow Chancellor. Rather than peddling fairy tales and gesture politics, let us tell him what we are doing to deliver for this country: a record increase in the national living wage; protecting millions from energy bills; and protecting the pensioners’ triple lock. That is what we are doing for this country.
Keir Starmer
If the Conservatives had grown the economy at the same rate as the last Labour Government, we would have tens of billions of pounds more to spend. It was not a trick question. The answer is that the Prime Minister has not asked non-doms to pay a penny more. He talks about the money. Every year that is £3.6 billion thrown away because he will not make them pay their taxes here. How many extra doctors could Britain afford with that money?
The Prime Minister
I am pleased that the right hon. and learned Gentleman brought up doctors, because last week we delivered record increases in funding for the NHS—not just more doctors, but more nurses, more scans, more operations. That shows our
“commitment to prioritise to NHS”—
not my words, but the words of the NHS chief executive.
Keir Starmer
Scrapping the non-dom status would allow us to train 15,000 doctors every year—that is what Labour would do. We can carry on handing out tax breaks to the super-rich, or we can live in a society where people do not have to go private to get a doctor’s appointment. It is that simple.
The Prime Minister also hands Shell 90p for every £1 that it spends on drilling, so it has not paid a penny in windfall tax. You may have seen this week, Mr Speaker, that somebody shredded £10,000 in protest at those propping up an oil and gas giant, but the Prime Minister shreds £10,000 every other minute propping them up. Which does he think is the more absurd?
The Prime Minister
This is the Government who have actually put in place an economic plan that will deliver confidence and stability to our economy. All I have heard from the right hon. and learned Gentleman today is that he has no answers and no substance, because there is no plan. He talks about the NHS; we are delivering record funding for the NHS, but we can only do that on the foundations of a strong economy. You cannot deliver for the NHS unless you have a plan for the economy, and he does not have either.
Keir Starmer
Every time the Prime Minister opens his mouth, another powerful business voice says that he has not got a plan on growth. The failure of the last 12 years and the chaos of the last 12 weeks are compounded by the decisions he is taking now. He will not follow Labour’s plan to scrap non-dom status—instead, we have an NHS staffing crisis. He will not follow Labour’s plan to make oil and gas giants pay their fair share—instead, he hammers working people. And he will not push through planning reform—instead, he kills off the dream of home ownership. He is too weak to take on his party, too weak to take on vested interest. Twelve long years of Tory Government, five Prime Ministers, seven Chancellors—why do they always clobber working people?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. and learned Gentleman talks about leadership. This summer, I stood on my principles and told the country what they needed to hear, even though it was difficult. When he ran for leader, he told his party what it wanted to hear, and even now, he says one thing and does the other. He says that he cares for working people, but he will not stand up to the unions. He said that he would honour Brexit, but he tried to have a second referendum. And now he tries to talk tough about immigration, but he promised to defend free movement. You can trust him to deliver for his party; you can trust me to deliver for the country.
Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)
The Prime Minister
I am pleased to tell my hon. Friend that I spent time discussing that with President Zelensky at the weekend and talking to Ukrainian families about the impact that these awful strikes are having on them. I know that the whole House will be proud to know that we are providing millions of pounds of immediate support, with generators, shelter and water repairs, on top of the 570 mobile power generators that we are donating to power facilities across Ukraine. We are also working with the Government to repair critical infrastructure, with eight projects identified by UK Export Finance to be delivered in the near future.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
I am sure that the whole House will join me in welcoming the Moderator of the Church of Scotland to our proceedings this afternoon and in thanking him for his sermon at St Margaret’s this morning.
This morning, the Supreme Court clarified a point of law, but the very point of democracy in this Union is now at stake. And democracy will not be denied, because whether Westminster likes it or not, last year the people of Scotland voted for a Scottish Parliament with the majority and the mandate to deliver an independence referendum. The Prime Minister has every right to oppose independence; he has no right to deny democracy to the people of Scotland. If the Prime Minister keeps blocking that referendum, will he at least be honest and confirm that the very idea that the United Kingdom is a voluntary Union of nations is now dead and buried?
The Prime Minister
Let me start by saying that we respect the clear and definitive ruling of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom and that I am looking forward to seeing the Moderator of the Church of Scotland tomorrow. I think that the people of Scotland want us working on fixing the major challenges that collectively we face, whether that is the economy, supporting the NHS or indeed supporting Ukraine. Now is the time for politicians to work together, and that is what this Government will do.
Ian Blackford
It is right that we respect the decision of the Court, but the Prime Minister cannot claim to respect the rule of law and then deny democracy in the very same breath. If democracy is to matter, if elections matter, then mandates matter. Since 2014, the Scottish National party has won eight elections in a row. Last year, we won a landslide. The Scottish Parliament now has the biggest majority for an independence referendum in the history of devolution. The Prime Minister does not even have a personal mandate to sit in 10 Downing Street. What right does a man with no mandate have to deny Scottish democracy?
The Prime Minister
When it comes to Scottish democracy, I am pleased that the Scottish Government have one of the most powerful devolved assemblies anywhere in the world. I was pleased, very shortly after becoming Prime Minister, to be the first Prime Minister in over a decade to attend the British-Irish Council and sit down with the First Minister to explore ways in which we can work together with the Scottish Government to deliver for the people of Scotland, whether that is delivering our growth deals, delivering freeports or ensuring that the £1.5 billion of extra Barnett money can go towards supporting public services. That is what we are committed to doing in Scotland.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
The Prime Minister
The kinds of demonstrations that we have seen recently disrupt people’s daily lives, cause mass misery for the public and put people in danger. The police have our full support in their efforts to minimise this disruption and tackle reckless and illegal activity. The Public Order Bill will give them the powers they need. I look forward to seeing the support that the Bill receives from every part of this House.
Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
My constituent Vanessa has contacted me in floods of tears. Her mortgage payments have risen by £500 a month. She and her husband were already struggling with high energy bills and high food bills; now, like one in four mortgage holders across the country, they fear losing their home. “We are out of options and heartbroken,” says Vanessa. Will the Prime Minister introduce a new mortgage protection fund, paid for by reversing his tax cuts for the banks? Will he help Vanessa to keep her home?
The Prime Minister
I am deeply sorry to hear about Vanessa’s circumstances. I want her to know that the plan that the Chancellor announced last week will help families like hers up and down the country, because it is the right plan to tackle inflation, limit the increase in mortgage rates and ensure confidence in our economy. There is specific help that the Chancellor announced, offering low-interest loans to homeowners on benefits to cover interest on mortgages of up to £250,000. The Chancellor is also meeting mortgage lenders in the coming weeks. We will continue to do all we can to support those homeowners who are struggling with their payments.
Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)
The Prime Minister
I am happy to join my hon. Friend in praising all his local teams. He makes an excellent point that volunteers have a vital role to play in community sport and the delivery of major events. I join him in thanking them for everything that they do. Sport accounts for over half of volunteering in the UK, and every one volunteer generates the capacity for at least eight more people to participate in sport. I know that the whole House will join me in praising their efforts.
Allan Dorans (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (SNP)
The Prime Minister
Again, we respect the decision of the Court today with regard to the referendum and we are getting on with the business of working constructively, collaboratively and in partnership with the Scottish Government to deliver for the hon. Member’s constituents. Indeed, the Ayrshire growth deal is investing over £100 million to make use of his region’s strong industrial heritage, potentially making more use of renewable energy. That is the kind of positive project that we should be focused on, and that is what we will keep on delivering.
John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for his comprehensive and thoughtful suggestions. As he acknowledged, I have committed to appointing an independent adviser on ministerial interests, and I very much look forward to studying his other proposals in proper time.
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
The Prime Minister
At a time such as this, the Scottish people want to see their Governments working together on the things that matter to them. I believe that that is possible. The hon. Member should know that in his own constituency we have been able to support culture and tourism, working together to bring the V&A to Dundee. That is an example of a positive project. It demonstrates the benefits of the Union, and that is what we will keep on delivering.
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Hopefully he was heartened to hear what the Chancellor said last week: that we want to crack on with our overall nuclear programme. My hon. Friend is right to acknowledge that small modular and advanced nuclear reactors have the potential to play a key role in that nuclear programme, alongside projects such as Hinckley and Sizewell. That is why we have allocated £385 million to support them. Like him, I am keen to see progress as soon as possible.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
The Prime Minister
The UK is a collaborative and constructive Union that is delivering for the people of Scotland, even in Ayrshire itself, where we are working collaboratively with the Scottish Government to invest in aerospace, advanced manufacturing and space. Those are the types of activities that will bring tangible benefits to the people in the hon. Lady’s region, and that is the right focus for the Government.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. He knows that I share exactly the same challenge in our rural areas of making sure that our constituents have access to the bus services they need. I am pleased that the Chancellor has allocated funding for extra bus services across the country, and I look forward to working with him to ensure that that money finds its way to rural areas such as North Yorkshire to provide the connectivity that is so important for people to have opportunity and get access to public services.
Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
Every life that is lost in the channel is a tragedy, but that is why it is so vital that we break the cycle of criminal gangs that are exploiting people and trafficking them, and that is what the Home Secretary is focused on. We have accepted more than 380,000 people over the past few years, because this is a place where people can seek refuge and sanctuary, but we must be able to do that in a sustainable way, and that is why it is right that we tackle illegal migration.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
Rising energy bills are a challenge for all of us. My constituents are grateful for the support that has been given by the Government, but with temperatures this week falling below freezing in Lincolnshire, those living in park homes are particularly concerned about when they will receive their support. Can my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister tell me when and how people living in park homes will receive the £400 to which they are entitled?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend has consistently and rightly championed her rural constituents, making sure they get access to the energy support that we are providing. This is something that the Chancellor prioritised in last week’s autumn statement, and I will ensure that we get the money out as quickly as possible. My hon. Friend should also be reassured that the cold weather payment system provides extra financial support to those vulnerable constituents when temperatures drop below a certain point.
Amy Callaghan (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
The Prime Minister
The challenges we face right now are those that require co-operation between our Governments: tackling the economy and supporting the NHS. I am pleased that last week’s autumn statement means that the Scottish Government will receive £1.5 billion in extra funding to deliver for public services in Scotland, and that is what we will continue doing.
Mrs Theresa May (Maidenhead) (Con)
Scotland is a proud nation with a unique heritage. It is a valued member of our family of nations—a Union of people bound through the generations by shared interests. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this morning’s Supreme Court decision gives the Scottish nationalists—the SNP—the opportunity, for once, to put the people of Scotland first and end their obsession with breaking us apart?
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
The Prime Minister
Last week’s autumn statement announced £55 billion to support families and businesses across the United Kingdom with their energy bills. The Chancellor paid particular attention to off-grid customers in rural areas by doubling their support to £200, which will help many people in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and across the United Kingdom.
Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)
Mr Speaker, I am sure that this weekend we will both be celebrating what we consider to be one of the best days of the year: Lancashire Day. May I thank you personally for hosting the event in Parliament? Will the Prime Minister, although he represents a Yorkshire constituency, join me in welcoming our Lancastrian local leaders and businesses to Parliament today, and will he join us in supporting our proud history and bright future by levelling up what we consider to be the best county?
The Prime Minister
I offer my best wishes to my hon. Friend, and indeed to you, Mr Speaker, for Lancashire Day. I can put local rivalry aside on this occasion to join my hon. Friend in thanking Lancastrians for their contribution to our country, and I wish her the very best for today’s event.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
The Prime Minister
We are focused not on the SNP but on the people of Scotland; that is who we are delivering for. I am happy to meet the First Minister, as I continue to do, to deliver for the people of Scotland, including in the hon. Lady’s constituency through the growth deal, and also by moving civil service jobs, creating freeports and providing extra funding for public services. This is a Government who will deliver for the people of Scotland, and we will do it constructively and collaboratively.
Speaker’s Statement
(1 year, 12 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Speaker
On 20 October, the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee published a special report on answers given to it by the right hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries) when she was Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. The hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (John Nicolson) subsequently wrote to me asking for precedence for a complaint of a breach of privilege, as was his right. I declined to do so since the bar for such a complaint is high. The House should take action only when essential in order to provide reasonable protection for the House, its Members or its officers from improper obstruction. I note that the Committee itself, of which the hon. Gentleman is a member, has said:
“Had Ms Dorries remained Secretary of State, driving a policy of selling the channel, we may have sought a referral to the Privileges Committee but, as her claims have not inhibited the work of the Committee and she no longer has a position of power over the future of Channel 4, we are, instead, publishing this Report to enable the House, and its Members, to draw their own conclusions.”
So I considered it appropriate to respect the Committee’s assessment of the situation.
Correspondence on matters of privilege is private. Indeed, I go to great lengths to ensure that Members can write to me in confidence on any matter, knowing that their communication will remain private. I expect the same courtesy with my replies. The hon. Member has seen fit to give a partial and biased account of my letter on Twitter, and I await his apology. I gave the hon. Member notice that I would be raising this matter at this time, but I do stress that it is not the way we should be doing business in this House.
John Nicolson (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)
As you have just explained, Mr Speaker, the DCMS Committee, on which I sit, published a unanimous cross-party report about the testimony given to us by the right hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), and there is now considerable public interest in what should happen next. I want to put on record that I deplore social media pile-ons against you, or indeed anyone else—I have been on the receiving end of them, and they are exceedingly unpleasant. But could I ask for guidance on what I and other Members should tell our constituents about integrity in politics in this context? If someone misleads a Committee, what should happen next?
Mr Speaker
First of all, printing the letter, and only half the letter, is not integrity; in fact, it is far from it. It misled the people of this country, and it certainly put me in a bad light with the people of this country, and I do not expect that to happen, as an impartial Speaker. If that was an apology, I do not think it was very good.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Further to that, hon. Members of this House have certain strict duties on them. First, there is a duty to uphold the institutions of this House. Clearly, in breaching the confidentiality of the Speaker’s private correspondence, the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (John Nicolson) has knowingly broken that rule. If that was an apology, it was not sufficient for that alone, frankly.
We also have a duty to tell the truth. In the hon. Gentleman’s public pronouncements, he implicitly criticised you, Mr Speaker, for not referring the Secretary of State to the Privileges Committee, but you were simply following the convention of agreeing with the Select Committee, of which he is a member. When the Committee decided not to refer, there was no minority report from him. There was not even a vote against from him; it was a unanimous vote. What he was trying to do was blame you, through his partial release of the letter, and lead the public to believe that somehow you made this decision against the wishes of the Committee.
The rules of this House do not allow me to assert whether I view the misleading of the public as deliberate, so the House can make its own judgment on that, but this miserable half-apology was completely inadequate for this breach.
Mr Speaker
I am going to leave it there for today, and I hope the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire will consider the way he has put his own part.
Scottish Referendum Legislation: Supreme Court Decision
(1 year, 12 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the decision of the Supreme Court and the rights of the Scottish Parliament to call for an independence referendum.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alister Jack)
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for providing me with the opportunity to address the House on this important ruling of the Supreme Court on the issue of the competence of the Scottish Parliament to legislate for a referendum on independence.
The UK Supreme Court has today determined that it is outside the powers of the Scottish Parliament to hold an independence referendum, and I respect the Court’s clear and definitive ruling on this matter. The Scottish Government’s Lord Advocate referred this question to the Supreme Court, which has today given its judgment, and the UK Government’s position has always been clear: that it would be outside the Scottish Parliament’s competence to legislate for a referendum on Scottish independence because it is a matter wholly reserved to the United Kingdom Parliament.
We welcome the Court’s unanimous and unequivocal ruling, which supports the United Kingdom Government’s long-standing position on this matter. People want to see the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government focus on issues that matter to them, not on constitutional division. People across Scotland rightly want and expect to see both their Governments—the United Kingdom Government and the Scottish Government—working together with a relentless focus on the issues that matter to them, their families and their communities.
The Prime Minister has been very clear, and has demonstrated since day one, that it is our duty to work constructively with the Scottish Government. We fully respect the devolution settlement and we want to work together with the Scottish Government on vital areas such as tackling the cost of living, growing our economy and leading the international response to Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine.
At this time of unprecedented challenges, the benefits of being part of the United Kingdom have never been more apparent. The United Kingdom Government are providing the Scottish Government with a record block grant settlement of £41 billion per year over the next three years, and the people in Scotland are benefiting from unprecedented cost of living support announced by this Prime Minister and our Chancellor. It is important now that we move on from constitutional issues, to focus on tackling our shared challenges. I therefore welcome the Supreme Court’s judgment, and I call on the Scottish Government to set aside these divisive constitutional issues so that we can work together, focusing all of our attention and resources on the key issues that matter to the people of Scotland.
The United Kingdom Government are proud of their role as the custodian of the devolution settlement. The United Kingdom is one of the most successful political and economic unions in the world. By promoting and protecting its combined strengths, we are building on hundreds of years of partnership and shared history. I will conclude by saying that when we work together as one United Kingdom, we are safer, stronger and more prosperous.
Ian Blackford
Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker.
It is right that the UK Government answer questions today, and answer them quickly, because this morning the Supreme Court dealt with a question of law; there is now a massive question of democracy. Some of the Westminster parties are already wildly celebrating this morning’s decision, but I think it is safe to say that their thoughtless triumphalism will not last very long, because this judgment raises profound and deeply uncomfortable questions about the basis of the future of the United Kingdom.
The biggest question of all is how the Prime Minister can ever again repeat the myth that the United Kingdom is a voluntary union of nations. In 2014, the Smith Commission made it clear that
“nothing in this report prevents Scotland becoming an independent country in the future should the people of Scotland so choose.”
If that is true and if the Secretary of State’s Government are still committed to that promise, will he urgently amend the Scotland Act 1998 to ensure that the Scottish people have the right to choose our own future? If he fails to do that, is he deliberately choosing to deny democracy, because a so-called partnership in which one partner is denied the right to choose a different future, or even to ask itself the question, cannot be described in any way as a voluntary partnership, or even a partnership at all?
Today’s decision casts focus on the democratic decisions of the Scottish people. Since 2014, the Scottish National party has won eight elections in a row. We have secured multiple mandates. The question is: how many times do people in Scotland have to vote for a referendum before they get it?
The more contempt the Westminster establishment shows for Scottish democracy, the more certain it is that Scotland will vote yes when the choice comes to be made. Scotland did not vote for Brexit. We did not vote for a new age of Tory austerity. We did not vote for this Prime Minister, and we have not voted for the Tories in Scotland since 1955. What we did vote for was the choice of a different future. If Westminster keeps blocking our democratic decisions, lawfully and democratically Scotland will find a way out of this Union.
Mr Jack
This idea that a mandate was delivered in 2021 in the Holyrood elections is completely misleading. As the First Minister herself said very clearly in an interview in The Herald—this is when she thought that the former First Minister, the previous SNP leader Alex Salmond, was gaming the system with his party Alba—that parties should stand on both the list and first-past-the-post constituency systems. The Greens did not fulfil that and neither did Alba. Let us be clear: in the 2021 Holyrood elections—the so-called mandate—less than one third of the Scottish electorate voted for the SNP.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
I begin by thanking the Supreme Court for examining this case in detail, for reaching a unanimous decision and for doing so in a speedy manner. I also thank the Scottish Lord Advocate for referring this case to the Supreme Court. She was right not to allow it to be launched in the Scottish Parliament before seeking legal clarity on this matter, and we are all in a better place now for that clarity having been put forward. The Supreme Court’s ruling is absolutely clear and concise.
The Leader of the SNP has just accused those who are against independence of “triumphalism”. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are deeply disappointed and angry that the politics in Scotland is paralysed by this constitutional grievance. It is now time for all of us in Scottish politics to focus on the problems facing our country, from rocketing bills to the crisis in the NHS, and I wish the SNP had such passion for doing that. I fear that that will not happen after the First Minister announced that she will turn the next general election into a de facto referendum. As an example, the SNP has made such a mess of our NHS that, earlier this week, it was reported that NHS chiefs have been discussing plans to privatise our health service—Labour’s and perhaps our country’s greatest achievement.
There is not a majority in Scotland for a referendum or for independence, but neither is the majority for the status quo. There is a majority in Scotland, and across the UK, for change. This failing and incapable Tory Government are unfit to govern this country. They have crashed the economy and they are as big a threat to the Union as any nationalist. People in Scotland and across the UK are sick of watching their incompetence, our national standing falling in the world, and working people paying for their decisions, but change is coming. It is coming with a UK Labour Government that will bring economic growth, raise living standards and restore our nation’s place in the world.
Does the Secretary of State agree that change is indeed coming and that Scottish voters will lead the way by kicking his Government out of office and helping to elect a UK Labour Government?
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)
My constituents will not be celebrating this outcome, but they will be deeply relieved that, with all the other issues that they face, they are not going to be facing a hugely divisive independence referendum next October. In my constituency, people cannot access an NHS dentist. They cannot access a GP. They can hardly get an ambulance to come out, and our local hospital was overwhelmed two weeks ago. On that basis, does my right hon. Friend agree that this is the time to move on and focus on the issues that really matter to our constituents in Scotland?>
Mr Jack
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right and I know he has put in a lot of work on this subject in the past. The Scottish Government must focus on the people’s priorities. Public services in Scotland are falling behind and failing in many areas and it is important that we now stop the constitutional wrangling and focus on the people’s priorities. That is what they want us to do.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
Democracy denial is not a good look. We have had repeated non-answers and repeated assertions from those on the Tory Benches today that they somehow know better than the people of Scotland what they want. Now we have an extraordinary suggestion from the Secretary of State that we somehow do not have a mandate. None of those things is correct and none of those things deals with the crux of the issue. This is a fundamental issue of democracy and whether this really is a voluntary Union. Is the Secretary of State going to stand up for democracy or not?
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
Now that we have clarity from the Supreme Court, I urge my right hon. Friend to redouble his efforts to work with the Scottish Government and local authorities in Scotland to deliver on the issues that matter to people. My experience of two years in the Scotland Office is that there is an appetite to work together on welfare, where there is shared responsibility, on the city deals and on many other issues. That is what we should be focusing on, not more divisive referendums.
Mr Jack
My hon. Friend is right. It is not just about what is in front of us, but what is behind us. Behind us is the furlough scheme, which supported 900,000 jobs during the pandemic, and the £1.5 billion of Barnett support that the Chancellor announced in his autumn statement; in front of us is not just the growth deals, but freeports and forthcoming cost of living support.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
This ruling is bad for the Government, and I do not think they quite see that yet. This ruling confronts the Scottish people with the fact that there is no legal or democratic route to a referendum. All that will do is to infuriate the Scottish people and make sure that they have their demands for Scottish democracy in place. What we have not had is the how. How do we now get to a referendum if the legal and democratic means are closed? The Prime Minister was asked, and the Secretary of State has now been asked, so will he now please answer?
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
May I just point out to my right hon. Friend that it was in fact the United Kingdom Parliament that gave Scotland a referendum in 2014—[Interruption.] Oh yes! Does he recall that the SNP then said it was a once-in-a-generation decision? Has he ever known a generation to pass so quickly, in just eight years? Could it be that the SNP prefers campaigning for a referendum it cannot have because it wants to distract attention from the failures of the Scottish Government on schools, on health, on procurement of ferries and on many other issues?
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The judgment today puts the point beyond any measure of doubt, and that is to be welcomed. I also welcome the announcement from the Scottish Government that they will respect the judgment of the court, because for Governments to respect the rule of law is very important. We shall hold them to that commitment in the future. Will the Secretary of State assure me that, while demanding respect for the rule of law from others, the Government of which he is part will do the same?
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)
I, too, welcome the unanimous ruling by the Supreme Court and respect that judgment, as other Members have said. As my right hon. Friend has pointed out, current polling and past election results do not show a majority of voters in Scotland favouring independence-supporting parties. Does he agree that there is no evidence that the democratic mandate has changed since 2014?
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
The United Kingdom Supreme Court has answered a legal question this morning, not a political one. The lesson of history is that a nation’s exercise of its right to self-determination can be delayed, but not denied. Can the right hon. Gentleman answer the question that the Prime Minister could not or would not answer: if people living in Scotland continue to elect a majority of pro-independence Members of the Scottish Parliament and MPs who support a second independence referendum, what is the democratic route to realising that mandate?
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
I welcome the clarity of the judgment by the Supreme Court. Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that the constant political wrangling and doubts over Scotland’s constitutional status and the capacity for and prospect of holding a referendum will constantly undermine Scotland’s attractiveness to private investors, who would create the jobs, wealth and prosperity that people in Scotland rightly deserve?
Mr Jack
Yes. Having been a businessman before I came into this place, I agree with my right hon. Friend. It is unattractive to investors when there is uncertainty and a cloud hanging over Scotland on this matter. Far better the Scottish Government put it behind them now—the ruling is very clear—and we move forward to building the Scottish economy for the benefit of all the people in Scotland.
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
We sit here in this House knowing that Scottish politicians will only ever make up a fraction of the seats. We have a UK Government that the people of Scotland did not vote for—indeed, a UK Prime Minister that nobody voted for. Bearing all that in mind, may I ask Westminster’s man in Scotland to name just one scenario under which he would agree to the people of Scotland being able to determine their own democratic future?
Mr Jack
As I have said in my answers, the route to a referendum is when there is consensus between Governments, across political parties and across civic Scotland, as there was in 2014. That is not the case now: now, the UK Government want to focus on the Scottish economy, on creating freeports, on supporting people with the cost of living and on getting on with the day job, which is what I think the Scottish Government should do.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
As someone of Scottish descent, may I say that there are many of us living in the United Kingdom, across the four separate territories, who have an enormous fondness and love for Scotland? When I have visited Scotland, for example, the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney—I notice, by the way, that the leader of the SNP in Westminster has never visited it himself—Nova Innovation outside Edinburgh or the Rosyth shipyards, it was to support great businesses, based in Scotland, doing exciting things that the United Kingdom can promote abroad for the benefit of us all. Surely that is the most important thing we could all focus on today?
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
I am a bit puzzled. Why do this Government, who do not have a mandate in Scotland, continue to refuse the right of the Scottish people to hold a referendum, as things have changed enormously since 2014?
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
The SNP mistakes its obsession with independence for the obsession of the people of Scotland. As we have already heard, that is simply not the case. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, rather than going down the rabbit hole of creating a constitutional crisis, all our constituents, north and south of the border, want us to focus on making our public services work? That is an area in which the SNP conspicuously fails.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
The Tryweryn vote in 1957 taught people in Wales that Welsh MPs can always be overridden by the structural tyranny of the majority here in Westminster. The First Minister of Wales, himself a Unionist, is on record as saying that the UK can be sustained only
“as a voluntary association of four nations, in which we choose to pool our sovereignty for common purposes and for common benefits.”
Given that the Labour Front-Bench team has parroted the same lines as the Tories this afternoon, will the Secretary of State write to the First Minister of Wales to confirm whether we are voluntary partners in this Union or involuntary inmates?
Mr Jack
No, I will not write to the First Minister of Wales. I will leave that to the Secretary of State of Wales or anyone else who feels that it is in their remit. I say to the right hon. Lady that polling shows that less than a third of Scots want another independence referendum.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
The smug, patronising and cloth-eared response from the Prime Minister, the so-called Secretary of State for Scotland and Tory Members to the ripping away of democratic human rights from the Scottish people will be seen by many Scots today. Imagine the uproar if the European Parliament and European courts had denied this Parliament the right to legislate on the Brexit referendum. The Secretary of State was unwilling, or simply unable, to answer that question when asked by the Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). How does any member country leave this so-called voluntary Union?
Mr Jack
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has read the Supreme Court judgment, but it makes it very clear that the matter is reserved to the Westminster Parliament. On the mandate argument, it is clear that less than a third of the Scottish electorate voted for the SNP last year.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. The hon. Gentleman cannot just sit there yelling. It is a really bad look. I call Amy Callaghan.
Amy Callaghan (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
I will ask the Secretary of State the same question that I asked the Prime Minister just a short while ago, to which I am still waiting for an answer. What is the route for a nation to leave this so-called voluntary Union? He has answered three times now referring to a majority of votes, so would the Government respect the result of a general election as a de facto referendum?
Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)
A former Member of Parliament for Cork City once said:
“No man has the right to fix a boundary to the march of a nation. No man has the right to say to his country, ‘Thus far shalt thou go and no further’.”
Of course, this Parliament no longer has a Member for Cork City, because Charles Stewart Parnell was right. This United Kingdom is clearly not a partnership of equals—that has been made absolutely clear today—so when will the Government publish clear criteria for how the people of the north of Ireland can leave it?
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
Can the Secretary of State confirm that his view is that this is a voluntary Union? If so, by what mechanism can the Scottish people, in the future, have their choice about whether to remain within it?
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
Things have changed dramatically since 2014. I remind the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), that in 2019 he said:
“a democracy fails to be a democracy if the public are not allowed to change their mind.”—[Official Report, 8 April 2019; Vol. 658, c. 124.]
Back in 2012, Alistair Darling said:
“Today we are equal partners in the United Kingdom.”
Today, our First Minister noted that this ruling confirms that the notion of the UK as a voluntary partnership is no longer—if it ever was—a reality. Why will the Secretary of State not acknowledge that the only way for Scotland to be treated as an equal is with its independence?
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
Our Secretary of State for Scotland, who can go to the unelected House of Lords at a time of his choosing, is setting democratic tests on how Scotland can choose its own future. It is fanciful and absurd. If he is so confident in his view of what the Scottish people’s priorities are, why does he not call our bluff by calling a referendum?
Mr Jack
As the hon. Gentleman knows, we had a referendum in 2014, and we know what the agreement on that was between the Governments, political parties and civic Scotland. We feel now that the priorities for Scotland are for us all to pull together, work to bring back the economy after covid, tackle the cost of living crisis, and get in front of the issues that we believe are the priorities for the people of Scotland.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
The legal position is now clear, but the political decision that needs to be made must also be clear. Under no circumstances should the power to hold referendums be devolved—be it to Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales—because we know that nationalism-obsessed politicians will use that power to call continual referendums until they get the result they want, to distort political debate, and to cover up their own governmental incompetence. I plead with the Government not to even contemplate going down that road. However, they also need to do far more, whether in the Northern Ireland, Welsh or Scottish context, to sell the benefits of the Union, which are apparent to everybody.
Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)
I will give the Secretary of State the opportunity to say something interesting. If this Union is genuinely based on consent, how can the people of Scotland demonstrate that they have withdrawn that consent?
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
In 2014, the people of Glasgow voted for independence, and I am sure that if the question were put before them again, they would do so again. But we are not in 2014. Does the Secretary of State accept that democracy did not exist only on 18 September 2014? Democracy is a living thing. Does he accept that the people have the right to change their mind?
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
This important ruling settles the question for now—certainly on the legal matter. Does the Secretary of State think that it gives us ample time to investigate what else the Scottish Government are doing? The debate about the referendum has thrown up a lot of sand, but the Scottish Government are underachieving in so many areas of public service, and that needs to be shown.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. The more people yell out, the further down the order they will go. I call Alan Brown.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
We are supposed to be living in a parliamentary democracy. As such, last year the SNP won 62 out of 73 constituency seats—85% of the seats. That is equivalent to a party here winning 552 seats. There is a pro-independence majority in Holyrood, and in the last four elections, a majority of voters voted for parties that support independence and having a referendum. If the Secretary of State is going to ignore a parliamentary democracy and parliamentary votes of the people, what is the route for the people of Scotland to have a referendum and have their say?
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
A union, like a marriage, should be based upon equality and consent. It is clear when a marriage has run its course how a partner can extricate themselves from it, but we are yet to find out from the Secretary of State how we can extricate ourselves from this Union.
Mr Jack
I believe what we have is a collaborative and constructive partnership, and I think history shows that. I have been very clear: the answer is when there is consensus between the two Governments, across all political parties and civic Scotland. Let us be honest, polling shows that less than a third of Scots want another referendum and, as I said earlier and repeat again, less than a third of the Scottish electorate voted for the Scottish National party last year. When we face all those things and look at people’s priorities in polling, independence is right down the rankings. It is not what they go to bed at night worrying about. They worry about the health system, the education system, crime, drug deaths and whether or not they can get a ferry to their island. That is what they worry about.
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
Given how many Prime Ministers previously defended the Union, I am surprised there are so few Unionists here to defend it today. I want to quote John Major, who said that
“no nation could be held irrevocably in a Union against its will.”
Does the future Baron agree with that statement?
Mr Jack
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the remarks I made earlier. Polling shows the Scottish people do not want another referendum. There is not massive dissatisfaction with the Union. It is very low on the Scottish people’s list of priorities. What they want is our two Governments to start working together to deliver their priorities. That is what they want us to do.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
On the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, we have been meeting our parallel scrutiny committees in the devolved legislatures. Some 20 years on, it is clear that devolution, parliamentary scrutiny functions and the inter-Union functions are not working and need improving. Our Union was forced and often violently formed, but it has for centuries successfully built, through consent and citizen recognition that unity is strength. The hallmark of this Government is ignorance of our history, disrespect for those institutions across the devolution settlement and a failure to engage across all Departments with the committees and bodies that have been formed to enhance the political Union. What the Secretary of State needs to take from this ruling is a need to force the Government to treat those institutions with the respect they deserve to keep our Union.
Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)
The Secretary of State has referenced a number of times the suggestion that only a third of the electorate in Scotland voted for the SNP at the last Scottish election. In that same election, the Conservatives secured less than 15% of the electorate voting for them, so we need a bit of context. This all comes down to a basic question: if not through the route of a referendum through the Scottish Parliament, what is the democratic route for Scotland to determine our own future? Countless Members have asked. Where is the answer?
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
The Supreme Court today did not rule that Scotland should not be independent or that Scotland should not be able to have a referendum; it ruled that the existing legislation written by Unionist politicians does not allow the Scottish Government to make that decision, unless the UK Government are willing to amend it, as they did in 2014. That is the legal argument.
I want to know what the democratic argument is against Scotland being able to do that. In the Scottish Parliament elections—one of the eight elections we have won since 2014—not only did the SNP leaflets say, “Vote SNP for a referendum on independence”, but the Tory leaflets, the Labour leaflets and the Liberal Democrat leaflets all said it. What is the democratic argument against Scotland and the people of Scotland being able to simply answer that question?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. It is important, if we are to get everybody in, that the questions are short.
Mr Jack
It is important we get everyone in and they have their say. I refer the hon. Lady to the answer I gave earlier: less than a third of the Scottish electorate voted for the Scottish National party. It is entirely a matter of consensus, and at the moment we believe that the priorities should be elsewhere. The cost of living, supporting people through inflation, the energy price cap, getting on and delivering freeports, delivering on the growth deals—those are the things that we think the people of Scotland expect us to do.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
I welcome the Supreme Court ruling today. I have sat patiently and listened to SNP Members, one after another, reflect what could fairly be said to be the concerns of their political party. Unfortunately, they do not reflect the concerns I get in my mailbox every day from constituents across Edinburgh West, who are concerned about the cost of living, energy prices, the state of the NHS in Scotland and the teacher strikes we are about to face. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is time they stopped this self-indulgent obsession and addressed the real issues that concern the people of Scotland?
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
I agree with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), who was clear that this is a legal position by the Supreme Court that I think the entire Chamber welcomes. It is a legal opinion requested by the Scottish Government. My hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West (Chris Law), who is no longer in their place, mentioned a Prime Minister. Does the Secretary of State agree with the former Baroness Thatcher, who said that “as a nation”, Scots
“have an undoubted right to national self-determination”?
The question to Westminster’s man in Scotland is this: does he agree with the former British Prime Minister, Baroness Thatcher, about Scotland’s right to national self- determination, and if he does not, what is he doing in the Scotland Office?
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
All the leaflets from the right hon. Gentleman’s party at the last eight elections have said, “Vote Tory to stop an independence referendum”. I am confused, because he says today that the question was settled in 2014. Why, then, did he put out leaflets telling people to vote against a referendum? Clearly, despite being asked a number of times, the Secretary of State is unable to tell this House and the people of Scotland the democratic route out of this Union. He is unable to do it. Is that why he is scurrying off to the House of Lords, because he cannot face his constituents at the next election? Does he not realise that the people of Scotland are sovereign, and they are watching?
Mr Jack
To pick up on the hon. Lady’s middle point, which was the only relevant point she made, the reason why leaflets in general elections say no to a second independence referendum is simply because the Scottish National party is obsessed with an independence referendum and nothing else.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (Ind)
In 2014, people in Scotland were told that if they voted yes the value of pensions would collapse, supermarkets would be empty of food and energy prices would rocket, and that if they voted no, freedom of movement would be guaranteed, the UK would have as close to federalism as possible and the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) would never become Prime Minister. Did the people of Scotland get what they voted for in 2014?
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)
As of 10 am today, we no longer have a Union of equals. This Union has ceased to be; it is bereft of life; it is a dead Union. When will the UK Government respect the people of Scotland and their right to choose? Now is not the time to deny them.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
The Secretary of State says that in order for there to be democracy, there needs to be cross-party support, and that there needs to cross-support in order for us to have an independence referendum, but there was not cross-party support for a Brexit referendum, austerity or the demonisation of immigrants. Why does the Conservative party get to be the arbiter of what does and does not require democratic support?
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)
On 18 September 2014, the people of Inverclyde voted to remain in the Union by 86 votes. A few short months later, they returned me as the SNP MP on an independence manifesto; they had changed their mind. They returned me in 2017 and 2019—if the Government want to go again I will go again. But what is the route for the people of Inverclyde to express their views now in a referendum?
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The judges have quite clearly rejected the Scottish Government’s argument that they can hold a second referendum. Legal authority lies with the UK here, in this place. There have been clear attempts to manipulate devolution. With the rise in the cost of living and the increasing evils of the Putin regime, does the Minister agree that what is needed now is a campaign and a strategy to illustrate the advantages of the Union, showing that we are stronger together? We must focus on strengthening the Union, our economy and our joint prosperity.
Ms Anum Qaisar (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
From the Scottish child payment to free prescriptions, to not really supporting the war in Iraq to free period products, Scotland has consistently chosen a different path from Westminster. I am reminded today of the words of the late Bashir Ahmad MSP, who said that
“it isn’t important where you come from, what matters is where we are going together as a nation”.
Many Scots like me support independence on the principle that decisions for Scotland should be made in Scotland, by the people of Scotland. Will the Secretary of State for Scotland clarify whether Scotland has the democratic right to choose her own path if she continues to vote for a majority of independence-supporting MSPs up at Holyrood and independence-supporting MPs here at Westminster?
Mr Jack
I have answered the second part of the hon. Lady’s question a number of times already. In answer to the first part of her question, about the various policies she outlined, that is why we respect and strengthen devolution at every opportunity, whereas the Scottish National party wants to destroy devolution.
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
This is nothing short of parody. I have been an MP here for nearly three years and I have never heard a Minister say “I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago” as many times as this. That is because the so-called Secretary of State for Scotland has his back against the wall because he is denying democracy and democratic norms. He and all the other Tories say that we cannot have another referendum because we do not want to foment the division that exists around the constitutional space in Scotland—well, it exists already, so let us lance the boil. Let us have a referendum and find out what the people of Scotland want.
Mr Jack
To pick up on the hon. Gentleman’s first point, the reason I say that I have answered the question so many times before is that hon. Members are asking the same question time and again—it is just a little bit repetitive. The answer is quite simple. As I have explained many times before, the route to a referendum in 2014 involved consensus between both Governments, across all the political parties and across civic Scotland. We are far from being in that place now.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
The decisions taken in Westminster dictate the impact of issues such as the costing of living crisis on my constituents and all the people of Scotland. They deserve to have their voices heard, and we can all agree that the landscape has changed since 2014. How will the UK Government work with the Scottish Government to allow the Scottish people to choose whether they wish to remain part of the Union or to be an independent country?
Mr Jack
We want to work with the Scottish Government to show the people of Scotland the benefits of being part of the Union and to show that we can work together on delivering on growth deals, freeports and the cost of living crisis, and on delivering the £1.5 billion of extra funding that is coming as a result of the Chancellor’s statement last week. We want to show the people of Scotland the benefits of being part of the United Kingdom. Looking at the numbers, there seems to be an in-built majority for Unionist parties, so I think the people of Scotland recognise that.
Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
The Secretary of State has been struggling to answer the most basic questions from colleagues, so I have a simple question for him. On 13 November 2017, in a debate in Westminster Hall, I asked him if he agreed with the preposterous suggestion of Michael Kelly, the former Lord Provost of Glasgow, that Scotland should not have another independence referendum until every person who voted in the 2014 referendum was dead. In reply, the Secretary of State said that
“if I had my way, we would wait even longer.”—[Official Report, 13 November 2017; Vol. 631, c. 24WH.]
Is that still his position today?
Mr Jack
I will give the same answer that I have always given, which is that we believe a referendum is not the priority for the people of Scotland. We believe Scotland is stronger in the United Kingdom and benefits enormously from the United Kingdom, and that the rest of the United Kingdom benefits enormously from having Scotland in it. From renewables and oil and gas to cultural matters and many other things, Scotland is a very valued member of the United Kingdom, and that remains my position.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
The Secretary of State keeps patronising us about what the priorities of the people of Scotland are. The fact is that the people of Scotland keep voting for the SNP and for an independence referendum as the means to deliver on their priorities. The non-answer that he keeps referring us to is some vague nonsense about reaching consensus. In 2014 we reached consensus precisely because there was pro-independence majority in the Scottish Parliament. Why is that not good enough now? He can dissemble and he can dodge this afternoon, but he cannot do that for the weeks ahead.
Mr Jack
As I have said on many occasions, there is not any clear evidence that a majority of Scots are voting for the SNP—quite the contrary. Less than a third of Scots are voting for the SNP. It is very clear in all polling that less than a third of Scots want a referendum any time soon.
Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)
The Supreme Court has really done us all a favour by answering one legal question but leaving us with a far bigger democratic one. But let us have some facts: 73% of Scots want back into the European Union; 50% plus of Scots want an independent Scotland in the European Union; and 22% of Scots trust the UK Government to act in their interests. Does the Secretary of State accept my point that his blinkered defence of the indefensible democratic deficit will be the UK’s undoing?
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
If the Secretary of State is so convinced that there is a substantial anti-independence majority among today’s people of Scotland, will he agree to publish in its entirety all the polling done at our expense by the Scotland Office? If not, can we assume that the reason the Government are desperate to avoid a referendum is that even their private polling tells them that, this time, the result will be a massive yes?
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
Scotland joining the Union predates the Scotland Act 1998 and it was the 1998 Act that the Supreme Court judged on today. The 1998 Act will not and cannot stop Scotland being an independent country. I am sure that the Secretary of State believes in the right of independence for Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Ukraine, Denmark, Lithuania, Latvia and many others, so does he believe the same for Scotland? If Scotland votes for independence at an election ballot box, will he respect the democracy of that event?
Allan Dorans (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (SNP)
In 2018, this House voted to acknowledge the claim of right that Scotland’s people have the right to choose their own destiny. Does the Secretary of State now deny that decision of Parliament?
Mr Jack
The claim of right? We had a Union of the Crowns in 1603 and a Union of the Parliaments in 1707, but they were all a terribly long time ago. We firmly believe that we have a strong partnership that has endured for more than 300 years and has delivered for all parts of the United Kingdom, and that we are better together.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I thank the Secretary of State.
Hotel Asylum Accommodation: Local Authority Consultation
(1 year, 12 months ago)
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Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on consultation with local authorities as to the selection of hotels for contingency asylum accommodation.
The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)
On my appointment by the Prime Minister three weeks ago, I was appraised of the critical situation at the Manston processing centre. Within days, the situation escalated further with a terrorist attack at Western Jet Foil that forced the transfer of hundreds of additional migrants to Manston. I urgently visited Western Jet Foil and Manston within days of my appointment to assess the situation for myself and to speak with frontline staff, during which time it became clear to me that very urgent action was required.
Since then, the numbers at Manston have fallen from more than 4,000 to zero today. That would not have been possible without the work of dedicated officials across the Home Office—from the officials in cutters saving lives at sea, to the medical staff at Manston—and I put on record my sincere gratitude to them for the intense effort required to achieve that result.
To bring Manston to a sustainable footing and meet our legal and statutory duties to asylum seekers who would otherwise have been left destitute, we have had to procure additional contingency accommodation at extreme pace. In some instances, however, that has led to the Home Office and our providers failing to properly engage with local authorities and Members of Parliament. I have been clear that that is completely unacceptable and that it must change.
On Monday, a “Dear colleague” letter in my name was sent to outline a new set of minimum requirements for that engagement, backed by additional resources. This includes an email notification to local authorities and Members of Parliament no less than 24 hours prior to arrivals; a fulsome briefing on the relevant cohort, required support and dedicated point of contact; and an offer of a meeting with the local authority as soon as possible prior to arrival.
I have since met chief executives and leaders of local authorities across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, among many other meetings, to improve our engagement. We discussed their concerns and outlined the changes that we intend to make together. I have also met our providers to convey my concerns and those conveyed to me by hon. Members on both sides of the House in recent weeks, and to agree new standards of engagement and conduct from them.
These new standards will lead to a modest improvement, but I am clear that much more needs to be done, so this performance standard will be reviewed weekly with a view to improving service levels progressively as quickly as we can. In the medium term, we are committed to moving to a full dispersal accommodation model, which would be fairer and cheaper. We continue to pursue larger accommodation sites that are decent but not luxurious, because we want to make sure that those in our care are supported appropriately but that the UK is a less attractive destination for asylum shoppers and economic migrants. That is exactly what the Home Secretary and I intend to achieve.
Giles Watling
I thank the Minister for his answer. Last Sunday afternoon, the Home Office contacted my local authority by email to give it 24 hours’ notice that it had selected a hotel to act as contingency asylum accommodation. That gave the excellent people at Tendring District Council no time to respond properly to the issue of services. It is an inadequate timeframe and shows how poor the comms from the Home Office have been; I have not been contacted personally about the issue at all. I am glad that the Minister finds it unacceptable, but will he agree to meet me and the local authority to discuss the plans for Clacton?
Robert Jenrick
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising those important issues. I will, of course, be happy to meet him, as I have met hon. Members on both sides of the House in almost every case where someone has requested to do so.
In respect of the hotel in Tendring, as I understand it, having spoken to officials this morning, a proposition was put to Tendring District Council to use a former care home in my hon. Friend’s constituency, which would have accommodated a small number of asylum seekers. Short notice was given because it was to be a backstop accommodation option in the light of the extreme situation that we were contending with at Manston. On further inquiries, and prior to his inquiry to the Department and the calling of the urgent question, the proposition was dropped by the Home Office and there is no intention of proceeding with it.
For information, had that proposition been taken forward, it would have been for a very small number of individuals. At the moment, there are 39 asylum seekers accommodated in my hon. Friend’s constituency, 14 of whom are in hotels and 25 in dispersed accommodation. That accounts for 0.02% of the population of Tendring’s local authority. I do not say that to diminish the legitimate concerns that he raises, but merely to provide context. If we are dealing with 40,000 individuals crossing the channel illegally, there will be a need for all local authorities in the country to work with the Home Office and to play their part. It is absolutely incumbent on the Home Office in return, however, to provide good standards of engagement so that we can ensure that the right accommodation is chosen in the right places. That is exactly what I intend to achieve.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the shadow Minister, Stephen Kinnock.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
It seems that we come to the Chamber at least once a week to hear about the mess that the Home Secretary is making of an asylum system that her Government have broken. The root cause of today’s urgent question is the failure of the Government to process asylum claims with anything like the efficiency required. In 2012, the Home Office was making 14 asylum decisions a month; it is now making just five.
Tory Ministers like to blame covid, but the truth is that this is a mess of their own making. They chose to downgrade asylum decision makers from higher executive officer grade to lower executive officer grade, leading to a less experienced workforce on lower wages with lower retention rates and collapsing morale. The inevitable consequences were slower decisions, more decisions overturned at appeal, an increasing backlog and ballooning taxpayer costs.
With the average time to process an asylum claim standing at 449 days, the people smugglers see the backlog as a marketing opportunity—an open invite from this Conservative Government to those who want to melt away into the underground economy. All this catastrophic incompetence has led to the Minister scrambling around to find contingency hotel accommodation, resulting in what the Home Secretary described this morning as “poor communication” between central and local government.
Will the Minister therefore confirm whether he really feels that his undertaking to give local authorities as little as 24 hours’ notice is reasonable? Did he recently pull out of two meetings with council leaders at short notice? What mechanisms is he using to monitor the performance of contractors and subcontractors? I have heard from councils where the public health team was not informed about serious health issues, including pregnancies, so does he accept that he is failing to give local authorities key health-related information? What progress is he making on tackling the crisis of unaccompanied children being placed in hotels— 222 have already gone missing—and will he apologise to the couples who have had to cancel their wedding receptions in hotels at extremely short notice as a result of this Government’s chronic mismanagement?
Robert Jenrick
Dear me! The reason I had to pull out of the meeting with local authority leaders was that the hon. Gentleman had called an urgent question and I was here answering his questions. The idea that the Labour party knows how to get a grip of this challenge is, frankly, laughable. The last Labour Government left the Home Office in such disarray that their own Home Secretary declared it not fit for purpose and had to split the place up. The backlog of cases was so high that he had to institute an amnesty, where they literally wrote to people and said, “Welcome to Britain. We can’t process your application—you’re in.” That is not the approach that we are taking.
Labour Members have no credible proposals to stop the problem at source. They voted against the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, and they opposed the Rwanda scheme. Their own leader, in his leadership campaign, called for the closure of immigration removal centres—the places where we detain people, often foreign national offenders, while we are trying to get them out of the country. The truth is that, in the last Labour Government, the party was committed to mass migration and uncontrolled immigration. We are only the party that believes in the British public. We are the party that wants to ensure that we secure our borders and have a controlled migration system.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
As always, I have some sympathy for my right hon. Friend in having to deal with an urgent question such as this. Recent examples in Torbay show that previously there was engagement with local authorities, although I must say that the news that we were looking to use accommodation was never welcomed. It would be interesting for him to reflect on how the new standards he has laid out will operate and work. Is he saying that this will be an interim period with a bare minimum of 24 hours’ notice and that he hopes to go back to giving a longer period of notice, both to MPs and to councils, particularly those with responsibility for children’s services, because it is really unacceptable that people are finding out about this from staff working at hotels and residents living next door?
Robert Jenrick
I can only speak to the situation as I found it when I arrived in the Department, and at that point there were almost 4,000 people at the Manston site. There were serious concerns about conditions at the site and, indeed, about its legality, and there was insufficient accommodation available to us to house the asylum seekers. We have set out, through immense efforts in the last few weeks, to rectify that situation. It is clear to me that insufficient accommodation was procured over a sustained period, and we need to tackle that. We will do it in a number of different ways, including through dispersal accommodation with local authorities; through judicious use of hotels, with good engagement with local authorities; by using larger sites that provide us with decent but not luxurious accommodation; and, of course, by tackling the problem at source. We cannot build our way out of this challenge. We have to reduce the pull factors to the UK and we have to ensure that the backlog of cases is cleared as swiftly as possible.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
I think we are all agreed in this House that it is important that the Home Office liaises in advance with local authorities, service providers, non-governmental organisations and local representatives. The Minister has made some commitments in that regard today, and we will obviously monitor closely how those are implemented and how they work. We should also be agreed, and I think we are close to being agreed, that hotels really should be a matter of last resort, rather than routine, so I have a couple of thoughts on how we get there.
First, on where the Home Office spends resources, I hate to say it—well, I do not mind saying it—but the £140 million spent on Rwanda is a complete waste of money. Could the Minister confirm that about 4,000 or 5,000 caseworkers could have been employed for that sort of sum? Let us not waste any more money on that at all. Will he also look at the tens of millions of pounds that contractors are now raking in in profit through that scheme, and seek to provide that money directly to local authorities to procure accommodation in their communities?
Secondly, on the backlog, as I have said before, there are thousands—tens of thousands—of Afghans and Syrians in the system who could be taken out of it with a quick decision. The inadmissibility procedure is a complete waste of time. It achieves nothing, and it clogs up 10,000 spaces.
Finally, we did hear confirmation today that decision makers are among the lowest-paid civil servants going, but they make life and death decisions. Surely that has to be looked at again, and they need to be paid properly.
Robert Jenrick
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for a number of valid concerns and suggestions that I will certainly bear in mind. It is important now that the Home Office tackles the quite serious operational issues it faces, one of which is obviously addressing the backlog of cases. We are going to do that by training the staff better, ensuring that they have the right leadership and ensuring that they can raise productivity by having a less bureaucratic system than the one we have today.
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that we need to disperse people throughout the United Kingdom in a fair and equitable manner. One of the challenges we face is the fact that, disproportionately, Scotland has not stepped up to this challenge. There are, I believe, only about 10 hotels in Scotland that are currently housing asylum seekers, for example, and the Scottish Government have not supported us in procuring others. Asylum seekers are primarily centred on the city of Glasgow, which has a very significant number of asylum seekers and a long history of accommodating them, but other cities and towns in Scotland need to do the same. If he would like to work with me to correct that imbalance, I would be delighted to do so.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
The Minister should know that we do not want 24 hours’ notice of another hotel going; we want our hotels back to their proper purpose. When is he bringing legislation through this House as a matter of urgency to give him the legal back-up he is going to need so that fair and quick judgments on asylum are upheld, not overturned by the courts?
Robert Jenrick
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and I are reviewing the legal situation, and we will come to a view about whether further changes are needed to make sure that our laws are sufficiently robust. My right hon. Friend and I are in agreement that individuals should come to this country only if they are genuine asylum seekers fleeing persecution, war or human rights abuses, not asylum shoppers who have passed through multiple safe countries, including France, and certainly not if they come from demonstrably safe countries in the first place, such as Albania. We should pursue all options, including Rwanda, to create the right amount of deterrence to deter people from making the crossing.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I welcome the fact that Manston is empty today, but can I say to the Minister that it should never have got into the mess that it did, because the Home Office was working on forecasts of up to 60,000 people travelling across the channel this year? The Home Affairs Committee produced a report in the summer, and our No. 1 recommendation was to deal with the backlog to stop people having to go into hotels.
Can I highlight to the Minister that Home Office contractors that seek accommodation for asylum seekers are really only interested in the bottom line? They have concentrated the accommodation they have sourced in the poorer, cheaper areas—places such as my own constituency in Hull—and even when local councils in Yorkshire have come together to try to ensure equitable distribution across Yorkshire, Mears, which provides the accommodation for the Home Office, actually overrules local councils and does not do a service to the Home Office. Will the Minister look at the role that his contractors are playing in the inequitable nature of the distribution of asylum seekers?
Robert Jenrick
I met the contractors and outsource partners of the Home Office earlier in the week, and I conveyed the frustrations that many Members have expressed to me, including some of the points that the right hon. Lady has set out. She is right that, for as long as we have this issue, we need a fairer and more equitable distribution of those accommodated in contingency accommodation. There is clearly a role for the Home Office in leading that. There is also a role for the outsource partners, and I made that point to them. It does seem to me as if some parts of the country are bearing a disproportionate burden, and we need to encourage those outsource partners to look more broadly for suitable accommodation. They undertook to do that, and my officials are going to provide better data to them so that there is a better picture of where the hotels and other accommodation are when they form those judgments.
Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his engagement with a number of us over the last few weeks and for the work he is doing having come into the job only a few weeks ago. He has outlined his ambition for large dispersal accommodation and, as he knows from his previous roles, local authorities know their communities better than any third-party procurement company. Will he ensure that local authorities have the final say about the appropriateness and suitability of dispersal accommodation, as they will have to manage it on the ground?
Robert Jenrick
My hon. Friend makes an important point. I have met and spoken to her on a number of occasions as she has voiced the serious concerns of her residents as well as those of Medway Council about at least one potential accommodation site in her constituency. She felt strongly that it was unsuitable, and there were serious concerns with it when I looked into it. We want to get to a point where there is proper, long-term interaction between the Home Office, our outsource partners and local authorities so that these choices are made together on sensible criteria and not imposed on local communities at short notice. The situation at Manston a few weeks ago was so serious, and concerns about its legality so severe, that it was right that we acted swiftly. There may be occasions like that in the future, but that cannot be the sensible, business-as-usual approach of the Home Office.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
Sheffield welcomes asylum seekers, and we have 1,500 in the city. I have had a note today from the council leader, which echoes the points made by the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson). Asylum seekers are almost totally housed in the poorest, most disadvantaged parts of the city, with the reason being that the Home Office’s sole criterion is how cheaply it can house them. Council leader, Terry Fox, says that the council has
“offered to work with the Home Office regarding opening up areas of the city which are traditionally not used for procurement”.
The Home Office has not even replied to the offer. Will the Minister turn his words into deeds and have his officials get back to the city council today and work with it as requested?
Robert Jenrick
I have a great deal of respect for the hon. Gentleman—he and I have worked together on local government matters for many years—and I will certainly ask my officials to speak to the city council and see if we can resolve that issue. It is true that, in some areas—even within a particular local authority—the local authority itself creates red lines as to where it wants to have contingency accommodation by saying that there are postcodes where they do not want to see such hotels. That may not be the case in Sheffield, but it is in other areas. The outsource partners raised that with me earlier in the week. We may be able to work together on that to ensure a better distribution, even within local authority areas.
It is, of course, important that we take into account value for money for the taxpayer when we choose hotels. I think it is outrageous that the taxpayer is paying £6 million a day for these hotels. I could not have been clearer to my officials or the outsource partners that I do not want to see the four-star hotels, the stately homes, the luxury barn conversions and the many outrageous examples brought to my attention in the last few weeks persist.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. We do have a lot of business to get through this afternoon, so, if we could have quick questions and quick answers, that would be very helpful.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I believe that the situation is now so bad and chaotic that the Minister should consider his position.
On Friday, North Northampton Council, Northants police and other local agencies had an online meeting with the Home Office and Serco regarding the potential use of the 51-bed Royal hotel in Kettering, slap bang in the middle of the town centre. Serious environmental health issues, including mould and no kitchen facilities, were raised. Northants police raised serious concerns about community safety and the vulnerability of the asylum seekers. The Home Office and Serco officials agreed that the hotel would not be used until those issues were properly addressed. Yesterday, the council was advised that 41 asylum seekers had been moved into the hotel on Sunday afternoon, without any notification at all, and that could rise to 80. No biometric of previous offending history data has been shared with the local police. It is totally, 100% unacceptable.
On 27 October, I asked the Minister face to face for a meeting. I asked him again on the Floor of the House last Wednesday. No such meeting has been forthcoming. This is a wrong-headed decision. The local police, the local council and I have been misled, and I have no confidence at all that the Home Office, Serco or the Minister have the first clue what they are doing in relation to asylum seeker relocation.
Robert Jenrick
I will be happy to make some inquiries and come back to my hon. Friend.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
First, given that many asylum seekers in this country are living in fear of far-right reprisals, actual thuggery, bricks through windows and being followed to their accommodation by extremists who would threaten them, will the Minister rebuke the small number of his colleagues who have been naming and identifying hotels where asylum seekers are staying? Secondly, If he wants to reduce the number of hotels and other inappropriate accommodation being used to house asylum seekers, he could do his job properly and clear the backlog. Perhaps he could start with the 35% of asylum seekers coming from those five countries where the grant rate is up to 95% and get rid of the problem. Finally, he is bothered about the cost to the system, and so am I, so why will he not allow asylum seekers to work so that they can pay some of their own costs and integrate better? That would also tackle the awful mental health problems suffered by people who are forced to be idle having fled persecution.
Robert Jenrick
On asylum seekers working, there are respectable arguments on both sides of the issue. I take the view that, for a range of different reasons, there are already significant pull factors to the UK and it would be unwise of us to add a further pull factor. However, I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman takes a different view.
With regard to the backlog, we are now going to institute the processes piloted at our Leeds office, which will ensure that productivity is increased significantly. However, he is right that we need to get through the backlog. It should never have been allowed to get to this level in the first place.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
Added to the chaos, we now see a bidding war where local authorities find themselves competing against Home Office procurement for temporary accommodation. That is not new. The Public Accounts Committee highlighted those very issues in its report in November 2020 and made a recommendation to the Home Office, which the Government accepted, that:
“The Department should, as a matter of urgency, communicate with NHS bodies, MPs and other key stakeholders such as police, setting out how it will consult and engage with them in future.”
We also asked the Department to write to us further about that approach. So this failure was on the desk—everybody knew that it was happening—and it is still a failure now. Why?
Robert Jenrick
As I have said in answer to other questions, we want to move forward to a much better level of engagement with local authorities. From my prior experience in local government and seeing the confluence of issues from Homes for Ukraine, the Afghan resettlement scheme, the Syrian scheme, the number of asylum seekers and the general lack of social housing, it is important that Departments such as mine and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities work closely together and that the Government take a place-based approach where we understand the specific pressures that we are placing on particular local authorities and work with them as closely was we can.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
A significant number of hotels in my constituency are to be used to house migrants for way more than a year beyond the Manston incident of a few weeks ago—one is booked out until July 2024—which is starting to cause community tensions and having an impact on the business community, which cannot use those hotels. When will the Minister’s dysfunctional Department get a grip and deal with the core problem that the Government have caused?
Robert Jenrick
It is not the Government who have caused the issue here. The primary focus of our attention should be on the tens of thousands of people who are crossing the channel illegally, putting immense pressure on our asylum system. Frankly, even the most well-oiled machine would have found it extremely difficult to deal with that. There are a number of serious issues that the Home Office must get right. Quite clearly, we have to get the backlog of cases down, we have to get people out of hotels, and we have to find sensible accommodation that is good value for money but decent, so that people awaiting the outcome of their cases can be accommodated appropriately.
Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman is right about one thing: the Home Office has not covered itself in glory. In January, I was informed 24 hours earlier that 150 asylum seekers would be relocated to a hotel in Knowsley. Unfortunately, the Home Office notified the wrong local authority about what was about to happen—although, to be fair, it did apologise. There are now 180 asylum seekers in that hotel. I was told that it was initially only going to be for three months. It is now over 10 months. Can the Minister give me some indication of when that arrangement will end? It has already massively exceeded the prediction of how long it would be.
Robert Jenrick
I would be very happy to get back to the right hon. Gentleman and set out in detail the strategy for hotels and accommodation in his constituency. My approach has been: first, to ensure that Manston is brought to a legal and decent situation as quickly as possible—I think we are broadly there—secondly, to move to good-quality engagement with local authorities while we are still in a difficult and challenging situation; and thirdly, to move to a point where we are not relying on hotels at all, or doing so very judiciously, but accommodating people in dispersal accommodation or larger sensible sites. I am afraid that will take us some time because, as I have said in previous answers, there has been a failure to plan for accommodation over a sustained period. We need to correct that now.
Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for his engagement with Kent councils and for meeting my residents in Dover to hear about the impact of this issue. My council does not get 24 hours’ notice before the people it has to deal with arrive. I am very concerned that a second under-18s centre has been established in Dover at a location that the authorities think is not suitable for that purpose, together with Clearsprings making offers of unsuitable hotel accommodation. In what way will that now change, following my right hon. Friend’s meeting with Clearsprings, Mears and Serco? Can he give assurances that he will continue to engage with them to ensure that they do more to assess whether accommodation is suitable and whether services can be provided to support that accommodation?
Robert Jenrick
I have asked all our providers to noticeably step up the engagement they have with Members of Parliament and local authorities, including ensuring—this may be small, but none the less local authorities have raised it with me—that there is a named point of contact for every building, so that a local authority or a Member of Parliament can speak to somebody at that outsourced partner and get answers to their questions and concerns. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her kind words. We are working closely together because she is very much on the frontline of this challenge, and I appreciate just how difficult it is for her constituents. With regard to children’s accommodation, we want to ensure that as many of those young people can move to state or private foster care as swiftly as possible. We are putting in place the right financial incentives to ensure that happens.
Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
The Minister is right that communication has been inadequate. When a safeguarding concern arises among asylum seekers staying in a hotel in Newham, the council does not get to hear about it even though it has the statutory responsibility. It seems that what is happening is that the contracting company—the company that contracts from the Department; in our case, it is Clearsprings—does get told. The council is supposed to be copied in but is not. Will he ensure that that particular aspect of communication is resolved?
Robert Jenrick
I will. The right hon. Gentleman raises an important point. In recent months or years, the outsourcing partners have seen their relationship almost exclusively as one with the Home Office and not with the relevant local authority. I have made it clear to them that they have a dual duty to work closely with the Home Office and the local authority. He raises an important point and I will pass it on.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
There are now five hotels in Skegness occupied by asylum seekers and a further one in my constituency. I thank the Minister, and indeed the Home Secretary, for the engagement he has had with me ahead of what he knows will be a public meeting on Friday with a very concerned local community. I wonder if he could say what his message would be for that public meeting.
Robert Jenrick
I am grateful to my hon. Friend and wish him well with that meeting. We want to ensure that we exit hotels as swiftly as possible, and I set out in answers to other hon. Members how we will do that. I appreciate the burden that this is placing on his constituency and I hope the increase in engagement from the Home Office and its partners will ensure a better and more fruitful relationship with his local authorities.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is not just local authorities that need consultation, but the NHS. In York, 80 internationally recruited nurses have been displaced as a result of the Mears Group block-booking their hotel. The nurses were also sitting exams at a crucial time for their entry into the NHS. Some 150 more NHS nurses were due to be in that hotel. It is now costing the NHS at least £10 per nurse per night to try to accommodate them elsewhere. Can the Minister explain why they cannot remain in that hotel? Will he talk to the NHS to ensure that this does not happen again?
Robert Jenrick
I have spoken to the Minister with responsibility for secondary care about the broader issue of doctors, nurses and other clinicians staying in hotel accommodation and how we can have better communication between local NHS trusts, local authorities and the Home Office when hotels are procured, so I hope we will be able to improve processes and ensure it does not happen in future.
Jane Hunt (Loughborough) (Con)
I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. My right hon. Friend was exactly correct when he talked about the Labour years of backlogs. There were warehouses upon warehouses full of paper files. The Home Office referred to it as Layby. What additional funds have been offered by the Home Office to local councils and police forces to support activity with asylum seekers and others in hotels in their area, including the two hotels in Loughborough, neither of which the council or police knew about until I passed on the email I had received from the Home Office.
Robert Jenrick
We are providing local authorities with a per capita grant of £3,500 for any asylum seeker in their local authority area, which provides a base for the support they will need to give them. The hotels and other contingency accommodation are fully funded, in the sense that the provider should be providing food and other services, as well as basic security, for the site. We put in place a significant package around children. We are reviewing whether that is sufficient, given that we are finding it hard to get local authorities to take children out of hotels.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Last week, the Secretary of State placed 90 asylum seekers in two unsuitable hotels in Shepherds Bush. She did not tell the local authority. Some had immediate medical needs, some had no proper clothing, and they all had health and welfare needs. The council and local charities have stepped up now and are providing appropriate support—they are good at that and they care about vulnerable people. In future, can we have a week’s notice? Can we be consulted on the numbers, the locations and the needs of the people involved? We are quite prepared to do our fair share, but we need that notice.
Robert Jenrick
I had a very productive meeting with London Councils. It raised questions, such as the one the hon. Gentleman raises. We will now be providing a full set of information about who is coming, what their prior medical conditions are, what nationalities they are and other matters that will be useful to local authorities. We are setting a minimum engagement period of 24 hours, but quite clearly that needs to be significantly more in future—at least a week—and I hope we can reach that within a matter of months.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
It has been determined in the courts that fear, and particularly the fear of crime, is a material planning consideration. The Home Office is contracting hotels and other premises through third parties to house people who arrive illegally in this country—people on whom we have no background information and who may even have ill intent against our way of life. Although we should not be in this position in the first place, should local people not be consulted and local consent sought for housing people who are clearly not holidaymakers or business visitors, and should we not test whether the fear of crime locally has changed?
Robert Jenrick
We want to get to a point where there are multi-agency meetings prior to a final decision on a hotel or other sort of accommodation. That would involve full engagement with the local police force so that we could test, for example, far-right activity or public disorder. In my short tenure at the Department, I have seen a number of cases in which we have chosen not to proceed with accommodation on that basis, because it is very concerning when residents, or indeed migrants, are put in that situation. More broadly, when migrants arrive at Dover, we take biometrics, have counter-terrorism police officers there and do everything we can to screen them, prior to their moving on to other accommodation.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
The independent commission of inquiry into asylum provision in Scotland, which was set up by Refugees for Justice and is chaired expertly by Baroness Helena Kennedy, laid bare the deficiencies in the Home Office’s approach to accommodating vulnerable people, which resulted in the Park Inn incident in my constituency and a suspected suicide in other accommodation in the city. At my surgeries week in, week out, I see families and people with vulnerabilities who have been sent to shoddy, poor, substandard accommodation by the Home Office while contractors rake in the profits. Will the Minister tell me how long it will be before people in my constituency can expect to be treated with dignity and respect by the Home Office?
Robert Jenrick
I have been clear from the beginning of my tenure that I want to ensure that we always provide decent, but not luxurious, accommodation to all asylum seekers. I will say, however, that the Scottish Government have a poor record in that regard. They have consistently failed to find hotels in Scotland and to disperse individuals. The fact that Scotland is the only part of the United Kingdom housing Homes for Ukraine individuals in cruise ships shows the Scottish Government’s failure to find better accommodation.
Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
We would not need this debate if we did not have thousands of illegal immigrants amassing on French beaches. I know that my right hon. Friend is committed to cracking down on illegal immigration and breaking the business model of the criminal smuggling gangs. Does he agree that the problem is spread throughout Europe and that we need to work together with our European partners to break down the criminal gangs and stop them making money out of human trade?
Robert Jenrick
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is a global migration crisis, and the mass movement of individuals across the world, including in Europe, will be one of the big features of the 21st century. We are committed to working with our friends and neighbours, as we saw from the Prime Minister’s early success in securing a deal with President Macron. We would like to go further and will shortly convene the Calais group of—primarily—northern European nations to discuss what further steps we can take. If there are further ways that we can work with our partners to crack down on the pernicious people smugglers and criminal gangs, we absolutely will.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
It is nearly a week since I raised a point of order with you, Madam Deputy Speaker, about press reports over the private contractor charged with running a hotel for asylum seekers in my constituency. It had taken somebody who had been charged with the sexual assault of a child and then bailed, and it housed them in another hotel, from which they absconded. I asked for an urgent update from the Minister. I am pleased to hear that he has met with other MPs, but I have had no information about that.
The concerns about the safeguarding experience of private contractors are legion. The permanent secretary could not even tell MPs today whether there is a clear safeguarding policy that children should not be housed with strangers in these hotels. We are talking about children who are with their parents, so fostering is not a solution. Will the Minister finally publish the safeguarding requirements that are put in place for private contractors, so that we can hold them to account for their behaviour?
Robert Jenrick
I have been concerned by the reports that the hon. Lady raised and have asked my officials to investigate them. I would be happy to discuss them with her, if that would be useful. The most important thing is to ensure that hotels are run in a sensible and decent manner. If we are dealing with such large numbers of individuals, unfortunately, incidents will occasionally happen. That does not excuse them. They are completely unacceptable, and we need to ensure that the police vigorously investigate them when they arise.
Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)
The lack of consultation has been appalling for some time. As the Minister knows, we in Stoke-on-Trent have already done far more than our fair share. We have resettled hundreds in housing and are now being asked to do more to provide hotel spaces, which puts immense pressure on our council, the police, health services and schools. Where is the money to make sure that our services can cope with the additional pressures?
Robert Jenrick
We have provided £3,500 per asylum seeker to local authorities such as Stoke-on-Trent, so that they have further support. The hotels that have been procured there are fully funded and the services that wrap around them are paid for directly by the Home Office to the contractor. However, I do not doubt the pressure that is being put on places such as Stoke. That is one reason why we have done mandatory national dispersal, and we have instructed the Home Office and suppliers to find accommodation in a broader range of places across the country.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
Is it not an Alice in Wonderland world when Conservative MPs call for the resignation of a Minister for trying clear up the mess caused by his boss and 12 years of failed policies that they have supported? Exeter has a proud tradition of welcoming refugees, who have enriched our city and contributed greatly to our city’s economy, but when will the Minister offer my local council the longer notice period of more than 24 hours that he promised? Twenty-four hours is not enough and it is not acceptable for local authorities trying to help those people and provide decent services.
Robert Jenrick
In the letter that I wrote to the right hon. Gentleman and others, I said that 24 hours would be the bare minimum that we expect. I have asked officials to go beyond that already. I will ask for weekly updates on the performance against those standards and will review them progressively with a view to improving them. As I have said in answer to many questions, we want to improve this very significantly, as quickly as we can. In my tenure in the Department, the main bar on us has been ensuring that Manston was operating legally and decently. It is only that that has prevented us from implementing the standards sooner.
John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)
Will the Minister please ask the Home Office to set out a timetable for each hotel that it has used to accommodate asylum seekers so that they know when an assessment of each claimant will be made, conducted and finalised, and when such a hotel will return to its original use? By doing that, we will increase the efficiency of the system, benefit the asylum seeker, because they will know when it will be dealt with, help the local authority, and—probably most importantly—give confidence to our communities.
Robert Jenrick
My hon. Friend has raised those very valid points with me already. I will take them back to the Department to see what we can do to meet those standards in the future.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)
Liverpool is a proud city of sanctuary, and we have welcomed many people fleeing conflict, war and persecution. We currently house the highest number of dispersed asylum seekers in the region, totalling 1,500, but my city’s resources are very stretched as a result of 12 years of austerity. Today I received a letter from my chief executive, who is concerned about the lack of consultation. He also let me know that the contingency hotel bed spaces are not included in the new asylum grant. Will the Minister, as a matter of urgency, provide Liverpool City Council with the funding and the resources for the public and the voluntary sector for the great work that they do to support these very desperate people?
Robert Jenrick
I am grateful to Liverpool City Council for the work that it is doing. We have set out a funding package for the council. I will be happy to keep in touch with the hon. Lady, if we are in a position to go further than that. I have always taken an interest in Liverpool and in trying to support it to ensure that it has better public services.
Simon Fell (Barrow and Furness) (Con)
My council was notified that it would be in receipt of 70 gentlemen on 22 December—not the best time of year to muster statutory services and get the third sector involved to give them the support they need, but none the less it stepped up and did it. I pay tribute to the Furness Multi-Cultural Community Forum for what it has done, but those 70 gentlemen have faced challenges: we have a growing far-right presence in town, they are socially isolated and they are not getting the support they need. What will move them out of hotels and get them contributing to society is getting through the backlog, which now stands at 122,000. Will the Minister please explain what the Department is doing to chow through that backlog and get people contributing to society rather than languishing in hotels in our communities?
Robert Jenrick
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we must power through the backlog, which has been allowed to reach an unacceptable level. We will do so by raising the productivity of teams and improving the management that oversees them. We will also look at how we prioritise cases, because some will have much higher grant rates than others. Anything further we can do to improve the situation, we will do. Improving the backlog is not the source of the issue; the source of the issue is the sheer quantity of people crossing the channel illegally. As much of our effort as possible needs to be focused on that, rather than on the symptoms of the problem.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Ind)
The Minister may say that this is a new problem, but 16 months ago hundreds of Afghans were moved into Southwark with zero advance notice, including into hostel accommodation that Public Health England advised the Home Office not to use. Will the Minister thank Southwark Day Centre for Asylum Seekers, Southwark Council and all the volunteers who have worked so hard to provide a welcome to such a large group of vulnerable people? Does he recognise the cross-party consensus today that the Home Office has failed on this issue among many others? Will he consider passing asylum accommodation provision to local authorities, with full resources to cover all associated costs, including those of emergency children’s services?
Robert Jenrick
We want to have the most productive relationship with local government that we possibly can. As a former Local Government Secretary, I know just how effective local government can be in dealing with challenging situations. The task for local authorities now is to respond to our request for full national dispersal, which means working with the Home Office to find decent accommodation in all parts of the country and, with respect to children, helping us to find state or private foster carers or care home places so that we can ensure that young people are taken out of unacceptable hotels and brought into communities where they get good-quality care as quickly as possible.
Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the only way to tackle overcrowding in processing centres and end the use of hotels is to prevent the illegal crossings from happening in the first place, and that urgent delivery of the Rwanda scheme is essential to solving this crisis?
Robert Jenrick
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need a system with deterrence at its heart. That means ensuring that those who come here illegally in small boats cannot find a path to a life here in the UK. The Rwanda policy is an important part of that and is currently in the courts. I am confident that we will win the arguments; when we do, we will implement the policy as soon as possible.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I believe that the processing system for asylum applications is at the root of the issue. It must be solved. Although I recognise that putting families into hotels for long periods is far from ideal, they are met with safe, secure and warm conditions, and in most cases medication and shelter are provided as well. Does the Minister agree that to tackle the problem, the Home Office must employ more staff to ensure that asylum applications are processed urgently, in a timely manner?
Robert Jenrick
I am increasing the personnel making decisions from about 1,000 to 1,500. However, the team who do the work have greater resources today than prior to the pandemic, yet productivity has fallen, so this is not primarily an issue of productivity. It is about processes and leadership as well.
Points of Order
(1 year, 12 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. After the news today that Manchester United is to be sold by the asset-stripping Glazer family, have you or the Speaker’s Office received any notification that a Minister will come to the House to explain why the Government shelved the fan-led review, leaving fans with no protection against their club being sold to whoever can stump up the cash, whether they care about the club and the community or not?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for notice of his point of order. I have not received any notification that a Minister intends to make a statement, but those on the Treasury Bench will have heard and, I am sure, noted his concerns.
Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. At Prime Minister’s questions, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) referred to the channel deaths this time last year. She said:
“New evidence suggests that the boat reached British waters and that the French and British authorities knew that it was in distress for a very long time.”
That is not correct. Today’s Daily Mail and the French newspapers report that investigations by the French police have found that the French did not send help, following several calls while the boat was in distress in French waters, and furthermore that French officers may yet face manslaughter charges in relation to those tragic deaths. In relation to the reports about the boat entering British waters, it has been reported that Britain was not told that the boat was in distress at the time it entered British waters, that Britain acted immediately when notified, having saved a number of other people in small boats on the same day, and did everything it could to save those lives.
Many of my constituents work for Border Force or the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Some of them were on duty on that dreadful day. They work tirelessly, day in, day out, in difficult and exhausting circumstances, to pick up and rescue migrants in the channel. I am pleased that the hon. Lady is in the Chamber. I hope that she will join me in paying tribute to those who save lives at sea every day, including in relation to the channel migration issue. I hope that she will clarify the record and await the findings of the official reports before traducing the reputation of Border Force and the RNLI. Will she also take steps to ensure that she does nothing to damage this important investigation, which may yet lead to criminal charges?
Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am not going to withdraw the comments that I made in my question, because—[Interruption.] I will explain why, if colleagues would like to listen. In my question, which the hon. Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) quoted, I said:
“New evidence suggests that the boat reached British waters and that the French and British authorities knew that it was in distress for a very long time.”
The bodies and the survivors were not found until 2 pm the next day. By my judgment, that is a long time for both the British and the French authorities to know about people in distress. Something had obviously not happened. We need the investigation to conclude, but everything from the French investigation side and in leaked reports is in the public domain; it has been reported by Le Monde, by The Guardian and by many newspapers. I think that the hon. Member has misinterpreted what I said.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the hon. Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) for her point of order. I am pleased that she notified the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) that she intended to raise the matter.
Obviously there are differing views. I am not responsible for the comments that hon. Members make; they are responsible for their own comments. There are ways of correcting the record should hon. Members wish to do so, either now or in future, but it is not for me to judge between two differing interpretations of events. I think we will leave it there.
Pre-payment Meters (Self-disconnection)
Wednesday 23rd November 2022
(1 year, 12 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Pre-Payment Meters (Self-Disconnection) Bill 2022-23 View all Pre-Payment Meters (Self-Disconnection) Bill 2022-23 Debates Read Hansard Text
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Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
I beg to move, Proceedings Time for conclusion of proceedings First day New Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 1, 2, 7, 8 or 9, Clauses 187 to 190 or Schedule 17; amendments to Parts 1, 2, 7, 8 and 9, Clauses 187 to 190 and Schedule 17. The moment of interruption on the first day Second day New Clauses and new Schedules relating to Part 3, 4, 5, 6 or 11 and any other new Clauses and new Schedules; amendments to Parts 3, 4, 5, 6 and 11; remaining proceedings on Consideration. One hour before the moment of interruption on the second day
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require energy companies to allow a grace period before disconnecting customers with pre-payment meters who have run out of credit; to require energy companies to offer debt management support to all customers; and for connected purposes.
I pay my gas and electricity bills by standing order, and I pay in arrears. If I stop paying those bills, I can be disconnected by my supplier, but it is very much a final step and a last resort. Not so for those who pay in advance—that is, those on prepayment meters. Should they be unable to pay for gas or electricity, disconnection is the first thing that happens to them. The minute they go over the £10 of emergency credit applied to each prepayment meter, their supply stops and they are considered to have self-disconnected. We, as well-paid MPs, could run up hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pounds’ worth of debt to energy companies before they disconnect our supply, while those on prepayment meters will be left to freeze in the dark the minute they owe just £10. It is that iniquity that my Bill seeks to address.
There is more that I could have asked for in the Bill around the broader iniquity of the treatment of those on prepayment meters, but I decided to make it as easy and straightforward as possible. The Bill asks for one thing only: to put an end to those on prepayment meters being treated differently from those of us who enjoy the benefit of paying in arrears. My Bill asks for so-called self-disconnection to be stopped. I can think of no reason for any fair-minded person not to support that request. I am hopeful, verging on confident, that the Government will agree to it, but they need to act quickly. I cannot be standing here in a year’s time next winter talking about how we are nudging toward getting this resolved.
Call me impatient, but I know how slowly things often move in this place. I also know that the Government can move quickly when they need to. I contend that if I have to wait even until the new year, given the winter that has been predicted, I will have waited too long. More importantly, people on prepayment meters will have waited too long. It is not melodramatic or even an exaggeration to say that, if we do not deal with this urgently, I am afraid that people will die—people who would have lived had my Bill been adopted. All this when energy companies are raking in billions and bragging that they literally do not know what to do with their profits. Why is none of them leading the charge, instead of waiting for legislation possibly to get through? I am using this 10-minute rule Bill slot to challenge publicly just one of them to step forward and announce an end to the practice.
Let me give Members some background facts. We know that those on prepayment meters are generally on a low income. Some find it easier to budget if they can pay as they go, but most are given no choice. They struggle to pay their bills, so their energy supplier gains entry to their home and installs a prepayment meter. We also know that they pay more per unit of energy and higher daily standing charges than the rest of us, and they pay in advance while the rest of us pay in arrears. Normally, advance payments attract discounts, but that is not so for those on prepayment meters.
We know from the low uptake of pension credit that pensioners are often the last to reach out and ask for help. That means that many of them are existing on far less than the Government believe that they need, and many of those people are on prepayment meters. Caroline Abrahams of Age UK recently said that, for an older person, being cold
“even for just a short amount of time can be very dangerous as it increases the risk of associated health problems and preventable deaths during the winter.”
We simply cannot let pensioners self-disconnect this winter. They must be treated at least equally to MPs when it comes to the right to be warm. The right to be treated equally is crucial, because the only arguments that I have heard against the proposal are that people could end up in debt and that they might simply not bother to pay their bills. On the latter point, I would argue very strongly that those on prepayment meters are no more likely simply not to bother to pay their bills than those of us paying by different methods.
It is a risk that stopping self-disconnection could lead to people being in debt, but to that I would say two things. First, if the rest of us, paying by different methods, are allowed to take the risk of ending up in debt and are trusted to find ways to resolve it without being cut off, why not those on prepayment meters? Secondly, at the end of the day, if anyone in the Chamber were asked to choose between debt or death for their constituent, who among us would not choose debt as the lesser of two evils? That may sound dramatic, but life is very dramatic and unpredictable at the moment, and our constituents’ lives will be at risk.
I ask whichever MP will be on duty to shout “Object!” to my Bill on Second Reading to prevent it from going any further, as is common practice—unless they are planning to do it today—to be aware of the choice that they are making for their constituents on prepayment meters. We all have many such constituents. The last figures that we can access tell us that almost 4.2 million people are on prepayment meters. In Glasgow, there are almost 67,000, but even in the Prime Minister’s local authority there are more than 1,000 and in your local authority, Madam Deputy Speaker—I am sure that you know this—the figure is 16,596. Those figures were last published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in 2019, so we do not have an exact number, but clearly the numbers are rising. Figures from Ofgem comparison website Uswitch recently revealed that 60,000 new prepayment meters were installed across the UK in the six months to March. Does it not seem perverse that as energy prices and energy company profits soar, poor and vulnerable people are being forced on to more expensive methods of paying for that energy?
I recently had a meeting with the Simon Community, one of the leading homelessness organisations in Scotland. It told me that many of the people it has been supporting to get off the streets and into a tenancy have found their new-found optimism to be short lived when they face the problem of being on a prepayment meter. The warmth and comfort that has eluded them for so long is again taken away when they run out of money, as many do because, having been homeless and having lived without an address, and for some having battled health problems, many are not yet in employment, or certainly not in well-paid employment. In no time, they are back to square one. According to the Simon Community, people have been walking the streets to keep warm. What an utterly ridiculous and cruel situation.
Who else will have their lives put at risk if energy companies do not stop the practice? Perhaps most disturbing of all is the case of those whose life expectancy has already been curtailed. I am talking about those who are terminally ill. When the Bill appeared on the Order Paper, I was contacted by Marie Curie, which as many colleagues will know has a campaign called “Dying in poverty”. It has been telling MPs about the additional costs incurred by the use of vital medical equipment such as breathing devices. It told me that the average cost of an electricity bill can rise by 75% for someone who is terminally ill. That is bad enough, but for someone on a prepayment meter, so-called self-disconnection really becomes life threatening.
In addition, people often find when they return home after a lengthy stay in hospital or a hospice that they have a huge bill to pay before they can access electricity because, despite not being at home, the daily standing charges have mounted up and the meter will take that money first. How can we do that to people? I ask that without apportioning blame politically, because I do not believe that anyone in this place would intend that to happen or try to justify it. I said earlier that I was feeling hopeful, verging on confident, that the Government would listen and act. I am usually very critical of the Government but I simply do not believe that they would wish this on any of our constituents. Nor do I believe that they would knowingly allow anyone, and certainly not pensioners, people who have been homeless and those who are already dying, to suffer in such a way when they and I, as well-paid MPs and Government Ministers, with no excuse to run up debts, would none the less be allowed to do so and thus keep our homes warm, simply because we pay in a different way.
I often criticise the Government for their lack of action on equalities, but this is a very stark inequality on which I believe they will agree with me. I reiterate that my Bill asks for one thing only: for those on prepayment meters to have equal treatment to that of all other bill payers when it comes to disconnection. I want an end to so-called self-disconnection. It is cruel, dangerous and will end the lives of our constituents prematurely if we do not stop it. But we can stop it.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Anne McLaughlin, Craig Whittaker, Sally-Ann Hart, Alison Thewliss, Alan Brown, Stuart C. McDonald, Jeremy Corbyn, Liz Saville Roberts, Colum Eastwood, Kate Osborne, Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Stewart Malcolm McDonald present the Bill.
Anne McLaughlin accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 9 December, and to be printed (Bill 198).
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill: Programme (No. 3)
Ordered,
That the Order of 8 June 2022 (Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill: Programme), as varied on 22 September 2022 (Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill: Programme (No. 2)), be further varied as follows:
(1) Paragraphs (4) and (5) of the Order shall be omitted.
(2) Proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading shall be taken in two days in accordance with the following provisions of this Order.
(3) Proceedings on Consideration—
(a) shall be taken on each of those days in the order shown in the first column of the following Table, and
(b) shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the times specified in the second column of the Table.
(4) Proceedings on Third Reading shall be taken on the second day and shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on the second day. —(Dehenna Davison.)
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
Wednesday 23rd November 2022
(1 year, 12 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 View all Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 23 November 2022 - (23 Nov 2022)
17:49 - The House divided: - Ayes: 155 / Noes: 284 - Question accordingly negatived.
18:04 - The House divided: - Ayes: 159 / Noes: 281 - Question accordingly negatived.
18:17 - The House divided: - Ayes: 155 / Noes: 285 - Question accordingly negatived.
18:29 - The House divided: - Ayes: 190 / Noes: 285 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Dehenna Davison)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government new clause 62—Functions in respect of key route network roads.
Government new clause 65—Participation of police and crime commissioners at certain local authority committees.
New clause 1—Power to provide for an elected mayor—
(1) Part 1A of the Local Government Act 2000 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 9K insert—
“9KA Power to provide for an elected mayor
(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations provide for there to be a mayor of a local authority.
(2) Before making regulations under subsection (1), the Secretary of State must publish a report which contains—
(a) an assessment of why it is in the interests of economy, efficiency, effectiveness or public safety for the regulations to be made, and
(b) a description of any public consultation the Secretary of State has carried out on the proposal for the regulations to be made.””
This new clause would allow the Secretary of State to provide for there to be a mayor of any local authority if they deem appropriate.
New clause 2—Resignation requirements for MPs serving as elected mayors—
“(1) The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 is amended in accordance with subsection.
(2) In section 67 (Disqualification of person holding office as police and crime commissioner), leave out paragraph (a).
(3) Schedule 1 to the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 is amended as follows.
(4) In Part 3 (Other Disqualifying Offices), at the appropriate place insert—
‘Mayor who is to exercise the functions of police and crime commissioner’”.
This new clause would allow an MP who is elected as a mayor who is to exercise the functions of a police and crime commissioner to remain as an MP until the next parliamentary election.
New clause 4—Housing Act 1985—
“In section 618 of the Housing Act 1985 (The Common Council of the City of London), omit subsections (3) and (4).”
This new clause would correct a disparity which applies uniquely to Members of the City of London’s Common Council in relation to their ability to discuss or vote on local authority matters relating to land, for example housing, by removing a prohibition on participating on such matters.
New clause 7—Council tax: properties of multiple occupancy—
“(1) The Local Government Finance Act 1992 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 3 (meaning of “dwelling”), after subsection (4A), insert—
‘(4B) Subject to subsection (6) below, the following property is not a dwelling—
(a) a room or bedroom subject to a tenancy agreement that does not contain bathroom and cooking facilities within its physical curtilage;
(b) a room or bedroom subject to a tenancy agreement which includes bathroom facilities but does not include cooking facilities within its physical curtilage;
(c) any rooms or bedrooms within a licensed House of Multiple Occupancy; and
(d) any room which is not in law a self-contained unit regardless of any clause, term or condition of any contract, license of agreement conferring a right to occupy that room.’”
This new clause is intended to prevent the imposition of Council Tax individually on tenants of a room in a house with shared facilities, or in a licensed House of Multiple Occupancy.
New clause 41—Duty to provide sufficient resources to Combined Authorities and Combined County Authorities—
“(1) This section applies where the Government has committed funding to a Combined Authority or a Combined County Authority in order to deliver a specific project.
(2) The Secretary of State must provide commensurate financial resources to a Combined Authority or a Combined County Authority to enable the delivery of the project mentioned in subsection (1) as agreed in full.
(3) The Secretary of States must, by regulations, amend the value of this funding to reflect inflation.”
This new clause would commit the Government to fully funding combined authority and combined county authority projects they have committed to in the case that costs rise due to inflation.
New clause 45—Local authorities to be allowed to choose their own voting system—
“(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations provide that local authorities may choose the voting system used for local elections in their areas.
(2) When determining whether to seek to introduce a new voting system a local authority must have regard to the benefits of reinvigorating local democracy in its area.
(3) Regulations under this section must provide that local authorities may choose to elect councillors—
(a) by thirds, or
(b) on an all-out basis.
(4) Regulations under this section must provide that local authorities may choose to elect councillors using—
(a) first-past-the-post;
(b) alternative vote;
(c) supplementary vote;
(d) single transferable vote;
(e) the additional member system;
(f) any other system that may be prescribed in the regulations.
(5) Regulations under this section may make provision about—
(a) how a local authority may go about seeking to change its voting system,
(b) the decision-making process for such a change,
(c) consultation, and
(d) requirements relating to approval by the local electorate.”
This new clause would enable local authorities to choose what voting system they use for local elections.
New clause 46—Review into business rates system—
“(1) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must undertake a review of the business rates system.
(2) The review must consider the extent to which the business rates system—
(a) is achieving its objectives,
(b) is conducive to the achievement of the levelling-up and regeneration objectives of this Act.
(3) The review must consider whether alternatives of local business taxation would be more likely to achieve the objectives in subsections (2)(a) and (b).
(4) The review must in particular consider the effects of business rates and alternative local business taxation systems on—
(a) high streets, and
(b) rural areas.
(5) The review must consider the merits of devolving more control over local business taxation to local authorities.
(6) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must lay a report of the review before parliament before the end of the period of one year beginning with the day on which this Act is passed.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to review the business rates system.
New clause 70—Duties in connection with the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities—
“(1) The Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016 is amended in accordance with subsection (2).
(2) In section 16 (Power to transfer etc public authority functions to certain local authorities), after subsection (1) insert—
‘(1A) In deciding how and whether to exercise his power under section 16(1), the Secretary of State must have regard to the existence, within a local authority area, of a national minority as defined by the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.’”
New clause 71—Extending level 3 devolution deals—
“(1) The Secretary of State must, by regulations, make provision for local authorities to be granted a Level 3 devolution deal, without the requirement for a directly-elected leader across the entire authority.
(2) When making regulations under subsection (1), the Secretary of State must have regard to the benefits of such a devolution arrangement given any existence, within a local authority area, of a national minority, as defined by the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.”
New clause 34—Review of compulsory purchase powers—
“(1) The Secretary of State must undertake a review of whether the powers of compulsory purchase available to—
(a) local authorities, and
(b) the Secretary of State
are adequate to meet the objectives of this Act.
(2) In undertaking the review the Secretary of State must, in particular, consider—
(a) whether existing statutory time limits for compulsory purchase action are appropriate,
(b) other means of accelerating compulsory purchase action with particular reference to properties to which subsection (3) applies, and
(c) the adequacy of compulsory purchase powers in relation to properties to which subsection (3) applies.
(3) This subsection applies to—
(a) properties that have been unoccupied for a prolonged period (with reference to the vacancy condition in section 152), and
(b) buildings of local public importance such as hotels and high street properties.”
This new clause would require the Government to review powers of compulsory purchase and whether they are adequate to meet its levelling-up and regeneration objectives.
New clause 74—Commencement of Section 81 of the Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Act—
“The Secretary of State must, by regulations, bring into force the provisions in Section 81 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 no later than 31st December 2022”
New clause 75—Review of the effectiveness of the Housing First Scheme—
(1) The Secretary of State must establish an annual review of His Majesty’s Government’s progress on reducing homelessness.
(2) The review must include an assessment of—
(a) whether the Housing First scheme is achieving its objectives,
(b) the support provided to local authorities to meet their homelessness duties,
(c) the merits of ensuring that local authorities have at least one provider of the Housing First model, and
(d) the Government’s progress towards ending rough sleeping.
(3) The Secretary of State must prepare reports on these reviews in accordance with this section.
(4) The first report under subsection (3) must be laid before each House of Parliament before the end of a period of one year beginning on the day when this Act was passed.
(5) After a report has been laid before Parliament under subsection (4), the Secretary of State must publish it as soon as is reasonably practicable.”
New clause 76—Publication of the Consultation on the Vagrancy Act—
“(1) The Secretary of State must, before the end of 2022, publish a report setting out the results of the Review of the Vagrancy Act: consultation on effective replacement.
(2) he report under subsection (1) must, in particular, set out—
(a) how to replace the offences in the Vagrancy Act which prohibit begging and rough sleeping in an appropriate way that prioritises getting individuals into support, and
(b) the Government’s legislative plan to support these changes.
(3) The Secretary of State must lay a copy of the report in subsection (1) before both Houses of Parliament.”
New clause 82—Standards Board for England—
“(1) There is to be a body corporate known as the Standards Board for England (“the Standards Board”).
(2) The Standards Board is to consist of not less than three members appointed by the Secretary of State.
(3) In exercising its functions the Standards Board must have regard to the need to promote and maintain high standards of conduct by members and co-opted members of local authorities in England.
(4) The Secretary of State must by regulations make further provision about the Standards Board.
(5) Regulations under this section must provide for—
(a) a code of conduct of behaviour for members and co-opted members of local authorities in England,
(b) the making of complaints to the Standards Board a member or co-opted member has failed to comply with that code of conduct,
(c) the independent handling of such complaints in the first instance by the Standards Board,
(d) the functions of ethical standards officers,
(e) investigations and reports by such officers,
(f) the role of monitoring officers of local authorities in such complaints,
(g) the referral of cases to the adjudication panel for England for determination,
(h) about independent determination by the adjudication panel its issuing of sanctions,
(i) appeal by the complainant to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman,
(j) appeal by the member or co-opted member subject to the complaint to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, and
(k) the governance of the Standards Board.
(6) In making regulations under this section the Secretary of State must have regard to the content of Chapter II (investigations etc: England) of Part III (conduct of local government members and employees) of the Local Government Act 2000, prior to the repeal of that Chapter.
(7) The Standards Board—
(a) must appoint employees known as ethical standards officers,
(b) may issue guidance to local authorities in England on matters relating to the conduct of members and co-opted members of such authorities,
(c) may issue guidance to local authorities in England in relation to the qualifications or experience which monitoring officers should possess, and
(d) may arrange for any such guidance to be made public.”
This new clause seeks to reinstate the Standards Board for England, which was abolished by the Localism Act 2011, but with the removal of referral to standards committees and the addition of appeal to the Local Government Ombudsman.
New clause 84—Levelling-up mission: adult literacy—
“(1) Each statement of levelling-up missions must include an objective relating to reducing geographical disparities in adult literacy.
(2) In pursuance of the objective in subsection (1), the Secretary of State must, during each mission period, review adult literacy levels in the UK, to inform measures with the purpose of reducing geographical disparities in adult literacy and eradicating illiteracy in adults.
(3) The findings of any review under this section must be published in a report, which must be laid before Parliament.
(4) When a report under this section is laid before Parliament, the government must also publish a strategy setting out steps it intends to take to improve levels of adult literacy and eradicate illiteracy in the UK.”
This new clause would require the government to include the reducing of geographical disparities in adult literacy as one of its levelling up missions, and it would require them, during each mission period, to review levels of adult literacy in the UK, publish the findings of that review and set out a strategy to improve levels of adult literacy and eradicate illiteracy in the UK.
Amendment 8, in clause 1, page 1, line 14, at end insert—
“(c) the independent body that His Majesty’s Government proposes to use to evaluate progress in delivering those levelling-up missions (‘the independent evaluating body’).”
This amendment would place a responsibility on the Government to commission an independent body to scrutinise their progress against levelling-up missions.
Amendment 9, page 1, line 14, at end insert—
“(c) the resources made available by His Majesty’s Government to nations, regions, sub-regions and local areas in order to level-up.”
This amendment would place a responsibility on the Government to publish the resources made available to communities in order to level-up.
Amendment 71, page 1, line 14, at end insert—
“(c) details of how His Majesty’s Government will ensure that the levelling-up missions are aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal to end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round.”
This amendment would require that levelling-up missions align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal to end hunger and ensure access by all people to safe and nutritious food.
Amendment 69, page 1, line 14, at end insert—
“(2A) The first statement of levelling-up missions must include a requirement that by 2030 the number of people successfully completing high-quality skills training will have significantly increased in every area of the UK.
(2B) For the purposes of subsection (2A), ‘high-quality skills training’ must include training for the purpose of proactively supporting workers in high-carbon industries wishing to transition to careers in the green energy sector, with cross-sector recognition of skills and regardless of their current contract status.”
Amendment 70, page 1, line 14, at end insert—
“(2A) The first statement of levelling-up missions must include a mission to expand public access to waterways, woodlands, Green Belt and grasslands and reduce geographical inequalities in access to open access land.
(2B) In this section, “waterways” includes any river, stream, lake, pond, canal or other waterway physically capable of navigation, and any such river banks or land adjacent as necessary for the act of navigation and for other purposes incidental to navigation or to bathe.
(2C) A levelling-up mission under this section must be accompanied by a statement of the Government’s legislative plan to support the mission, including proposals to amend the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.”
Amendment 72, page 2, line 3, at end insert—
“(3A) The mission progress methodology and metrics must include the following indicators—
(a) prevalence of undernourishment in the population, and
(b) prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in the population, based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES).”
This amendment would require that the mission progress methodology and metrics include the prevalence of under-nourishment and the prevalence of food insecurity in the population.
Amendment 10, page 2, line 6, at end insert—
“(4A) A statement of levelling-up missions must be accompanied by an action plan which sets out details of how His Majesty’s Government intends to deliver these missions by the target date.”
This amendment would require the Government to publish an action plan alongside a statement of levelling-up missions which sets out how they will deliver the missions.
Amendment 11, in clause 2, page 3, line 7, leave out subsections (4) and (5).
This amendment would remove the provision allowing the Secretary of State to discontinue a levelling-up mission.
Amendment 12, in clause 3, page 3, line 28, leave out “120” and insert “30”.
This amendment would reduce the period of time by which a report under section 2 must be laid before each House of Parliament to 30 days.
Amendment 13, page 3, line 32, leave out “120” and insert “30”.
See explanatory statement to Amendment 12
Amendment 14, page 4, line 2, leave out clause 4.
This amendment would remove the provision allowing a Minister to make changes to mission progress methodology and metrics or target dates.
Amendment 64, in clause 4, page 4, line 18, leave out from “which” to end of line 19 and insert—
“both conditions in subsection (4) have been met.
(4) The conditions are that—
(a) the House of Commons,
(b) the House of Lords
have passed a Motion in the form in subsection (5).
(5) The form of the Motion is—
That this House approves the revisions to the levelling-up mission progress methodology and metrics or target date made under section 4 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2022 and laid before Parliament on [date].”
Amendment 15, in clause 5, page 5, line 18, at end insert—
“(ca) state whether the independent evaluating body considers that pursuing the levelling-up missions in that statement is effectively contributing to the reduction of geographical disparities in the United Kingdom,”
This amendment would require the report on a review of statements of levelling-up missions to include the assessment of the independent evaluating body.
Amendment 16, page 6, line 5, leave out from “which” to end of subsection (11) and insert—
“both conditions in subsection (12) have been met.
(12) The conditions are that—
(a) the House of Commons, and
(b) the House of Lords
has passed a Motion of the form in subsection (13).
(13) The form of the Motion is—
That this House approves the revisions to the statement of levelling-up missions made under section 5 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2022 and laid before Parliament on [date].”
This amendment would require both Houses of Parliament to approve revisions to the statement of levelling-up missions to be approved by both Houses of Parliament before they have effect.
Amendment 17, page 12, line 24, leave out clause 16.
Government amendments 29, 45 and 46.
Amendment 18, in clause 52, page 45, line 16, leave out “may” and insert—
“must, within 6 months of the day on which this Act is passed,”.
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to produce guidance on the establishment and operation of CCAs within 6 months of this Act receiving Royal Assent.
Amendment 19, page 50, line 24, leave out clause 58.
This amendment would remove Clause 58, which allows an elected mayor to assume policing responsibilities without the consent of the combined authority.
Government amendments 47, 40 to 44, 1, 60, 51, 61 and 62.
Dehenna Davison
It is a pleasure to be here for the next stage of this vital Bill. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State recently set out his guiding principles for the Bill: beauty, infrastructure, democracy, environment and neighbourhoods—or, for acronym fans, BIDEN. We want to ensure that people across the country have the opportunity to live and work in beautiful places, supported by the right infrastructure, with strong locally accountable leadership and with better access to an improved environment, all rooted in thriving neighbourhoods of which they can be proud. Regrettably, though, there are areas of the country that are long neglected and that will require a concerted effort from us all. We have to put an end to the shameful waste of potential that has held so many of our constituents and our country back for so long.
This is why the ambitions set out in the levelling up White Paper are so crucial. If we are going to achieve our ambitions, we have to be focused. That is why the first part of the Bill creates a self-renewing national focus on this endeavour, through the setting of and reporting on missions to level up. These missions, with their clear, measurable objectives, will drive the action needed to reduce geographic disparities. One such mission is our vision for devolution across England. This is why the Bill creates a new model for devolution: the combined county authority. It also improves existing models thought the combined authority and county deal models, making devolution easier to achieve, extend and deepen.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
One of the disappointments with this Bill is that, although it extends the principle of combined authorities to county areas, it does not actually transfer any new powers to local government as a whole that are not currently available in some authorities. Could the Minister point out one place in the Bill where a new power that is currently not devolved to local government will be devolved after the Bill is passed?
Dehenna Davison
The Chair of the Select Committee is a passionate campaigner on these issues. He will know that the Government are incredibly keen on empowering local areas to take on their own devolution deals, and that is why we are in the process of negotiating a large number of deals, including trailblazer deals with Greater Manchester and with the West Midlands, which I know Members right across the House are incredibly passionate about. We are looking at new powers and new funding to ensure that those devolution deals deliver for local people.
We are making it easier to achieve, to extend and to deepen devolution. At the same time, the Bill is making it easier for local authorities to regenerate their areas by providing them with new and improved tools for that purpose, including a new locally led model for urban development corporations, changes to ensure that any former development corporation can have conferred on it the functions most useful to its purpose, and improvement to the compulsory system to remove barriers so that authorities can assemble land, including brownfield land.
Mr Betts
Often, when compulsory purchase powers are used by local authorities, the value of the site they are purchasing is enhanced because they are using those powers and the owner of the site gets a “hope value” addition to what they receive. Would the Minister consider ensuring that, where a CPO has been put in place, no extra value is generated for the owner because the CPO itself is operated or because it is part of a regeneration site as a whole?
Dehenna Davison
I am happy to discuss that with the hon. Member in further detail following the debate today. It is certainly something that we are exploring behind the scenes with a view to taking action at a later date.
We are also looking at introducing discretion for local authorities to increase council tax on second homes and long-term empty homes, together with innovative high street rental auctions to tackle the damage that the gradual erosion of high street occupancy can cause.
Hon. Members will recall that the Government have already made provision for the full repeal of the Vagrancy Act 1824. As the Secretary of State has said, the Vagrancy Act is outdated and has to go. This Bill was introduced initially with a placeholder clause, allowing for a replacement to the Act to be added. During the passage of the Bill, however, we have listened to the depth of feeling from Members across the House, and particularly from my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), who has campaigned passionately on this issue. After working with Members across the House and having reflected on the right approach to the replacement legislation, I have tabled amendments to remove the placeholder clause. I can commit to the House that the Government will not bring forward any amendments to the Bill on this subject. We will, though, be working with the Home Office to make sure that the police and others have the tools they need to protect communities and ensure that people feel safe.
Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
I absolutely welcome the Government’s action on this. Does the Minister agree that the best way to deal with the street population is through proper outreach and not through criminalising their behaviour?
Dehenna Davison
I completely agree with that sentiment. Any new legislation that may be introduced at a future date will not be looking to criminalise anyone for just being homeless. That is a firm commitment that I can make here today. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Let us look at the Government’s rough sleeping strategy as an example, and at the other ways we can outreach to ensure that those who find themselves homeless, often through no fault of their own, find the support they need to get back on their feet.
On vagrancy, my colleagues and I look forward to continuing to work with Members across the House on our goal of ending rough sleeping and ensuring that people in need receive appropriate support to help them move away from life on the streets for good.
Strengthening our communities also means strengthening local leadership. We all know from our constituencies that Whitehall, however well intentioned, cannot always understand a community as well as the local people who live and work within it, so our ambition is for local areas to determine their own futures, allowing local leaders to take charge and enable their communities to thrive. We therefore want to offer the option of a devolution deal with a directly elected leader to every part of England that wants one by 2030, creating clear local leadership and greater accountability for any new powers conferred on them.
Members will recall that the Bill puts in place a framework to achieve this by creating a new model of combined authority—a combined county authority—which is more suitable for areas outside urban centres. This means that areas and communities everywhere, not just in major cities, can benefit from bespoke devolution deals that work for them. Providing these opportunities for all communities across England will increase innovation and enhance local accountability. This in turn will lead to more co-ordinated decision making with greater flexibility over funding, all of which will empower areas to attract more inward investment.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I have been grateful for the support that our reforms have attracted in our discussions with hon. Members and local areas, and Members will be aware that our devolution negotiations and conversations are continuing at pace. In the summer, we announced new devolution deals with York and North Yorkshire, and with parts of the east midlands: Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. There are more deals to be signed soon. Implementation of the east midlands deal is dependent on provisions in this Bill gaining Royal Assent and coming into effect, but they will of course be subject to statutory processes, including parliamentary approval of secondary legislation on creating new institutions with the devolved powers. The invaluable feedback from our discussions so far has allowed us to table three amendments today to put some matters beyond doubt.
John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)
The Minister is talking a lot about those areas where there is devolution already or where there is the potential for devolution, but what about those areas where there seems to be an absence of any discussions?
Dehenna Davison
As I say, we have discussions under way at the moment and we are looking ahead to which new devolution deals we can start exploring. I am certainly happy to work with my hon. Friend to see if this is something we can deliver in his local area in Cumbria, too.
Our first amendment relates to clause 16, which allows the conferral of local authority functions, including those of county councils, unitary councils and district councils, on to a combined county authority, or CCA.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, because this is of seminal importance to all second-tier councils around the country. I therefore welcome Government amendment 29. Can she confirm, for the avoidance of any doubt, that this means, as the explanatory statement suggests, that there is no question of the functions of a district council in a two-tier area being handled by a combined county authority and that, although it says
“a CCA may make provision”,
a CCA cannot make provision where there is a second-tier council?
Dehenna Davison
I can confirm that, and my hon. Friend pre-empts the next bit of my speech, which will hopefully provide some reassurance.
Clause 16 is essential to enable CCAs to be conferred with, for example, the economic development and regeneration functions of a council so that it can deliver them over a wider area, thus driving growth. Although it was never the Government’s intention, we have heard concerns from colleagues on both sides of the House, as well as from local authorities and the District Councils Network, that the clause could be used for the purpose of upward devolution. So there can be absolutely no doubt, we are explicitly precluding the conferral of two-tier district council functions on to a combined county authority. This amendment reflects the Government’s commitment that devolution legislation will not be used to reallocate functions between tiers of local government.
Government amendment 29 will still allow for combined county authorities to exercise functions with district councils concurrently or jointly, facilitating joint working on important issues where there is a local wish to do so. I hope that addresses the concern embodied in amendment 17, tabled in the name of the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), who is not currently in the Chamber.
Our second amendment provides for the effective co-ordination of highways infrastructure, to enable key route networks to operate effectively. Improving key route networks across towns and cities is a Government priority, and we want to facilitate the improvement of transport links as much as possible. The co-ordination of transport across the area of a combined authority or combined county authority is a tool that local leaders across the country have told us is valuable. We therefore propose an amendment to meet the commitment in the levelling-up White Paper to provide a new power of direction for Mayors and combined county authorities, to increase Mayors’ control over key route networks. This will enable them to better co-ordinate the delivery of highways infrastructure, which is needed for effective key route networks across the whole of their authority area.
Our third amendment is a small amendment to improve the partnership between police and crime commissioners and local leaders by clarifying legislation to ensure that PCCs can participate in local government committee meetings. Stronger partnership working between local leaders is central to the Government’s priority of ensuring that local voices are heard on important issues and that decision making is informed by a variety of perspectives in order to deliver our ambitions.
These three amendments add to the strong foundations the Bill already provides for devolution, by going further to solve the specific issues that areas face. In that spirit, I can announce that we will shortly be consulting on how houses in multiple occupation are valued for council tax purposes. The consultation, to be launched by January, will look at situations where individual tenants can, in certain circumstances, be landed with their own council tax bill and will consider whether the valuation process needs to change. Our clear intention is for HMOs to be classed as single dwellings, other than in exceptional circumstances.
Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
It is important to look at the balance of council tax attributions for HMOs, but will the Minister confirm that any local authority that has such HMOs will have its council tax settlements adjusted, should a decision result in it making a net loss in such a situation?
Dehenna Davison
We will be consulting on this as a matter of urgency, and I am happy to take this away and to work with my hon. Friend to make sure we find a settled solution that works for local authorities.
If regulation is required, the measure will allow that regulation to be in place before the Bill receives Royal Assent. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) for their campaign highlighting this issue, which I know affects other MPs. The Secretary of State and I look forward to meeting their local businessman, Mr Brewer, in the coming days.
Separately, I can confirm that, during the Bill’s passage in the other place, we intend to table amendments addressing circumstances in which authorities have to pay hope value when they compulsorily purchase land in an effort to regenerate their area.
Finally, we have also tabled amendments to make minor corrections and clarifications in support of high street rental auctions and compulsory purchase reforms. These amendments will ensure the policy objectives of these measures can be achieved in full.
Richard Graham
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way a second time. I thank her and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities team for listening so carefully to the concerns of Members on both sides of the House. What she says about new clause 7, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage), is incredibly reassuring for people who are renting in HMOs. The ability to fine tune legislation is so precious.
Dehenna Davison
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his incredibly kind words.
I thank Members on both sides of the House for the constructive way in which they have engaged with this important Bill. I look forward to hearing their contributions to today’s debate, and I commend our amendments to the House.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to speak for the Opposition in these proceedings.
The Public Bill Committee had 27 sittings over four months. The Government enjoyed it so much that they sent seven Ministers and three Whips to share the joy of line-by-line scrutiny. Which was my favourite? How could I choose between those 27 glorious sittings? They were very good debates, as the Minister said.
When it comes to levelling up, we have been clear from the outset that we feel the Bill is a missed opportunity. It ought to have been a chance for the Government finally to set out what their levelling-up agenda really is and what it means for the country. It was a chance to turn the rhetoric and all the press releases into reality. Instead of translating three years of promises into genuinely transformative change, we do not feel the Bill takes as much further forward. After the White Paper and now this Bill, we are still searching for the big, bold change for which the country is crying out and that the Government promised. The Bill has squandered that opportunity, and it seems those premises will be broken.
Levelling up is supposedly the defining mission of this Government but, after all the talk and all the promises, all they could muster was bolting a few clauses on to the front of a planning Bill. It serves no one to pretend that that is not the reality. Where is the plan to tackle entrenched regional inequalities? Where is the plan to unleash the wasted potential of our nations and regions? And where is the plan to get power out of Whitehall and into our towns, villages and communities?
Part 1 of the Bill establishes the levelling-up missions and the rules for reporting progress made against them. The missions are an area of consensus. Who in this House does not want to see a reduction in the disparities in healthy life expectancy, regional investment and educational outcomes? The problem is that, although the Government set out their supposed policy programme to deliver on these missions in their White Paper, it is in reality a mishmash of activity, much of which is already happening. We seek to improve this with amendment 10, as the missions should be accompanied by a full action plan setting out the activity taking place and how it will contribute to delivering the missions. I would hope that the Government already have such action plans, if levelling up really is such a totemic priority, but I fear they do not, because levelling up is not a priority.
Richard Graham
The hon. Gentleman has mentioned a couple of times the important question of levelling up across the country. Does he accept that, under the last Labour Government, one of the biggest challenges for many of us was that, although huge amounts of money were funnelled into metropolitan cities, smaller cities in counties around the country completely missed out? A huge amount of progressive work has been done by this Government to ensure that constituencies such as mine in Gloucester do not miss out on the levelling-up programme.
Alex Norris
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that, when we talk about levelling up, it should never be north versus south or London versus the rest of the UK, and that it should recognise that, across all communities, there are challenges and areas that need support. I think that is an area of consensus.
I stress that the hon. Gentleman is talking about the previous Labour Government, not the last Labour Government. I was at secondary school for much of that period, and I am not sure that relitigating it would advance this debate. I do not see that huge progressive changes have come through in the intervening 12 years, as he sees it, and I do not see them on the horizon either. Conservative Members may disagree with me on this point, which is fine, but if the Government are so sure of their case that this Bill will be very impactful, where is the impact assessment? Its publication is long overdue, and the stream of Ministers who came through the Committee all promised to publish it. It was signed off by the Regulatory Policy Committee on 19 July—what is that, four months ago?—but instead, it is hidden. What on earth does it say that it needs to be locked away in the Department, and what does it say about the Government that they are not brave enough to publish it?
George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)
I rise to set out the case for new clauses 70 and 71 in my name with the support of my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) as well as numerous other Members from all parts of the House, including several Liberal Democrats, among them its leader, about which I will say a little more later.
I was very pleased that the Chancellor made direct reference to Cornwall in the context of the next round of devolution deals in his autumn statement last week, but linked to the agreement is a more controversial decision about whether Cornwall should have a directly elected leader, or mayor. I can see both sides of the argument and am genuinely agnostic. On the one hand, having a directly elected mayor could create, in one individual, a powerful voice for Cornwall; it could strengthen the accountability to local people in a more direct way, rather than have a model that relies heavily on a council chief executive. On the other side of the argument, however, the idea of a single individual representing the whole of Cornwall unsettles some of our Cornish sensibilities. We have a motto in Cornwall, “One and all”, but can this Cornish mindset based around the idea of shared endeavour be properly represented in a “One for all” system of democratic accountability? In addition, if we were to have lots of councillors from one party but a directly elected leader from another, or indeed from no party at all, would that create tensions and undermine good governance? This is therefore a significant decision for our councillors in Cornwall, and it is essential that all parties allow their councillors a free vote on the issue so that the advantages and disadvantages can be debated openly ahead of a final collective decision.
My contention today is that, whatever Cornwall eventually decides to do by way of structure of governance, it should nevertheless be granted an ambitious tier 3 devolution agreement. If having a mayoral system is such a powerful idea, it will carry the day irrespective of whether the Government dangle new money and new powers as an incentive. If it turns out not to be a good idea, however, the problems created might be more expensive than the perceived benefits of the deal.
I know that the Government seek to bring more clarity and consistency to local government structure, and I completely understand, for what we have now is something of a hotchpotch. But there are powerful reasons, rooted in centuries of history, for treating Cornwall as a special case, for Cornwall has a distinct and subtly different place within the British constitution. The nature and origins of this Cornish particularism are often misunderstood and sometimes even mocked by people “up country,” as we say, who do not know what they are talking about, but Cornwall is different. It has a highly Unionist tendency, sealed through the Crown down the centuries. Its geography as a peninsula gives it a self-reliance, and with that a resilience. Cornwall can occasionally be somewhat aloof, but it is only ever hostile to other parts of the country when deliberately provoked. It is eternally proud of its distinctiveness.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Because so much of the Bill focuses on England only, I will concentrate my remarks on amendment 14. The fact that this amendment has to be tabled at all shows that the Government cannot, and do not expect to, meet their own expectations raised in the Bill. There is nothing more dangerous than raising expectations that will not be met.
This is not just a Bill in the usual sense; levelling up is not a run-of-the-mill promise that can easily be broken and forgotten. According to the Government, the very concept of levelling up is a flagship policy—a policy designed to change the face of the UK, genuinely to seek to spread prosperity and opportunity, and to make our communities better right across the board. Anyone who has such expectations based on what the Government have said about the Bill and its aims will, I fear, be disappointed. The very fact that amendment 14 exists illustrates that they will be disappointed. It is not credible that a Government so in love with austerity can be trusted to level up in any meaningful and sustainable way. Growth in the UK has been fatally undermined by both incompetence and Brexit. That is why amendment 14 matters and why we in the SNP support it.
In the absence of growth and grown-up and frank conversations about the damage of Brexit, we have instead vague missions, with no real plans for delivery—missions that are, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, of dubious quality. Yet still the Government have reserved to themselves the power to change the goalposts. That demonstrates that the Government are not even clear about how they will measure the success or the progress of the very missions that they have set themselves.
An annual report can apparently make everything all right, but it simply will not be enough to keep the Government on track to achieve their objectives. There is also a lack of ownership and accountability for each of the 12 levelling-up missions by individual Government Departments. None of this is news to the Government, of course, which is why they have retained that authority to move the goalposts and change their own targets if they are not going to be met. This is like someone marking their own homework and reserving the right to change the pass mark of the test that they have set themselves. That does not sound like a Government who are confident about their own delivery, even though we are talking about a flagship policy.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady honestly think that there is something fundamentally wrong in a Government Department saying that it will have measures and targets, that it will review, and that it may recalibrate and tweak in order to reflect circumstances over a period of time? Governments do not straitjacket themselves. There has to be flexibility, particularly when taxpayers’ money is being deployed.
Patricia Gibson
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. It is not about flexibility; it is about credibility. There is nothing wrong with the aims as articulated by the UK Government, but a Government cannot set themselves a task, call it a flagship policy and then reserve the right to move the goalposts as and when they fail to make progress. That is an important point.
The hon. Gentleman brings me to another very important matter. On the delivery of levelling up, what of the bids that were announced as being successful this time last year? We are in a different situation now, because the costs of labour and resources are being impacted by inflationary pressures. With regard to infrastructure projects, for example, road stone inflation is currently running at around 35%. This means that, in order to continue to support the levelling-up projects to which they have committed funds, the UK Government must increase the awards already made to take account of inflation, or councils must make up the difference because of the impact of inflation, which is difficult as council resources are already very stretched, or projects that were envisaged and costed last year are significantly scaled back. If it is the latter, that is very serious, because even successful levelling-up bids cannot have the impact that was first envisaged when the bids were made and approved. It is a mess.
There is also a significant impact on projects currently awaiting approval as they will be similarly hit with soaring inflation. I am very keen to find out how this will be dealt with. If this is not taken into account, bids already approved are hamstrung and cannot have the impact envisaged, which means that levelling up, as set out in the Bill, will amount to even less than it did before, with its vague missions and moving goalposts. It is no wonder that the Government want the ability to move the goalposts.
How ironic that, after more than a decade of Tory misrule and austerity, the UK is in a worse position than it should be, facing the worst downturn of any advanced economy in the world. No eurozone country is expected to decline as much as the UK, and, as a whole, the eurozone is expected to grow—so much for levelling up. In this context, marking their own homework and permitting changes to the mission, progress and methodology start to make the Government look more than a little suspicious. They could, of course, support amendment 14 and put all those suspicions to bed.
We are supposed to be persuaded simply by the mere passing of a Bill, vague and lacking in credibility as it is, that this Government can and will deliver levelling up. It is almost Orwellian. At the very point that we have a weakened economy, crumbling exports, rising food prices, rising energy prices, challenges with our fuel supply, and with the Government’s own forecasts predicting worse to come, the Secretary of State has the power to change the mission and progress of levelling up. That does not look like a Government who are confident and certain that they will actually deliver the meaningful levelling up that they say they want to deliver. However, if they support amendment 14, they could commit themselves in a way that would be far more credible.
Nickie Aiken
In the time available to me today, I will cover two amendments to the Bill, both of which I originally tabled. One has been taken on by the Secretary of State, for which I am incredibly grateful.
First, new clause 4, which stands in my name, is a technical amendment. My constituency covers two local government areas: the City of Westminster and the City of London. Both are subject to the rules governing the participation of councillors in formal discussion or in voting on matters where they have a pecuniary interest, as per the Localism Act 2011. The rules apply to Westminster and the City of London, but in the City, uniquely, there is an additional provision, contained in what is now section 618 of the Housing Act 1985, that bans councillors outright from discussing or voting on such matters. Contravening this ban constitutes a criminal offence.
The history of these provisions has been examined by the City’s officials, but their origin remains unexplained. These provisions have simply been repeated without comment in successive consolidations of housing legislation over the past 30 years. Members may ask why I have tabled this amendment. I do so because I believe, as I am sure everyone in this place does, that local people should be represented at council decision-making meetings, such as planning committees, when an application within a ward is being heard. As things stand, if there is a planning application that affects, say, the Barbican or Golden Lane estates in the City, a local councillor who represents Aldersgate or Cripplegate but who lives on one of those estates cannot speak at committee. To do so could lead to their being prosecuted. That is outdated and in fact outrageous.
By removing the punitive provisions in subsections 618(3) and (4) of the 1985 Act, my amendment corrects that anomaly and allows members of the Court of Common Council in the City of London to represent their residents, as every other councillor in the country does. This is a matter of equality of treatment, with which I am sure my hon. Friend the Minister will agree.
Secondly, I want to touch on Government amendment 1. The case for repealing the Vagrancy Act 1824 was made in this Chamber during debate on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. From conversations I have had with both the Metropolitan Police and the City of London Police, I believe alternative powers to deal with aggressive begging are already available and are being used, as we would expect. We have those powers from the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, so it should be no surprise that arrests and prosecutions under the Vagrancy Act have plummeted since 2014.
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
I will focus my remarks on new clause 84, tabled in my name. I thank colleagues who have put their names to it.
New clause 84 would require the Government to include reducing geographical disparities in adult literacy as one of their levelling-up missions. Additionally, it would require them, during each mission period, to review levels of adult literacy in the UK, to publish the findings of that review and to set out a strategy to improve levels of adult literacy and eradicate illiteracy in the UK. I believe that that is vital.
Poor literacy skills and illiteracy often consign people to insecure and low-paid work. They are a form of deprivation that can lead to isolation and poverty and can leave people vulnerable to exploitation. They can also impact on their children, as people with very low literacy skills often lack the confidence and ability to read to their children when they are young or assist them with their homework when they are older. That compounds the problem and means that a whole cohort of children are disadvantaged due to a lack of support at home in learning to enjoy reading. Very low literacy levels also leave people unable to fulfil their potential in other ways, such as navigating opportunities for travel, training, housing, leisure or work.
It is quite remarkable that the most recent national survey of adult basic skills in England was the 2011 skills for life survey, commissioned by the previous Labour Government. The survey interviewed more than 7,200 adults aged 16-65 in England and assessed their literacy, numeracy and information and communications technology skills. Their skills were assessed against the five lowest national qualification framework levels, which are entry levels 1 to 3 and levels 1 and 2.
As a guide, entry level 1 is equivalent to the expected level of attainment for pupils aged 5 to 6; entry level 2 to that for ages 7 to 9 and entry level 3 to that for ages 9 to 11. Adults with literacy skills at entry level 3 or below are deemed to be functionally illiterate. The survey found that in 2011 5.1 million adults, or 14.9% of the adult population, had literacy levels at entry level 3 or below, meaning that they were functionally illiterate.
The survey looked at differences between the regions in England and found that rates of functional illiteracy varied considerably. The highest levels were in London at 28% and the lowest were in the rest of the south-east and the south-west at 9%. Those figures demonstrate clear disparities among the regions, although one reason thought to be behind the high figure for London was the much higher proportion of adults living there for whom English is not their first spoken language.
However, analysis of only those adults with English as a first language shows that their rates of functional illiteracy were still highest in London and the north-east, both at 17%. Meanwhile, in the south-east, they were almost half that level at 9% and in the south-west 8%, while the national average was 12%. Those are the findings of the 2011 survey.
In 2022, according to the National Literacy Trust, 7.1 million adults in England can be described as functionally illiterate—so clearly things have got worse, not better. Such people can understand accurately and independently short, straightforward text on familiar topics, and obtain information from everyday sources, but reading information from unfamiliar sources or topics could cause problems.
Those 7.1 million adults represent 16.4%—or one in six—of the adult population in England. In Scotland, one in four adults experiences challenges because of a lack of literacy skills; in Northern Ireland, one in five adults has poor literacy skills; and in Wales, one in eight adults lacks basic literacy skills. That represents a crisis, and one that requires immediate attention from the Government. It is shameful that there has been no follow-up by the Government to the 2011 skills for life survey, which was commissioned by the last Labour Government. Why has there been no survey since?
We are considering levelling up, so it is important to understand that there are also regional disparities in the take-up of adult education in general. Nesta noted in its 2020 report, “Education for all: making the case for a fairer adult learning system”:
“There are major differences in the rates of participation in adult learning in different parts of the UK”.
According to its analysis,
“the South West and London stood out from the other regions, reporting higher participation levels of about 16 per cent. In contrast, Northern Ireland reported participation of around 10 per cent,”
and participation was also low in the north-east of England. It also found huge differences in participation within individual regions. For instance, the analysis showed that London had the greatest variation in participation of any region; the participation of adults in the west and north-west of outer London was 18%, compared with just 12% in the east of inner London.
Stephen Evans, the chief executive of the Learning and Work Institute, recently said that
“We need to level up lifelong learning”
and that
“we’re limiting people’s opportunities based on who they are and where they’re from. We’ve got to change that.”
I think he is absolutely right, and I hope the Minister takes note. Improving levels of adult literacy is important not only for empowering individuals to make the most of their lives, but for the economy, too. The millions of people who struggle to read and write undoubtedly make up a large proportion of those furthest away from the labour market.
As the WEA has noted, employers say that they value essential skills such as communication, teamwork and creative thinking, as well as the foundation of literacy, numeracy and digital skills. The CBI says that over 90% of the workforce will need to retrain by 2030. Clearly, those who struggle to read and write must be a priority for the Government if we are to improve productivity and address inequality.
Organisations such as the Good Things Foundation do important work on digital literacy and supporting people in need. Digital literacy skills are very important and have become more so as the world of work and methods of communication have changed drastically in recent years. However, people need literacy skills to acquire digital literacy, so we need action from the Government. It is notable that the Government introduced a £560 million adult numeracy programme last year, but there was nothing for literacy. Why? It is an essential skill for life in the 21st century. The Institute for Fiscal Studies cited a 50% fall in spending on classroom-based adult education between 2010-11 and 2020-21. That represents a massive cut in the provision of community-based adult learning opportunities, which are crucial for the delivery of adult literacy.
Addressing the crisis in adult literacy is a matter of real urgency if we are to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to reach their potential and if we are to address the economic challenges that our country faces. It makes absolutely no sense for the Government to continue ignoring this crisis. There can be no levelling up in the UK without a focused and well-resourced response to the crisis in adult literacy. I call on Members across the House to support new clause 84.
Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)
It is nice to be called near the beginning of a debate, Mr Deputy Speaker; I am grateful that I have managed to catch your eye—perhaps it is because I have put a tie on today. I am also grateful for the chance to speak on Report, as I sat on the Bill Committee in its latter stages, but for only five of the many, many sessions that the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) mentioned, so I experienced only a fraction of the joy that he did.
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak given my interest both in this place and as the leader of a council that is directly involved in devolution negotiations. Indeed, they are probably some of the more advanced negotiations and, to proceed, they require the Bill to pass. I thank the Minister for her response on a number of technical points in recent days and weeks, and for her commitment to this agenda, which I know she is passionate about.
The amendments focus largely on devolution in combined authorities. As I have repeated, I am frustrated that the planning parts are even in the Bill. It started as a Levelling-Up Bill, but planning was added to it later and has complicated it and made it difficult and controversial. Those could have been two separate things. We could have flown through this very quickly. I know it is before the Minister’s time, so I do not expect her to account for that, but the Bill could have been far simpler than it now is. The timing of all this is vital for the delivery of some of these combined authorities. If the Bill is delayed, it will delay the timeline for the delivery of these outcomes that we all seek, so it is important that the Bill is allowed to progress quickly.
Since my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) said some 18 months ago that these deals would be a key driver for levelling up, progress has been positive. Mansfield is often at the wrong end of many tables that would put it front and centre of the levelling-up agenda, so we wanted to be at the front of the queue for new powers and new funds. We are currently consulting on a new devolution deal, worth £1.14 billion initially in additional gainshare funding into our region, plus powers over transport, skills and economic development.
Huge opportunities for us stem from this Bill and from other existing growth projects across the region, whether that is our freeport, our development company, which is also formalising and given its powers through this Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, integrated rail plan projects or spherical tokamak for energy production—STEP fusion—which was recently announced for north Nottinghamshire. When painting out this opportunity for business clubs, residents and education providers recently, I have used the STEP fusion example. It is a £20 billion project with investment from the Government and the UK Atomic Energy Authority that could put us front and centre of clean energy for the world in 20 or 30 years’ time. It is a huge, long-term project, and what devolution gives us—I would like to think this is part of why our area was attractive for the bid—is the ability not only to have a prototype power plant in the future, but to create the skills environment and training opportunities around it, working with our colleges and universities so that local children can take up those courses and move into that space. That way, rather than just importing nuclear scientists from other parts of the world, young people in places such as Mansfield are given the opportunity to build and create.
The deal also means we will have the power to fill in the gaps in our transport system and ensure local people can easily access those opportunities and get to and from those jobs. That is game changing. There will be kids in my constituency who, in 20 years’ time, will work not just in nuclear science but in its supply chain who could never have dreamed of those opportunities on their doorstep even just a few months ago. The power of this deal and these opportunities is incredibly meaningful. Finally, the east midlands can be in the premier league alongside other regional partners; I hope we will do a bit better than Forest so far, although things are picking up. The project is a huge opportunity.
I welcome new clauses 61 and 62, which enhance the powers of Mayors over that key route network. Members will not be surprised by this if they have campaigned in elections, particularly local elections, but highways are always at the top of residents’ list. They are probably the one service, particularly at upper-tier, county level, that everybody uses and experiences, so they are always top of the list. More power and opportunity to engage in this space and work with National Highways on a wider range of networks and to do that more closely and in a more joined-up way is beneficial. I also look forward to the negotiations for our region around this transport pot and investment that is part of our deal and is yet to come.
I am afraid I cannot support new clause 71 tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice). I appreciate that he was making a particular case for his area, and he was right to do so; we all do the same thing. But one benefit of devolution—the Government have said that every area across the country will have the right to access this opportunity—is the chance to have some clarity and consistency within a structure that is currently incredibly complicated. I speak for an area that has, arguably, three tiers of local government. We see a combined authority as an opportunity to make coherent sense of that and to pull us into a structure that allows us to have shared strategies.
Other areas might take a different view, but it is not inconsistent or unrealistic to say that if someone wants the same powers as the west midlands, for example, they should have the same accountable structure as the west midlands. That will allow Government to have a consistent relationship with each region and each part of the country with those regional Mayors. That is my personal view from my experience of that engagement. If, having devolved powers, built structures and offered everyone that chance, we end up with a more complicated structure with different systems across the country, that would be a bad thing.
George Eustice
I agree it is good to have that consistency in England, but the amendment is specifically about Cornwall, which has a unique constitutional place within our family of nations.
Ben Bradley
My right hon. Friend knows Cornwall better than I do; I know it only as a holiday destination. I leave him to make the case for his particular place. I am sure that the Government will engage with him in that conversation. However, consistency is an important outcome from these proposals.
A number of amendments appear to duplicate things that are already happening around the country and in government. For example, new clause 46 speaks to a review of business rates, which I hope and trust the Government are already looking at. The Treasury review concluded last year and set out a five-year road map on that, but I hope the Government will take it further.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
High streets and market towns in constituencies such as mine are really struggling. Local residents are shopping less because of the cost of living crisis and businesses cannot compete with online retailers because of business rates, so I am surprised that the Government are not supporting new clause 46. After all, one of their 2019 manifesto commitments was to review business rates in order to come up with a better model that can allow our high streets to thrive and help to level up regions where market towns are struggling.
Ben Bradley
I agree with the hon. Lady’s premise; I have made the same case to Government myself. I simply point out that last year’s Treasury report, which I was reading this morning, which laid out the conclusions of an initial review of business rates, set out a five-year timetable for change. It is not as powerful or as fast as I would like, but that review has already begun and therefore new clause 46 appears to duplicate action where it is already happening.
As we heard from the hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood), new clause 84 seeks to get adult literacy written into levelling-up missions, but, as far as I can see, that is largely already there. The missions already speak to more people achieving basic standards of reading and writing, as well as improving skills, while one of the key strands of the devolved settlements is adult skills. It is fantastic that that is passed down to a regional level, giving us the opportunity to have far more clout and say over how such skills are delivered, so I think adult skills, such as numeracy and literacy, are at the forefront of the Bill as it stands.
Margaret Greenwood
Will the hon. Gentleman therefore be supporting new clause 84?
Ben Bradley
As I just said, as far as I can see, the provision is already there and therefore the new clause is unnecessary. Our conversations about devolution within the region have revolved massively around adult skills. In the future, I would like to see Government further devolve powers in related areas, particularly around provision delivered by such organisations as the Department for Work and Pensions, so that there will be a chance to engage in employability conversations and boost basic skills. I look forward to conversations about that in the future.
From conversations with officials and Ministers, it is clear that once we have the framework and structure, we can come back and talk about new things we would like to see devolved down to our region. That is an example of an area where Whitehall struggles to join things up and where such matters can fall through the gaps in a siloed system. One of my favourite examples of that is youth work, which sits across about six Departments so a joined-up strategy is difficult to achieve. If we can devolve such matters to a regional level, we will be able to share budgets and strategies and do things more effectively. I hope we will be able to have those conversations with Government in the future.
My final point is about flexibility in local budgets. I had the honour of hosting the local government Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), in Nottinghamshire a few weeks ago. We went into great detail about the council budget, the opportunities and risks of it, and some of the things that could be done that do not cost the Government any money. In the spirit of empowering local leaders and devolving powers to local areas, it is key to give them more flexibility over existing budgets.
If I had the same budget in my local authority but all the rules and ringfences about what I could spend it on were removed, I would have a surplus and I would not have a problem. The lack of flexibility in the system means that I can spend the budget only on certain things that are not always the priority. There is a good opportunity, whether in the upcoming local government settlement or in the 2023 devolution deals and beyond, to genuinely empower local council leaders to be able to take decisions on funding key priorities.
I will point to one example. In common with many people, I have a bus service improvement fund in Nottinghamshire County Council that allows me to build bus lanes. At the same time, I have a shortfall in the funding that I need to keep the buses running. I could end up in a scenario where I have to build bus lanes, but I have no buses to run in them, even though the money is already in my bank account and if I were allowed to do so, I could spend it on keeping the buses. That is just one example, and there are many more. Flexibility and empowerment of local councils and leaders is hugely important. I am pleased that the Government have committed to that through devolution, but there is more that could be done to support the sustainability of local councils too.
In conclusion, the timescales of the Bill are hugely important. It needs to be completed on time in the spring or early summer if we are to pass statutory instruments and stick to timetables and targets for elections in 2024. I urge the Government to push the Bill through and ensure that we meet those timescales, otherwise my region will be stranded: the deal will be done, the structures will be in place and everything will be ready to go, but we will have to wait another year for another set of elections. That seems arbitrary and would be incredibly frustrating. We are at the front of the queue and we just want to be let in the door. I trust that the Government will recognise the importance of delivering on those commitments. I look forward, of course, to speaking to the Minister in due course about the success of Mansfield’s levelling-up fund bid—she may hear that from a few hon. Members in this debate—so there are many conversations still to have.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
It is a pleasure to take part in the debate and to have heard the contributions so far, and an even greater pleasure to have been involved in all but two of the 27 Committee sittings—I missed them for the Westmorland county show, which is permissible in my opinion. I confess that I have not sat on a Committee for many years and I genuinely enjoyed it, which may be a peculiar thing to say. I enjoyed the civility of it, the way that we could go through the Bill line by line, and the fact that we could disagree—we disagreed pretty much politely throughout.
As has been observed by other hon. Members, the turnover of the ministerial team was rather like Mark E Smith’s The Fall—the Secretary of State was Mark E Smith in that characterisation, although even Mark E Smith never managed to sack himself. The turnover was remarkable, but all the Ministers were pleasant and well engaged, so I enjoyed the process.
The Bill is complex—there is a lot of it and a lot of detail—but I would argue that some of it is totally unnecessary, because levelling up the country needs not legislation but will. The phrase “levelling up” recognises that some regions of the United Kingdom, particularly in England, are behind others. Generally speaking, only London and the south-east tend to make a positive net contribution to GDP. The eastern region’s contribution is occasionally fractionally positive, but the rest of us technically make a negative contribution. That is not our fault; it is because of the way this country operates as a unipolar country, where all the resources are centred on London and its environs.
There is absolutely a need to level up, in the phrase that the Government have chosen, but the action seems starkly missing. Let us be honest: as we go through the process of public services and public spending cuts now, there is no doubt that the poorest regions of the country that are most in need of levelling up will, as always, be hardest hit, because those are the communities in which people most need public services. In my view, therefore, much of the Bill—for all that it has been a joy to discuss—is navel contemplation over action.
The part of the Bill that we are discussing that relates to devolution and the settlements and deals for local communities is thoroughly patronising. We are not actually being offered devolution at all, are we? We are being offered delegation. I am pleased to support new clause 71 in the name of the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), whose kind words about my former and current colleagues are genuinely well received and I am grateful on their and my behalf. He talked about the importance of Cornwall being able to choose its own destiny, which I fully support and which, surely, is what we want for everywhere else as well if we believe in devolution and empowering local communities.
The various Ministers who we spoke to in Committee consistently reinforced the position that level 3, the highest tier of devolution, will be available only to those communities that choose a Mayor. That is not devolution but delegation to neaten up the system for the benefit of the Government rather than to empower local communities. If rural and diverse communities such as Cumbria, which is not dissimilar to Cornwall, decide that they want devolution, but do not want to choose the model the Government tell them to have, who the heck are the Conservative Government in Westminster to dictate either to Cornwall or Cumbria that it must have such a system? We would like devolution—we demand devolution—and we demand not to be told the format that it must take. An obsession with symmetry is typical of all parties that end up in office—sometimes.
Ben Bradley
Does the hon. Member not accept that, if we allow every area to dictate the way it has devolution in the way it would like to have it, we would end up with a ridiculous hotchpotch of systems across the country that makes no coherent sense? Our system of local government and local governance is already incredibly mixed and complicated, and surely this is a chance to have some consistency across the board so that his area, just like my area, can have a positive and consistent relationship with Government and equal access to Government.
Tim Farron
I see the point, and I understand that the hon. Gentleman is a local government leader himself. Nevertheless, that is what people would say if they were sitting in Westminster, because it is neat and useful for them. The reality is that, in Cumbria, Cornwall, Northumberland or Shropshire, having the ability to choose our own style of government might be complicated for the Government, but it is not complicated for us. Do we believe in devolution, or do we want the Government to have things just as they want?
I feel—I fear, even—that what we are seeing is not devolution, but delegation. The Government are seeking neatness and convenience for their own sake, rather than the empowerment of communities. It is an obsession with symmetry, rather than the empowerment of such communities. With the exception of the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth and perhaps one or two others, the Government are playing to their stereotype of being out of touch with local communities. So, Mr Deputy Speaker, if you will allow me, I will play to my stereotype and talk about electoral reform. You would be very disappointed if I did not.
New clause 45 offers local authorities the opportunity to choose their own electoral system. Unsurprisingly—I will absolutely stagger you now, Mr Deputy Speaker, and predict this—a commitment to electoral reform will be in the next Liberal Democrat manifesto. There, I have said it. The point is that communities should be allowed to choose, and since the last election the Government have removed the ability to use the supplementary vote—not an electoral system I favour, but nevertheless one fairer than first past the post—for mayoral elections and police and crime commissioner elections, which I think removes choice from local communities.
I would also suggest this in support of my amendment. The Government choosing to make a change to the electoral system, as they have done in local government, without reference to a referendum is an interesting precedent for what might happen under a future Government. It is a precedent the Government will wish they had never set, because if a party or parties go into a future election committing to electoral reform in their manifestos and find itself or themselves in government, we now have the precedent that electoral reform can be delivered without reference to a referendum. The Government will rue the day, and they might rue it soon.
New clause 45 gives local authorities the opportunity to choose to elect their mayors, councillors and police and crime commissioners in the way they choose. If this really was a levelling-up and devolution Bill, of course the Government would permit local authorities to do that. They do not need to approve of what a local government area does, within obvious parameters, to be able to permit them to have that power.
I want to move on to new clause 46, in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), which, with your permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will seek to push to a vote. It is on the reform of the business rates system, to which my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) has already rightly and powerfully made reference. Business rates are an outdated and completely counterproductive system of taxation. They are harmful for our high streets and the economy because they directly tax investment in structures and equipment, rather than taxing profits or the fixed stock of land.
The 2019 Conservative manifesto committed to doing exactly what I am suggesting and proposing that the Government should do, so they should have no problem whatsoever in adopting new clause 46. It should be a piece of cake for them to do so, because in their manifesto they pledged to
“cut the burden of tax on business by reducing business rates. This will be done via a fundamental review of the system.”
Where is it? My amendment gives them the opportunity to do just that. This is the opportunity for them to show that they meant what they had in their manifesto.
Since the 2019 election, the Government have repeatedly tinkered with business rates but failed to bring forward that fundamental review. We often approve of that tinkering, but the fact that they are constantly tinkering is a living admission that the system is broken, so let us fix it. The fact is, business rates do not reflect the value of properties, particularly in the north and the midlands—areas outside of London and the south-east—and do active damage to our high streets, which are already under enough pressure.
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
I rise to speak to new clause 7, which is tabled in my name. I thank Members from across the House for supporting it and the Minister for the listening to my pleas. In short, new clause 7 intends to prevent the imposition of council tax on individual tenants of a room in a house with shared facilities, or in a licensed house of multiple occupancy.
This issue came to light in my Gosport constituency where the high street, like so many others up and down the country, is in decline. A local businessman, Daryn Brewer, identified an opportunity to breathe new life into our high streets and at the same time create affordable accommodation for young professionals. He is doing that by buying up empty disused shops, redeveloping them and bringing local independent traders into the shop space while converting the spaces above into high quality shared living accommodation. The residents have high-spec individual ensuite bedrooms, but shared kitchen, laundry and workspaces. They are effectively professional houses of multiple occupation and are known as Pro Pods. This is levelling up in its most pure form: reimagining our high streets as places where we do not just shop, but live, work, socialise and spend our time. At a stroke, it makes low-cost, high quality affordable living accommodation and takes some of the strain off the housing market.
Generally speaking, HMOs are in band C or D for council tax and are therefore classed as one dwelling, meaning the landlord is legally responsible for paying the council tax for that single dwelling. However, over recent years there has been a growing trend for the Valuation Office Agency to start to re-band those bedrooms as individual dwellings in and of themselves, meaning residents across Gosport, Portsmouth and, increasingly, across the whole country, are being hit with unexpected and completely unaffordable council tax bills. The VOA has stated that it is not taking a new approach to HMOs or systematically revaluing HMOs. However, this is a growing issue, one that my right hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) and I have brought to the attention of successive Ministers over the last couple of years, and one that colleagues across the House are increasingly seeing among their local landlords and developers. That is evidenced by the number of Members backing new clause 7.
There are several reasons why this issue poses a problem. First and foremost, it is placing a huge financial strain on people, often young professionals at the very start of their careers, who are suddenly landed with a council tax bill of up to £1,000, even after they have been allocated the single person discount. In some cases, it has even been backdated three years, so there could be a bill of up to £3,000. We can imagine how this is causing untold distress and misery, especially at a time when other living costs are rising. There have even been incidents of previous tenants being chased for a council tax bill they did not know they owed after they had moved out, due to reclassifying and backdating—a dreadful situation.
Shared housing is a core pillar of the housing sector. In 2018, HMOs provided up to 3 million sharers with rental accommodation across England and Wales. It is a significant contribution to the housing sector, so this issue has the potential to become a major problem. If these bedrooms start to be classified as dwellings and become band A, where the tenant is legally liable for paying the council tax, goodness knows where it will end. There are other knock-on impacts of this trend that I want, very briefly, to put on the record.
Disaggregation creates individual units, which are usually not self-contained. Once disaggregated, there is nothing to stop a landlord putting cooking facilities into these places retrospectively, thus creating miniature flats. Those do not meet housing standards or create quality living environments.
We also have the issue of housing numbers. Bedrooms within HMOs that are rebanded create a “dwelling” in law. That means that those bedrooms are added to the UK housing numbers, even though they do not meet the minimum national space standards and are not self-contained. Unwittingly, the VOA, local authorities and therefore, ultimately, the Government would be fudging the housing numbers. For each bedroom that is rebanded by the VOA as a dwelling, local authorities can claim on the new homes bonus scheme. That suggests that the Government could award those bonuses to local authorities without proper homes being created through the usual planning process.
If this continues and bedrooms keep being rebanded, the Government could be seen to be encouraging the creation of dwellings that simply do not meet national space standards. Unless they grip that growing issue, they will potentially create substandard rental properties that would contradict the renters reform Bill and the decent homes White Paper.
The Bill is fundamentally about levelling up our wonderful country. By not addressing this issue, we are doing a disservice to our constituents, many of whom are young strivers, simply trying to build their careers and make their way in life. They have been hit unexpectedly with an extra financial strain that they have not budgeted for and certainly do not deserve, at a time they can least afford it.
I deeply regret that I had to table an amendment to put a stop to this. I have frequently raised the issue with the relevant Departments, but it has fallen on deaf ears. It has led me to fear, until this point, that some people working in this area may have forgotten that council tax is a property tax, not a head tax. It should not be down to individuals who are paying simply for a bedroom to foot the bill.
That is why I am deeply grateful to the Minister and the Secretary of State for engaging with me so brilliantly and openly on this issue, and for confirming that they will have an accelerated consultation on the issue with a view, potentially, to introducing the relevant regulations to prevent this happening and to address it. That will need to cover how we deal with the sites that have already been revalued, the bills that have been issued and the arrears that have been incurred, so that is not straightforward.
I am grateful for the Minister’s commitment to address this matter, and I have no doubt that she will. I know that she cares deeply about levelling up. She is an excellent Minister and I know that she wants to seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity to get the Bill right and deal with this issue. I thank the Minister for her commitment. I will not push my amendment to a vote and I look forward to working with her to make sure that we solve this issue once and for all.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
I will speak to new clause 82 and amendments 71 and 72 in my name and those of my hon. Friends. New clause 82 seeks to reinstate the standards board. Every single one of us in this place should be able to get behind that, as it is not partisan; it is about restoring the public’s faith in local politics.
We have all seen examples of councillors acting outwith their role and their code of conduct. We also see, often, that the act that eventually leads to their demise follows an established pattern of behaviour spanning many years. Those around them may have been fearful of calling out their behaviour for many reasons. Last year, a councillor was sentenced after pleading guilty to a charge relating to the abuse of public trust in public office, yet he remains in post. In another area, two former council chiefs and a county council leader are due to appear in court after being charged in connection with a long-running police investigation into allegations of financial irregularity.
We all know, of course, that those cases are in the minority and that the vast number of councillors work hard for their community. However, those who behave in that way are currently given a free ride, as the framework around complaints is largely kept in-house. Councils and fellow councillors should simply not be allowed to police themselves. Such an arrangement puts officers, and particularly monitoring officers, in impossible positions. Those officers, who are in contractually and politically restricted positions, somehow have to find ways to manage governance and the expectations and pressures of political groups when the sanctions available to the standards committee are very limited and its members are political colleagues of those they are investigating. That point was noted by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which reported:
“We have heard of cases where Monitoring Officers have been put under undue pressure or forced to resign because of unwelcome advice or decisions”.
A Local Government Chronicle survey finds that 60% of monitoring officers do not believe that they have sufficient tools to tackle serious misconduct among elected members.
Mr Betts
One of the problems with the Standards Board was that it was simply overwhelmed with complaints because residents were allowed to go to it at first instance, rather than appealing to it if their local authority did not deal properly with their case. Another problem was that parish council complaints were allowed under it. If those two issues had been addressed, the Standards Board could have dealt with a smaller number of cases, as an appeal system. It would have been a very different arrangement.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
My hon. Friend is correct. It is simply not in the interests of local people to have no mechanism at all to remove someone from office who is acting inappropriately. People in my area who have experienced the damage caused by our previous council leader and his supporters find offensive the suggestion that removing that level of accountability has somehow given them more of a voice or restored any power to them.
It is the greatest honour to serve our community, whether at council level or in Parliament. With that should come appropriate checks, balances and levels of accountability. The public need confidence in the system. They need to know that cases such as those that I have mentioned will never happen again. My new clause would ensure that.
Amendments 71 and 72 simply ask that the Government align the levelling-up missions with the United Nations sustainable development goal to end hunger and ensure access by all people—the poor and the vulnerable, including infants—to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round, and that it be measured by tracking the prevalence of undernourishment in the population and the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity, based on the food insecurity experience scale. It is astonishing that a Bill that attempts to level up all parts of the UK does not mention hunger or food insecurity once, despite the Government acknowledging that it is not possible to level up the country without reducing the number of children going hungry and living in poverty.
George Eustice
The hon. Lady is right that this is an incredibly important issue, but is it not the case that all these issues were addressed through the Agriculture Act 2020, and the requirement to publish every three years a food security report that includes very detailed chapters on household food insecurity, which is what she is concerned about?
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I thank the right hon. Member for that intervention. He will know that those measurements have not resulted in reduced levels of poverty. The amendments would strengthen the Government’s commitment to reducing it.
There are 14.5 million people living in poverty across our country. Poverty among children and pensioners rose in the six years prior to covid, alongside a resurgence of Victorian diseases associated with malnutrition, such as scurvy and rickets. Surely the Government must have grasped that for at least five of their own missions to succeed people need access to food. Living standards, education, skills, health and wellbeing are all deeply impacted in a household impacted by hunger. The Government’s own reporting in the family resources survey, which was made possible only after years of campaigning to implement my Food Insecurity Bill, shows that households in the north-east are more likely to struggle to afford food than those anywhere else in the country. It would be totally misguided to think that we can level up the country without addressing that issue.
We know that the figures will increase. Already this year food insecurity has risen by almost 10%. Thanks to the Government’s economic mismanagement, the biggest fall in household incomes on record will only exacerbate those levels of hunger. The Food Foundation has found that levels of food insecure households are rising, with figures for September this year showing a prevalence in nearly 10 million adults, with 4 million children also suffering from hunger. If it were not for the over 2,500 food banks in the country, those adults and children would be without food. That should be a source of great shame for Government Members.
Regional disparities, which the Bill supposedly aims to level out, are more stark when we look at the fact that life expectancy in my part of the world, the north-east, is two and a half years less than in the south-east. Increasing healthy life expectancy is a huge challenge. The pandemic revealed the serious underlying health inequalities in this country. Public health funding will play a crucial role in helping to achieve the mission; however, in the most recent allocation councils faced a real-terms cut. That is just another example of where the Government’s actions do not meet their levelling-up rhetoric.
The Government commissioned a national food strategy, which found that diet is the leading cause of avoidable harm to our health; however, the Government have ignored Henry Dimbleby’s recommendation to increase free school meals eligibility. If the Government are serious about levelling up, tackling food insecurity is vital to achieving the levelling-up White Paper’s missions. As Anna Taylor, chief exec of the Food Foundation, said:
“If the Government wants to really get to grips with the issue, a comprehensive approach to levelling-up must tackle food insecurity head on.”
The Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison), claimed that the amendments in Committee were not needed as the Bill is
“designed to establish the framework for the missions”––[Official Report, Levelling-up and Regeneration Public Bill Committee, 20 October 2022; c. 859.]
not the content of them. That sums up the vacuous nature behind all the missions in the Bill. By making them as opaque as possible, and lacking such content, the Government will not have to bother delivering on a single one of them.
The Government should accept this amendment today. By doing so, they would signal that at long last they accept that people are going hungry on their watch and they are eventually prepared to do something about it. I sincerely hope that they will do this, but I expect that they will not. In any event, I look forward to the Minister’s response later on.
John Stevenson
I want to speak to new clauses 1 and 2, but particularly new clause 1, which relates to the election of Mayors. These are straightforward new clauses and I will not be putting them to a vote, but I hope that the Government will give serious consideration to new clause 1 in particular, because I think it addresses a gap in the current devolution discussions.
When it comes to devolution, my preferred option would be for far more radical reform. I believe that local government in England is in need of substantial reform and that the Government should embrace devolution. The way to do this is to have devolution settlements right across the country with the appropriate powers and responsibilities so that we properly decentralise and also have consistency. I also think that, as part of that, the introduction of Mayors everywhere is a positive thing.
James Grundy (Leigh) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend not recognise that, as we have heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), not every area of the country wants a Mayor, and that it would be wrong to force a Mayor on those areas?
John Stevenson
I will come to that point about particular areas. My belief is that if we believe in devolution, we have to set out what we believe, embrace it and introduce it. One of the problems with our present devolution settlement is that there is too much inconsistency. There is a patchwork of devolution and a patchwork of local government that is not in any way beneficial for individual areas or for the country as a whole.
I genuinely believe that the introduction of Mayors has brought leadership to particular areas. It also creates accountability and responsibility, and we are seeing the successes up and down the country, including in Teesside, in the midlands and in Manchester, where we have Mayors who have demonstrated leadership in their locality. But the Government’s approach seems to be very different. They have adopted what I would describe as a gradualist approach to devolution, a policy that appears to be about bottom-up with a degree of incentives or pushing local areas to go down a particular route. I accept that it has had some success, and there is indeed some potential success in the pipeline, but it has been limited to date.
The result of Government policy is uneven devolution and, as I have said, a patchwork of inconsistency across the country. What we really need is clarity and consistency, but I accept that that is probably going to be for the future rather than for the next couple of years. Right now, I do at least support the direction of travel that the Government are taking with regard to devolution and I will certainly support the Bill, but their approach appears to be only to approach existing local authorities to instigate discussions for a devolution settlement in that particular area. They are almost waiting for requests for devolution, and any success will depend on the decisions of local authorities in particular parts of the country.
But what about those areas where there is support for devolution, but not necessarily from the local authority in that area? Areas can be held back by the actions of individuals or individual authorities when in fact that locality supports a devolution settlement and actually wants one. We saw that happen in Cumbria a few years back when a devolution settlement was in prospect but held back in many respects by the views of the leader of a particular council. For example, businesses in a particular area could be supportive of a Mayor and devolution, as could charities, parish councillors and minority political parties on councils—indeed, councils could be divided on the issue—but for one reason or another the dominant view would be against a devolution settlement rather than for one. There could also be support for devolution among the wider population. There is a growing appreciation that areas that do not end up with a devolution settlement and a Mayor are likely to be left behind. Because of the finance and a Mayor’s ability to be an advocate, areas will lose out if they do not have that voice. When the Chancellor goes to the north of England to speak to local leaders, his automatic choice will be to speak to Mayors. Areas that are bereft of a devolution settlement do not have a Mayor, so they will be left behind.
I tabled new clause 1 to create a reserve power for the Government to step in if they feel that a particular area has an appetite for devolution and a Mayor but is being held back by, say, the machinations of local politics. Having that reserve power would enhance the Government’s ability to negotiate devolution deals and would strengthen their position. I therefore hope they will consider introducing this measure.
Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)
I support the amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck). This debate has illustrated a central defect in the Bill, to which I will return when I address clause 1.
People going hungry is clearly a product of 10 to 12 years of austerity and deepening division in our society. Somebody needs to get a grip on this. I represent 23 ex-mining villages in the heart of England, in Yorkshire. Cornwall is a very special place, but Yorkshire is God’s own county. The county of the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) may have a special constitutional role, but Yorkshire has a divine role.
It is interesting that the Bill has no vision for what parish and town councils can do. Notwithstanding that, parish and town councils in my area are the ones feeding the hungry and, now, opening up warm places for elderly people and families to go to, because of the cost of energy. They are the ones doing the levelling up.
When there was a problem with people leaving their home because of covid, who arranged for people in my village to knock on doors to offer to go to the Co-op? It was the town and parish councils. They organised the churches, the voluntary sector and all the other bodies in the village. I represent 23 ex-mining villages, and it happened everywhere in my constituency. Why are we distributing power away from the centre in a top-down, uniform, homogenous way that is convenient only to the men and women in Westminster, rather than to the communities we represent, which are so different in character?
The Bill is full of constitutional changes, structural changes and processes, but it does not specify the outcomes. Part 1 refers to the mission statements that will be produced, but there is no reference in the Bill to what those mission statements will contain. However, the White Paper has a helpful indication of what the mission statements, which the Minister will eventually organise, will contain. She needs to tell the House what her intentions are in relation to the mission statements, because there is nothing in the Bill.
Clause 1 talks about the mission statements being
“laid before each House of Parliament”.
Does that mean there will be a vote? Will the mission statements be amendable? Laying them before the House might mean putting them in the Library, which is simply not acceptable. If the Bill does not allow the House to discuss the objectives we are trying to achieve, there must be proper scrutiny of the matter in the House of Commons.
The amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) raise the question of outcomes, rather than process. She wants to see young people—in fact, all our people—fed. The Bill does not allow for that, because we are dealing with structures rather than outcomes. I want to illustrate this with two further points that are in the mission statements in the White Paper, but not in the Bill. They relate to bus transportation, which the Minister referred to, and another point. I will talk about them quickly, because there is not a lot of time.
My constituency is the 529th least socially mobile constituency in England. There are 533 on the list, so only four seats have less mobility than mine. What does that mean? A child born in poverty today in my constituency will almost certainly die in poverty—there is no social mobility unless we do something dramatic—and younger than children being born elsewhere. That is not acceptable.
Social mobility is about education and all sorts of other things, but there are two things I want to focus on briefly. One is transport. In a village that has no work any more—remember that the villages were built around coal mines, which have all gone—it is very difficult to find work. People have to move from one place to another, but the way in which we organise our public transport system is not helpful. I met a woman who walks in the dark for an hour from one village to another to work, and then back in the dark at night. That is not acceptable.
There are 24,000 people in my constituency—I raise my constituency to illustrate a broader point—without access to a car. I asked how many people use a bus or a train. Out of the whole constituency, only 3,900 people use either a bus or a train, yet there are 24,000 people without a car. The buses stop early in the evening and start later in the morning. Lloyds bank tell me that of the 650 seats in our country, people in mine rank 621st for how likely we are to use public transport, through our credit or debit cards or however we pay. That is not acceptable. Will the Minister accept that something has gone radically wrong with our public transport system that in a constituency such as mine with no social mobility at all, people are imprisoned in villages with no work and no public transport? Something drastic needs to be done about it, which is not in the Bill.
Another point that is in the White Paper but not the Bill is digital exclusion. The White Paper states that digital exclusion and social exclusion go together. Of course they do, but here is the fact. In my constituency, there is no easy way to move around without a car—using cars is not a great thing anyway for the planet—but the download speed in my village is 46 megabits per second. The average for the UK is 86. We have people running businesses in the constituency who cannot move to a job somewhere, and it is not working. I met a guy—an ex-miner—who had won this wonderful contract to provide design solutions for the New York stock exchange. Guess what? He was doing the design at work in my constituency but he had to put the computer in the back of the car and drive it home so that he could access the internet in the evening. That is not acceptable.
As for telephones, in my house I cannot use a mobile phone. What I want is a discussion not about my constituency, but about everyone who lives in left-behind or held-back communities up and down our country. The talk of levelling up in the Bill gave them hope. Everybody has clocked those words, but they have also clocked something else: the Government have not willed the means to change what has happened to so many communities, which are locked out of the so-called prosperity of our country. I feel very angry about this, and I am very disappointed with this Bill.
My final point is on local government. I was council leader in Leeds, one of the great cities of the country. We had resources to begin to make a difference, although not enough—we always needed more; council leaders will always say that—but local authorities no longer have the resources to deliver the kind of levelling-up agenda the Government say they want. We see that in every single service—buses, trains, education, feeding people who are hungry. Funding for all those areas has been cut.
There was a discussion earlier in the debate about literacy. My constituency has some of the worst educational attainment figures in the country, and school funding has been cut by 40% during this Government’s time in office. We cannot level up on peanuts or simply by changing structures; we have to will the means as well.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
I rise to speak in support of new clause 34, which I and my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) and others have tabled in this group of amendments. It forms part of a larger package of new clauses and amendments, most of which will be debated on day two, and I will try not to trespass too much on to those other amendments.
New clause 34 would require a review to be carried out of the Secretary of State’s compulsory purchase powers. Subsection (3) highlights the particular importance of properties which have been unoccupied for a prolonged period and buildings of local public importance in our high streets which might also have been left unused. The new clause highlights the importance of bringing derelict land back into use. We all know new homes need to be provided; we need to do more to make sure that land that is derelict and unoccupied is put to use to help deliver those new homes, hence the new clause. We should use this kind of brownfield site, particularly in urban areas, as a key way to address concerns about the supply of housing, and to do so in a way that does not undermine local decision making or damage the environment, as is the case with other aspects of our planning system.
Of course care must be taken with regard to the exercise of compulsory purchase powers; it is a serious matter to remove someone’s property, even if a fair price is paid. The landowner should be given appropriate compensation, and relevant planning rules must be followed in terms of what actually gets built on these derelict sites—for example, green-belt land protection must not be compromised—but I genuinely believe there is scope for expansion of the use of compulsory purchase powers to open up more brownfield sites for new homes.
This new clause is supported by the Local Government Association, and I am grateful to it for that. I believe that there is some appetite in local government to move to a more active approach on compulsory purchase order powers. Landowners must be given a chance to remedy the problem and start using the land in a positive way, but if they fail to do so—if sites lie abandoned for years and years, for example—it seems not unreasonable for the state or local authority to step in and get some homes built there. I gather that there can be genuine problems in establishing who the owner is, and the review called for in the new clause should consider how this could be resolved, for example through insurance.
The review requested in this new clause should also consider buildings of community importance in our town centres, which may also be left unoccupied for a protracted period. Regeneration of our town centres is of course a core aim of this Government and this Bill. Again, I acknowledge that CPOs are a serious step and should only be undertaken after careful consideration and consultation, but proportionate use of such powers by local councils could be helpful in unlocking broader regeneration schemes to boost high streets.
I take this opportunity to make a broader point about our local high streets and the crucial role that they play in our communities. We all know that they have faced so much adversity over recent years. The big shift to online retail has reduced footfall and made it harder and harder to sustain viable businesses in our town centres. Covid, of course, intensified that trend. That is why I very much welcome the huge programme of grants and support that were delivered by the Government during the pandemic for local businesses in high streets, especially for hospitality.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
I rise to speak to my amendments 69 and 70, but before doing so I want to put on record my support for the amendments in favour of “true devolution”, as others have been saying, not delegation in all of its messiness. In particular, I support the amendments advocated by the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) and the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron).
It is also a great pleasure to speak after my colleague, the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett), who spoke so powerfully about the importance of devolution. From what he was saying, very much focusing on the issues of inequality and social justice, I guess the comments that I would like to add are from the angle of sustainability. If we are to have any hope of meeting our decarbonisation targets, it will be by pushing power down to a more local level. In my view, both social and environmental justice are absolutely served by serious devolution, not by what we have had served up to us today.
Turning to my amendments, amendment 69 would support a just transition for workers in high-carbon industries, such as oil and gas workers in the North sea. We know there are huge opportunities that come with the transition to a zero carbon economy but, as it stands, those workers risk losing out and being held back from accessing good green jobs instead.
Research published in 2020 revealed a huge appetite to be part of the transition to the zero carbon economy, with more than 80% of those surveyed working in oil and gas saying they would consider moving to a job outside their industry and more than half saying they would choose to transition to renewables and offshore wind if they had the opportunity to retrain. However, as things stand, oil and gas workers face an often insurmountable barrier to doing so, because they would have to pay for entirely new training courses, despite there being many shared skills among the offshore energy sectors. That is on top of an average of £1,800 a year that workers currently pay out of their own pockets to maintain their existing training and safety qualifications.
Since I tabled amendments during the passage of the Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022, calling for what is often referred to as an offshore training passport, the training standards bodies OPITO, the Global Wind Organisation and the International Marine Contractors Association have all announced that they are looking at training duplication and mapping out pathways forward. That is welcome, but much more needs to be done to ensure a truly just transition for oil and gas workers, who have valuable skills and experience in offshore energy.
We simply cannot allow communities to be hollowed out and left behind as we strive to meet our climate targets. We must learn the lesson of what happened when the coal mines were closed and the dislocation that was caused, which communities are still living with today. That cannot be allowed to happen again.
New research from the organisation Platform shows that investment in three key energy sectors—offshore wind, retrofitting and electrolyser manufacturing—could pave the way for more than 100,000 green jobs in regions with high oil and gas employment. A just transition for workers in the fossil fuel industry is both possible and necessary, and my amendment would support that goal. Specifically, the amendment would require that the first statement of levelling-up missions include the mission to increase significantly the number of people completing high-quality skills training, bringing the commitment in the levelling up White Paper into the text of the Bill itself. Crucially, it makes explicit that that training must include green skills training for workers in high-carbon industries who wish to transition to careers in well-paid green energy sectors, with cross-sectoral recognition of skills regardless of their current contract status. It gets to the very heart of what levelling up ought to mean and ensures that all communities are able to reap the rewards of our transition to a greener and fairer economy.
My second amendment, amendment 70, would rectify the failure of any of the current levelling-up missions to acknowledge the importance of access to nature in shaping how people feel about where they live. The covid-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of access to nature and a recent survey by Natural England found that 90% of people agreed that natural spaces are good for both mental health and physical wellbeing. Yet we know that people from ethnic minorities or those with low incomes are much less likely to live near accessible green space, and there is a particular inequality in access to our wilder and more open spaces. The Campaign for National Parks estimates that while, for example, 60% of the Yorkshire dales is open access, the public have the right to roam across just 0.5% of the broads in Norfolk and Suffolk.
My amendment takes inspiration from the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (Amendment) Bill, my private Member’s Bill, which recently started its Second Reading that is due to be resumed in March next year. That Bill has support from all sides of the House and would amend the CROW Act to include more landscapes such as rivers, woods, more grasslands and green belt, essentially extending access to approximately 30% of English land from just 8% that we are currently legally able to access in England.
Amendment 70 would require that the first statement of levelling-up missions include a mission to expand public access to nature and to reduce geographic inequalities in access to open space land. It addresses the frankly extraordinary omission of nature from this Bill, and would have a potentially transformational effect in improving access to our beautiful countryside and the wellbeing and mental health benefits that that would bring. I hope the Government will consider it.
James Grundy
First of all, I commend the Minister on what I thought was an excellent opening speech. It was the first time I have been in the Chamber when she has given one. I thank her not just for that but for the time that she makes available to Back Benchers such as me for discussions on levelling up. I know that we all greatly appreciate it.
I also commend my hon. Friends on the Back Benches who have done so much work in putting forward important amendments. I hope that the Government will, as they have indicated, incorporate the vast majority of those amendments into the Bill. It is important that some of the issues raised by Back-Bench colleagues are addressed, and so far, I have been heartened by what has been said.
On the Bill itself, I was heartened when the Minister spoke about infrastructure. As many people will know, the constituency of Leigh has wanted a bypass for 60 years and has been waiting for it to be completed for 40 years. The problem is that the Atherleigh Way bypass runs across three local authorities and two counties, and it is difficult to get this stuff finished under existing laws.
As Andy Burnham—the previous incumbent of my seat—used to say, Leigh is one of the largest towns in the north-west of England without a railway station. Well, I am very pleased to say that, after 60 years, Golborne station is being reopened, and I am hopeful that we will be able to get a station opened for Leigh as well. Of course, levelling up is a cross-departmental discipline.
On regeneration, Leigh Means Business, the local community interest company, has provided me with information stating that almost 25% of commercial property in the centre of Leigh is vacant and unused. I think that goes to the point made by colleagues about the importance of bringing back into use brownfield sites in red-wall town centres such as mine before we start chipping away at the green belt and the green fields on the edge of town.
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
I am so delighted that my hon. Friend is making that point, because it is pretty much central to so much of what we want to see. We are accused of being nimbys and of saying no, no, no to everything, but we have a dozen-plus amendments because we want to find solutions for the Government. We loathe the top-down targets because they are fantastically un-Conservative, but we are desperate to try to find a way to change the balance between brownfield and greenfield development. Does he agree that if we can get that change in dynamic, we can fire up a development boom in this country? We could avoid so many of the stresses about greenfield development by focusing much more on brownfield.
James Grundy
I am glad that my hon. Friend says that, because before my slip was withdrawn this morning, I was meant to be in Greater Manchester speaking about Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s “Places for Everyone” strategic development plan. I attended a session about two or three weeks ago, and the point was made—not just by me but by others, including the CPRE—that if we focused on addressing the proper use of brownfield sites in Greater Manchester, we would be able to fulfil the target set under the “Places for Everyone” plan without taking a single piece of green belt. I am delighted that these issues have been brought to the fore. I served for 13 years as a councillor on Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council, and these arguments have been batted back and forth for many years, so I am tremendously pleased that we have been able to bring these issues to the fore.
On the technical matters, my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) said that he thought it might be better if a separate planning Bill had been introduced, and I think there is a strong case for that, but we are where we are. As I said, I am pleased that the Government intend to listen to the concerns of Back Benchers and incorporate a number of remedies that I think will be of great importance for improving the Bill.
There is, however, one matter on which, I am afraid, I am not entirely on board with the Government. I am sure that it will not come as a shock to anyone on either Front Bench that I am not a tremendous fan of elected Mayors. To my mind, the correct approach to reforming local government is through localism, and not devolution, because the problem we have with the form of devolution that the Government have chosen is that it creates a number of unaccountable sinecures that will be run by regional Svengalis. The problem is that this encourages a form of challenge to the Government whereby a regional Mayor of whatever stripe stands up and says, “The Government are terrible, give me more money.” [Interruption.] I see the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) is somewhat amused.
Jon Trickett
Why would someone not speak up for local communities against a Government making mistaken decisions? Why on earth should that be a bad thing?
James Grundy
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. The issue is that it does not matter what the actual circumstances are. Regardless of the facts on the ground, Mayors are incentivised by the nature of their role to stand up and say, “I am fighting for my area.” It encourages them to concoct fights with central Government, regardless of the issue. Then we end up with this position where there is constant strife between central Government and regional Mayors.
The problem with regional Mayors—a number of colleagues including my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) have made excellent points on this—is that it creates one single figure representing in some cases millions of people. A huge amount of power is vested in that individual, and that is deeply unhealthy.
We have heard the arguments for a sense of conformity across local government. I fear that that approach replicates the errors of the 1973 local government reforms, which created ever-larger local authorities. I remember—it was before I was born—that the campaign against it was, “Don’t vote for Mr R. E. Mote”, because the feeling was that the decision-making process was being removed ever further away from small communities to large, more remote places. As I am sure the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) knows, because we share a borough, the people of Leigh in the 1970s campaigned hard to avoid being merged into the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, and we lost, much to our immense regret. Other communities, such as Warrington, that campaigned successfully to stay out of Greater Manchester are much happier in Cheshire. I know that the good people of Bury successfully campaigned to stay out of the much larger Rochdale borough that was proposed. I fear that we are replicating the errors of the 1973 local government reforms on a county level or, indeed, a multi-county level with these regional Mayors.
I am sure you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, that there is not universal approval for the idea that everywhere should have Mayors. I spoke on “Sunday Politics North West” a number of months ago, and there was cross-party agreement that Lancashire—your home county, where your fine constituency of Ribble Valley lies—wanted a combined local authority, not a Mayor, and I fully support that. It had universal cross-party approval. My understanding is that other areas, such as Cheshire, are basically not entirely on board with the idea of a Mayor covering the entire county.
We have heard about Cornwall, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth made a compelling case. The only bit I did not agree with was where he said that Cornwall was a special case. I agreed with every word he said except that, because I believe that every part of England that does not want a mayoral devolution settlement should not be forced to have one. Furthermore, I also agree with Opposition Members who said that the best sort of levelling-up deal and funding should not be tied to having a Mayor. That is an obnoxious provision with which I profoundly disagree. I am afraid that on that particular issue, the Government will not have my support. I place my grave reservations about that measure on record.
In broad terms, I think the Bill is superb. A number of improvements have been made during its progress, and as I have said before, I thank Members who have come forward with amendments, and I thank the Minister for her response on how they will address that. As I have said, I have grave concerns about the path of devolution that we are taking as a Government and those issues need to be addressed. One size fits all will not work across the whole of England. We have to address the serious issues at the heart of trying to hammer square pegs into round holes.
The Minister referred to the Greater Manchester trailblazer devolution deal, just as the Chancellor did in the autumn statement, but I would appreciate it if she conveyed to the Secretary of State that I, and other Greater Manchester MPs, would very much like to be briefed on that. While the Government may have spoken to the Mayor of Greater Manchester, I am afraid that consultation on the issue with Greater Manchester colleagues has not been forthcoming—I see the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Wigan, nodding. I assume that, like me, she has received very little consultation, or none.
Over the past few years, there has been an unfortunate tendency for Governments and Departments to seem far happier speaking to regional Mayors than to Members of this House. Members of the House should firmly resist the idea of being turned into powerless cyphers. In my view, a Mayor is a part of local government. They should have a lesser role in the governance of this nation than we do as Members of Parliament. To dilute the powers of Members of this House is fundamentally wrong.
After all, the vast majority of Mayors, other than in London, where there is a full Assembly, have scant accountability mechanisms—there is no Greater Manchester Assembly or Merseyside Assembly. Vesting such powers in individuals who negotiate directly with Government Departments, with scant input from Members of Parliament whose areas those mayoral authorities covers, is an unsustainable position. I understand that that is not the fault of the Minister, but I hope she will stress very firmly to the Secretary of State that the issue needs to be addressed, and addressed quickly.
I have covered everything I want to say. Overall, the core of this legislation is extremely sound. I commend the work of the Minister and her colleagues, as well that of colleagues who worked on the Bill before she took up her role. The tension between devolution and localism has come up today and, unless it is addressed, it will continue to come up as we discuss other pieces of legislation. The thing about devolution is that everything tends to get devolved after time and as MPs we get asked about everything. If we become shut out of the discussion and the process, that will present problems, regardless of party and across the House.
Mr Betts
We have before us something called a Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. I agree with the hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) who said that the Bill might be better if the planning elements had been taken out of it. The problem is that that would not have left much remaining, because essentially it is a planning Bill with bit of levelling up tacked on.
Indeed, as I said on Second Reading, the Bill has no new powers and there is no new money for levelling up and devolution. The Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee has launched an inquiry into the funding of devolution and levelling up. We have just started taking evidence and it will be interesting to see what conclusions are found, based on that evidence.
I do not agree with the hon. Member for Leigh (James Grundy) that we are diluting the powers of Members of Parliament. Hopefully, what we are doing is taking powers from central Government and handing them down to local government. I am in favour of that; we do not do nearly enough of that in this country. Indeed, as Members of Parliament we sometimes have to recognise that we do not have that much power. The Government get on with their business, and occasionally they tell us what they are doing.
James Grundy
I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s sentiment, but my concern is that, effectively, devolved Mayors look increasingly like not local government but an interim tier of Government—almost like the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Assembly.
Mr Betts
I will return to that, but I will first comment on the planning issues, which we will hopefully come back to at a future date. There are some challenges around housing targets and how we get to 300,000 if we do not have the building blocks at a local level. I am sure that will be an interesting discussion.
I am in favour of building on brownfield sites wherever possible, because this is about regenerating and bringing life back to many areas that have suffered incredible decline. I would say, however—the Government will have to listen at some point—that building on brownfield sites is more expensive. In my constituency, there are old industrial areas with chemicals in the ground and old derelict buildings that need clearing and improving before we begin to put something new in their place. That is an expense. At some point, the public purse will have to find the money for that to enable private sector development.
The other day, I sat almost entranced for half an hour by a briefing from Professor Philip McCann, who is now at the Alliance Manchester Business School but was previously at the University of Sheffield. His description of this country was staggering. He talked about the inequalities between regions in this country that make us different and more unequal than any other country in western Europe. He said that the inequalities between the richest parts of the south-east and the rest of the country are now wider than they were between East and West Germany at the time of reunification, which is staggering. The richest part of the country in the south-east has a degree of affluence, an income and gross value added levels that make it very similar to the richest parts of western Europe. The rest of the country, particularly northern areas, have productivity levels below those of the Czech Republic. It is staggering that that is where we have got to. One of the big challenges is to remove that inequality.
We are one of the most centralised and unequal countries, so the idea that central government is the way to level up is nonsense; we level up only by getting powers down to local communities. To come back to the point of the hon. Member for Leigh, with which I am not sure I totally agree, that probably means that we need something beyond the size of an individual local authority to enable the economic transfer of power on the scale that is necessary to make a difference—to attract overseas investment, to get the skills agenda going, to put the transport infrastructure in place, and to do all the things that we want to see. That is why combined authorities are probably a good way forward—I will put one or two conditions on that in a second—with or without an elected Mayor.
I was against elected Mayors, but I have come round to the view that they work. I would not impose them on an area, but it is right to have that option. Most areas will conclude from what they have seen elsewhere that having a focal point has helped combined authorities to establish themselves in the public mind. Perhaps it does mean that Ministers go to the Mayors, but so what? I would sooner have Ministers going to the Mayor of South Yorkshire than not coming at all, which was probably the case before.
I have some further caveats, because the Bill does not go far enough to address those fundamental inequalities. I will pick up on the point of the hon. Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson). I remember that, in his time on the Select Committee, we discussed such issues and basically agreed, and I agreed with him today. He said that the Government have a “gradualist approach” and that we have a “patchwork” that lacks clarity, and he is right.
We do not have a framework for devolution that covers the whole country so that we can see where the powers are going to sit. The Select Committee has asked for that and recently asked for it again. I challenged the then Minister, the hon. Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien), when he came to give evidence to the Select Committee on why we could not see the operation of the subsidiarity that people used to argue for when we were in the European Union—the idea that things should be done at a local level unless there is a good reason for doing them at a national level. He said, “Oh that was a bit radical.” Well, it is a bit radical but it is probably right, and I hope that we can get to that position eventually or at least move towards it.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Following the last speaker, we will move on to the ministerial response.
Bob Seely
I am going to speak to new clause 34, and may make some broader points, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) did—I thank her for her great work and leadership on this issue. There are many good ideas that we have been discussing on all sides of the House today, and it is great to see such a brilliant Minister in her role and dealing with this Bill. Indeed, quite a few Ministers have been dealing with it, but I am glad that the buck has stopped with her. I welcome all and any measures to support levelling up.
The Isle of Wight is rich in so many ways, but economically is not necessarily one of them. We have a wonderful sense of community and a wonderful quality of life, but if I can achieve one thing in this place, it is to improve Islanders’ life chances and opportunities. I am delighted that in the last five years the Government have been listening more than they have done previously. We have got £120 million of additional investment. There is £48 million for the NHS—the build at St Mary’s is due to start in the next two weeks—and £26 million to rebuild the Island line. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago I was at Ryde Pier with my little hard hat on—a Boris look-alike or whatever—because the rebuild of the railway pier is now happening as well.
The hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) asked what levelling up has done. Actually, we have got a 240-ton-lift crane in East Cowes for our shipyard, which will drive dozens of new jobs and apprenticeships in shipbuilding on the Isle of Wight. The clippers that we see going up and down the Thames are made on the Island. We have lots of great things, including in training for Isle of Wight College.
One of the many things said by the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), which really sticks with me is that, “Talent is shared out equality in our nation, but opportunity isn’t.” We feel that, in a poorer part of a rich area.
I turn to compulsory purchase. If we go to any town or city in this country, apart from brownfield—I will come to that—we see long-term empty, derelict buildings. In coastal areas, as the Minister will know—it is fantastic that she has agreed to come to the Island and we very much look forward to hosting her—that problem is especially acute, particularly with former hotels. In Sandown, which is a town with a really lovely, wonderful community, some of our most important and valuable sites have stood empty for years. The Grand hotel is owned by a developer who seems to be unwilling to develop his own properties. The technical ownership of the Ocean hotel seems to change every month as it is flipped through a series of highly questionable companies. It is one of the most important sites in Sandown, and it is derelict and vandalised. We need the compulsory purchase powers. I respect property rights, but actually we need those powers to be as strong as possible so that communities such as mine and the Isle of Wight Council can use them to do good.
I am going to try this argument: I want to be able to get the Isle of Wight Council to compulsory purchase from the Government. Camp Hill prison site—the third prison site on the Island—has been empty for nine years. For five years I have been asking for a decision on Camp Hill. The Government cannot decide whether they want to turn it back into a prison, give us the land, sell it privately and so on. If they can give us that land at a price that we can afford, we can do real good with it, and we can build homes.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet made the point that we want to propose good stuff. That is why, among 20 amendments and new clauses that we tabled, we have proposed new clause 34. There is an incredibly trite conversation around the issue, suggesting that those who object to top-down targets and the entirely depressing reliance on out-of-town, car-dependent housing estates plonked down in the middle of nowhere are somehow anti-young people or nimbys—a nimby is a local patriot, in my opinion—shouting, “No, no, no,” with their heads in the ground like ostriches. Actually, we are saying, “Yes, yes, yes” to so many ideas—we are trying to give the Government so many ideas—because we want planning and housing to be a success. We want to protect communities and, at the same time, we recognise that we need to build, but we want a system that is community-centred, environment-centred—environmentally friendly—and regeneration-centred.
When we have acre after acre of brownfield sites in towns and cities up and down the country, what on earth is the point of being reliant on developers lazily building on greenfield sites? That alienates older people in communities—they have their dog-walking routes and views ruined—yet so often, and especially in the home counties, those houses cannot be afforded by young people. All that happens is people move out of London. That is a problem in Essex, Kent and Hampshire. On the Island, the dynamic is slightly different because people retire to us, but either way, despite having increased our population by 50% in 50 years, one of the most depressing facts is that we still export our young people too often.
New clause 34, which would give us compulsory powers to act in the public good, is only one of a series of, I hope, good ideas supported by my right hon. Friend, me and many people. For example, I think that for new clause 21, on top-down targets, we have more than 55 colleagues. Regardless of what the Labour party does, we need to work together. We want to work together with the Government in a spirit of co-operation, but can they please trust us and listen to us?
Another example of a good idea, apart from new clause 34, is the new clause on having a “Use it or lose it” rule to stop planners land-banking. I respectfully suggest to the Minister that a fundamental problem is not that planners do not give out permissions—80% get passed—or that pesky nimbys stop everything, because we know that is a load of rubbish. The fundamental problem is that developers have a vested interest in only releasing land for housing slowly, because that keeps the value of land high, house prices high, share prices high and bosses’ bonuses high. I sound a bit like I should be on the Opposition Benches. I am a big fan of capitalism, but I want capitalism to work. I want the developer industry to serve the people of this country, not its bosses.
We will achieve that by getting a system that works, so we want a new clause for “Use it or lose it.” We want a new clause that says, “Okay, you will have a time here and if you do not build out, you’re paying council tax on that 200-house estate. If you haven’t built it, you’re still paying council tax come what may.” We want bigger sticks. We want some nice carrots for brownfield, but we want bigger sticks for developers, so that when someone gets a 1,000-acre site they actually have to do something with it, and they cannot just sit on it and inflate their share price.
We want what is in the public interest. As soon as some people become Ministers, they think they know best—I am sure that this Minister does not think that—and they want top-down stuff, because that is where they drive reform. However, we know that a community with a neighbourhood plan is more likely to welcome development. Why? Because they get to shape it. All the so-called nimbys actually think, “Okay, here’s a home for my kids, a home for my daughter and son-in-law, a home for my grandkids.” They buy into it.
That is why top-down targets fundamentally do not work. They create an incredibly divisive battle. The Government say, “You have to build this many houses.” We get ridiculous, absurd numbers for the Isle of Wight, considering that our indigenous population is meant to decline by 9,000 over the next 15 years. We get targets and local government is put under pressure. The developers then start plonking down greenfield permissions, because they cannot be bothered to look at brownfield sites, which alienates communities. It becomes fundamentally divisive and adversarial.
Changing economic incentives would revolutionise development in this country, so that it becomes a win-win for communities. We could create more disincentives for greenfield sites—a super-tax—so that every plot on a greenfield site has to pay twice the amount as those on a brownfield site. Some brownfield sites are dirtier than others, but if we had a tax that said, “Okay, you are giving up 1,000 acres of greenfield site in Cambridgeshire, Kent or Hampshire, but you are getting 2,000 acres of cleaned-up brownfield site” that would be a win. That is something we could accept. We need to think in much more creative terms and to move away from an adversarial system. That is why another amendment—along with new clause 34, which we love—asks the Government to look at the creation of incentives for brownfield and greater disincentives for greenfield.
Fundamentally, with the exception of one or two things, the Government are going in the right direction, but they need to go further. Another example is the new clause on character tests. Some shoddy developers have criminal records. They intimidate people, do not treat communities properly, never build out or build poorly. Why can that not be a reason to object? Do we not want to clean up the development industry? Do we not want socially responsible developers who do the right thing for their communities and actually make an effort? They can be rewarded by us supporting their development planning applications and we can stop people who want to build caravan parks in the wrong place but use loopholes. That is another of our amendments—it is a great amendment—which would do real good, so why are the Government not accepting it?
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet and I, the 55 colleagues who signed new clause 21 on top-down housing targets, and many others, including the—I think—30 colleagues who signed new clause 34 on compulsory purchase, all want to say yes to this stuff. We want our communities to feel that development works for them—that it works for the old and young folks in communities, that it works to regenerate and that it works to protect our environment, which is so important to our future and which helps the whole process of community-led regeneration. In that spirit, we tabled new clause 34 and all the other wonderful amendments, which we look forward to discussing with the Government when they come up with a second date. My plea is for the Government to work with us on this issue, because want to make this a win-win, not a lose-lose.
Dehenna Davison
I thank right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions, and I put on record again my thanks to all the Members who served in Committee during the somewhat lengthy consideration of the Bill. I will endeavour to respond to the points that have arisen today, but before I do, I re-emphasise the importance that the Government place on the three interconnected themes from our debate: devolution, regeneration and levelling up. Local power exercised accountably is the only way that we will extend opportunity throughout our country. Too often, Governments have fallen into the trap of thinking that controlling more will make local areas more effective, but the lessons of the past 70 years are clear: that approach does not work and we must trust local areas with the tools to build their futures.
Let me turn to some of the individual matters that Members raised. My right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) is not yet back in his place, but I was grateful for his incredibly passionate contribution and his rousing speech about the wonderful, unique qualities of Cornwall. I look forward to visiting Cornwall soon and to working with him and other Cornwall colleagues on progressing a deal that works for the people of Cornwall.
My right hon. Friend spoke to amendment 70, on which I point him and other concerned Members to clause 68, which would amend the statutory test so that the Secretary of State has to consider
“the economic, social and environmental well-being of some or all of the people who live or work”
in an area. That means that the impacts of devolution on an area’s community, including those identifying as belonging to a national minority, such as the Cornish, would be duly considered under social wellbeing when deciding whether the test is met. Hopefully, that provides some reassurance.
My right hon. Friend also spoke about new clause 71, on whether the framework for a tier 3 deal is accessible without a Mayor. We in the Government are committed to that framework. We believe that directly elected Mayors with a clear path of accountability and a convening power to make change happen is really important, but the key point is that there will be no imposition from Government to have a Mayor. It is for local areas to decide what tier of deal they want to access. If they do not want to access a tier 3 deal and impose a Mayor, clearly, that option is available to them. Also, if they wish to, the framework allows them to deepen devolution later at their own pace. The Government are not imposing these measures. It is for local areas to decide what will work best for them in the framework that we have set out.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (James Grundy) is a great and passionate advocate for his constituents and his constituency. I heard loud and clear his point about Leigh station and I will raise that with colleagues at the Department for Transport. He raised the point about how a one-size-fits-all approach does not necessarily always work. That is why it is so important that we negotiate deals on a local basis, so that every deal we have is negotiated with local authorities and other local stakeholders to ensure that it will work for the local area.
My hon. Friend raised a good point about engagement with Members of Parliament. Although I am relatively new to my role, I certainly want to endeavour to do that better as we progress devolution, either in existing deals or when we look at new devolution deals in the future.
I am incredibly grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) for his support on devolution and on the importance of strong, accountable local leadership. I am pleased to see his gung-ho passion for rolling out Mayors across the country, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh says, not every area wants a Mayor. I do not believe that we should be imposing Mayors without local consent, but I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle that we do not want any areas being left behind. I am happy to engage with him and with the Northern Research Group on the question of how best to further the devolution agenda in his region and across England.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) made the crucial point that timing is vital. We need the Bill to get Royal Assent in a timely fashion to ensure that some of the devolution deals we have agreed get over the line in time for the elections in 2024. I know that my hon. Friend recognises the incredible opportunities that a devolution deal can bring to his local residents. He spoke about the need for simpler funding; the Department is exploring the issue and will publish a funding simplification strategy in due course.
Margaret Greenwood
I am not sure whether the Minister was in the Chamber for the remarks that the hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) made about new clause 84, which would require the Government to make
“reducing geographical disparities in adult literacy”
one of their missions, and to set out a plan
“to improve levels of adult literacy and eradicate illiteracy”.
The hon. Member seems to think that the Bill makes provision for that. It does not. Does the Minister agree that addressing adult literacy is a core issue if we are to get the very best out of everybody and give everybody the opportunities they need?
Dehenna Davison
The hon. Member must have read my mind, because hers is next on my list of points to address. I am grateful for her passionate contribution on adult literacy. We all agree in this House that education is vital to levelling up, but the Bill is designed to provide a framework for the formation of missions rather than to set out the missions themselves. She will have seen in the White Paper some of the missions that we have published, which refer to educational attainment. I also point her to the Government’s work in other areas, such as funding courses for adults who do not have a level 2 English or maths qualification so that they can get those skills.
The hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) raised several issues relating to social mobility. I was most struck by his point about inter-village transport; I face that issue in my constituency, so I can very much relate to it. Some of the devolution deals that we have negotiated and are looking to negotiate will mean more transport powers being conveyed to local areas and Mayors. That provides an opportunity for a rethink of how local transport is operated. As we spread more devolution deals around the country, that opportunity will be brought to more local areas. The hon. Member’s point has been heard loud and clear.
Jon Trickett
The Minister is making an interesting speech. I hope in due course she will come to the question that I raised about powers for parish and town councils.
Dehenna Davison
I had not planned to do so, because of the breadth of contributions that we have had today, but I am happy to write to the hon. Member on that point after the debate.
The hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) spoke to amendments 71 and 72. She is incredibly passionate about this important matter, as she has demonstrated not only today but in Committee and in other contributions. I go back to the point that I made to the hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood): the Bill is designed to set out not the missions themselves, but the framework for them to exist. That is why we will not enshrine any particular missions in the Bill. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for South Shields and I had the same debate in Committee; I see her shaking her head, but I do not think that she is surprised by my response.
Let me very briefly address a point that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), and the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), made about the levelling-up missions. They spoke about removing the ability to amend the methodology and the matrices. I am concerned about that, not because it is some kind of cynical aim, as has been suggested, but because data will be incredibly important in assessing our success in addressing the levelling-up missions. As we get new data sources, new datasets and new ways of presenting the data, it is important that we have the flexibility to access and use the data to its maximum potential. That is why I do not agree with amendment 14.
Patricia Gibson
The Minister says that flexibility is important, so can she explain what the Government will do about the first successful bids, which are now falling short because of inflationary pressures on labour and materials?
Dehenna Davison
The hon. Member will be pleased to know that I have a note to return to that in a moment.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) and my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) raised some important points. We will come to many of their amendments on the second day of Report, when they will have an opportunity to speak on them in more detail. That will be coming soon. Both Members highlighted the passion around high streets, which, as we all know across the House, are vital to the heart and soul of any community. I am grateful to them for raising new clause 34 on compulsory purchase orders. The measures already in the Bill put it beyond doubt that local authorities have the power to use compulsory purchase for regeneration processes, but we are modernising the process to make it faster and more efficient.
As I announced in Committee, we are going even further by asking the Law Commission to undertake a review and consolidation of the law on compulsory purchase and compensation, to make it more accessible and easier to understand. As part of that work, the Law Commission will review existing CPO enabling powers to ensure that they are fit for purpose, and will make recommendations where appropriate. I do not believe that the new clause is necessary; however, I put on the record my gratitude to both Members for the incredibly constructive way that they have engaged on not just this part of the Bill but all of it, particularly regarding planning and housing matters. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight said that I promised a visit. I am very much looking forward to visiting the Isle of Wight in due course.
Mr Betts
On the CPO powers, the Law Commission will not look at the valuations. Who will do that review work? Also, could the Minister set out very simply how the new arrangements will be simpler and quicker for local authorities to organise?
Dehenna Davison
One reason that we have asked the Law Commission to undertake the review is to ensure that we deliver in the most appropriate way, but I am happy to follow up separately with the hon. Member on hope value, because it is something that we will come to in the future.
The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) and I had a great time in Committee during the few days that I was there in my role as Minister. It was always incredibly good natured, and I thank him for that. He spoke on new clause 46, as did the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan), which is on business rates reform. As both hon. Members are no doubt aware, the Government recently conducted a business rates review, and the report was published at the time of the 2021 autumn Budget. A package of reforms announced then was worth £7 billion over five years. In the autumn statement incredibly recently, the Government went even further and announced a broad range of business rates measures worth an estimated additional £13.6 billion over the next five years, including freezing the multiplier. The Chancellor of the Exchequer also announced the extension of the retail, hospitality and leisure relief scheme, and a transitional relief scheme for the 2023 valuation.
Helen Morgan
I appreciate the points that the Minister makes, but they are tinkering around the edges of the existing system. We are asking for root and branch review of how business rates are levied.
Dehenna Davison
While I understand the intention behind the new clause, we consider it unnecessary on the basis that a review has been concluded only recently, and we have put in place an incredibly robust support package.
Tim Farron
I am grateful to the Minister for what she is saying. To add to what my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire said, there may be much to commend that particular part of the autumn statement, but is the very package not an admission that the system is broken? Tinkering on the edges will not help. Surely it needs full reform and replacement if we are to support our town and village centres.
Dehenna Davison
I am grateful to the hon. Member, and indeed all colleagues who have engaged with us on business rates reform. I will not go over arguments that I have already made. We will not accept the new clause, but I hope that hon. Members recognise that we are very much committed to ensuring that business rates are not an impediment to businesses investing in and residing within our high streets.
The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale also spoke to new clause 45 on electoral system reform. It was no surprise to hear the Lib Dems talking about electoral reform, and I do not want to rehash debates from Committee. I know that he and his party are passionate about this subject, but he will not be surprised to learn that the Government will not accept the new clause.
Turning to my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), I want to put on record my sincere praise for her campaigning on the repeal of the Vagrancy Act. She is so passionate on this issue and I am grateful to her for her positive engagement. I look forward to working with her as this progresses. On her new clause 4, I have to admit that I would not want to make a commitment today, but I am keen to work with her to understand the issue of local voting rights in her constituency more fully. I would love to get a meeting in with her in due course to see whether this is something that we can review.
The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) made an impassioned case on an issue on which I know she is very passionate. It was great to find agreement with her, as we both believe in devolving power to a local level to tackle local challenges. In the White Paper we set out a skills mission which set a target to increase the number of people completing high-quality skills training in every area of the UK by 200,000, with 80,000 more people competing skills training in the lowest skilled areas of the UK. The White Paper also highlighted the importance of the Government’s net zero target in helping to achieve that mission. The Government’s net zero strategy also makes a commitment to ensuring that the skills system is incentivised and equipped to deliver the skills necessary for the transition to net zero, as well as a commitment to growing post-16 training programmes such as green skills boot camps, apprenticeships and T-Levels. We will not be accepting the hon. Member’s amendment today, but I hope she recognises that there is a commitment from the Government, through the White Paper and other strategies, to ensure that we hit those net zero targets.
I want to make two quick final points. First, I want to say how grateful I am to my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) for her positive engagement on the issue of council tax for houses of multiple occupancy. We have reached a good position and I look forward to working with her and her constituent Mr Brewer throughout the consultation and beyond to ensure that we get it right.
Finally, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) raised points on the standards board and compulsory purchase orders, but I want to latch on to something he said about his belief in devolution—something that he and we in the Government absolutely share. He talked about brownfield land, and he will know about the brownfield land release fund, which has been so crucial in helping to support and regenerate brownfield areas. I would be happy to engage with him and I look forward to working with him and the Committee in my wider ministerial role.
In closing, I hope that hon. Members can see from the amendments that the Government have tabled today that we have listened to the concerns that have been raised since the Bill was introduced and that we are determined that the Bill will make a tangible difference in communities up and down the country.
Question put and agreed to.
New clause 61 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 62
Functions in respect of key route network roads
(1) The Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 104, in subsection (10), for “An” substitute “Except as provided for by section 107ZA(7), an”.
(3) In section 107D, in subsection (9), for “An” substitute “Except as provided for by section 107ZA(7), an”.
(4) After section 107 insert—
“Combined authorities: key route network roads
107ZA Designation of key route network roads
(1) A combined authority may designate a highway or proposed highway in its area as a key route network road, or remove its designation as a key route network road, with the consent of—
(a) each constituent council in whose area the highway or proposed highway is, and
(b) in the case of a mayoral combined authority, the mayor.
(2) The Secretary of State may designate a highway or proposed highway in the area of a combined authority as a key route network road, or remove its designation as a key route network road, if requested to do so by—
(a) the combined authority,
(b) the mayor (if any) of the combined authority, or
(c) a constituent council.
(3) A designation or removal under this section must be in writing and must state when it comes into effect.
(4) The Secretary of State must send a copy of a designation or removal under subsection (2) to the combined authority in question at least 7 days before the date on which it comes into effect.
(5) A combined authority must publish each designation or removal under this section of a key route network road within its area before the date on which it comes into effect.
(6) A combined authority that has key route network roads in its area must keep a list or map (or both) accessible to the public showing those roads.
(7) The requirements in section 104(10) and section 107D(9)(a) do not apply to provision under section 104(1)(d) and section 107D(1) contained in the same instrument so far as that provision—
(a) confers a power of direction on an existing mayoral combined authority regarding the exercise of an eligible power in respect of key route network roads in the area of that combined authority,
(b) provides for that power of direction to be exercisable only by the mayor of the combined authority, and
(c) is made with the consent of the mayor after the mayor has consulted the constituent councils.
(8) When a mayor consents under subsection (7)(c), the mayor must give the Secretary of State—
(a) a statement by the mayor that all of the constituent councils agree to the making of the order, or
(b) if the mayor is unable to make that statement, the reasons why the mayor considers the order should be made even though not all of the constituent councils agree to it being made.
(9) In this section—
“constituent council” has the meaning given in section 104(11);
“eligible power” has the meaning given by section 88(2) of the Local Transport Act 2008;
“key route network road” means a highway or proposed highway designated for the time being under this section as a key route network road;
“proposed highway” means land on which, in accordance with plans made by a highway authority, that authority are for the time being constructing or intending to construct a highway shown in the plans.””—(Dehenna Davison.)
This new clause provides for designation of “key route network roads” in combined authorities and makes provision about consent requirements for orders that both confer a power of direction concerning such roads and make the power exercisable only by the mayor. It will be inserted after clause 58.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 65
Participation of police and crime commissioners at certain local authority committees
In section 102(9) of the Local Government Act 1972 (appointment of committees), for “to which the commissioner is appointed in accordance with this section”, substitute “described in subsection (6)”.”—(Dehenna Davison.)
This new clause makes clear that the restriction in section 102(9) of the Local Government Act 1972 applies only to participation at meetings of the committees described in section 102(6) of that Act. The new clause will be inserted after clause 68.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 41
Duty to provide sufficient resources to Combined Authorities and Combined County Authorities
“(1) This section applies where the Government has committed funding to a Combined Authority or a Combined County Authority in order to deliver a specific project.
(2) The Secretary of State must provide commensurate financial resources to a Combined Authority or a Combined County Authority to enable the delivery of the project mentioned in subsection (1) as agreed in full.
(3) The Secretary of States must, by regulations, amend the value of this funding to reflect inflation.”—(Alex Norris.)
This new clause would commit the Government to fully funding combined authority and combined county authority projects they have committed to in the case that costs rise due to inflation.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
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(1 year, 12 months ago)
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Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
On 19 June 2021, the Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke community was rocked when it learned of the tragic death of six-year-old Sharlotte-Sky. Sharlotte was killed when John Owen hit her with his car on Endon Road in Norton Green on that fateful day. John Owen was twice over the drink-drive limit, had a series of drugs in his system, was using a mobile phone, had no seatbelt on, and was speeding. Sharlotte was on the pavement with her father, who was also struck. She was on the way to get some sweets for a girls’ night with her mother. This unforgivable and selfish act has taken away a precious young life, left a family broken and scarred a community. It was an event that shocked the entire city of Stoke-on-Trent, with hundreds of people lining the streets for Sharlotte’s funeral in an outpouring of profound grief.
Since that horrific night, I have been working with Sharlotte’s brave and inspiring mother, Claire Reynolds—she is in the Public Gallery alongside Sharlotte’s grandfather —The Sentinel and her friends to get the justice they rightfully deserve. Before I speak about why I join Claire and the Stoke-on-Trent community in wanting Mr Owen’s sentence increased so that justice can rightfully be served, I want to take a moment to promote the idea of Sharlotte’s law.
Mr Owen caused much distress by prolonging the investigation into Sharlotte’s death, to exploit, in my opinion, loopholes in our justice system. Mr Owen was in a coma when the investigation began, and the law brought about significant problems. Legally, blood samples can be taken without a suspect’s consent yet not subject to a test until consent is given. Therefore, in such situations, the investigation is delayed until consent is received. The current law addressing that is section 7A of the Road Traffic Act 1988. Subsection (4) outlines three criteria that must be met to test a blood sample, one of which is the person providing their consent.
I understand from subsection (6) that
“A person who…fails to give his permission for a laboratory test of a specimen of blood”
without a reasonable excuse is, under section 7A,
“guilty of an offence.”
It therefore seems that consent is simply a formality. Effectively, anything other than providing permission would constitute an offence. The law protracted the investigation into Mr Owen and caused knock-on delays in moving the case forward. Claire has been so brave, sharing her struggles with not just me but the local press, too. She has been battling her own mental health problems that have no doubt been exacerbated by the delays and issues brought about by this law.
It seems simple to me. If we are to free up police time and resources, testing blood samples should be happening regardless of consent, in order to get answers. If a suspect has nothing to fear, why would they object to testing? Claire is adamant and defiant that Sharlotte’s death and the torment her family went through will not be for nothing. She wants to see the consent law scrapped where loss of life has occurred due to a collision with a motor vehicle.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Gentleman for his assiduousness in looking after his constituents. He has done that since he first came to this place and he continues to do so. I fully and wholeheartedly support what he puts forward. When it comes to justice and victims, the victims should be the priority. Those who are guilty, even at an early stage, of not giving a blood sample should be advised that there is no other option—they must give it. Does he agree?
Jonathan Gullis
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I could not agree with him more and I thank him for his kind words. I have rehearsed this speech a few times, hoping not to get teary. It is quite difficult. He is right that people should not fear the law if they have not done anything wrong. A six-year-old should not have lost her life. Worst of all, she should not have had her killer sentenced to only two and a half years in prison. That is not justice.
I have pursued this disparity in the law with parliamentary colleagues and raised it in the House multiple times. I have met officials and made a submission to the Department for Transport’s call for evidence on drug driving. I am seeking support from Ministers to implement Sharlotte’s law. Obviously, I will cheekily use this opportunity to see if the Solicitor General, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), will add his name to that call.
The main purpose for holding this debate today is to consider the unduly lenient sentence scheme. On 4 October 2022, John Owen was sentenced to six years and four months in prison, with the most shocking revelation being that Mr Owen would only spend two and a half years behind bars. Considering that Judge Glenn told Mr Owen that he was
“an accident waiting to happen”,
that rubs salt into the wounds of Sharlotte’s family. The whole north Staffordshire community, myself and most importantly Claire and Sharlotte’s family are rightly outraged at this insultingly lenient sentence, which means that John Owen will have served less time than the young life he has taken.
With Claire’s support, I wrote to the Attorney General, who at the time was my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis), to seek to have the sentence challenged as part of the unduly lenient sentence scheme. Regrettably, the initial response I received from the Solicitor General failed to answer some of the questions I raised about the insulting sentencing of John Owen. I therefore re-wrote to the now Attorney General, my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), seeking clarification on several points.
On researching sentences for deaths by dangerous driving, I uncovered that there are categories that judges use as a guideline to determine for how long an offender is sentenced. While Judge Glenn correctly placed Mr Owen in category 1, the highest and most serious category, it is incredibly disappointing that the sentence passed is at the lower end of the spectrum. Category 1 is anywhere between eight and 14 years. Judge Glenn sentenced Sharlotte’s killer to nine and a half years, before giving a third off to Mr Owen, who had, by some cold legal definition, given a guilty plea at the “earliest opportunity”. In reality, he had exhausted scapegoating the idea he was unfit to stand trial.
After my meeting with the Solicitor General, it became clearer that the sentence could have been higher if the following “aggravating factors” had been involved: multiple deaths; if the vehicle was stolen; if the driver had a previous history of bad driving; or if the driver fled the scene. In Sharlotte’s case, none of those applies. However, if John Owen having been drinking and on drugs does not act as a severe aggravating factor, and display a complete disregard for others’ lives and a willingness selfishly to endanger life such that a six-year-old girl was killed as she walked along the pavement in her home village of Norton Green, victims like Claire will continue to be failed by our justice system.
It is well documented from John Owen’s friends that he was drinking earlier on in the day and chose to get in the car, with complete contempt for life. That sheer selfishness should be an aggravating factor. It demonstrates that, despite his friends’ protests, he neglected the fact that he was not fit to drive and made an active choice to get behind the wheel. The devastating fact is that he simply did not care and then went on to kill a beautiful young girl.
Jim Shannon
It is fairly obvious to everyone in the House that this is a very difficult experience for the hon. Gentleman and for the family, who are in the Gallery. I suspect that he is seeking a change to ensure that the law is sufficient when it comes to a blood test. He referred to aggravation and how the person disregarded the family and their feelings. We in this House unite with our friend and colleague to fully support him and what he proposes. In particular, on behalf of the family, who are here, I salute him—well done.
Jonathan Gullis
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. The impact of Sharlotte’s death is impossible to overestimate. I have already explained the deeply saddening impact that it has had on Sharlotte’s immediate family. However, it has also had a huge effect on the local community.
The killing of an innocent child in such tragic circumstances comes with a set of exceptional impacts on the children around Sharlotte, which are unlikely to be felt in cases not involving the death of a child. Sharlotte’s classmates and children in the local community have been left with lasting effects, to the point where some have required specialist counselling and have been left scared to walk at the sides of busy roads. Sharlotte’s death will stay with these children long into adulthood, and I am staggered that that would not also have been considered as part of the sentencing.
In addition, I raised the legal ambiguities surrounding John Owen’s guilty plea. Mr Owen pleaded guilty long after he killed Sharlotte, in May 2022, when the report came back and demonstrated overwhelming evidence against him, including that he was under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Mr Owen did not plead guilty until that report was produced; he could have done that far earlier. Legally, he pleaded guilty at the “earliest possible” moment, but given the lengthy delay and ample opportunity, I do not believe that that should entitle him to the whole one-third reduction in his sentence. I feel the law should consider that with more nuance. It is totally different to plead guilty as soon as possible compared with as soon as “legally possible”.
By definition, the unduly lenient sentence scheme allows the Attorney General to refer a sentence to the Court of Appeal if it is too low. However, it appears that the scheme is practically useless if a case such as this one cannot be at least reviewed. The parameters to get a case reviewed by the Court of Appeal must be extraordinary. That, for me, brings into question the relevance of the scheme. I must ask: what is the point of it, considering that, as a Member of Parliament, I cannot help to get this truly harrowing miscarriage of justice at least appealed? Claire and I were no less than astonished by the Attorney General’s response, which ignored all my further questions. It feels as though the legal system did not care that a mother and a whole community felt completely let down by the law that is supposed to protect them.
To touch on the local actions following Sharlotte’s death, those should serve as an example to the Attorney General about how things must be adapted in response to such an emotive case. Local ward councillors for the area, such as Councillor Dave Evans and Councillor Carl Edwards, have been pushing for traffic-calming measures on Endon Road for many years. It is tragic that it has taken the death of a six-year-old girl for there to be a signalised pedestrian crossing, intermittent speed humps and more markings, but it shows a fundamental recognition that changes were needed following this tragedy—a concept that I advise the Attorney General and the Government to think about. Councillors are also pushing for a weight limit on the road to stop the HGV rat run; I hope that Staffordshire County Council and Stoke-on-Trent City Council can work together to agree on that limit as soon as possible. I would like personally to thank Councillor Carl Edwards, Councillor Dave Evans, Norton Green Residents Association and the local community for their hard work in pushing for road safety in the area.
I am grateful for the Solicitor General agreeing to meet me, following our correspondence, and pleased that our meeting was constructive. During the meeting, he and I discussed gross errors. In legal terms, a gross error is when a judge incorrectly misapplies the law, for example by placing a defendant in the wrong category. Understandably, the Solicitor General argued that the case could not be referred to the Court of Appeal because no gross error had been made. That effectively means that if a judge puts a defendant in the right category, there is no way to argue that the sentence is too lenient.
I believe that that is far too simplistic. It fails to consider that a category 1 sentence can range from eight to 14 years—a substantial difference that would have had a huge impact on the perception of the case. If, for example, the case had been referred to the Court of Appeal and John Owen’s sentence had been extended to the maximum 14 years, it would be perceived to be far more rigorous. However, because the gross error clause only allows cases in the wrong category to be referred, we were unable to bring Sharlotte’s killer to the real justice that he deserves.
It was a huge disappointment to hear that, especially considering that the Solicitor General and I both voted for the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which takes a more robust approach to causing death by dangerous driving—indeed, it extends the maximum sentence way above 14 years. In my view, this sentence undermines the Act’s more rigorous stance on causing death by dangerous driving. Although I accept that that cannot be retrospectively applied to Mr Owen, it does not deter those who might think it sensible to get in their car under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol.
The experience also raises obvious questions about the application of the new law by judges. If Judge Glenn arrived at this insulting sentence within the current parameters, I am not at all confident that a similar sentence would not be issued even under the changes that we have made in this House. I was hugely grateful to the Lord Chancellor for agreeing at Justice questions yesterday to meet Claire and me to discuss sentencing guidelines and try to ensure no other family feels let down by the justice system again.
Ultimately, it is without question that the difficulties that Claire has had in bringing the killer of her six-year-old daughter to justice are wholly unacceptable. There are significant nuances in the law that allowed Mr Owen to prolong the case significantly, yet unnecessarily. That meant that the case dragged on for too long, which has had devastating consequences for Claire and her family. More importantly, it is still my view and that of the Stoke-on-Trent community that John Owen’s sentence is shockingly lenient, considering what he did. The law clearly works in favour of the killer, not the victim—that is the message that I am hearing in the streets of Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke. As I said, John Owen is likely to spend only two and a half years in prison. That is simply nowhere near enough time behind bars, considering the consequences of his selfishness.
For all the nuanced, sophisticated legal arguments that the Solicitor General is forced to put forward, it is impossible to ignore the real consequences of what John Owen did on that day in June last year. After consuming far too much alcohol to drive, along with cocaine, he recklessly and selfishly decided that the law did not apply to him and got in his car. By taking that demonstrably thoughtless decision, he killed an innocent six-year-old girl. In my mind, that is one of the worst crimes imaginable.
Over the past year, Claire’s courage in the face of unimaginable adversity has been humbling. She will not stop until the man who killed her daughter is punished properly for the abhorrent crime that he committed. I will join her in that fight, on every step of the way.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Solicitor General. I will have to interrupt him in about one minute to move the Adjournment again.
The Solicitor General (Michael Tomlinson)
Thank you for the warning, Madam Deputy Speaker. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) for securing this very important debate. I particularly thank him for raising the very difficult case of his constituent Sharlotte, who was tragically killed by the abhorrent driving of John Owen while she was walking on the pavement—a place where she was entitled to feel safe. I pay tribute to the family of Sharlotte, and particularly to her mother, Claire Reynolds. I agree with my hon. Friend that she has shown unwavering bravery and conviction in the fight for justice.
Driving dangerously and under the influence of drink and drugs is a most serious offence, which is resoundingly condemned by all in this House. Before I pick up on some of the specific points that my hon. Friend made, let me set out some of the general principles of the unduly lenient sentence scheme, known as the ULS scheme.
The Solicitor General
My role and that of the Attorney General is to act as guardians of the public interest. In exercising our functions, we act quasi-judicially in the public interest and independently of Government. I share the desire of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North to ensure that those responsible for terrible crimes are properly punished. In the vast majority of cases, sentencing judges get it right. They deal with a huge variety of cases that vary in complexity and severity, and I commend them for their work. Thousands of cases are dealt with in the Crown court each year, and a similar number of sentences are imposed. In 2021, 151 cases were referred to the Court of Appeal under the ULS scheme, and sentences were increased in 106 cases. That is a rate of 70%.
The ULS scheme, as my hon. Friend mentioned, is intended to promote justice, fairness and consistency. It allows sentences that are too low to be increased, and is there to correct an error when judges get it wrong. Cases can, however, be referred to the Court of Appeal only if all three of the following conditions are satisfied. First, the offence must be within the ULS scheme. Secondly, the application must be lodged within 28 days. Thirdly, it must appear to the Attorney General or I that the sentence is not just lenient but unduly lenient. Of course, not all offences come within the scheme. It is reserved for those offences that are the most serious, such as murder, rape, robbery and causing death by dangerous driving. It has been extended over recent years.
Let me turn specifically to the offence of causing death by dangerous driving, and pick up some of the more specific points that my hon. Friend mentioned. First, he made an important point about a discount for a guilty plea. Sentencing Council guidelines rightly encourage a defendant to accept responsibility and avoid the need for a trial. If there were no reduction for a guilty plea, there would be little incentive to plead guilty, and a defendant may as well just have a trial. That would cause more anxiety to witnesses, victims and their families, and would act as a disincentive to pleading guilty. We must, however, get the balance right—hence there is a process to encourage an early guilty plea.
As my hon. Friend said, the reduction is applied on a sliding scale from one third, with the largest discounts for cases where a defendant pleads guilty at the earliest opportunity. I heard loud and clear what my hon. Friend said, and I know that his campaign on this point will continue, but there may be occasions where the first opportunity legally is not the very first appearance in court. It may occur later in proceedings.
My hon. Friend asked when a case can be referred to the Court of Appeal. It is important to note that, as he rightly said, the ULS scheme applies only to sentences that are unduly lenient, not to sentences that are simply lenient. The test is a high one. Parliament intended that the Court of Appeal will grant permission to refer a sentence only in exceptional circumstances, as he said—for example, if the judge has passed a sentence that falls outside the range of sentences that a judge could properly consider appropriate, or if there has been a gross error in law.
I must pay tribute to the invaluable work of the Sentencing Council for its development of sentencing guidelines that assist judges in deciding just and proportionate sentences. On the categorisation in those guidelines, my hon. Friend rightly said that level 1 is for the most serious offences, and encompasses driving that involves a deliberate decision to ignore, or a flagrant disregard for, the rules of the road. Level 2 is less serious and is for driving that has created a substantial risk of danger. As my hon. Friend said, for an offence committed, importantly, before 28 June this year, the starting point for a level 1 offence is eight years in custody, with a range of seven to 14 years.
As my hon. Friend has rightly mentioned, aggravating and mitigating factors must be considered. Once a provisional sentence is arrived at, the court is required to take into account factors that might make an offence more serious, and that is quite right—they are called aggravating features—but it must also consider factors that might reduce the seriousness of the offence or reflect personal mitigation. Those are mitigating factors. Different aggravating and mitigating factors will apply in every case and it is for the court to decide what weight to place on those sentences.
My hon. Friend has rightly said that sentences for the very top end of the scale are reserved for particularly egregious offences and he mentioned some of the particular factors that are aggravating. According to the guidelines, they include previous convictions for motoring offences, and more than one person being killed as a result of the event. Every death on the road is a tragedy but there is a scale, and it is right that when more than one death occurs, that should be reflected in the sentence. That is an aggravating feature, as is serious injury to one or more victims. I will mention just two more: other offences being committed at the same time, such as driving without a licence; and driving off in an attempt to avoid detection or apprehension. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind words about our constructive meeting on some of these detailed points.
In terms of recent reforms, our laws must strongly signal that causing death by dangerous driving will not be tolerated. I know that, recognising a trend of inadequate sentences for causing death by dangerous driving, my hon. Friend warmly welcomed and fully supported the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. He rightly said that it increases the maximum sentence from 14 years imprisonment to life imprisonment. Of course, that is only for offences committed after 28 June, when the Act comes into force, and he is absolutely right to say that it cannot be applied retrospectively.
I know that my hon. Friend is committed to tackling drivers under the influence of alcohol and drugs, and to ensuring that all such drivers are caught and punished. The Government are too. First, we have increased the maximum penalties for causing death by careless driving when under the influence of drink or drugs. Secondly, we have changed the law to increase the maximum period of imprisonment and the minimum driver disqualification period for those who commit the most serious road traffic offences, ensuring that they are kept off our roads for longer periods. I know that my hon. Friend is also aware of the Department for Transport’s call for evidence relating to drug driving, which closed in June. This combined approach of tough penalties and rigorous enforcement reinforces the social unacceptability of drink and drug driving, and reminds people of the very serious consequences.
I am seriously grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing this debate. The ULS scheme is not shrouded in mystery, and nor should it be, but it is not often that we have the opportunity to debate the scheme in any detail and I am grateful to him for providing this opportunity. I am also grateful to his constituents, and I acknowledge their courage in allowing Sharlotte’s case to be highlighted. I know personally how difficult it is for family members to come to Parliament after such a tragic event, and I know the toll that even this debate will be taking, but as my hon. Friend continues his campaign, it may be at least some little comfort to know that Sharlotte’s tragic case will help to highlight the scourge of dangerous driving and has helped to make a difference through my hon. Friend’s campaign and the increase in sentencing in the 2022 Act. Sharlotte’s memory will continue to have a positive impact in the future.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Investigatory Powers Commissioner (Oversight Functions) Regulations 2022
Draft Investigatory Powers (Covert Human Intelligence Sources and Interception: Codes of Practice) Regulations 2022
(1 year, 12 months ago)
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The Minister for Security (Tom Tugendhat)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Investigatory Powers Commissioner (Oversight Functions) Regulations 2022.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider the draft Investigatory Powers (Covert Human Intelligence Sources and Interception: Codes of Practice) Regulations 2022.
Tom Tugendhat
It is a pleasure, as always, to see you and to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Robert. The draft Investigatory Powers (Covert Human Intelligence Sources and Interception: Codes of Practice) Regulations 2022 were laid before the House on 19 October, while the Investigatory Powers Commissioner (Oversight Functions) Regulations 2022 were laid on 18 October.
Maintaining our national security and keeping the public safe is the top priority of this Government and, I hope, every Government. We seek to make these regulations to ensure the maintenance of transparent oversight and the effective operation of the safeguards that are in place to manage the important powers exercised under both the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.
There are three key points to discuss. First, there are the amendments to the covert human intelligence sources code of practice, which I will refer to as the CHIS code—a lovely phrase. The regulations will update the CHIS code in light of the amendments made to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, henceforth known as RIPA, by the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act 2021. The amendments to part 2 of RIPA sought to ensure that there is a clear and consistent statutory basis to authorise CHIS to engage in conduct that could otherwise be criminal where it is necessary and proportionate to do so, having regard to the UK’s obligations under the European convention on human rights and the Human Rights Act 1998. The CHIS code sets out the processes and safeguards governing the use of CHIS by public authorities, and provides detail on how CHIS powers should be exercised and duties performed, including examples of best practice. The draft revised CHIS code also sets out enhanced protections for children and vulnerable adults where they are to be authorised as CHIS in exceptional circumstances. There has been extensive, valuable consultation with charities and interest groups to inform these changes.
This instrument will also make necessary changes to the interception of communications code of practice, which I will refer to as the draft revised interception code. The draft revised interception code provides further guidance on the use of interception by public authorities that exercise such powers, which are also known as intercepting authorities. The changes to the draft revised interception code will reflect the Government’s long-standing position on serving intercept warrants on cloud service providers and the enterprise service that they provide to customers. These limited changes will bring much-needed clarity for relevant UK and US companies that are impacted by enterprise service issues.
A public consultation on the proposed changes was carried out between July and October. After further cross-governmental engagement on the draft revised interception code, there are three additional changes to the proposed revisions, to reflect that an intercepting authority may opt not to serve a warrant on the enterprise if doing so would compromise national security. These changes are intended to provide further examples of the circumstances under which a warrant may be served on a cloud service provider instead of an enterprise customer, and outlines the obligations imposed by the Investigatory Powers Act regarding unauthorised disclosure to help protect national security.
Finally, I turn to the changes to the investigatory powers commissioner’s oversight functions. I will refer to the investigatory powers commissioner as the IPC. These regulations place two areas on a statutory footing: first, the IPC’s oversight of the GCHQ equities process, and secondly compliance by members and civilian staff of SO15 at the Metropolitan Police Service and members of the National Crime Agency with the guidance referred to as “The Principles relating to the detention and interviewing of detainees overseas”. These areas have previously been overseen by the IPC and his office on a non-statutory basis.
The changes will provide greater public accountability and enable the effective discharge of the IPC’s responsibilities. As a statutory authority, the parameters of the IPC’s remit are set by Parliament and the IPC has made it clear, and the Government agree, that he considers formalising his oversight responsibilities as being in the best interests of transparency and robust oversight. In summary, the regulations provide clarity and transparency around the use of oversight powers that are vital for keeping the public safe. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Sir Robert. I thank the Minister for his opening contribution.
On the draft Investigatory Powers Commissioner (Oversight Functions) Regulations 2022, as the Minister has said the new regulations stipulate that the oversight functions of the commissioner include keeping under review, by way of audit, inspection and investigation the exercise of GCHQ processes relating to determining whether information about vulnerabilities in technology should be disclosed. Furthermore, the statutory instrument provides the commissioner with oversight of compliance by members and civilian staff of the Metropolitan police force in relation to counter-terrorism legislation and officers of the National Crime Agency with the guidance referred to as “The Principles relating to the detention and interviewing of detainees overseas and the passing and receipt of intelligence relating to detainees”.
We interrogated those principles for the purposes of the National Security Bill. It is worth being clear and on the record that the principles are explicit that:
“The UK Government does not participate in, solicit, encourage or condone unlawful killing, the use of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (“CIDT”), or extraordinary rendition. In no circumstance will UK personnel ever take action amounting to torture, unlawful killing, extraordinary rendition, or CIDT.”
As the Minister knows, we are always very supportive of independent commissioners and reviewers of legislation. I thank Sir Brian Leveson and his team for the valuable work that they do in ensuring that our security services are as accountable and transparent as they are able to be. I am also grateful to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office for its feedback when I approached the office about these provisions. On that basis, we welcome this further extension of the oversight powers allocated to the commissioner to consider the conduct of these additional agencies.
We sought a legal opinion on some of the provisions. One thing that was not clear in relation to the oversight of GCHQ and the disclosure of technological vulnerabilities is whether the commissioner will only have powers to consider GCHQ’s decision-making processes on whether to disclose such vulnerabilities or not disclose, or if he will have the power to intervene and compel a disclosure should he warrant that necessary.
The second statutory instrument will bring into force the revised code of practice prepared under section 71 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, providing guidance on the authorisation for the conduct or use of covert human intelligence sources by public authorities. Under section 72 of that Act, a person must, in so far as applicable, have regard to a code of practice when exercising any powers or duties to which the code relates.
Labour recognises the fundamental importance of covert intelligence and the role it plays in keeping our country safe. As an example, in 2018 alone, covert human intelligence sources helped to disrupt more than 30 threats to life, leading to the arrest of numerous serious organised criminals and the seizure of more than 3,000 kg of class A drugs, while taking more than 50 firearms off the street. Given the inherent nature of what covert intelligence entails, it is vital that proper safeguards and the processes for accountability and proportionality are introduced and used exhaustively.
We welcome that this statutory instrument will update the code of practice following the Government consultation that ran for eight weeks, from December 2021 to February of this year. I note however that at least one organisation who made a submission to the consultation felt that eight weeks over the Christmas period and at the height of the prevalence of the omicron variant put a strain on stakeholders to respond.
Colleagues led on the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act 2021 during its passage. We agreed it was a marked improvement on the status quo, but Labour raised concerns around the number of public agencies approved. The powers granted by that Bill are incredibly serious and must only be conferred to public agencies where the use of such powers is vital for their work. We pushed for more real-time involvement of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner, and we argued extensively for the most comprehensive protection of children and vulnerable adults in this space.
I note that most of the consultation responses had a focus on protecting children and vulnerable adults, and I can see that the Government have reflected on those submissions. While we remain and will always be very uncomfortable about those with vulnerabilities, be they age-related or otherwise, being involved in this line of work, the updated guidance is an improvement on the guidance that predates it, and it benefits from the consultation submissions. The standardisation of the use of the word “child” or “children” rather than “juvenile” is welcome, and we hold the Government to their statement in the response to the consultation that
“Children are only authorised as CHIS in exceptional circumstances and the duty of care that is owed to children in this context is taken extremely seriously.”
I look to the Minister for assurances that, in these circumstances, every other possible means of gathering intelligence is explored and exhausted first.
The Minister will be aware of the distressing case earlier this year of a person acting as a CHIS for our intelligence services who had used that status to abuse his former partner. I cannot see that the code reflects the potential for abuse of the status by a CHIS, and I hope the Minister can provide assurances to the Committee that that situation is being investigated and that processes are being revised accordingly, so that we close down opportunities for anyone acting as a CHIS to use the status to abuse others.
I note that the explanatory memorandum states:
“A person must have regard to the Code when exercising powers and any function to which this Code relates.”
However, it goes on to say:
“Failure to comply with the Code does not render that person liable in any criminal or civil proceedings.”
It says that
“the Code is admissible in evidence in criminal and civil proceedings”,
but given the seriousness of these powers and the fact that we all want and need to see the guidance adhered to in the strictest sense, what assurances can the Minister provide that there will be consequences of a failure to comply with the code?
We will continue to follow closely the work of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner in his ongoing assessment under these statutory instruments, and we renew our commitment to always engage with Government constructively, to find the right balance between keeping people safe and upholding the personal freedoms we hold dear.
Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Robert. I was pleased to be nominated by my party to contribute to the scrutiny of these measures, not least because I had the unexpected duty of speaking on Second Reading of the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill on 5 October 2020. I think it is fair to say that at that stage, we were not terribly impressed with the measures in the Bill and were looking for a number of assurances from Ministers, which, sadly, were not forthcoming. That is one of the major reasons why we voted against the Bill’s Third Reading and the Scottish Government withheld their legislative consent.
Notwithstanding that, the measure is a positive development, given the benefits it brings in placing informal arrangements for oversight of GCHQ and others on to a statutory footing. We welcome the revised CHIS code and the revised interception code, albeit cautiously. However, we remain concerned that they do not appear to deal with the dangers caused by agents provocateurs, and the CHIS code still does not require authorising officers to be completely independent of the investigation. That separation of powers is extremely important, because there is an obvious conflict of interest, and as far as we can see, no measures in the SI or the code deals with that. Like the hon. Member for Halifax, we also remain concerned about the lack of oversight in real time of the use of covert human intelligence sources.
We will keep these matters under review, and we urge the Minister to reflect on the fact that those concerns still exist. Nevertheless, in the narrow terms of the measures before us, we think that they are a positive development, and on that basis, we are content to see them progress.
Tom Tugendhat
I thank both Opposition parties for their co-operation. Both codes are very important, and the commissioner is an important addition, so I am extremely grateful that they have given their consent.
Sadly, tracking not only individuals but state-based threats around our country requires powers that many of us wish we did not have to exercise or use, but it would be irresponsible of the state not to have them. Governments in the past have always supported this, so I am glad that we have done so.
It is worth noting that the IPC only has the powers to oversee the process and report, not to intervene or act in any other way, so that has not changed; it has just been extended. Chapter 2 of the CHIS code makes clear that criminal conduct authorisation must be set out clearly for each CHIS. The hon. Member for Halifax is right to ask about the use of children. Of course, children would always be extremely cautiously used in any Government activity and only in the most appropriate circumstances, when no other way could be found to achieve the same result. I assure her that no authorisation would be given unless it was absolutely necessary and the interests of the child were fully taken into account. It is such commitments that have allowed us to get through the consultation process with many groups that are rightly entirely focused on the interests of the child.
I thank the Committee for considering these regulations. Thank you, Sir Robert, for your chairmanship; it is always a pleasure to see you. I thank the Opposition parties for supporting these important SIs.
Question put and agreed to.
DRAFT INVESTIGATORY POWERS (COVERT HUMAN INTELLIGENCE SOURCES AND INTERCEPTION: CODE OF PRACTICE) REGULATIONS 2022
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Investigatory Powers (Covert Human Intelligence Sources and Interception: Codes of Practice) Regulations 2022 .—(Tom Tugendhat.)
Draft Road Vehicles and Non-Road Mobile Machinery (Type-Approval) (Amendment and Transitional Provisions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2022
Draft Road Vehicle Carbon Dioxide Emission Performance standards (Cars, Vans and Heavy Duty Vehicles) (Amendment) Regulations 2022
(1 year, 12 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Richard Holden)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Road Vehicles and Non-Road Mobile Machinery (Type-Approval) (Amendment and Transitional Provisions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2022.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the draft Road Vehicle Carbon Dioxide Emission Performance Standards (Cars, Vans and Heavy Duty Vehicles) (Amendment) Regulations 2022.
Mr Holden
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd.
As the Department responsible for vehicle regulation, we have conducted intensive work to ensure that there continues to be a functioning legislative framework for this crucial sector of our economy. The EU type approval scheme for road vehicles—in other words cars, buses and goods vehicles—is being converted to an independent GB type approval scheme, to replace the current interim arrangements whereby EU type approvals have been accepted following scrutiny by our Vehicle Certification Agency, the VCA. Alongside that, these regulations create an interim GB approval scheme regulating emissions from machinery engines, which, like the existing interim schemes for motorcycles and agricultural tractors, will be aligned with EU requirements until the end of 2027, by which time we intend to have independent GB approval schemes for these sectors, too.
The purpose of type approval legislation is to ensure that motor vehicles and machinery engines meet prescribed safety and environmental standards. EU law previously set out the regimes under which a new vehicle, engine or part was required to be tested. A substantial proportion of the standards come from an international body based in Geneva, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, or UNECE. The UK will of course continue to play a prominent role in that body, alongside our excellent VCA, which works internationally.
The Road Vehicles and Non-Road Mobile Machinery (Type-Approval) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019—which I shall refer to as the interim SI—introduced an interim provisional approval regime lasting two years, until the end of this year. That allowed manufacturers of motor vehicles to submit evidence of an EU type approval to the British authority, the VCA, to enable vehicles to be submitted for registration. Trailers, machinery engines and replacement parts continued to be sold on the basis of an EU type approval issued by a member state or the VCA.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
So far the Minister has referred only to GB approvals, but the explanatory memorandum refers to the whole of the UK. Can he clarify for the Committee why he is making that distinction when the explanatory memorandum refers to the whole of the UK?
Mr Holden
I certainly will. I should come to that issue further in my speech, but if the hon. Member is still unsure and wants to raise it again, I would ask him to please speak again.
Under the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020, the body of EU law on type approvals is retained in UK law. These are around 2,500 pages setting out approval processes and detailed technical standards for cars, buses and goods vehicles. This morning’s SI corrects deficiencies and creates GB type approval, although I would emphasise that at present the technical standards are essentially identical to those across the EU, so for manufacturers this is essentially, initially at least, an administrative exercise. This SI will require manufacturers of cars, buses and goods vehicles to transition into the GB type approval scheme no later than 1 February 2026, with approval being available from 1 January 2023, assuming the Committee’s agreement. With respect to the Northern Ireland protocol and unfettered access, this instrument will continue to exempt vehicles that meet EU rules that are made in or approved in Northern Ireland from the GB type approval regime. I hope that clarifies matters slightly for the hon. Member.
The SI gives Ministers powers to amend the retained direct minor EU law on road vehicles—in other words, the detailed technical specifications originally set by the European Commission. There will be a statutory requirement to consult representative bodies such as the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, and similar groups, whenever Ministers are seeking to amend the technical standards. This will ensure that the vehicle industry and interested non-governmental organisations are able to have their say on any proposals that we make.
Machinery engines placed on the market from 1 January will be required to obtain GB approval under a new interim provisional approval scheme for machinery engines, which will recognise an EU approval with oversight from our VCA. These arrangements are already in place for agricultural tractors and motorcycles. The provisional schemes for all three groups of product will continue until the end of 2027, by which time we expect to have an independent GB type approval regime available for all those groups of vehicles.
The draft Road Vehicle Carbon Dioxide Emission Performance Standards (Cars, Vans and Heavy Duty Vehicles) (Amendment) Regulations 2022 amend various retained EU new car, van and heavy duty vehicle carbon dioxide emission regulations to ensure that they can continue to function appropriately.
The new car and van carbon dioxide emission regulations were retained following EU exit and establish mandatory average carbon dioxide emission targets for manufacturers of new cars and vans across the UK. The regulations set out how the carbon dioxide emission scheme is to be monitored, reported on and enforced. They also include provisions to help manufacturers to meet their carbon dioxide targets, including derogations for smaller volume manufacturers, the awarding of more credits for producing low emission vehicles, and allowing manufacturers to join together to be considered as one entity to meet carbon dioxide targets, inter alia.
The HDV carbon dioxide emission regulations were also retained following EU exit; however, they do not set mandatory carbon dioxide emission targets on HDV manufacturers until 2025. Until that time, manufacturers are legally required to report specific data points on their vehicles annually to the enforcement body, the VCA.
This draft instrument primarily amends references to EU type approval in the regulations to EU, GB or UK (NI) type approval, where appropriate, to reflect the creation of the GB type approval scheme. As the car, van and HDV carbon dioxide emission regulations apply UK-wide, it is appropriate to reference all three type approval schemes; due to the protocol, vehicles registered in Northern Ireland will continue to receive EU type approval or, now, UK (NI) type approval.
Kevin Brennan
That interests me. Am I right in saying that the regulations will have no effect whatsoever in practice, because EU type approval will continue to be legal in GB due to the Northern Ireland protocol, and vehicles that are subject to UK (NI) type approval will continue to be legally available in GB? Is that a correct interpretation of what the Minister is saying?
Mr Holden
The changes in regulations are merely, at the moment, moving from one to the other. Obviously, there are broader discussions around the Northern Ireland protocol, what that will mean down the line and whether there is any derogation in the future, but at the moment the regulations are essentially the same for both GB and Northern Ireland under the protocol.
Kevin Brennan
It says in the Minister’s own explanatory memorandum, in paragraph 7.9:
“As a result of EU exit and the GB type-approval 2022 Regulations vehicles with either GB, UK(NI) or EU type-approval can be sold on the UK market.”
What I just said was right, was it not?
Mr Holden
Yes, indeed—on markets using EU approvals issued by an EU approval authority, or to seek approval for EU rules from the VCA, known as a UK (NI) approval. GB-based manufacturers will have the same choice when selling in Northern Ireland. Whichever route manufacturers choose, they will be able to sell products—the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right—throughout the rest of Great Britain without additional approval. The point at the moment is that we want to get these regulations on the statute book in advance of anything further. Particularly with respect to bus manufacturing, which has a significant presence in Northern Ireland, we may wish at some further point to derogate.
References to type approval are fundamental to the regulations as they determine which vehicles are in scope of either scheme, as well as defining who will receive a carbon dioxide emissions target, including a fine for any non-compliance. A number of minor EU exit-related deficiencies, and a simple typo made in a previous statutory instrument, are also corrected by this instrument.
The type approval instrument creates an independent GB type approval scheme for cars, buses and goods vehicles, continues the interim regime for other categories of motor vehicle, and creates a similar interim regime for machinery engines.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
Can my hon. Friend just clarify something for the slower members of the class, i.e. me? Page 16 of the regulations refers to the differences between GB type approval, UK (NI) type approval and EU type approval. Were, for example, the bus manufacturers in Northern Ireland to decide that they wished, for all sorts of good reasons, to have different regulations surrounding their bus manufacture, and if that were approved by the Government, that would change GB type approval and UK (NI) type approval, and the resulting buses would be available for sale under those rules here across the UK, but would they also be available for sale in the EU, if they differed from the EU type approval?
Mr Holden
No, because if in future the regulations differed, they would affect the UK, but not the rest of the EU, so they would potentially be different regulations. At the moment, the regulations are essentially the same in the EU and Northern Ireland. For example, although Nissan, near my constituency, which has experience of this, imports several parts of cars and cars from Japan, they are not made in the UK under the Nissan badge. They have to meet UK or EU standards at the moment, whereas there are different standards when Nissan is selling to, say, to east Asia. At the moment, those are not the same as those we see in the EU. We have had the same regulations. The UK (NI) regulations and the GB regulations are going to be the same as in the EU at the start, however in future we will see what happens and what differences there might be.
Richard Graham
I am grateful to the Minister for allowing me to come back on this. If we were to manufacture buses in Northern Ireland with the intention of selling them in south-east Asia, for example, would the Department do research on whether the Asian standards required for their buses were compatible with whatever changes we might want to make to GB and UK law?
Mr Holden
I think if a company is manufacturing purely for export, it can manufacture purely to the standards of the other country it is exporting to, so it would totally depend. The VCA works internationally and has offices in eight countries, including in all our major manufacturing partners that export cars or car parts to the UK, including India. We do a lot of international work, and a lot of it comes through the VCA, because Britain is recognised, even post EU exit, as an important and independent international body when recognising such regulations.
Richard Graham
So is the overall purpose simply the conversion of EU law into UK law, or is the intention to do that, but also pave the way for further changes that may be beneficial to manufacturers?
Mr Holden
At this point, it is the first, because these provisions do not cover all the additional areas, including motorcycles and stand-alone engines. Down the line, and obviously with regard to the protocol and Northern Ireland issues, there might be further moves, but these regulations essentially mirror where we are within the EU at the moment. I hope that answers my hon. Friend’s questions.
The type approval instrument creates an independent GB type approval for cars, buses and goods vehicles, continues the interim regime for other categories of motor vehicles, and creates a similar interim regime for machinery engines. The carbon dioxide instrument ensures that the existing carbon dioxide monitoring scheme can cater for vehicles approved under the GB type approval scheme. The GB approval scheme is vital to provide the platform to ensure that we have control over vehicle standards in areas ranging from environmental protection to automated and self-driving vehicles. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Mr Dowd. I welcome the Minister to his place. Tackling high and illegal levels of air pollution is a key battleground in our fight against the climate crisis. Therefore, we will not be opposing these instruments, which relate to type approval for road vehicles.
However, unfortunately, I do not believe that the Government have gone far enough on environmental targets. For instance, I am concerned that the UK has not adopted World Health Organisation targets on air pollution into domestic legislation. As a member of the Bill Committee for the Environment Act 2021 two years ago, I voted in favour of such a measure, but that was unfortunately voted down by the Government. Still, we are seeing the measures of the Environment Act being watered down or ignored. The delayed 2040 target to tackle PM2.5 particulate pollution sends the message that that is not a priority for this Government. It is not just us saying that; even the Government’s own watchdog has criticised the delay and stated that targets are too weak.
Our communities cannot afford to wait another 18 years for clean air. As we all know, the impacts of dangerous and illegal levels of air pollution are not felt equally across our society. Those in the most deprived areas often have to breathe the most toxic air, and disproportionately suffer from the worst health risks as a result. Clean air is therefore not just an environmental issue; it is a social issue, an economic issue, and a levelling-up issue.
We can already see Labour in power delivering on cleaner air. Our local councils, Mayors and Welsh Government are putting in huge efforts to fix the problem today, not decades from now. But they are being held back by a UK Government that is showing a lack of ambition in that area.
To conclude, we will not be opposing today’s instruments to create a new system for the type approval of road vehicles. However, I hope the Minister can address those points, and put in a renewed effort to go further in tackling dangerous and illegal levels of air pollution.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Road Vehicle Carbon Dioxide Emission Performance Standards (Cars, Vans and Heavy Duty Vehicles) (Amendment) Regulations 2022
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Road Vehicle Carbon Dioxide Emission Performance Standards (Cars, Vans and Heavy Duty Vehicles) (Amendment) Regulations 2022.—(Mr Richard Holden.)
Draft Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) (Terms of Agreement) Regulations 2022
(1 year, 12 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Julia Lopez)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) (Terms of Agreement) Regulations 2022.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Elliott, in particular after our recent Westminster Hall debate. I am pleased to introduce this draft statutory instrument, laid before the House on 19 October, which is part of the implementing regulations under the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Act 2021, or TILPA.
Providing greater access to fast, reliable and secure connections is a priority for the Government. We all understand the economic, social and cultural benefits of improving digital connectivity. Improving our infrastructure to deliver gigabit-capable connections will enable a step change in what digital connectivity can contribute to our daily lives.
The benefits can only be realised to their fullest extent, however, if they reach every home. For that reason, last year the Government passed TILPA, which we believe will support those living in flats and apartments—multiple-dwelling units or MDUs—to access broadband services. The aim of TILPA is to encourage landlords to respond to requests for access issued by network operators. That could be landlords or a property management company, depending on the arrangements for any particular building. In TILPA, that person is referred to as the “required grantor”.
The rights sought by operators are essential to the delivery of connectivity. That is because, while a tenant in a flat may be able to provide permission for the operator to install equipment in their own flat, operators may be unable to deploy their services without first obtaining permission to install equipment in areas that are not part of the target premises itself, such as shared corridors or riser cupboards.
Data provided by multiple operators suggest that about 40% of their requests for access receive no response. When an operator finds itself in that situation, our understanding is that the operator opts to bypass the property to maintain the momentum of its wider deployment. The result of the operator’s commercial decision is that residents in that property are left with little choice but to accept that they will miss out on a good connection. We think that that is unacceptable.
TILPA addresses that issue by amending the electronic communications code to create a new streamlined route through the courts, named the part 4A process. Operators may use that process to access lots of flats and apartments if a service has been requested by a tenant, but the landlord is repeatedly unresponsive to requests for access. The legislation will thus prevent a situation in which a leaseholder is unable to receive a service simply because of the silence of a landlord.
Government policy in this area, however, also works to keep a proportionate balance between public benefit and the rights of individual landlords. That consideration is particularly important in TILPA where an operator may gain rights to access a property without the express permission or, potentially, even knowledge of a landlord. TILPA is designed such that the terms and conditions applied to part 4A code rights will ensure that that balance between the public benefit of network roll-out and private property rights is maintained.
The terms and conditions are contained in two statutory instruments, the draft terms-of-agreement SI which we are debating today and the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) (Conditions and Time Limits) Regulations 2022. The latter SI, which was laid in Parliament on the same day as this one, was subject to the negative procedure. It specifies conditions to be satisfied before an operator can give a final notice to the landlord. Those regulations are designed to ensure that the operator has made sufficient attempts to identify and contact the landlord before making an application to the court to have an agreement imposed. It gives a time limit within which the operator must apply to the court for a part 4A order and an expiry period for the code rights themselves to ensure that the rights gained through the process are balanced to facilitate the provision of new connections without encroaching on private property rights.
All rights conferred under the code, whether under part 4A or another part of the code, are subject to the terms contained in the agreement granting those rights—for example, particular requirements to give notice before entering the land in question. The precise terms to be applied to a code agreement have never been set in legislation, so the draft SI we are discussing has been informed by detailed consultation with stakeholders and contains the exact terms to which any code rights imposed under the part 4A process will be subject.
Those terms include the notice requirements that the operator must satisfy before entering the building, entry times for the operator, a requirement for the operator to indemnify the landlord for up to £5 million and requirements to label equipment, among other details. By prescribing those exact terms for a part 4A agreement, the draft SI represents a novel approach in telecoms infrastructure policy.
That approach has been taken for two reasons. First, the circumstances in which the part 4A process can be used are very specific: it can only be used where the operator needs to access land connected to the premises to which it wishes to deliver a service, and where both the target premises and the connected land are in common ownership. The process currently applies only to multiple-dwelling units. The limited situations in which the part 4A process can be used mean that whereas in most cases, legislation cannot effectively pre-empt the terms that a particular situation warrants, in this case, the scope is so narrow that it can. Secondly, fixing the terms of a part 4A agreement makes the process of courts dealing with applications for code rights far less complex, so that we can grant decisions very quickly. Given that the process is designed to provide a quicker route to gaining code rights to avoid an operator having to bypass a building altogether, we think that is crucial. It also has the benefit of allowing courts to concentrate on the most complex cases.
Before concluding, I wish to note that the regulations apply to Scotland, England and Wales, but not to Northern Ireland. That is due to an issue stemming from the absence of a Northern Ireland Executive between 2017 and 2019, which caused the jurisdiction of code court cases in Northern Ireland courts to fall out of step with the rest of the country. Work is under way to resolve that, and separate regulations will follow in 2023. These regulations, and the Act they help to implement, represent an innovative new approach to enabling digital infrastructure roll-out, and we have designed them carefully to deliver improved connectivity for tenants while protecting private property rights. I hope that the regulations will receive the support of hon. Members.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Elliott. In our modern world, broadband is an essential utility, and in order to access many aspects of society—including shopping, schooling, public services and banking—a reliable, fast and affordable connection is needed. As such, people living in multiple-dwelling units such as blocks of flats or converted townhouses need broadband just as much as everyone else. However, Openreach has warned that without much-needed reforms, it may be unable to connect up to 1.5 million flats, risking the creation of a major digital divide. I am therefore pleased that measures are being introduced that will help operators to connect people living in flats where landowners are repeatedly unresponsive. These measures will help to resolve a subset of extreme cases, but if we are to meet the scale of the challenge of connecting everyone in MDUs, further support and reforms will be needed.
The draft statutory instrument before us today and the connected statutory instrument regarding conditions and time limits seek to strike a reasonable balance between operators and landowners, helping to connect some people in flats who might otherwise be left behind. As the Minister has outlined, where the required grantor refuses to respond to an operator time and time again, there will now be a new avenue through the courts for operators to deploy their services. For the reassurance of landowners, the SI also requires that operators adhere to certain standards while carrying out the work, a positive move that will improve trust in the industry as a whole.
Operators have raised some concerns that some of the terms are unnecessarily onerous. For example, they have questioned the need to send notice by recorded delivery when all previous attempts to make contact have been ignored or rejected, and when many contact addresses for grantors are simply overseas PO boxes. Others have said that they will find it hard to line up permissions, such as those needed from the local authority and those needed for preserving heritage, at the same time. How will the Department review whether the use of part 4A orders is working as intended—will it record how many are successfully issued and followed through, for example? Overall, however, we recognise the need for a reasonable amount of communication between parties, and for proper procedure to be followed. The Government did consult on the terms and have tried to strike a balance, and the result will allow for a small number of properties to be connected that otherwise would not be.
When looking at the bigger picture, however, this piece of delegated legislation addresses only a very narrow part of the problem with connecting flats. At present, operators are often forced to move build teams that are installing full fibre in a particular area onwards when they get to multiple-dwelling units, meaning that those flats are not connected. That is because in many cases, it is simply too difficult and costly for operators to come to an agreement with the required grantors in the timeframe during which they are in the area. Operators can theoretically go back and connect those flats at a later date, but that is much less efficient than doing so when they were already building there. That means that if the build team moves on, those living in the block will be left without a full fibre connection for years.
Today’s SI may provide a new legal route for accessing flats in some cases where landowners are being completely unresponsive, but showing a repeated lack of responsiveness itself takes time, meaning that build teams may still be moved on before they are actually able to use it. Furthermore, many landowners do communicate with operators, but in a manner or at a speed that delays the process to a point where, again, operators still need to move their teams on; in those cases, this legislation will not help at all. As a result, to ensure that people in flats are not left behind or connected inefficiently at a later date, we must look at reforms that target the broader issues behind MDUs—something that could and should have been done during the passage of the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill. I would be grateful to hear from the Minister what recent consideration has been given to the possibility of issuing full automatic upgrade rights to operators, while giving thought to their need for competition. It would also be an opportune time to provide an update on when requirements for new builds to be fitted with full fibre will finally be in force.
The Government have revised their broadband roll-out targets too many times. To prevent that from happening again, they must consider the broader concerns of those implementing the roll-out, and attempt to balance these with the needs of landowners and other interested parties. This SI is a step in the right direction, but further reforms will no doubt be necessary to ensure that tenants in flats do not unintentionally become a digitally excluded group. If we truly believe that broadband is an essential utility and not a luxury, this is something that Members across the House should be concerned about.
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)
I attach myself to the remarks made by the Minister and the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) about garnering consensus on MDUs. The timescale involved in doing that is making it difficult for some companies to roll out broadband at the speed at which they would like to roll it out.
The reform of the code, placing additional requirements on operators not to disrupt the landowner’s use of the land and damage properties, is welcome. The SNP has no intention of standing in the way of this SI, but I will highlight a concern that has come to my attention. Telecommunications giants were involved in lobbying on both sides of the reform argument, investing money in campaigns. The Protect and Connect campaign, which lobbied relentlessly on the recent telecommunications Bill, asking for an independent review of the code, is almost entirely funded by a single US telecommunications company that makes money from UK mast rents. It spent £400,000 on Facebook adverts that lobbied MPs, and called on the public to write to their MPs—of course, we always welcome hearing from our constituents. The campaign, which runs in the UK to change UK law, is almost entirely financed by a US company, which only lightly alludes to its role in the campaign deep in the privacy section of the Protect and Connect website. While many businesses have legitimate cases, with small landowners facing huge drops in rent due to code reform, it is extremely concerning that a large foreign company is co-ordinating a campaign in the UK without declaring that and hiding behind others. The SNP has repeatedly raised the issue of the influence of dark money in UK democracy, and this is just another example. It should be taken as a sign of the range of influences that foreign countries seek in our democracy that even a matter such as the electronic communications code garners such huge attention.
Julia Lopez
I thank the hon. Member for Barnsley East for what I thought was constructive feedback; I am glad that we very much agree on the importance of connectivity. As she knows, we have looked carefully at the Openreach-backed amendments to the PSTI Bill in great detail. TILPA is neutral to all operators without giving any single operator a particular commercial benefit, and we believe that the amendment that Openreach has persistently tried to get through the House gives it a commercial benefit. The hon. Member will be aware that the presence of competition in our broadband roll-out has been an absolutely critical factor in ensuring that that roll-out is rapid, so we are sensitive to anything that would give one commercial operator an advantage over another. We believe that we are getting connectivity to people much faster through that commercial competition. I will take some of the other feedback from the hon. Member back to my officials, but I reassure her that we have been talking carefully and constructively with all operators throughout this process. I am sure that all the issues that she raised will be ones that we continue to look at to ensure that the system is working as it should. We fundamentally have the same aim, which is to get this great connectivity out to everybody as quickly as possible.
I also welcome the comments of the hon. Member for Inverclyde on Protect and Connect. I share some of his frustrations, and it is interesting to look at some of those that are backing the campaign and how it is funded. I believe that it is backed by a former Labour MP for Redcar. While I appreciate some of the issues that it raises, some of the ways in which the campaign has been conducted use sensitive community cases to disguise a wider commercial interest. We are making huge progress in our roll-out, and the new procurements that we are rolling out under Project Gigabit to some of the hardest-to-reach areas will deliver great connectivity to some of those parts of the country that have suffered for too long with poor superfast and mobile connectivity. We look forward to having the support of the House as we engage in that programme, and I thank both hon. Members for their comments in this debate. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Biocidal Products (Health and Safety) (Amendment) Regulations 2022
(1 year, 12 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Biocidal Products (Health and Safety) (Amendment) Regulations 2022.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. This draft statutory instrument was laid before Parliament on 18 October. It is a technical change only, and there are no policy changes. It relates to biocidal products, which are used to control harmful organisms and include disinfectants, insecticides and rodenticides. These products have important roles in protecting human health and critical infrastructure, and it is therefore essential to society that their legal supply is not disrupted.
Although biocidal products are critical to society, they can pose risks to human health, animal health and the environment if used incorrectly. Therefore, to allow a biocidal product on the GB market, a two-step authorisation process is in place. First, the active substances used in biocidal products must be approved. Approval involves a rigorous scientific evaluation to ensure safety and efficacy—a process that takes one to two years and costs approximately £180,000. If an active substance is approved, applications can be made to authorise biocidal products containing that active substance. This evaluation looks at the safety and efficacy of the formulation—a process that takes about a year and costs approximately £25,000. As Members will understand, the applications are large dossiers of scientific data, and require complex evaluation and assessment by a range of specialist scientific disciplines to ensure that there is no danger to human health, animal health or the environment. The Health and Safety Executive operates a cost recovery model, so applicants bear the full cost of processing applications.
Biocidal products are regulated under the Great Britain biocidal products regulation—GB BPR—which was retained following EU exit. The authorisation process in Great Britain is similar to the EU, except where references to EU arrangements were replaced by domestic arrangements. Also retained in the legislation were legal deadlines by which applications should be processed. Those legal deadlines were in place to ensure consistency across the EU in how long was given to process applications and to provide transparency to applicants. While the UK was still in the EU, a steady stream of applications was processed across EU member states, though even at that time, deadlines were often missed.
In preparation to meet our ambition for the HSE to become a world-class stand-alone chemicals regulator following the UK’s departure from the EU, significant investment has been made to increase the HSE’s capacity and capability, and to embed new processes and procedures. Through a major transformation programme, the HSE’s headcount for its chemicals regulation division has increased by around 40%, with ongoing significant investment in both people and IT.
As part of EU exit preparations, transitional arrangements were put in place to ensure a smooth transition for businesses to the new domestic systems. Those arrangements required businesses that had applications in process at the end of the implementation period to re-submit them to the HSE by deadlines in 2021 if they wanted to retain access to the GB market. Under the arrangements, biocidal products already on the GB market could continue to be made available until their application was processed. It was unknown at the time how many re-submissions would be made by applicants to access the GB market until those deadlines passed.
I am pleased to report that more than 70% of the biocides applications seeking access to the UK market under the previous EU system have been resubmitted to GB. That clearly shows that the industry has faith in the GB market and in the HSE as the regulator, but it also generates a greater workload than was originally anticipated. As a result, it is not possible to process the large one-off influx of biocidal product authorisation applications within the legal deadlines in place.
The HSE has been hindered by its loss of access to EU databases that hold historical reports containing scientific information relevant to the processing of applications. However, a resolution should be in place by the time the information is required to process the applications. The HSE will also consider what future digital solutions may be required once a resolution has been implemented. Nevertheless, we must recognise that the issue has caused some further delays in the processing of applications.
Following EU exit, the legal deadlines in the Great Britain biocidal products regulation amount to deficiencies in current retained EU law; therefore, the appropriate course of action available to the HSE is to make technical amendments through this statutory instrument under the powers in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 to remedy deficiencies in the current legal framework. The technical changes proposed by the statutory instrument are straightforward: the legal deadlines in place to process biocidal product authorisation applications will be temporarily extended for an additional five years.
The period of five years is derived from resource modelling from the transformation programme to which I referred earlier. It represents the amount of time that the HSE forecasts it will take to address the backlog and return to a position in which applications can be processed within the original legal deadlines. I trust it is understood that the processing of applications is not simply a rubber-stamping exercise and that it requires highly trained staff who cannot simply be brought in in large numbers at short notice.
To clarify, the amendment to the legal deadlines should have no impact on businesses. An extension of the deadlines does not cause any additional cost to the applicant; instead, this statutory instrument provides legal certainty that when biocidal products are on the GB market awaiting the outcome of their application, they can remain there. That may not otherwise have been the case had the legal deadlines been missed. In turn, that ensures that there is no disruption to the legal supply of essential biocidal products while the applications are cleared.
The statutory instrument will affect a small number of new biocidal product authorisation applications. However, those applications will be prioritised to ensure that where businesses are waiting for authorisations before they can supply their products, they will not experience any delays.
Finally, this statutory instrument also adds an additional transitional measure—an oversight in the previous EU exit statutory instruments—that allows a type of biocidal product authorisation application called “same product applications” to transition to the GB market and be treated in the same way as other applications. This, too, has no impact on businesses. It is a technical correction to ensure that the biocide regime is fully functioning as intended.
I hope it is helpful for the Committee to know that this statutory instrument was robustly debated in the other place and passed without challenge. I can confirm that consent to make the statutory instrument has been obtained from Ministers in Scottish and Welsh Governments, in line with the normal conventions. The regulation of biocides in Northern Ireland follows separate arrangements under the Northern Ireland protocol and is not affected by this instrument. I hope colleagues of all parties will join me in supporting the draft regulations, which I commend to the Committee.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Mr Robertson. I thank the Minister for presenting the statutory instrument. We do not consider it controversial, but I have a few questions for her.
This is one of the many statutory instruments being introduced by the Government as part of the return of powers from the European Union. This particular instrument aims to
“extend the legal deadlines in place for processing biocidal product authorisation applications by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) acting as competent authority.”
Importantly, the regulations will ensure that there is sufficient time to process applications and that biocidal products can remain legally on the market in Great Britain, as intended by the legislative framework. They will ultimately ensure business as usual—something the Labour party will always back. I do, however, have questions for the Minister.
What would the Minister say to businesses and the general public about the need for this SI? As I, the Minister and many Members here will know, following EU exit we no longer have access to the vital databases storing historical EU reports. These reports contain information concerning the evaluations that EU member states carried out to inform decisions on the approval of biocidal active substances and the authorisation of biocidal products. Although some of that information has been published, some aspects are confidential and not published at all. Many will worry that the consequences of EU exit have simply not been planned properly. How could the Government not prepare for this or see it coming? The scale of potential disruption caused by our exit from the EU sits firmly with successive Tory Governments.
I hope the Minister can also provide clarification on the extra workload. The Minister will know that the transitional arrangements requiring the resubmission of applications to the HSE have resulted in a one-off influx of simultaneous applications around transitional deadlines, and this has caused a temporary backlog of applications. One of the main reasons for this SI, as the Minister outlined, is that the HSE will not be able to meet the legal deadlines for processing authorisations set out in GB BPR. Why is the Minister asking the HSE to do more with less? In 2010, Government funding to the HSE stood at £231 million; 12 years later, it stands at £178 million. That is a cut of £53 million. It is simply baffling to ask the HSE to take on more following the EU exit. Will the Minister clarify what extra support is being put in place to support the increased workload?
I hope the Minister will remember that this SI covers material that must be handled with care. The HSE deserves the proper support to manage the increased workload. Not doing so would leave the public at risk, and that is something I am sure we can agree no one wants. I appreciate the Minister laying this SI before Parliament. As I said, it is one that we will support, but it would be helpful if the Minister could answer a few of those questions.
Tahir Ali (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab)
I have some questions for the Minister. The first concerns the resubmission rate of 70%. What are the actual numbers? If this instrument is to be extended for five years, what are we looking at 70% of? My next question is about the data that was lost because of EU withdrawal. That will now mean that a lot of work has to be done again from scratch, which will involve some intense resources and support for HSE, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford mentioned. How much extra resource will be put into the HSE? In five years, there will be the 70% of re-submitted applications, as well as the submissions that would normally come in. Will we be in a position in five years’ time where we have another backlog and have to look at another extension?
Mims Davies
I have many notes. I thank the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford for her questions and the spirit of them—I am being passed even more notes, so I feel pretty sure that I can answer most of her questions.
Let us start with the most important issue: resourcing and funding. The HSE has already increased the number of staff working on chemicals regulation by around 40% from 256 in March 2020 to 355 in March 2022, with further significant recruitment planned over the next two to three years, which I hope answers the question raised by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green. That reflects the need for increased resources for the HSE’s post-EU exit responsibilities.
Likewise, the total budget for the HSE’s chemicals regulation division has grown by 39% from £22.4 million to £31.2 million between 2018-19 and 2022-23. It was always anticipated that it would take several years to reach full operating capacity following Brexit, due to the need to recruit and train large numbers of new staff in specialist disciplines required for chemicals regulation.
It is an honour to be the Minister responsible for the HSE. The depth of work it does across covid and all sectors is a joy to behold and learn from, with its cost recovery scheme and the way that it works. One of its recruitment plans is to grow and progress more of its own people, which I very much welcome.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
Given what the Minister just said, does she see it as a matter of regret that we have lost over 400 HSE inspectors since 2010? During the covid crisis, their roles had to be adopted by debt collectors, who were performing their functions by inspecting premises and carrying out tick-box exercises in their stead.
Mims Davies
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point. In the time that I have been working with the HSE as a Minister, whether on visits to Derbyshire or to Bootle, I have been really impressed with its ingenuity and the way it has got people to come into the sector, grown its local workforce and given people opportunities. It is brilliant at bringing people in and training them. If he is saying that we welcome people from all walks of life to come into this growing sector, we are on the same page.
Sir Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
Will the Minister confirm that, as part of this welcome recruitment drive, the ministerial head of the HSE will insist that all new employees have to work from an office base, rather than working from home? We are talking about deep scientific research, a key part of which is collaboration. I understand that the Government cannot do much about civil servants who had their terms and conditions altered during covid, but will she confirm that, on an ongoing basis, the civil servants she is recruiting into the HSE will have to work from an office, rather than from home?
Mims Davies
My right hon. Friend is right to talk about learning and development within the business, which is really important. In my engagement with and visits to the HSE, it has been very clear about that, but it also has many people in the field and around the country who balance working from home with working from the base where they deliver their processes. It is a mixed picture, but I am happy to look at that point and raise it with management.
The HSE’s chemicals regulation division has reached full capacity and will be in a position to meet the usual timescales set out in the legislation, but it is important to bring this measure to the House, to give us the time to achieve this recruitment and, ultimately, make sure that this area is safe and works. I hope that reassures hon. Members.
The hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford asked why we have to do this and whether we envisaged the timetables. The changes will ensure that regulatory deadlines provide sufficient time for the HSE to clear the backlog of applications, and will give legal certainty to the affected businesses, whose products, vitally, will be able to remain on the market while their applications are, rightfully, assessed.
The active substances will be reviewed by the HSE, and the legislation allowing flexibility and timeliness should be welcome. I reassure hon. Members that the work to review the programme is in development. The HSE will continue to communicate and engage with stakeholders on its work in due course. It has already started work on evaluating the active substance applications, which fall outside the formal review programme.
There was a question about how the businesses will be notified about applications. Businesses have been notified and have submitted more than 400 biocidal product applications. That includes new applications, changes to existing authorisations and renewals, while 250 are complex new applications, which require the most resources. Compared with the EU workload, that represents about 70% more than anticipated, but I strongly believe that the HSE can withstand that. I thank the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford for making those points.
I have covered the staffing measures. On the long-standing transition arrangements that allow the biocidal products to stay on the market until their applications are assessed, most affected products have previously been on the market for many years, and in most cases in the EU as well. I reassure colleagues that this is nothing for us to worry about. The HSE has the experts, and the draft regulations will allow it to do its work and to monitor as it can and should.
The HSE has a process for monitoring international scientific information of relevance to UK active substances and products, including the EU assessments. Should new evidence emerge, the HSE will again work with any relevant regulatory agencies and take any suitable action as a result.
Andy McDonald
The Minister is being generous in giving way. Given the commitments she has made this afternoon, is she able to give any indication to the Committee as to the increase in the HSE’s budget following the autumn statement? It has an awful lot more work to do.
Mims Davies
I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman about the budget. I have information about the staffing that I can give him, but I point to the cost recovery in this area. The HSE is exemplary on that. I am happy to write to him with more detail, if that is helpful.
I want to cover data; forgive me, I have so many notes here, I cannot find the bit on data. Here we go—so many bits of paper! I hope hon. Members appreciate that this is a technical instrument and it is important that we get it right. I would rather give more detail and data than less.
The HSE’s assessment of biocidal products remains based primarily on the data submitted by the businesses. They have to act for the authorisation in place for their products on the market. The businesses can continue to do that without access to the EU databases. That is not under threat. The risks of loss of access to the EU databases are being considered as part of HSE’s work to manage biocide authorisations taking into account the loss of access to EU databases, but HSE’s long-term objective is to develop solutions that will allow the authorisation processes to work without disruption, so that no risks materialise.
I hope that I have covered most of the questions put to me. I welcome the Committee considering the draft regulations. I reiterate that the statutory instrument is a technical change only and that there are no policy changes. It relates to biocidal products that are used to control harmful organisms, including disinfectants, insecticides and rodenticides—products that have important roles in protecting human health and critical infrastructure. The instrument will therefore allow us to ensure that the legal supply of such products is not impacted in the long term.
The draft instrument provides important additional time for the HSE to complete biocide authorisations while applications are addressed, and extends the relevant deadlines by a one-off period—I stress the “one-off”—of five years after the regulations come into force, by which time the HSE forecasts that the authorisations will have been cleared. After that, it will return to the normal processing times set out in legislation.
I remind the Committee that no cost to businesses arises from the changes made in this draft statutory instrument. Importantly, it provides legal certainty that, where biocidal products are already on market in Great Britain waiting for an authorisation decision, they can continue to be used and supplied. That will ensure that suppliers of biocides are treated fairly and that there is no disruption to the legal supply of essential biocidal products while the backlog of applications is cleared.
The draft regulations provide a transitional measure to supplement the existing Great Britain biocidal products regulation or GB BPR, bringing over the last elements of pre-EU exit regulation. That change ensures that a certain type of biocidal product authorisation application, namely same product applications, can be treated in an identical way to other applications. Again, that has no impact on businesses and is a technical correction to ensure the biocide regime is now fully functioning as intended.
To conclude, the draft instrument will provide the necessary extension to the legal deadlines to enable HSE to process affected biocidal product authorisation applications. That will provide legal certainty to businesses that biocidal products on the market awaiting their application to be processed can remain there. In turn, biocidal products essential to the functioning of society can continue to be made available and used appropriately.
Question put and agreed to.
Petition
Observations
National Brewery Centre in Burton upon Trent
Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Bill
Wednesday 23rd November 2022
(1 year, 12 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 View all Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
I have a few preliminary reminders: please no food or drink; switch your electronic devices to silent; and Hansard colleagues always appreciate having your notes emailed to them.
My selection and grouping list for today’s sitting is available online and in the room. As you can see for yourselves, no amendments have been tabled. We therefore have a single debate on all the clauses.
Clause 1
Liability of employer for harassment of employee by third parties
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
Thank you, Mr Paisley. Before I go through the details of the Bill, I thank the Minister and Committee members for joining me to examine the Bill. I also thank the Government’s Equalities Office and the Fawcett Society for their excellent work and support over recent months. It is wonderful to see such cross-party co-operation to ensure that this important legislation makes progress.
Workplace sexual harassment is a blight on our society. It remains widespread and vastly under-reported. Half of British women and a fifth of men have been sexually harassed at work or a place of study. Too many people have been left to suffer for too long. The question of whether employers have taken adequate steps to prevent sexual harassment arises only as a defence if an incident of sexual harassment has already occurred. Employers are therefore not required to take actions to prevent sexual harassment. That leaves individuals with the burden of challenging it.
The Bill, which passed its Second Reading last month, introduces two new measures to strengthen protections for employees against harassment. The first is the introduction of explicit protections for employees from workplace harassment by third parties, such as customers and clients. The second is the introduction of a duty on employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent their employees from experiencing sexual harassment.
I now turn to the Bill’s substance, covering each of the six clauses. Clause 1 creates employers’ liability for harassment of their employees by third parties. In particular, the clause amends section 40 of the Equality Act 2010, which already makes it unlawful for an employer to harass their employees or their job applicants, by inserting proposed new subsections 1A and 1B.
Proposed new subsection 1A will make an employer liable if they fail to take all reasonable steps to prevent the harassment of their staff from third parties in the course of their employment. That includes all types of harassment under the Equality Act, including racial harassment and harassment in relation to sexual orientation, as well as sexual harassment. Proposed new subsection 1B defines a third party as someone other than the employer or a fellow employee. That would include customers or clients. In practice, therefore, employers will now be legally required to consider the harassment risks that third parties may pose in their workplaces, and to take steps to protect their staff.
No other conditions are attached to the third-party protection, and an employee will be able to bring a claim for third-party harassment after a single incident of harassment. The Bill therefore does not replicate the repealed “three strikes” formulation in the pre-2013 version of section 40 of the Equality Act, under which employers needed to know of two previous incidents of third-party harassment before they could be considered liable. The rationale is that there should be no distinction between being harassed by a colleague or a client when it comes to the legal liability of employers and to employees seeking recourse. The measure will also provide better clarity for both employers and employees, and avoid the unnecessary complexity arising from the “three strikes” formulation. The third-party harassment protection will be enforceable in two ways: first, by individuals bringing claims to the employment tribunal; and secondly, by the Equality and Human Rights Commission using its existing powers.
In cases where individuals are willing and able to bring claims to the employment tribunal, claims of third-party harassment will be considered in the usual way for work-related Equality Act claims. Compensation in such cases will be decided by the employment tribunal in the same way as existing Equality Act claims, which involve considering a number of factors, including financial loss and “injury to feelings”.
Clause 2 inserts new section 40A into the Equality Act to create a new duty on employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employees. The phrase “all reasonable steps” is well understood as it is a statutory defence in section 109 of the Equality Act. Employers currently can show that they have taken all reasonable steps to prevent the harassment or discrimination of their employees when defending such claims and will therefore be familiar with the concept. The provision is to make sure that employers will quickly get behind this legislation.
The Bill will not define “all reasonable steps” because what could be considered reasonable will vary between employers, taking into account factors such as their size, sector and specific circumstances. Tribunals are adept at applying the concept, which ensures that employers can take a proportionate approach appropriate for their circumstances. All that is to ensure that everyone—employees and employers—can get behind this legislation because it is about a culture change in our society.
David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on getting her Bill to this stage.
On the point about culture change, I should say that a few weeks ago a 16-year-old in my constituency came to see me about negative behaviour from boys and men, including rape jokes that the adults around her and her friends just dismissed as “boys will be boys”. That is the sort of thing that happens in the workplace, too. Does the hon. Lady agree that the earlier we educate boys about how to treat girls, the less likely they are to become men who mistreat women in the workplace?
Wera Hobhouse
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Absolutely—this legislation should be a step in the right direction towards culture change. That cannot start too early; obviously, by the time someone is in the workplace they might already have started to take the wrong attitudes. Whenever we talk about sexual harassment, we always mention the importance of education and of starting early and understanding relationships and consents. That is the most important thing. We do not want legislation that creates a lot of criminals and offenders; it should encourage people to do the right thing and to have the right behaviour in all places in society, including the workplace.
The question of whether an action is reasonable is also familiar in domestic civil law: more specifically, in the Equality Act—for example, the duty on employers and service providers to make “reasonable adjustments” for disabled people. To help employers understand what is expected of them, the Government will be supporting the Equality and Human Rights Commission to develop a statutory code of practice on workplace harassment. A breach of the new duty will be enforceable in two ways. First, it will constitute an unlawful act under the Equality Act 2006, and therefore be enforceable by the Equality and Human Rights Commission under its existing powers. There are already good and reasonable laws in place, but sometimes people may not know that they exist. Employees in particular may not know that they have recourse to them. This legislation also reinforces our campaign to make sure that everyone knows their rights.
The EHRC may undertake strategic litigation, investigation and enforcement activity for any suspected breach of the new employer duty, regardless of whether an individual has submitted a legal claim to the employment tribunal. That is an important change, because previously that was not possible. The EHRC can act on its own behalf. That enforcement route removes the onus from the individual, who may not wish to bring legal action against their employer, and enables an employer’s systemic non-compliance with the duty to be addressed by other means. Again, that is about empowering our workforce to understand their rights and to ensure that the onus is not always on the individual. Secondly, the duty is enforceable by individuals bringing claims to an employment tribunal in certain circumstances. Clauses 3 and 4 set out the details of the duty’s enforcement.
Clause 3 amends section 120 of the Equality Act, which sets out areas where employment tribunals have jurisdiction to determine when a complaint is made. The clause provides that a claim for a breach of the duty cannot be brought as a stand-alone claim to an employment tribunal. That means that tribunals cannot consider individual claims for a breach of the employer duty, other than in cases where a sexual harassment claim has been upheld. The rationale is that to allow otherwise would risk broadening and complicating the duty’s scope beyond the intentions of the policy. For example, it might enable someone to bring a claim that simply challenges a company’s perceived inadequate policy or training. This risks creating uncertainties for employers and undermining the policy aims.
Clause 4 concerns the compensation awarded by an employment tribunal for a breach of the new employer duty. It inserts new section 124A into the Equality Act. It provides a new remedy for breaches of the employer duty in cases where the tribunal has upheld a claim involving sexual harassment and ordered compensation to be paid. The new section provides that the employment tribunal must consider whether and to what extent an employer has also breached the new duty created by clause 2. As a result, the duty will be considered automatically by an employment tribunal following any successful sexual harassment claim where compensation was awarded.
In practice, that means that in each sexual harassment case brought to the employment tribunal where the tribunal has found in favour of the victim and awarded compensation, it must then consider whether there has also been a breach of the employer duty—whether the employer failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent the harassment from occurring. That would also include cases of third-party sexual harassment.
If the tribunal finds that a breach of duty has occurred, the employment tribunal judge may order an uplift of up to 25% of the compensation awarded. The exact amount of the compensation uplift is at the tribunal’s discretion, but it must reflect the gravity of the breach. This means that the tribunal’s decision will consider the specific circumstances of each workplace and avoid overall disproportionate awards.
Clause 5 relates to the enforcement of the new employer duty by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. It makes some consequential amendments to ensure that the Equality Act 2006 works properly with the new duty.
Clause 6 provides that the Bill extends to England, Wales and Scotland. It does not extend to Northern Ireland, where employment law and equal opportunities are devolved. It also sets out that the Bill will come into force one year from the day it is passed, which will ensure that employers have sufficient time to understand the new legislation and take any appropriate action to comply with the new measures before they are enforced.
Employers will be supported in this transition through the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s new statutory code of practice on workplace harassment, which will improve employers’ ability to engage with their existing duties and help them to understand whether they have taken all reasonable steps to prevent harassment. The Government also plan to publish their own advice for employers in due course.
We have turned a blind eye to workplace sexual harassment for far too long. This Bill will help to prevent harassment, protect victims and change the culture around victim blaming. Obviously, the Bill is not enough on its own to tackle workplace sexual harassment. However, it is a step in the right direction in protecting employees from harassment at work. I hope it will continue to get the support it deserves. I thank all members of the Committee, the Government Equalities Office and the Government for supporting the Bill.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I commend the hon. Member for Bath for bringing this Bill forward. That is a lot of work, and it is difficult, but it is great to be able to work across the Committee to do it.
The statistics about how many women in customer-facing roles in particular face sexual harassment are shocking. I think most of us who have been in that position recognise the gravity of that. It has been a pleasure to serve on the Committee. I recognise the serious nature of this legislation, and I wish the hon. Lady well with the passage of the Bill.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Bath for bringing forward this Bill, which is particularly important in stressing the employer’s liability. Most of us—most women, certainly—have faced some sort of sexual harassment in the workplace at some point in our careers, and one of the main issues was that it was much easier to solve it quietly or sweep it under the carpet because the employer had no liability to act. This Bill is a great step forward in tackling workplace sexual harassment and changing that culture, which is so insidious. We must recognise it and ensure that action is taken.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I rise to support the Bill, but I also want to say a few words about the hon. Member for Bath. She was elected in 2017, a few years after me, and has been a doughty champion for women’s rights. This is not the first time she has brought such a Bill to the House. In 2018, she introduced a very good private Member’s Bill about upskirting and the things that we turn a blind eye to. That private Member’s Bill was supported by the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), and the extent of cross-party support demonstrates how strong the Bill was.
The hon. Member for Bath has worked really hard on abortion rights as well as on eating disorders, which are becoming more of an issue in society. They have always been an issue but are highlighted now more than ever because of the effect of social media. Another strand of her work is on violence against women. Even though we are not in the same party, I am very proud that she is in Parliament, because these issues are important for women and for society, and we have to fight for them and legislate on them, as all Members have said.
Sadly, a lot of young women have come to believe that sexual harassment is an unavoidable fixture of the workplace, and that is not how it should be; I will come on to talk about LGBTQ workers and women in the workplace who come from ethnic minority backgrounds. I am also supporting the Bill on behalf of our children who have not yet come into the workplace, so that when they do they will, hopefully, not have to see, experience or be a victim of sexual harassment.
It has been 16 years since the #MeToo movement started and five years since it was relaunched on social media. Here we are, 16 years later, still trying to legislate against harassment. I am not sure whether we should be celebrating, but it feels like it has taken a very long time to get here. The fact that we are here probably should be celebrated; at least we are doing something about the issue.
Wera Hobhouse
I thank the hon. Member for her powerful speech. Does she agree that the new provision in the Bill that individuals do not need to go through an employment tribunal procedure and can have recourse to the law in other ways is an important step forward?
Tulip Siddiq
Absolutely. I think it will go some way to addressing some of the issues I have outlined about women not wanting to go through the very difficult process of proving what has happened, and they will be treated more fairly. That is the justification for the Bill, so I absolutely agree.
I know quite a lot about this topic, but when I was researching the Bill the scale of sexual harassment experienced by sections of the workforce really shocked me as I read the statistics. Half of women and seven out of 10 LGBTQ+ workers have experienced some form of sexual harassment at work. That affects workers across industries, including retail, the NHS and financial firms—and right here in Parliament, as we know. We cannot pretend for any longer that sexual harassment is an individual concern that can be responded to ad hoc. As the statistics tell us, we face an institutional problem that requires an institutional response.
For years now, we have been encouraging victims of assault to speak up. That was the very crux of the #MeToo movement. We need to continue this work so that everyone feels able to report harassment, and we should not wait for people to become victims and perpetrators before we act. The reality is that the most powerful weapon we have against sexual harassment is prevention. I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Bath for setting out in the Bill the duty of care that the employers have to their employees. I am grateful that she is proposing an entrenched enforcement of this duty.
Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady agree that often in this place sexual harassment can be put down to banter and lively conversation, and that often the victim can be seen as somebody who is spoiling the fun? Does she agree that the Bill sends a powerful signal to employers and employees as to what appropriate behaviour is?
Tulip Siddiq
The hon. Member is absolutely right. Indeed, the hon. Member for Wantage made an observation about how rape jokes were just treated as part of the culture and a bit of banter. For someone who has a young daughter, it really does fill me with dread to think that rape jokes have become part of culture. The hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth is right to say that the victim looks like a person who cannot enjoy a joke or be light-hearted about it, but it is not light-hearted for people who have experienced something like that or know people who have and know the reality on the ground. There needs to be culture change.
I am grateful that this Committee is not all women, because I do not think it is just the responsibility of women to make advances on legislation like this. I am glad there are men in the room, and I am glad they are being supportive.
Wera Hobhouse
Is it not true that men can often feel quite uncomfortable but also feel like they have to be in it together? Does she agree that the Bill will strengthen men in their attitudes towards women?
Tulip Siddiq
I agree with the hon. Lady. The truth is that this is about culture change—and legislative change. I am grateful for the Bill because it empowers employers to take their duty of care to their employees seriously. Employees will respond by returning increased profits, productivity and motivation, so it will help the workforce economically as well—for anyone who doubts the importance of such measures.
The Bill on its own will of course not achieve the transformation that all workers need. This is not a silver bullet—I am sure the hon. Member for Bath agrees—because much more remains to be done. The Labour party is committed to creating safe, equal and fair workplaces where everyone succeeds, regardless of their gender or background. Among other things, the Labour party has been working on its new deal for working people. In that policy, we hope to tackle workplace discrimination and inequalities as a priority.
The Bill sponsored by the hon. Lady is the chance to make some progress right now. We owe that to victims of sexual harassment. Over the years, many of us have said, “Me too!” When the movement emerged, I was so shocked, because nearly every friend I spoke to and every family member turned around to say to me, “Me too!” I wondered whether I had met even one person who had not had that experience. That is a shocking statistic, which I hope we can change as we move forward.
The Bill is what we owe to our workers, present and future, and to our children. It heartens me to see so much cross-party support. Once again, I applaud the hon. Member for Bath for using the opportunity; she could have chosen any topic under the sun, but she chose this topic. I applaud her for championing it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley.
I thank all hon. Members present for their forthright support for the Bill, which is echoed by the Government. As the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn, pointed out, in particular we thank male colleagues who have come along and supported the Bill from the start, because that sends a strong message to the country that not only is there cross-party support, but that both male and female MPs support the legislation.
I thank the hon. Member for Bath for sponsoring this important legislation. As has been said, this is just one of many campaigns that she has run to protect women’s rights, especially on violence against women and girls. The Bill is a follow-on to her legacy in that space. Today, she set out clearly that workplace harassment is a pervasive issue, which should not be tolerated in modern Britain.
Sadly, however, as my predecessor referenced on Second Reading, an experimental survey by the Government Equalities Office in 2020 exposed that nearly three quarters of the UK population have experienced sexual harassment in their lifetime, with nearly a third of people in employment experiencing some form of sexual harassment in their working environment within the past 12 months. Those figures are, unfortunately, not surprising.
The Equality Act 2010 already provides employees with legal protection against workplace harassment, but the measures in the Bill take a significant step forward. The Government believe that such a shift will not only provide increased legal security for employees, but instigate wider cultural change by motivating employers to prioritise prevention and, ultimately, to improve workplace practices and culture.
I will shortly address the points made by hon. Members today, but I will first outline the Government’s ongoing commitment to change in this space, and in particular to the measures in the Bill. In 2019, in response to an inquiry by the Women and Equalities Committee, the Government consulted on the legal protections to do with sexual harassment in the workplace. The consultation exercise included a public questionnaire, alongside the technical consultation, and received more than 4,000 responses detailing people’s lived reality of harassment in the workplace, as we have heard so much about.
Listening carefully to the experiences and opinions shared, the Government committed to a package of new measures aimed at reducing incidences of workplace harassment. That includes the two legislative measures being brought forward in the Bill: explicit protections for employees from workplace harassment by third parties, such as customers and clients; and a duty on employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent their employees from experiencing sexual harassment.
Those measures were announced in July 2021 and continue to form a key part of the Government’s national strategy for tackling violence against women and girls. We therefore welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Bath is taking the measures forward in her Bill. In supporting the Bill, we look to honour the commitments that the Government set out last summer and to deliver real change for workers and working culture across the UK.
I want to point out that clauses 2 to 6 are about sexual harassment specifically, but I highlight the fact that clause 1—the employer liability for harassment—will require employers legally to consider harassment risks that third parties may pose. However, that will apply to all types of harassment, not just sexual harassment. It will include racial harassment, harassment in relation to disability or any other type. That is an important step forward as well.
To conclude, I reiterate my appreciation of the hon. Members present today. It is good to see such cross-party support in this space for this new legislation, which we hope will have a profound impact on working culture, and further protect and support employees at risk of harassment in the workplace. Support for the Bill is not isolated to this room, and I also thank the numerous organisations, individuals and parliamentarians who have been involved in the development of the new measures. Those include, but are certainly not limited to, the Government Equalities Office, the Fawcett Society, the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Women and Equalities Committee. The last of those, along with the Joint Committee on Human Rights, sent a letter in support of the new legislation to the hon. Member for Bath. We hope to see such a collaborative spirit maintained as the Bill continues its progress through Parliament. Personally, I look forward to working with the hon. Lady to ensure that it does.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 2 to 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
Before I put the final question to report the Bill to the House, I offer the sponsor of the Bill the opportunity to say a few thank yous.
Wera Hobhouse
My first thank you is to you, Mr Paisley, as Chair of the Committee. I again thank all members of the Committee, the Minister, the Government Equalities Office and everyone who has campaigned to ensure that this important change in the law goes forward. I look forward to further co-operation and further steps in the right direction to ensure that harassment of all sorts—as the Minister pointed out—is ultimately a thing of the past. We have a long way to go, but today is a good day and in the right direction.
The Chair
I, too, congratulate the hon. Lady on sponsoring the Bill and getting it to this stage.
Bill to be reported, without amendment.
Westminster Hall
(1 year, 12 months ago)
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Social Security Support for Children
(1 year, 12 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Ms Anum Qaisar (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered social security support for children.
This is the first Westminster Hall debate that I have successfully secured, and I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I am also delighted to see my friend, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), next to me; it would not be a Westminster Hall debate if he was not here.
I am here to be the voice of the voiceless. This is a debate on social security support for children. The Tory Government came into power at Westminster in 2010, and at that point the use of food banks across all four nations was negligible. The Trussell Trust had around 35 food banks at that point, but in 2022 it estimates that it has around 1,400. That is an increase of almost 4,000%.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
In the last six months, 320,000 people have had to use a food bank in the Trussell Trust network for the first time. Research found that one in five referrals was for working households. Does the hon. Member share my concern that the lack of support for working families is pushing the burden away from the Government and on to charities?
Ms Qaisar
It is as if the hon. Member has seen my speech; I will come to that point later.
Of course, it is not only the Trussell Trust; there are a number of independent and locally run food poverty groups. In my constituency, for example, we have Paul’s Parcels, which serves Shotts and the surrounding villages. We are living in food bank Britain, where almost 1 million children receive some sort of help from food banks. The Food Foundation also found that around 4 million children have experienced food insecurity in the past month. Some people will argue that there has been an increase in food bank use due to wider awareness, but I would argue that consecutive Conservative Governments are the reason for that increase. It is their financial mismanagement of the economy, and now austerity 2.0, as set out in the Chancellor’s autumn statement, that are pushing people further and further into poverty.
We face the reality that there are more food banks than McDonald’s in the UK. The richest MP in the House of Commons double-jobs as the Prime Minister. Rather than extending a lifeline to the average punter in the street, the Government are handing out bankers’ bonuses. Who benefits and, crucially, who are the losers? Many groups are victims of the financial mismanagement of the three Prime Ministers and four Chancellors just this year. My concern is for children and young people. They are largely voiceless and are rarely actively involved in the decision-making process.
In Scotland, we have a completely different approach to target help for children. It starts from the basic notion of referring to benefits as social security. In 2021, the SNP Scottish Government introduced the Scottish child payment, which is a groundbreaking piece of policy. Since then, the payment has doubled in value to £20, and on 14 November 2022 it automatically increased to £25 per week for those already in receipt of it. Based on March 2022 modelling, that increased payment is estimated to lift 50,000 children out of poverty and reduce relative child poverty by 5 percentage points.
That is a phenomenal piece of legislation, and I am so proud of it. Many Members here might argue, “Anum, you’re biased; you’re an SNP MP, and that’s the SNP Scottish Government.” However, that is not just my belief. Chris Birt, associate director of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said:
“The full rollout of the Scottish Child Payment is a watershed moment for tackling poverty in Scotland, and the rest of the UK should take notice.”
Will the UK Government do so? In fact, would the Minister care to intervene and announce that they are following the Scottish Government’s lead? No, he is furiously writing away. When he replies, I hope he will announce that the Scottish child payment is being implemented across the UK.
That is where the issue lies: the SNP Scottish Government consider social security as an investment in people that is key to their national mission to tackle child poverty. We do that with the limited economic levers that the Scottish Parliament holds.
The Scottish Government have implemented a number of other policies. I will go through them and ask whether the UK Government will commit to follow suit. The Scottish Government are offering free school lunches in term time to all 281,865 pupils in primary 1 to 5 and in additional support needs schools. That saves families an average of £400 per child per year. That will be extended to primary 6 and 7 during the Parliament. Will the UK Government follow suit?
The Scottish Government are massively expanding the provision of fully funded high-quality early learning in childcare. They are providing 1,140 hours per year for eligible children aged two, three and four. In fact, if eligible families were to purchase the funded childcare provided by the Scottish Government, it would cost them about £5,000 per eligible child per year. Again, will the UK Government follow suit?
The Scottish Government have increased the school clothing grant to at least £128 for every eligible primary school pupil and £150 for every eligible secondary school pupil from the start of the 2021-22 academic year. Again, will the UK Government follow suit?
The Scottish Government are bringing forward those policies with the limited economic levers that they hold.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
I declare an interest as a massive fan of my hon. Friend’s constituency—if not the Shotts part, then certainly the Airdrie part. I commend her for securing the debate, and I want to back up the point she is making. Although the Scottish Government are doing a huge amount of incredibly ambitious things to tackle the scourge of child poverty, 85% of welfare spending remains under the control of this institution. Does she, like me, believe that it is absolutely abhorrent that, under the devolution settlement, the Scottish Government have to use their devolved budget, which would normally be used on things such as trying to reduce class sizes, to try to plug the gaps in an inadequate state support system that is the result of a Conservative Government—something that people in Scotland have not voted for since the 1950s?
Ms Qaisar
My hon. Friend’s point is incredibly valid. The Scottish Government hold limited economic levers, but they often have to use their budget to mitigate Tory austerity.
In debating topics such as social security for children, it is essential to reaffirm that a societal approach must be considered when formulating policy. Social security for children is about so much more than targeted support. We must consider what support is in place for parents. This week, I had the pleasure of meeting Lauren from Pregnant Then Screwed, which has revealed some harrowing statistics. Out of 1,630 women it interviewed who had had an abortion in the past five years, 60.5% said that the cost of childcare influenced their decision, and 17.4% said that childcare costs were the main reason for their decision. A separate survey found that 48% of pregnant mothers have to cut their maternity leave short due to financial hardship. Those are not simply statistics; that is the reality for many women.
In Scotland, childcare and policies relating to children are seen as lifelong investments for society. It has been said before that an investment in our children is an investment in our future, and I wholeheartedly stand by that. It is crucial that the UK Government take a societal approach to social security for children. The wider economic implications of child poverty are significant, with a 2021 study estimating the cost of child poverty in the UK at £38 billion a year.
There is a cost to not addressing child poverty, and I am not just talking about the direct financial implications. We face the harsh reality of children who are upset and anxious as a result of their parents worrying about household finances. That is not the type of society that I wish to live in.
In Scotland, different policies have been introduced. For example, before a baby is born, the Scottish Government provide expectant families with a baby box. Baby boxes include essentials for bringing up a child, such as clothing and digital thermometers. That not only provides essentials at a time that can, in any case, be physically, emotionally and financially challenging; it sends a clear message to families that the state cares about them. Some 93% of Scots who are eligible have taken up the scheme. Ireland has a pilot scheme, and the baby box has been hailed internationally. The UK Government would do well to mirror that approach, and if the Minister cannot commit today to introducing the baby box, I hope he will take the information on board and give it serious consideration.
We know that parents are having to make unimaginable financial decisions—to return to work early or to leave their jobs altogether if they cannot afford the cost of childcare. We know, too, that the cost of child poverty can disproportionately impact women. Typically, women assume the main role as caregiver and are the first to give up their jobs when childcare becomes unaffordable. The Scottish Government are massively expanding the provision of fully funded, high-quality early learning and childcare, providing 1,140 hours a year for eligible children aged two, three and four. In Scotland, we have we have taken a different path—one that puts children and families first, with lifeline policies providing help to those who need it most.
Over the past 12 years, the Tories have systematically dismantled the social security system. It is clear that the Tory-run system is not designed to help those in need. Rather, it pushes a poverty-inducing austerity agenda. I have described what the Scottish Government are doing to reduce the harmful impact of Tory austerity-driven Government, but the reality is that 85% of social security expenditure remains reserved to Westminster, so the change that is desperately needed must start here.
We are at a point at which meaningful and tangible policy can be implemented to make a difference to millions of children and families, and it is an active policy decision not to make those changes. That is costing all of society financially and socially. The limitations imposed on social security by the Tory Government are sickening. The freezing of the benefit cap since 2016 has disproportionately impacted lone-parent families, the majority of whom are women, as well as larger families and ethnic minority families. Official Department for Work and Pensions statistics have shown that more than 100,000 households have had their benefits capped since May 2022. Of that number, 87% are households that include children.
There is much that we could do to help families that are struggling. The Tory Government could start by looking at social security as an investment in society and future generations, rather than something that needs to be cut and limited. There are many clear ways to do that. First, the Minister could commit to removing the abhorrent two-child limit on universal credit and legacy benefits, as well as ending the benefit cap, which would lift 300,000 children out of poverty. My SNP colleagues and I have been campaigning tirelessly to eradicate that regressive measure, and we will continue to push for it to be removed.
The Government could do more than simply remove the cap. Following the Chancellor’s recent fiscal statement, the Child Poverty Action Group has reported that, even with the uprating of benefits in line with inflation, families will be worse off in 2023-24 than they were after universal credit was cut last year. That weak attempt to reverse 12 years of austerity will have a marginal impact on children, as the entire UK Government’s social security system is in desperate need of an overhaul.
Other fundamental issues with universal credit impact children. Policies such as a five-week wait for first payments, the bedroom tax and the cruel sanctions regime all push families on universal credit towards destitution. If we reversed the policies introduced by the Tory Government since 2015, we would lift 30,000 children in Scotland out of poverty by 2024.
It is not the job of food banks and charities to uphold a crumbling social security system. I am honoured to represent the constituency of Airdrie and Shotts, which has dedicated community organisations. Since my election last year, I have worked tirelessly and closely with many organisations to support them in delivering an essential lifeline to constituents who face destitution as a result of Tory-made austerity.
The cost of living crisis is disproportionately impacting children, with families having to cut back on both essential and luxury items. In this festive period I am working alongside four constituency-based organisations: Paul’s Parcels, Diamonds in the Community, Airdrie food bank and Airdrie community school uniform bank. We are asking people to donate advent calendars for the four organisations to deliver across the constituency. A simple item such as an advent calendar is unaffordable. Sadly, many children will not enjoy the typical Christmas festivities, because their parents or carers cannot afford simple luxuries.
In my contribution I have outlined a number of asks, and I look forward to the Minister’s response. I imagine that there will not be much in the way of concessions, but I hope he will sincerely take on board the approach of the SNP Scottish Government and consider following suit.
Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I congratulate the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Ms Qaisar) on securing this important debate.
At this time of year it is natural for people’s minds to turn towards Christmas. I am sure that the Minister, like many of us, is looking forward to a well-earned break, the company of family and friends, and all the comforts and trappings of the season. But I must warn him that, for the more than one in five children in my constituency who live in poverty, the coming festive season holds none of the joy that he surely takes for granted. Indeed, for many of the children that I represent, 25 December threatens to be a day like any other—plagued by cold, hunger and fear.
Our multimillionaire Prime Minister has at least had the sense to look beyond the walls of his country mansion and acknowledge the crisis facing millions of ordinary people this winter. Addressing the Cabinet yesterday, he is reported to have said that we are entering
“a challenging period for the country, caused by the aftershocks of the global pandemic and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.”
But he is deluding himself if he believes that he can ignore the central role that the Conservative party has played in making this crisis. Even before the pandemic began, nearly 4 million British children were growing up in poverty, 75% of whom live in a household with at least one working parent. While the fallout of Putin’s war is hitting all of Europe’s major economies hard, none is being forced to grapple with the depth of deprivation we now see in the UK. That is a distinctly British ailment.
A quarter of a century ago, a Labour Government set out on a moral crusade to end poverty. They recognised that spending formative years in poverty is the single most important determinant of life chances in everything from educational outcomes to life expectancy. That is why, when Labour was in power, we lifted 1 million children out of poverty, which is an historic achievement. However, today we bear witness to scenes of destitution and misery that we thought were a thing of the past. Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has recently said that he is now seeing more children going hungry than at any time in his 40 years in public life.
Margaret Ferrier
Many of the support measures announced in last week’s Budget were temporary, but long-term support is required if we are going to provide all children with the best start in life. Does the hon. Member agree that the Government need to review this urgently?
Mick Whitley
The hon. Member makes a good point. We hope that the Government will take cognisance of what we are saying today.
What the former Prime Minister has said is a stark indictment of 12 years of Tory failures. When the Minister launches his inevitable feeble defence of the Government’s record in a few moments’ time, he will undoubtedly point to the measures contained in last week’s Budget. It is true that after weeks of equivocation, the Chancellor has at last bowed to pressure and agreed to an uplift in the benefit cap and benefit payments, but for the thousands of young people in my constituency for whom poverty has become a fact of life, it is nowhere near enough. After 12 years of real-terms cuts to benefits and punitive sanctions, the idea that they should be in any way grateful to the Chancellor for the limited action he has taken is an insult.
The Child Poverty Action Group has estimated that while benefits will be 14% higher in the next fiscal year, prices will be 21% higher for the poorest families in towns such as mine, and although a lifting of the benefit cap is long overdue it fails to even begin to undo the damage that has been wrought as a result of it being frozen in 2016. In fact, in communities such as Birkenhead, it would need to increase by a further £942 a month just to erase what has been lost since 2013, but still the Chancellor has the temerity to patronise hard-working families by saying that the best way out of poverty is through work. I want the Minister to know that most of the struggling families that I meet work harder and longer hours than either of us; the reason they are claiming benefits at all is the scourge of poverty pay.
Last week, the Chancellor spoke of the need to treat the vulnerable with compassion, but a truly compassionate Government would recognise that the benefit cap, the two-child limit and the pernicious sanctions are just not working. They are trapping millions of our most vulnerable citizens—our young people—in poverty. Things cannot go on like this. For 12 long years, this Government have pursued a policy of slashing benefits, squeezing families, and inflicting punitive sanctions that drive people past the point of desperation. The result is that the hard-won progress we made in tackling child poverty between 1997 and 2010 has been almost entirely undone. That is a public policy failure almost without precedent. An entire generation of young people who have known only poverty and misery under a Tory Government is about to come of age; we cannot allow more to follow.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
As always, it is a pleasure to speak in today’s debate, Sir Christopher. I thank the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Ms Qaisar) for securing it, and congratulate her on her first Westminster Hall debate—I am convinced that it will not be her last, and we look forward to her future contributions.
I was very impressed by the hon. Lady’s contribution today, which laid out the strategy of the Scottish Government and the work they have done outside this place for their own people. One cannot fail to be impressed by the clear commitment that the Scottish Government have to supporting children. The summary that the hon. Lady gave was illuminating and helpful; it is a guide for us in other regions across the United Kingdom to take note of, as I often do. I am a great believer in noting things that are done well in one region and taking them on board in my own region, and if we do something well, I like to share that. I know the Minister is of the same opinion.
I am very pleased to see the Minister in his place, as he knows—I have said so to my colleagues this morning. I always look forward to his contributions and his answers; I think he understands the points that we are trying to put forward, and hopefully from that understanding will come the answers that we seek. I am sure the Minister will tell us what has been done for children and social security across the United Kingdom. I want to replicate the contribution of the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts from a Northern Ireland perspective; many of the things that she mentioned are happening in my constituency as well, as I will illustrate.
The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts is right that the cost of living crisis is having a knock-on effect on children’s development. With the rising cost of electricity, oil, foodstuffs and school items such as uniforms and school meals, parents are struggling to make ends meet each month. That is greatly impacting parents and children. Social security services across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland have a role to play in ensuring that children are given the best start in life. It is great to be able to discuss those matters.
We all recognise that families are struggling. I do; I see it in my office every day. I find it distressing to see a family in need, or to see a mother distressed over her children and how to make ends meet. For me, the question is how we help. I know that that is also how the Minister will respond: how can we help? What can we do?
Society is often marked, and should be marked, by its attitude to those in need. The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts referred to being a “voice of the voiceless”. That is what I want to be as well: a voice for the voiceless—for those who do not have the opportunity to come to Westminster but expect their MP to come for them. I am happy to do that.
Increasing numbers of families are truly struggling through this winter. In my office, I have seen large numbers of families seeking assistance from food banks. I am always encouraged—I say this respectfully—that the first food bank in Northern Ireland was in Newtownards, in my constituency of Strangford: the Thriving Life Church food bank. We do between 20 and 25 referrals to the food bank every week, so we get a fair perspective on who is coming to the office.
The manager of the food bank tells me that he foresees that this winter will be the hardest ever, and that is after 10 or 12 years of the food bank being in my constituency. It is not just the working class—I use that terminology to describe, rather than anything else—who come to the food bank. The working class will probably always be there, but the manager tells me that he now sees the middle class coming. I see that all the time. I see those who are squeezed by their mortgages and car repayments, who are living on a fine budget. They do not live in luxury, but they have a standard of living that they wish to have. They are being impacted, and I see that more than ever.
Almost all the families who come to my office have young children of school age. People want to do the best for their children. That is what a father and mum do, and it is what we have done all our lives. Reports have shown that Northern Ireland has the worst poverty rates, including for child poverty, in the United Kingdom. One in four children—24%, or around 95,000—are growing up in poverty in Northern Ireland. A massive two thirds of that group are growing up in families where parents are working. Some 12% are in absolute poverty, which means exactly that: absolute. People face situations that they never thought they would face. They need help from food banks, churches and their families: mums and dads, grannies and grandas, and probably uncles and aunts will step in to help out as well.
That highlights how dire the situation is. Belfast, Londonderry and Strabane are among the places with the highest volumes of child poverty in Northern Ireland at over 26%. The average for Northern Ireland is 17%, so in those areas it is even worse. Social security plays a crucial part in assisting people in Northern Ireland, especially families. Child maintenance is proven to help children’s wellbeing and the quality of family relationships. The parent who is not responsible for day-to-day care—the paying parent—pays child maintenance to the parent or the person who does: the receiving parent. Single parenting is a major factor in explaining why families are suffering. Looking after children as a single parent can be quite a challenge when one’s income has not increased along with inflation.
In addition, universal credit is a widely used benefit that assists in living costs for those on low incomes. One of the girls in my office deals with nothing but benefit issues, because of the magnitude of the issue. That is a five-day week on universal credit, employment and support allowance, personal independence payments, disability living allowance, income support and even housing benefit.
David Linden
I know, having visited the hon. Gentleman in his constituency office in Newtownards last Easter, just how hard the staff in his office work. Does he agree with me that, even though we are in a crisis moment, now is quite a good time for a fundamental root-and-branch review of the social security system? Universal credit sometimes gets a bad rap. The concept in itself is not necessarily bad, but we need to look at how we can reform it to make it work. Churches do the right thing in terms of scripture—they look after our children and feed people—but that is not necessarily the role of churches. We should do a fundamental review of the social security system to ensure that churches can get on with their work rather than having to fill the void that has been created by the state.
Jim Shannon
As always, the hon. Gentleman brings knowledge to these debates, which is helpful. That is a knowledge that he has gained through practical and physical work on the ground. That can probably be said of everyone present, in fairness, but it is an illustration of that work. What do I think about the universal credit system? It was designed, by its very nature, to help. From what the lady in my office who deals with benefits issues tells me, I often find we have to advise that it might be better for people to stay on what they have at the moment. They should not necessarily transfer to universal credit because that, in theory, could disadvantage them.
The hon. Gentleman asked whether there is a need to look at universal credit, and I think that the answer is yes, with respect. It should not be a disadvantage to go on to universal credit. It should not hurt people’s benefits. We must remember that the benefits are there for a purpose: they are there to help the person because they have a disablement. They may have care or mobility issues—serious issues. To make the change and lose out financially just does not make sense. I, the hon. Gentleman and probably all Members in the Chamber would be happy to give illustrations of that.
Sometimes our advice has to be that what is available is not necessarily the best thing to go on to. That is the issue, unfortunately. I know that universal credit is there for a purpose, but it may not suit everybody. In addition, it is a widely popular benefit to assist with living costs for those on low incomes. The issue with universal credit is that it is a combination of many benefits and often families will receive less money. That is making it increasingly hard to cope with the rise in the cost of living. The Government, through the autumn statement, indicated that they wish to give people in the benefits system more opportunities to work. I welcome that, but that will not work in every case. It cannot work in every case because people have disability issues that mean they cannot work. In theory, it may help people, as they can gain universal credit and have a job at the same time. There are opportunities, but it does not suit all.
The rise in the cost of living is also having a detrimental impact on people’s mental health. Any parent’s main priorities for their children are good health, housing and education. There has also been an increase in free school meals and uniform grant applications as parents are struggling to cope with the cost of school payments. This year has been horrendous. I have seen more and more people apply for the grants for free school meals and for uniform. A total of 97,000 children in Northern Ireland are on free school meals. There are consistent delays in processing the claims. The Minister is always keen to assist, so I ask, please, for some urgency when the applications are being processed. Let me give him an example. In September, one of my constituents applied for a school uniform grant. Eight weeks later—about two weeks ago—that money eventually came through. Again, at the time that it was needed, it was not there. It was not that it was not coming; that was not the issue. The issue is the processing of it.
The Minister for Employment (Guy Opperman)
I hesitate to interrupt esteemed colleagues in their speeches, because clearly I will try to address as many points as I can in closing. However, as always with any local constituency issue raised by colleagues from any political party, I ask the hon. Gentleman please to write me directly and I will look into it. Although that particular case may have taken eight weeks and the milk has spilt on that delay, I will look into it to try to see what I can do to ensure that the matters are processed an awful lot more quickly. We all accept that such delays are not acceptable.
Jim Shannon
The Minister has just demonstrated what I said earlier—he is a Minister who wants to help. I appreciate that, and I will take that opportunity. I think we all will. As he said, the milk is spilt and time has moved on, and the lady has got the payment, but she had to cover the full cost of uniform payments and free school meals herself for two months. The point is the pressure that is put on.
I know the Minister is always there, and I thank him for his intervention. He is keen to reach out and always does; he has done so in my constituency. I appreciate that. Could some discussions take place with the Northern Ireland Assembly Minister to get a feel for the situation back home? That could be used to develop a policy that would be helpful for us all.
There must be elements of dignity and fairness in social security support for children. Universal credit will rise by 10.1% in April 2023. I welcome that the Government have shown a willingness to support people. We thank them for the support, not just for children but also for senior citizens. My constituency has an ageing population and we also need to help them.
That help for everyone is welcomed, including those in my constituency of Strangford, but the reality is that people are struggling now. There are ways to tackle that, with more and better jobs and a benefits system that enables people to gain extra work. I think the Government said that in the autumn statement, which the Chancellor delivered last week, but I would like to see how that will work; we need more information, because we advise people.
Whenever we advise someone on benefits, we have to do that in a way that is to their advantage. It cannot be done without knowledge of the subject matter, because that could be detrimental. I am always conscious of that, and we have a very simple policy to always advise the pros and cons. The final decision is up to the applicant, but we have to advise them if there is a negative impact and they have to understand that.
The rise in the cost of living is having an impact on everyone, but some are more vulnerable than others. As the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts said, we are a voice for the voiceless—those vulnerable people, those parents and children in need. We must do better to help them through this time.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
I thank you, Sir Christopher, for chairing the debate today. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Ms Qaisar) on bringing forward the debate and I thank all hon. Members for taking part.
My hon. Friend made some points about individual organisations in her constituency. I absolutely agree that we should thank those organisations for all the hard work they do, because they are absolutely necessary, but we can do that at the same time as saying they should absolutely not be necessary. It was good to hear about Paul’s Parcels and the work that my colleague is doing to support those organisations and the eradication of poverty in her constituency. I hope that all hon. Members are doing what they can in their constituencies, as well as putting pressure on the UK Government to try and ensure a sufficiency of social security.
Social security is about security; it is about having a secure situation where people can have positive mental health—the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about people’s mental health—rather than spending every moment worrying about whether they are going to be able to feed their children tomorrow, next week or next month, and whether they will be able to afford food. We need the social security system to work and provide the safety net that it is supposed to. After a decade of Tory Government, it continues to fail and it is not getting better.
I have less optimism now for the futures of my constituents than I have ever had at any point in this job and in my previous job as a city councillor. In about 15 years in an elected role, I have never seen the levels of hardship that I see coming through the door in my constituency office, on the news and in our communities. This has not happened before.
The problem is that there is no light at the end of the tunnel right now, no matter what the Government have announced in terms of inflationary upgrades, for example. As the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) mentioned, that is a temporary measure; it is not permanent and does not provide the level of structural reform people need to afford to live. What could be more important than ensuring that kids are fed and warm? There is nothing more important.
Our Scottish Government are now into their second child poverty action plan. We had “Every child, every chance”, which ran from 2018 to 2022; we now have “Best start, bright futures” from ’22 to ’26. These plans are about putting tackling child poverty at the heart of the decision-making processes of the Scottish Government. I do not think it is too much to ask that the UK Government replicate that, and say that they care about eradicating child poverty, and therefore will have a strategy to do that and make it a central aim of their plans.
David Linden
More fundamental to that, though, would be if the UK Government could even start measuring child poverty, which is part of the issue. Yes, it would be great if they had a strategy to deal with it—that would be absolutely fantastic—but does my hon. Friend agree that it is alarming that the Government do not even measure child poverty? They do not realise the scale of it, other than by measuring it anecdotally, as I am sure the Minister does in his Hexham constituency when people come through the doors at his surgery on a Friday morning.
Kirsty Blackman
I agree. The fact that the Government are unwilling to even measure child poverty shows the lack of importance they give to this issue. If they cared as much about it as they should, they should be willing to explain, “This is what the current situation is. This is the measurement. This is how bad it is. This is how many people are suffering and how many children are in poverty in the UK in 2022”—in the UK in 2022! How can we be saying this? The UK Government need to stand up, hold up their hands and say, “This is the current situation and this is how we are going to improve it.”
I want to set out a few specific asks, some of which have been made already. As my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts mentioned, 87% of those affected by the benefit cap are families with children. The benefit cap would need to increase by £942 to reverse the loss since 2013. Despite the fact that the Government are looking to increase it, this is only the fourth time that social security payments have risen with inflation in 10 years. If we in Scotland can find an extra £25 a week in order to provide the Scottish child payment, the UK Government, with their far vaster budget and flexibility in dealing with their fiscal situation, can surely afford to do the same. They can afford it, but they choose not to match the payments we are making in Scotland.
There is the issue of the sufficiency of social security. One in four people on social security skipped meals this summer. That was in the summer—before the additional price cap increase on electricity and gas; before the upcoming winter months when people will need to put their heating on; before people had to buy school uniforms for their children when school started again in August or September. That situation is set only to get worse, and the promise of a temporary increase in universal credit will not fix it. There is currently no way out of this. We have no certainty that there is not going to be a cost of living crisis next year. Certainly none of my constituents has that level of certainty.
Let me turn to the issue of debt repayment deductions that are made from universal credit and other benefits. We have a situation where the UK Government can take 25% off the standard allowance to reclaim debts. Sometimes, those debts are caused by overpayments that are no fault of the person, but entirely the fault of poor decision making in the DWP or job centres. To be fair, that does not happen all the time; I am just saying that sometimes it is an issue.
If the UK Government have done an assessment of social security payments and believe them to be sufficient—that people can afford to live on them—how can they justify putting in place a benefit cap or taking 25% off the standard allowance? They are saying, “This is what we believe is sufficient for people to live on, but we are just going to take a quarter of it away.” It does not make any sense. People already cannot afford to live on the social security payments they are receiving. When the amount people are getting each month is reduced because of those reductions or the benefit cap, it is even less sufficient. Again, the conditionality and sanctions in place reduce that basic minimum level of payment that people should be entitled to.
Jim Shannon
The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. There have been occasions where overpayments have been made to my constituents. The money has to be paid back, and they understand that. Reducing payments by 25% is very unfair. In the past, my staff and I have managed to negotiate a reduction of 10%. That option is more manageable and should be given to the person at an early stage. Does the hon. Lady feel that is the right way forward?
Kirsty Blackman
I am glad that the hon. Member has managed that on behalf of his constituents. That is actually not the preferred route that I would take. I would prefer to look at whether people can afford payments rather than coming up with an arbitrary percentage, which is the UK Government’s preferred choice. I would look at affordability. How much are their outgoings and incomings? Can they afford to make the debt repayments? That is what we do, and when organisations like StepChange are managing debt, they look at whether people can afford it.
David Linden
In my time working for Glasgow Credit Union before I was a politician, one of the things we regularly had to do when determining whether someone was eligible to borrow loans was calculate their debt ratio. Although that is required by the Financial Conduct Authority and imposed on things like credit unions, part of the problem is that the DWP does not routinely look at people’s income and expenditure. Does the hon. Member agree that the Minister should look at a debt ratio when making these decisions?
Kirsty Blackman
I absolutely agree. That is the way this should be taken forward, rather than setting an arbitrary percentage—whether it is 25%, 10% or whatever level. It should be done on the basis of affordability, and a debt ratio would be the preferred method; it would make sense.
One thing that I do not think has been mentioned yet is those people with no recourse to public funds. They are not in receipt of social security payments or the vast majority of payments that are available to others. We are seeing the most drastic and extreme levels of poverty experienced by some of those families, particularly refugee and asylum-seeking families. We are seeing children and families who literally cannot afford any food, and I just cannot believe that the UK Government are unwilling to make any change to the system of no recourse to public funds, because what people are going through is horrendous.
The UK Government stand up and say, “Oh well, it’s fine. They can just go home to whatever country they came from.” Generally, people who are here having made an asylum or human rights claim are here because it is worse in the country they came from and because their children are in danger if they go back. In fact, no recourse to public funds sometimes applies to people who are stateless—they have no country to go back to. It is a horrendous situation, and the UK Government need to fix it.
Ms Qaisar
My hon. Friend is making an excellent contribution. On that specific point, I recently visited Manston and saw harrowing scenes of a tent full of families with young children. Those kids should have been playing in nursery; they should have been in a safe area. Instead, they were with dozens of other children in one tent. Does my hon. Friend agree that the wider issue at play is that the UK Government are spending their time othering communities? They are pitting communities against one another—whether they are refugees, working class, gay, lesbian or trans—when in actual fact we should all be uniting and campaigning to get that lot of Conservatives out.
Kirsty Blackman
I absolutely agree; I could not have put it better. No matter where they were born, the colour of their skin, their religion, their sexuality or gender identity, those children and families deserve a basic level of human dignity and fairness. That point about dignity, fairness and respect was made earlier. The UK is, in all our names, failing to provide that. It is choosing to make a differentiation between those people who are in slightly different communities and to treat them differently, and it is therefore trying to make that okay.
In Scotland, we are putting wellbeing at the heart of what we do. We are one of the founding members of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance. We are not choosing to levy austerity on the most vulnerable people in our society; we are choosing to provide respect, dignity and fairness. We are choosing to provide as much as we possibly can within our limited budgets. Our five family payments, including the Scottish child payment, can be worth over £10,000 by the time a first child turns six, and £9,700 for subsequent children. That compares to £1,800 for an eligible family’s first child in England and Wales, and under £1,300 for subsequent children. The difference is £8,200, and it highlights the Scottish Government’s major support in the early years for low-income families.
This is an incredibly important debate. We need a social security safety net that works. I would rather our social security system accidently pay the few people who are not eligible—who do not meet the criteria—than miss any one child who should be receiving those security payments and that Government support. The ideological choice that I and the SNP would make is to put dignity, fairness and respect at the heart of the decision-making process. We need to make sure that children are not in poverty, and that our guiding mission and our choices go towards eradicating child poverty.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to respond for the Opposition under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I congratulate the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Ms Qaisar) on securing this debate. We have heard a small number of contributions, but powerful ones, in which people have reflected not just on the strategic issues of poverty but on the impact of hardship on their constituents. Everybody has said that we are going into a hard winter; for millions, it will be the hardest winter in my 30 years in politics. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) for making the point that we are going into the festive season, which many look forward to, but this year people will dread it because of the hardship that they face.
Margaret Ferrier
Even with the energy cap announced by the Government, all families will be spending a significant amount on their energy bills. It will be a cold and grim Christmas for many. Does the shadow Minister agree that support for families—and therefore for children—needs to be reviewed as a whole, not just single benefits?
Ms Buck
I will come to that later, but it is obvious that we need to look at the system as a whole. Indeed, we have to look at the issue of hardship and poverty not just in terms of the social security system, although that is the subject of today’s debate and money is crucial, and lies at the heart of tackling poverty; I have never had any doubt about that. We also know that the conditions in which people live and the conditions in which children are brought up reflect poverty in a wider sense.
Only this week, we have been discussing in particular the terrible tragedy of Awaab Ishak, who died in a cold and mouldy flat. That coroner’s report should be mandatory reading for anybody with an interest in poverty, because the issue of growing up in a damp and cold home is an issue of poverty. If people are not able to heat their homes or access half-decent accommodation in which to live, that is a matter of poverty, as is not being able to secure food and not being able to go to school in a uniform—not being properly clothed, shod and so forth.
I do not think that this is a theme that has particularly emerged in this debate, but all of these issues of poverty cost money—they cost the state billions and billions of pounds. Bad housing alone, which is a condition of poverty, costs the national health service at least £1.4 billion.
The issue of mental health has been referred to. Poverty drives poor mental health; worry and anxiety about money is known to do that. It costs the national health service millions and millions of pounds to respond to it. It also feeds into educational underachievement and impacts on our criminal justice system. We could go right across the issue of state spending, at a local level and a national level, and we would see that money is poured into the costs of poverty. Therefore, when we consider how much we spend on social security, we also need to consider what we will save in the medium and longer term.
The debate is timely, because this time last week we were waiting anxiously to see whether the Government would do the right thing in the middle of a cost of living crisis—something that would, only a few years ago, have gone without saying—which is to uprate social security benefits in line with inflation. As much as we all welcome what happened last week, because we were all very anxious to know what the Government were going to do about uprating, we should not allow the Government to normalise the idea that simply maintaining the real-terms value of social security benefits is an optional extra. If routine uprating of benefits with inflation is evidence of a turn towards compassionate Conservatism, I fear that the bar for compassion has been set very low indeed.
We have been through 12 years in which the Government, as a matter of policy, have repeatedly and permanently reduced the value of social security for working-age adults and children—and, yes, it is a permanent reduction, because the impact of below-inflation uprating in one year does not wash away if benefits are uprated from a reduced baseline the following year. The period of austerity for social security did not end with George Osborne’s four-year benefit freeze in 2019 and it did not end last week.
Let us take child benefit alone. It has been uprated this week—again, that is welcome—but it has lost 30% of its real-terms value since 2010. All the Government did last week, welcome though it is, was to decide not to erode the social minimum even further than they already have, and that is before we consider the many ways in which Governments since 2010 have sought to reduce payments even below the social minimum.
The social security infrastructure around children who live in families—whatever shape those families come in—is tough and has been getting tougher. We have heard about debt and deductions for debt repayments being built into the universal credit system through the five-week wait for the first payment. On top of that, we have benefit caps, the bedroom tax and the two-child limit, and crucially, let us not forget, we have a system of support for housing costs that has been frozen since 2020 and remained frozen in the autumn statement. The failure to uprate the local housing allowance with inflation undoes a great deal of the good that the uprating of social security payments elsewhere achieves, because people live in homes and they have to pay for those homes.
Let me give an indication of how far entitlements can fall below what might be expected to be the social minimum. There are 325,000 households in the private rented sector alone that face a shortfall between their rent and their universal credit housing support and also have a deduction for an advance payment or an overpayment. The median rent shortfall that they have to make up is £100 a month and the median deduction is £65 a month. We congratulate ourselves on the rate of payment of social security, but hundreds of thousands of people are trying to survive on less than even that minimum.
We have a permanently reduced baseline for the social minimum and a policy-driven multiplication of ways in which families can receive even less, and the Government expect to be praised for deciding not to drive down the minimum even further. They like to point to international factors beyond their control as drivers of the cost of living crisis, but they come on top of 12 years in which the social security system for working-age adults and children has been undermined not by the Ukraine war, not by the pandemic, not by international energy prices, but by domestic policy choices.
It suits the Government to pretend that social security policy affects only a minority of families. In fact, the family resources survey shows that, as of 2019-20, nearly 40%—four in 10—of all children in the UK were in families receiving universal credit or one of its legacy equivalents. The great majority—almost three quarters, at 72%—were in working families, and that is just at one point in time. The share of children whose families receive those benefits at some point during their childhood is now higher again.
It is, then, unrealistic to see universal credit and legacy benefits simply as a safety net for the most vulnerable. Of course, that is one of the purposes they serve, and they can serve it considerably less well now than they did before the Government embarked on permanently reducing the value of the safety net. They are also one of the instruments by which our society redistributes resources to families with dependent children, as any modern society needs to do under any economic circumstances.
It is only through social security that we can provide support on a basis that fully takes account of need by basing payment on family size and composition. That basic principle represents yet another way in which Governments since 2010 have broken with the approach of all modern UK Governments since the social security system was established in 1946. As the Child Poverty Action Group points out, the two-child limit already affects 1.3 million children, and cuts income by up to £2,935 a year.
Of course, it is welcome that flat-rate payments are addressing the energy crisis, but by definition they do not take account of family size and circumstances, so they are not a substitute for an adequate social security system. When YouGov surveyed universal credit claimants for the Trussell Trust this summer, it found that was exactly what was happening. Despite the survey being conducted in mid-August, almost 70% of people surveyed who had received a cost of living payment said that they had already had to spend all the £326 they received from the Government in mid to late July, and 64% had had to use the money to buy food.
We have entered into a cost of living crisis with a weakened social minimum, a system that seems designed to leave hundreds of thousands of families with even less than the minimum, and the principle of matching support to needs in shreds. However welcome the uprating was last year—sighs of relief were heard right across the country—families in their millions are dreading this winter because they will have to choose between feeding their children or heating their homes. It is well past time for the Government to recognise the damage that has been done since 2010 and set it right on a sustainable and permanent basis.
The Minister for Employment (Guy Opperman)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Ms Qaisar) on her first ever Westminster Hall debate. I confess that it is my first ever Westminster Hall debate in my new role, which I have been doing for just over three weeks. I have not had an opportunity to congratulate her on winning her by-election; it was a worthy win. I send my best wishes to her predecessor, with whom I did huge amounts of work when I was in the pensions brief at the Department for Work and Pensions for five years. I was battle-scarred after five years of working at the DWP. I had a brief sabbatical in the summer when I returned to the Back Benches before the Prime Minister asked me to take on this role. By my count, I have approximately 20 issues to respond to; I will do my best over the next 15 to 20 minutes.
Although the debate was introduced by a Scottish Member of Parliament, it is about social security support throughout the country, and it is timely, given the context of the illegal invasion by Mr Putin of Ukraine, the consequences of the aftershocks of covid, the rise in energy prices, the inflationary impacts that are clearly happening, and last week’s autumn statement. Although the autumn statement, which I am sure we will discuss, tried to address many of the issues that have been raised today, it would be naive not to accept and acknowledge that all countries in the western world are attempting to deal with difficulties in respect of the war in Ukraine, the energy price hikes, the fact that we are effectively in an energy war, the consequential impacts on national income, and the impacts of inflation.
The Government are responding to the challenges we face, and in last week’s autumn statement we showed a clear commitment to helping families and the most vulnerable. That includes a further £26 billion of cost of living support, on top of the £37 billion set out in spring last year by the then Chancellor. I will try to address the relevant points in a variety of ways. I have been in this role for only approximately three and a half weeks, but I have had the opportunity to go to jobcentres and meet DWP staff at locations ranging from Canvey Island and Birmingham to Hackney earlier this week.
I have previously visited a variety of jobcentres from Banff to Belfast, from Hastings to Amlwch in north Wales, and from Redcar to Blackpool, and I put on the record my desire to return to some of those locations. The hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) has headed off, but I well remember visiting Shettleston and the Tollcross advice centre in his patch in 2019, and I deeply enjoyed the famous visit to the constituency of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). It is not a good thing to advertise the fact that I have been ambushed by a cake, but when I walked into his constituency office his staff literally ambushed me with a lemon drizzle. Obviously, that did not endear me to the previous Prime Minister bar one, my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), but I hope to be back in Northern Ireland soon and I take on board the points raised by the hon. Gentleman. I will endeavour to look into the matter when he gets back to me on it.
As the Minister for Employment I cover this brief and others, although not all the matters that have been raised today, and it is certainly my intention to try to visit all parts of the UK shortly. I hope to visit Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland within the next three or four months, depending on parliamentary diaries, negotiations with my good lady wife and various other things, as well as visiting a variety of locations up and down the country, to enable me better to understand the issues that have been raised.
In respect of support for children, the fundamental starting point should surely be the fact that the UK supports children and families throughout the country through child benefit. We need to begin with an assessment of that. It has continued under successive Governments, and as of August 2021 there were 8 million families claiming child benefit and 12 million children in receipt of child benefit. In Scotland alone, 532,000 families and 878,000 children were in receipt of child benefit.
Guy Opperman
I have a lot to try to address. Let me make a little progress, then I will give way.
Child benefit is available to anyone responsible for bringing up a child aged 16 or under, or 20 if they are in approved education or training. From April 2023, the weekly rate will increase by 10.1%, from £21.80 to £24 for the eldest or only child and from £14.45 to £15.90 for every other child. The UK child benefit bill for 2022-23 is almost £12 billion, and obviously there are other benefits with respect to claiming child benefit, such as national insurance credits, which protect future entitlement to the state pension and can be transferred to grandparents who provide childcare. Claiming also enables children to get their national insurance number automatically at 16.
Margaret Ferrier
The Minister knows that I have a lot of time for him because he sat through proceedings in the Chamber on my private Member’s Bill when he was pensions Minister. According to the Child Poverty Action Group, last year a couple working full-time on the minimum wage and a lone parent working full-time on the median wage were able to reach a minimum standard of living. That is not the case today, although the report was published before the autumn statement. What reassurance can the Minister offer lone parents for whom the cost of raising a child is already higher than it is for couples?
Guy Opperman
The hon. Lady and I spent nearly six months campaigning to ensure that there was a serious and legitimate change to women’s pensions entitlements in certain private sector pensions. I thank her for her work on the private Member’s Bill that she brought forward and that is now in law, having been signed by Her Majesty the Queen. I welcome the fact that she worked on a cross-party basis to ensure that happened. I will try to address the child poverty issue that was raised by several colleagues. I want to deal with it in a variety of ways. I will then segue on to the in-work progression point—namely, people who are working but also suffering from poverty.
Let me start with the background. The fundamental point is that the Government are committed to a sustainable, long-term approach to tackle child poverty in supporting low-income families. We spent £242 billion through the welfare system in the United Kingdom in 2022-23, including £108 billion on people of working age. We have made permanent changes to universal credit worth £1,000 a year on average to 1.7 million claimants, and have given the lowest earners a pay rise by increasing the national living wage by 6.6% to £9.50 from April 2022. From 1 April 2023, the national living wage will increase by 9.7% to £10.42 an hour for workers aged 23 and over. That is the largest ever cash increase to the national living wage. It represents an increase of more than £1,600 to the annual earnings of full-time workers on the national living wage, and is expected to benefit more than 2 million low-paid workers.
I will address the poverty statistics. The latest statistics show that poverty fell for nearly all measures in 2020-21 compared with 2019-20. In 2021 there were 1.2 million fewer people in absolute poverty, before housing costs, than in 2009-10, including 200,000 fewer children. We will come to workless households in a second, but since 2010 there are nearly 1 million fewer workless households in the United Kingdom. The number of children growing up in homes where no one works has fallen by 590,000 since 2010—
Guy Opperman
May I just finish? I will also come to the point made by the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts. That number has fallen by 590,000 since 2010, and 1.7 million more children are living in a home where at least one person is working. I give way first to the shadow Minister.
Ms Buck
On the issue of absolute poverty, in a previous debate I raised the fact that the absolute poverty figures for larger families—those affected by the two-child limit—have been worsening, rather than improving, as the Minister claims. Will he go away, have a look at that, and inform himself about it when thinking about where to go next on policy?
Guy Opperman
Obviously, being three and a half weeks into the job I am looking forward to learning a great deal. I have merely recited the statistics on people in absolute poverty before housing costs. I will go away and think about the matter. I will give way to the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts in a moment; I just want to make a little progress because I have not made much thus far.
I want to address the issue of work and emerging out of poverty. The Government believe, as did previous Governments under the Blair and Brown Administrations, that work is the best and most sustainable way to lift children out of poverty. That is in terms of the parents, I hasten to add. We hope there is then progression in work, which I will come to in detail. Clear evidence exists about the importance of parental employment, particularly when it is full time. The latest data on in-work poverty shows that in 2019-20 children in households where adults were in work were about six times less likely to be in absolute poverty than children in a household where no one was working. I have talked about statistics compared with 2010. Clearly, one job for the Department for Work and Pensions is to address the million-plus vacancies that affect us all in constituencies up and down the country. We certainly want to do that to help to support people to gain the skills that they need to find a job and improve their earnings.
I will try to address in-work progression, which was specifically raised by the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts. There is clearly much that jobcentre work coaches are doing up and down the country. Members can go into their local jobcentre and meet and talk with them, and I urge colleagues to do so. I advocate a particular policy, which is called in-work progression. It started in April 2022 and was piloted in South Yorkshire. It was originally a voluntary offer, but it is now being fully rolled out, and approximately 2.1 million low-paid benefit claimants will be eligible for support to progress into higher-paid work. This support for people looking to progress in their current role or move into a new role—which we hope will pay them a greater amount of money, as they progress through the UC thresholds—is provided by work coaches, and focuses on removing barriers to progression and providing advice.
Jobcentres will be supported by a network of 37 progression champions, who will spearhead the scheme. The champions will work with key partners, including local government, employers and skills providers, to identify and develop local progression opportunities. They will also work with partners to address local barriers that limit progression, such as childcare and transport. This is being rolled out in South Yorkshire and Cheshire, and eight further districts will go live next week on 29 November, with champions to be in place beforehand—the recruitment is complete for those districts. Fourteen more districts will go live by 22 February 2023 and the remaining 13 districts will be rolled out by 22 March 2023. Across Scotland—to address the key point raised by the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts on in-work progression and support for people who are trying to make more money as they are on UC—that will be rolled out by March 2023, with six district champions.
Ms Qaisar
When I met representatives from Pregnant Then Screwed this week, they told me of their concerns about the plight of women. We have women who want to work and are more than qualified to work, but the cost of childcare is holding them back. I mentioned this earlier, and I hope the Minister will answer this specific point: will the UK Government follow the suit of the Scottish Government and introduce childcare for children so that women can get back to work?
Guy Opperman
The hon. Lady has obviously pre-read my speech and the comments that I will make, because my fifth point was going to be about childcare. There are a variety of points, which I will address in their totality; I will then try to deal with the specifics, particularly for those on universal credit.
It is patently obvious that for some parents childcare costs present challenges—at the very least—to entering employment. As the father of a 15-and-a-half-week-old child, I can testify to the bitter experience of that. The Government’s 13 hours of free childcare offer entitles all parents of three to four-year-olds in England to 570 hours of free childcare per year, with many children also entitled to the additional 15 hours of free childcare for 38 weeks per year. In addition to helping parents to manage childcare costs and working patterns, free childcare supports children’s development.
I will deal in particular with universal credit and childcare, in respect of which there is a massive role for Members of Parliament. Bluntly, those on universal credit are entitled to a massive amount of childcare, but the take-up of that offer is not good.
Kirsty Blackman
They are entitled to 85% of childcare costs—that is absolutely true—but is the Minister aware that the caps set in 2005 have not been uprated, despite the fact that childcare costs have since increased dramatically? Will he take a look at those numbers?
Guy Opperman
The Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), and I have had a preliminary meeting. The country wants to try to assist parents who want to go back to work. There is a real desire to address childcare on a long-term basis to ensure that parents who wish to can go back to work.
There are many discussions about all aspects of how we reform, improve and expand childcare in this country. The bit that I control is the ability of somebody on universal credit to access and take childcare. I take the point made by the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts and I will go and look at that, but the blunt truth is that the take-up is low. That is the first problem. I am genuinely of the view that there is not sufficient knowledge that individuals on universal credit can claim 85% of their registered childcare costs each month, regardless of the number of hours they work. That is a significant increase on the previous 70% of costs that could be claimed back on legacy benefits.
Parents can claim up to a maximum of £646.35 per month for one child and £1,108.04 per month for two or more children. For families with two or more children, that could be worth over £13,000 a year. I take the hon. Lady’s point on board and will go away and look at that, but that is still £13,000 of subsidised childcare paid for by the state in circumstances. That support is also available to all lone parents and couples who satisfy both the childcare cost and the work conditions to qualify for help with childcare costs.
I am conscious that there is an issue with prepayment of childcare. Various support funds are used up and down the country. In my three-and-a-half week journey of understanding this issue, there seems to be patchy take-up, but I urge all local areas and individual job centres that are assisting parents in this process to ensure that the various support funds available can be provided. It is not a grant, but it is a provision to pay for the childcare deposit. That is definitely happening up and down the country and we should try to encourage and nurture that on an ongoing basis.
I am conscious of time and the desire to deal with a large number of other matters. The autumn statement saw £26 billion in total, as part of further support in 2023-24, to provide around 8 million households on means-tested benefits such as universal credit with payments of up to £900 to help their income stretch further. That is on top of the £37 billion of cost of living support for households in 2022-23. In addition, there are benefits increases in line with September inflation of 10.1%, worth £11 billion, to working-age households and disabled people. There is also the triple lock and support for pensioners.
We will continue to provide support to all households through the energy price guarantee, which caps the price paid for each unit of energy, saving the average UK household £500 next year. For those who require extra support, we are providing an additional £1 billion to help with the cost of household essentials next year, bringing total funding for this support to £2.5 billion since October 2021. In England, that includes an extension to the household support fund backed by £842 million for the 2023-24 financial year. Devolved Administrations will receive £158 million through the Barnett formula. I could go into detail about support for free school meals across England and about the Healthy Start scheme.
I will briefly touch on the funding and powers in Scotland. The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts highlighted the extension to the Scottish child payment. The Scotland Act 2016 devolved significant social security and employment support powers to the Scottish Parliament, worth around £3 billion, as well as providing additional powers to create new benefits in areas of devolved responsibility, top up reserved benefits and provide discretionary payments. The UK Government provided the Scottish Government with a record £41 billion per year Barnett-based settlement at the 2021 spending review. That is the largest settlement since devolution. That record settlement provides the Scottish Government with around 25% more funding per person than equivalent UK Government spending in other parts of the UK.
In respect of various other matters, I will endeavour to write to colleagues. To conclude, I welcome today’s debate. I will attempt to work with colleagues on an ongoing basis. It is my job to ensure that there is ongoing support for children through the social security budget that operates throughout the United Kingdom. I commend the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts on her first Westminster Hall debate.
Ms Qaisar
I thank the Minister for his response; he should expect letters from me following up some of the points that I made. As I stated in my opening remarks, I wish to be the voice of the voiceless, which is why I applied for this debate to discuss social security for children. I was pleased to hear Back-Bench contributions from SNP, Democratic Unionist party, Labour and independent MPs, and I thank all Members present for attending. We heard incredibly powerful contributions, although I was saddened that no Back Bencher from the Conservatives or Liberal Democrats attended or contributed.
I did not find the debate adversarial; in fact, there was cross-party support, especially on this side of the Chamber, for collectively joining forces to eradicate child poverty and implement meaningful social security for children. Again, I call on the UK Government to follow the lead of the Scottish Government in increasing childcare hours and offering the baby box and the Scottish child payment. As I have said, the Scottish Government have introduced numerous policies; they hold only limited economic powers, yet they spend their time and money mitigating Tory austerity. Poverty is a political choice, and Scotland wants no part in it.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered social security support for children.
Misuse of Nitrous Oxide
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This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of the misuse of nitrous oxide.
As many people will know, nitrous oxide is a substance that has been available for many years. Known more familiarly as laughing gas, it has been used by the medical profession for some time, and in its form of gas and air it is used as a mild anaesthetic by both dentists and doctors—I believe I first came across it during the birth of my eldest son, when it was used to ease the pain of childbirth. It is also used to give a bit of extra whoosh to drag-racing engines: nitrous oxide systems designed to boost power outputs are used for competitive motor events, and of course, it is used in catering for both frothing whipped cream and frothing coffee in home appliances more usually found outside the UK. In that form, it is sold in 8-gram mini-cylinders.
Increasingly, however, nitrous oxide is used for recreational highs. Back in my day, solvent abuse was a problem; today, nitrous oxide—NOS, whippits, hippie crack, balloons; call it what you like—is being used for short-term highs by a new generation. It may be referred to as laughing gas, but in reality, it is no more glamourous than glue sniffing. This is not a new phenomenon. The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 lists specific substances that are illegal; nitrous oxide is not listed, but it is covered by the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016. That Act, while not listing specific substances, covers those that fit specific characteristics and definitions. To fall within the remit of the Act, the substance must be capable of having “a psychoactive effect” that affects someone’s
“mental functioning or emotional state”
by stimulating or depressing their nervous system. Specifically, this includes effects that we associate with controlled drugs under the 1971 Act such as hallucinations, changes of alertness, changes of perception of time and space, changes of mood and empathy with others, and drowsiness.
The wide definition under the 2016 Act is intended to pre-empt new substances emerging in the drugs market by defining their effects, as opposed to their chemical structure. The Act is good news: it makes it an offence to produce, supply, offer to supply, or possess with intent to supply any psychoactive substance, with a maximum penalty of seven years’ imprisonment. In short, it makes it illegal to sell nitrous oxide for recreational use. The available data tell us that there were 152 convictions in 2017, 107 in 2018 and 52 in 2019 under the Act, but we are trying to find more recent data. Slightly alarmingly, however, West Midlands police got in touch with me only this morning to tell me that since 2015, it has prosecuted only four people under the 2016 Act.
The Act was formally reviewed in 2018, and the review concluded that
“the use of nitrous oxide…does not appear to have been affected by the Act”,
with use by adults increasing to around 2.3% of the adult population, while use by 16 to 24-year-olds stayed steady at just under 9%. Indeed, nitrous oxide is now the second most commonly used drug in that age group, coming a close second to cannabis, but, as I say, the data are old.
Anecdotal evidence from the medical profession in the west midlands suggests that usage of nitrous oxide has increased markedly since lockdown. The medical profession is picking that up because of the appalling effects that it has on users. Its attractiveness is that it is easy to use. Historically available in small 8-gram cylinders—mini-cylinders—it is inhaled using, commonly, a balloon. Its effects are immediate and include euphoria, giggling, distortion of sound, and hallucinations. Those peak after 20 seconds and resolve after a couple of minutes. It is a quick high and leaves no immediate after-effects. Someone using it once would be able to sit down with, for example, their parents with no evidence that they had been using it in the minutes before. It appears to be harmless, but that is not the case. The reality is that people use it not just once, but for long periods. It used to be available in small 8-gram mini-canisters, similar in size to those of sparklets bulbs—
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Member for securing this really important debate and for making such a significant and poignant speech. I find it very distressing to know that young people are able to access these silver cylinders and that they have such a harmful effect on them. In my constituency, I have seen pockets of those cylinders in various places, and I am pleased that he has brought the matter to the Government’s attention. Does he agree with me that we need more work to be done on health and education as well as on enforcement to make sure young people are not able to purchase them?
Mark Garnier
I completely agree. I will be coming on to that, but the hon. Lady is absolutely right. With any legislation, part of it has to be to do with education, and it is important that people recognise that the high is insidious and not without consequences. The fact that it is called laughing gas means that it trivialises what is not a trivial thing.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
I am really interested in the hon. Member’s speech and in the harms from nitrous oxide that he raises. As somebody whose lung was punctured as a result of using nitrous oxide during childbirth, I am keen for what he says about education to be at the heart of the proposals that he is making so that we tell people about the very real dangers they face if they misuse nitrous oxide. The only reason I came through it safely was because I was using it in a medical setting with medical professionals who could look after me.
Mark Garnier
That is an incredibly alarming story, because it was being prescribed presumably by an anaesthetist who knew exactly what they were doing. That was in the form of gas and air, but the people who misuse the drug use it neat, which is much more powerful and dangerous.
What used to require some effort to transfer smallish amounts from a canister to a balloon so that it could be used in a simple way is now something that can be inhaled all evening, sucking in huge quantities of nitrous oxide. Instead of being available in 8-gram canisters, it is now typically in canisters of up to 600 grams, which allows someone to sit there using it all night. The result is that doctors are now seeing an increase in cases of people being admitted to hospital with serious side effects.
Dr David Nicholl, a campaigner in my region of the west midlands—a local doctor and significant campaigner—tells me that he sees at least one new case every fortnight. Misuse of nitrous oxide creates a vitamin B12 deficiency. That is a vitamin vital for nerve function for both periphery in the hands and feet and in the spinal cord. Practical effects are numbness of the hands and feet and pins and needles, but longer-term use results in people being unable to walk and talk properly, relying on crutches and, in some cases, wheelchairs for, potentially, the rest of their life.
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
I add my thanks to my hon. Friend, who is also a Member of Parliament in Worcestershire. I have canvassed my local police force to understand the impacts on my constituency, as he has done. Is he aware that as well as the health impact that he is discussing, there is also the impact of anaemia in some users? Does he agree that that is a matter of resources for our NHS? We know that in Worcestershire we have problems with our NHS acute trust, so we should educate people not to engage in optional activity that burdens an already overstretched trust.
Mark Garnier
I completely agree. My hon. Friend will be delighted to hear that I spoke to our local police and crime commissioner only this morning about the issue. I have engaged with him over a number of weeks, and he is acutely aware of it, but there are problems.
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
On the issue of crime, my constituents in Worcester have been inundated with concerns about Astwood cemetery, where vandalism and theft from graves has been taking place. One of the constituents who came to see me about it, Mrs McAuley, mentioned that the ground around the graves was littered with gas canisters. Is my hon. Friend concerned about the behavioural effect? People have these short-term highs, then carry out foolish and stupid activities, which can be deeply hurtful to people if it is something such as desecrating a grave in a churchyard.
Mark Garnier
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Desecrating a grave is absolutely appalling. The last time I saw a pile of empty NOS canisters was outside the Royal Society on Carlton House Terrace, which is an unexpected place to see them. I am sure the members were not using it themselves. My hon. Friend is right that it brings about behaviour that, at the time may seem highly amusing to the person affected by it, but has incredibly profound long-term effects to other people around them. I will come to that later. The important point is that something that is used by trained medical professionals for beneficial medical outcomes, although not always without risk, is being misused to the level that it destroys the lives of the users and those around them.
How is nitrous oxide becoming so prevalent? The reality is that there seems to be no one controlling the selling of it. The Act is being ignored at worst, and at best it is very difficult to enforce. Users say that nitrous oxide is incredibly easily to get hold of, as it is freely available in corner shops. Moreover, it seems to be getting cheaper while everything else is getting more expensive. The 600 gram canister that I mentioned earlier has dropped from £50 to just £25, bucking the trend of the cost of living crisis. For communities that tend to avoid alcohol, it is an apparently guilt-free alternative.
The availability of nitrous oxide is extraordinary, given that it is being used as a psychoactive drug and is therefore controlled by the 2016 Act. You can google this should you choose to, Sir Christopher. There are websites that sell it nominally as a whipped cream additive, but brazenly give advice on its psychoactive effects and its legality or otherwise as a recreational drug. There is even one website that offers vitamin B12 supplements to counteract its effects. More alarmingly, one website that I looked at offers nitrous oxide not just in quantities for personal use—six 600-gram canisters can be bought for an attractive £130—but by the pallet load. Seventy-two cases of canisters cost an impressive £8,150, which will be delivered to the buyer’s door. Remember that the website starts by talking about it as a whipped cream additive but quickly goes on to its misuse. That is either an awful lot of whipped cream, or this is a wholesaler of misery for any number of people.
Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)
I am incredibly grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing this debate to the House. The use of nitrous oxide in the community and the litter that comes from the canisters are constituency issues of great concern to me. I met my police and crime commissioner this morning, and we had a discussion about this. She is concerned about the impact on people driving following the use of these canisters. Would my hon. Friend comment on that?
Mark Garnier
Absolutely. There is definite evidence that people have been killed driving under the effect of nitrous oxide. Although it takes 20 seconds to kick in, and after a couple of minutes it resolves itself, we do not know what the long-term effects are on people’s acuity and ability to drive. I suspect that if someone has been taking the stuff all this evening and then gets into their car, even if they have come off the immediate high it surely has some longer term effect on their ability to check traffic lights and all the rest of it.
The website I was referring to looks like a wholesaler of illegal drugs under the 2016 Act. Importantly, the bottles that the nitrous oxide is being offered in suit neither the catering industry nor the medical profession. The medical profession buys it in very large quantities for its important uses. Those bottles can therefore only be being made for misuse.
Back in 2015, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs provided advice on the harms of nitrous oxide and public health and safety. It conclusion was that, although its harmfulness did not warrant control under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, it was important that it came under the 2016 Act. Back in September 2021, thanks to the British Compressed Gases Association—the trade association that covers the legitimate use of nitrous oxide—the then Home Secretary wrote to the advisory council asking it to review its finding. In her letter, the Home Secretary cited statistics showing that 550,000 16 to 24-year-olds had used nitrous oxide in the previous 12 months—that is significant use. The advice would inform the Government’s decision on whether nitrous oxide should be controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 due to the long-term effects that its misuse can have, which, in theory, was quite a good move forward.
I understand, however, that the Home Office is still waiting for a reply. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm what progress the Home Office has made in chasing up a response to that letter. I have learned from the British Compressed Gases Association that it has raised this again with the current Home Secretary, who has also written seeking guidance from the organisation in question. I gather that the Home Office is on to this, but it seems to be taking some time to get a response.
This issue was brought to my attention by the frankly brilliant campaign being run by BBC Hereford & Worcester—my local radio station—which has been working hard with local campaigner Dr David Nicholl, whom I have already referred to. It is just not David and BBC Hereford & Worcester who are on to this: not only have we had a petition in Parliament that has achieved more than 11,000 signatures, but the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction published a report on Monday that highlights all the points raised here and more. The report, which lists seven case studies from Denmark, Ireland, France, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Portugal and the UK, absolutely reinforces the concerns raised by Dr Nicholl, BBC Hereford & Worcester and my colleagues present.
Mr Walker
Does my hon. Friend agree that, at a time when the BBC appears to be considering cutting back on local radio, this is an excellent example of the public service and duty that our local radio provides? The BBC should really reconsider its decision to target local radio for its cuts.
Mark Garnier
I could not agree more. I was going to come to this later, but my hon. Friend has raised it now: he is absolutely right: local radio is fantastic at every level. My hon. Friend and I both know what it is like trying to get around Worcestershire when flooding is coming in; were it not for BBC Hereford & Worcester providing that brilliant support, as other radio stations do, we would not have that help. He raises a brilliant point.
The report moreover reinforces the call by the British Compressed Gases Association for consumer sales to be banned in the UK. This advice has been followed by the Netherlands, which will introduce a ban in January 2023. It seems that anybody who knows anything about this is keen to tackle the problem, but there seems to be a problem with the Government and their agencies.
With all this official information, it is sometimes more meaningful to hear the views of those who have been affected. Earlier this week, I received an email in anticipation of this debate, which, I think, is worth reading out in full:
“Around 5 years ago, I found out that my brother had become addicted to nitrous oxide. He had been introduced to it as a party drug by a friend at university but soon became heavily reliant on it, to the point where he would do it all day, every day. Unfortunately, it turned him from a really kind, intelligent, outgoing and sociable person to a depressed recluse. He developed Psychosis, suffered from hallucinations and became confused. In one incident, he was convinced that I was impersonating his sister. He subsequently became violent towards my parents and me, and one Christmas tried to kill my father by repeatedly bashing his head with a portable speaker. We were all terrified of him. His nitrous oxide abuse led to him drinking alcohol heavily and gambling, and, two years after we learned of his addiction, he took his own life at the age of 25.
I am so angry that someone who had so much potential—he was an elite athlete, had won a scholarship to a top university in the USA and had just started a great job in finance—had his life destroyed by a drug, which many still consider harmless. We really need greater awareness of the harmfulness of the drug, especially amongst young people. Despite how damaging it can be, you will also know that it is freely available with no checks necessary. Indeed, my brother was able to purchase boxes of it on Amazon with next day Prime delivery and it was being openly sold by a shop around the corner from where he was living.”
We all know that drug use is not free from consequences, which vary from misery for users to misery for all the people, family and loved ones around those who have become addicted. If we agree that nitrous oxide is a drug under the 2016 Act, how on earth is it possible that Amazon can deliver large quantities of it and corner shops can sell it to kids? How is it possible that I can go to a freely accessible website that not only offers it by the pallet load, but provides advice on how to use it as a recreational high? How is it possible that the police are apparently not able to tackle this issue? As I say, my PCC is definitely on to it, but it is a problem.
Rachel Maclean
I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting that awful case, and our hearts go out to the family of those affected. The suggestion from Inspector Rich Field, my local police lead, is that it is very difficult to ban the sale of those sorts of things because, as has been pointed out, they are easily available on Amazon and eBay. The police are suggesting that it be made illegal to have possession of nitrous oxide in a public place for under 16s. What does my hon. Friend think of that idea? I hope the Minister has also noted that and will address it in his final remarks.
Mark Garnier
The answer to my hon. Friend is I think that is exactly the right idea. I have already spoken to the Minister about that, and I know that he is open to ideas—perhaps we will hear his thoughts on that when he makes his response. Importantly, why are we still waiting for an answer to two Home Secretaries’ request for more information from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs? That is where a lot of the answers will come from.
I am grateful to the Minister for his time, and I look forward to hearing what plans he has to deal with this 21st century version of glue sniffing. We have already heard of the tragic consequences for somebody who became addicted. The Minister potentially has in his hands the ability to prevent further unnecessary misery. Finally, I congratulate David Nicholl and BBC Hereford & Worcester on their work. As we have heard, the BBC are introducing changes to local broadcasting that fly in the face of all logic. I will end on a point that is slightly unrelated to the main debate, but the work done by local radio is so important, and BBC Hereford & Worcester is such a good example of that.
The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) for securing this important debate. I put on record my thanks to his local radio station, BBC Hereford & Worcester, for its tireless and energetic campaigning and investigative journalism in this area. As my hon. Friend said, work by local radio stations, such as BBC Hereford & Worcester, is extremely important in raising those issues and drawing them to the attention of local Members of Parliament, and, through them, the Government.
The Government share the concerns that hon. Members have raised about the use of nitrous oxide. We are very conscious about its growing levels of use recreationally, particularly by younger people aged between 16 and 24. We are concerned about the effect it has on people’s physical and mental wellbeing. Often, drug consumption can have effects that take quite a long time to manifest For example, we know long-term cannabis consumption can lead to psychosis and psychotic episodes, but it takes quite a long time for that to manifest. With any sort of psychoactive substance there can be effects that are not immediately obvious, and only after the passage of time do they become clear.
Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)
This is a slight change of topic, but in Coventry we have had young people paralysed due to the neurological effects of this particular drug. Would the Minister speak to his counterpart in the Department of Health and Social Care about running a public health campaign to raise awareness about the effects of this drug?
Chris Philp
The hon. Lady is right to point to the need to elevate public awareness. All too often we find that people make an assumption about something that, on the face of it, appears relatively innocuous but can in fact have serious effects, either over time, as in the case of cannabis and psychosis, or if consumed in excessive quantities. The point my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest made about very large cannisters is concerning. The point she makes about people ending up paralysed by consuming huge amounts of this stuff is deeply concerning. I will write to my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care conveying exactly that suggestion. I think it is a good idea. It may be worth her raising it directly with Health Ministers, but I will certainly write on that point.
Janet Daby
That is absolutely the right suggestion. With the public health campaign, could the Minister also speak to his counterparts in the Department for Education to make sure there is that connection between health and education, so that young people are receiving that information early?
Chris Philp
I can see my job list growing with every passing minute of this debate. I am happy to raise that with Department for Education colleagues. Education is important so that young people understand the risks they are running when they take nitrous oxide. We support an organisation called Every Mind Matters, which is an online resilience-building resource aimed particularly at 11 to 16-year-olds and provides them with information to make informed choices. Raising concerns about these drugs is important. Children obviously get taught about it in schools through relationships, sex and health education. That teaching became compulsory in schools from September 2020, so part of the curriculum is set aside for messaging of the kind that the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) pointed to.
Let me turn to some of the questions raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Wyre Forest, for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) and for Worcester (Mr Walker) about the legal framework and where we are with that. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest said, nitrous oxide is currently controlled under the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 rather than the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, and there are provisions in the 2016 Act that control the supply of it but do not criminalise possession. It is an offence to supply nitrous oxide if the person supplying it knows or is reckless as to whether it will be used for its psychoactive effect. There is a legal duty on the supplier not to act recklessly in supplying it.
I was very interested by the example my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest gave about an online company who were in his words acting as a “wholesaler” of this drug. He thinks it is not for legitimate purposes to do with whipped cream or other related commercial applications, but for use in a psychoactive context. He says the website sells it in forms of packaging that would appear to suggest it would be used for psychoactive effect, and there is content on the website pointing in the same direction, including suggesting people can take vitamin B12 supplements to counter the effect the nitrous oxide has. That all points to the fact that they may be supplying it for psychoactive purposes, not legitimate commercial purposes.
I have not seen the website, but were that the case, it would strike me that it probably would be reckless. The company acting in the way he describes would be acting recklessly as to whether or not it is being use to psychoactive effect. In fact, in some ways, the company might be implicitly encouraging it, considering the content he describes. I think my hon. Friend would have a case to refer that website to the police, drawing their attention to the provisions I pointed to. There might be grounds for investigation and prosecution under the law as it stands today for the reasons I just set out.
Mr Walker
I am very grateful to the Minister for making that clear. He is right. Where there is concern about these things, the website should be referred. I have come across similar cases in relation to even more dangerous substances. He will know about some of the debates we have had previously about DNP—or 2,4-Dinitrophenol—which is a highly toxic and deadly substance, sometimes mis-sold as a slimming aid or exercise supplement. Does the Minister agree that we need stronger powers to ensure we can take action against websites that sell these substances, because I am concerned.
I have seen cases and cases have been raised by my constituents where drugs that can literally kill people, simply through being ingested, are being mis-marketed, or marketed in a way my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) described—where it explicitly says, “This is not the use for it,” but then goes on to imply that someone can buy it and use it for all those things. That is very, very dangerous, particularly for young people to whom these things are targeted. Can I urge him to take more action?
Chris Philp
Yes, I think that is a very important point. Where the substance concerned has a psychoactive effect, it will fall under the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016, and where people are supplying it recklessly in the way that my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester just described, there is basis for action. If there is no psychoactive effect but the substance has some other adverse medical effect, that would obviously not fall within the purview of that Act, but such substances are regulated separately through the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and other regulators, who can make regulations to restrict supply. If there is evidence that there is misuse of substances that are legal, either tightening that regulation or having them reviewed by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs is the right way to go. If my hon. Friend has particular examples, he should write to me and I would be happy to take them up.
I am conscious that time is pressing upon us.
Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)
This debate can go on until half-past eleven, but not beyond, if that is the question the Minister is asking.
Chris Philp
Thank you. That is very helpful, Sir Christopher; that was the clarification I was seeking, alongside your more metaphysical point about the pressing nature of time in general.
I return to the questions on the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest eloquently and accurately put it, this matter was referred to the ACMD by the Home Secretary in September of last year, 12 or 13 months ago. We have not yet received its report. The Home Office has raised the matter. The ACMD is independent of Government so cannot be compelled, but it would be proper to draw its attention to this debate and the concerns that have been expressed from both sides on the issue, to make sure that it is aware of the strong parliamentary interest in this matter. That would be a proper and reasonable thing to do without trespassing on its independence. I agree with my hon. Friend that the issue needs to be looked at urgently.
Generally, the Government follow the advice of the ACMD because it has the medical expertise, although we are not obliged to do so. It is within that organisation’s power to make a recommendation on how the drug should be classified. If it were to give advice that it thought the drug sufficiently damaging, it would be open to the Government to reclassify and bring it within the remit not of the 2016 Act but of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, at which point it would become a prohibited drug and would fall into class A, B or C. The Government take the ACMD’s recommendations very seriously because it is the expert in this area.
Rachel Maclean
Will the Minister enlighten us, for the benefit of those of us not quite familiar with the role of this body? Does its recommendations include providing changes to the law and legal frameworks such as making it illegal to possess those substances in a public place, as I referred to earlier? How would that be enforced, based on those recommendations?
Chris Philp
The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs principally makes recommendations about how harmful a particular drug is and therefore how it should be classified under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. That is the advice we have sought in this case. The consequences that then flow from classification are matters for Parliament to legislate; they are set out in law. There are obviously different criminal penalties depending on whether a drug is in class A, B or C, and there are different penalties for possession versus supply. The advice we are seeking is essentially medical advice on just how damaging the drugs are and therefore which regime they should fall within. I will convey to the ACMD how pressing Members of Parliament feel the issue is, quite rightly. The points raised have been very powerful and well articulated. I will undertake a third action to go and do that. This is an important issue, about which we are concerned.
I add a point before closing about the powers that local authorities have. One or two Members mentioned the associated antisocial behaviour and littering. There are powers available under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 and other legislation to make various forms of order in this area, including orders on antisocial behaviour and dispersal. We also have public space protection orders, which are available to local councils to stop individuals or groups committing antisocial behaviour in a public space; such behaviour would clearly fall into that remit. Following consultation by councils with the police or the local PCC, councils can issue a PSPO, which would effectively prevent the activities taking place in a particular area. If there are Members who feel there is a problem in a particular location, I would suggest they get their local council to use PSPOs as an immediate measure and way of taking action. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest for the opportunity to speak on this important issue.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the matter of the misuse of nitrous oxide.
Support for British Farming
(1 year, 12 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
Welcome to this important debate about British farming. It is a delight to call Simon Jupp to move the motion.
Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered support for British farming.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I am delighted to have secured this timely debate, which is an opportunity for colleagues from across the House to voice their support for British farming. We have a lot to celebrate, alongside some concerns.
As the Member of Parliament for East Devon, I am proud to represent a corner of the UK with an extremely rich farming heritage. Devon’s farmers play a key role in the life of our county. Around 100,000 people get a snippet of that every year at the Devon County Show at Westpoint arena, which is held almost every July.
We know that the freshest, most sustainable and best produce is both local and seasonal. Local produce from across the south-west is found on shelves across the UK and around the globe. With that in mind, trade deals are of benefit to our region. We must take advantage of our Brexit freedoms, but we must also work harder to take the farming community with us. Leaving the EU allows the UK to leave behind a bureaucratic and inefficient farming policy. The Government rightly want to use our new-found powers to reward farmers for doing more to help improve the environment while also producing high-quality food.
However, the farming industry needs more certainty to both survive and thrive. I regularly hold roundtable events with the farming community in East Devon, and I hear that message about clarity loud and clear. Last month, I invited local farmers to a roundtable event with senior officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Rural Payments Agency. Farmers, agents and others are eager to see how various elements of the new farming funding system will underpin their sustainable and resilient businesses. Support schemes will need to be accessible and simple, and they will also need to reward farmers fairly for taking part in them.
So my first plea in this debate is that DEFRA looks to accelerate the development and roll-out of the sustainable farming incentive. Incentivising farmers to take part in rewilding schemes or to plant trees on prime agricultural land may seem a worthy policy in Whitehall, but it will not put food on the table in the west country. Farmers have said to me, “You cannot eat trees.” Needless to say, a balance is required. Food production and environmental sustainability are not necessarily in competition, and nor are they mutually exclusive, but support schemes should always encourage farmers to produce food. That is the only way to deliver on the ambition of the UK food strategy to maintain or increase our food self-sufficiency, which is all the more important given the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the challenges resulting from the war in Ukraine has been the increasing cost of energy and that one challenge for farmers is the cost of energy? In his autumn statement, the Chancellor said that he would provide additional targeted relief for businesses. Does my hon. Friend agree that those businesses must include farmers?
Simon Jupp
My hon. Friend makes a good point. It is incredibly important that the agricultural industry is recognised, because energy bills have shot up. Also, quite a few of our agricultural businesses in Devon and beyond rely on heating oil. We know that additional support is on the way, but we will have to wait and see whether that is enough for people to weather the storm. However, I and other MPs in the south-west of all party political colours will be listening to our farmers and representing their views back to Government.
Putting domestic food production first should also apply to trade negotiations. Britain is now free independently to strike new trade deals across the world, and colleagues should have enough time and opportunity to scrutinise such arrangements in the House. Giving Parliament more say in the process, in terms of both the negotiating mandate and the scrutiny of these trade deals, will strengthen the consent for them from the farming industry and the public. That is very clear.
I sympathise with the comments made by my right hon. Friend Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), who recently criticised the path undertaken by the Government in signing the trade deal with Australia. The deal undoubtedly brings benefits, but as a Government we can and must do better in the future. In the summer of 2020, I supported an amendment on food standards tabled by the former Member for Tiverton and Honiton to the Agriculture Bill. The Government listened and acted, setting out that our high standards for domestic and imported products will remain.
I particularly welcomed the setting up of the independent Trade and Agriculture Commission, which must ensure that the voices of everyone involved in food production are properly heard. I would really like to see more engagement between commission officials and MPs, with the commission bringing back some of the regional evidence sessions that it held back in 2020. Those were invaluable in feeding back concerns from farming communities in Devon, the wider south-west and across the country.
There are many other topical issues I would like to touch on before I conclude my remarks, and which I am sure are high in the new Minister’s in-tray—not least rising input costs for things such as fertiliser, slurry rules and avian influenza. Those issues are playing on the minds of local farmers, alongside significant concerns about abattoir capacity in the south-west and across the country.
I will finish my remarks by talking about workforce shortages. Those are an acute issue across the agricultural industry, especially in the south-west, and DEFRA must keep working closely with the Home Office on a long-term strategy for the food and farming workforce. Farming is a skilled career, and it is a labour of love for many. Excellent colleges, such as Bicton in my constituency, keep the flame alive in the younger generation, but is it enough and are we doing enough to encourage young people into these careers? There are ample career opportunities for UK workers in the food and farming sectors, but are we selling that dream to people who are thinking of joining the industry or who have an interest in working on our land?
The farming industry needs sufficient access to labour in the meantime, with the industry calling for the seasonal worker scheme to be increased to a minimum five-year rolling programme to help give farms certainty to invest. The Prime Minister committed to look at expanding seasonal worker schemes in his leadership campaign during the summer, and he was absolutely right to do so. I hope that that is something that DEFRA Ministers and the Home Office can take forward, particularly for the poultry and pig industries, which have faced real problems in the last 12 to 18 months.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman is making a proud defence of British farming. One of the challenges is around the seasonal agricultural workers scheme—that is certainly true in my constituency, where we will end up with food rotting in the fields, because there are not sufficient people to harvest it. The hon. Gentleman talked about training people from the UK and bringing them into the industry, but does he acknowledge that the changes to the scheme mean that those people from overseas who worked in the sector for a long time are now prevented from coming here and cannot pass on their skills to the next generation?
Simon Jupp
That is an interesting point and it needs exploring, which is why I am asking for more flexibility in the schemes the Government provide. We know that this is an acute issue in the area that my hon. Friend represents, but also in the area that I represent. The industry is very clear on this issue, which is why I am mentioning its views today.
Unprecedented events are placing a lot of pressure on our farmers, so today’s debate is a timely opportunity for the House to demonstrate its support for the industry, and I am glad to see so many people here who want to do so. Farmers are the custodians of our countryside. They create new habitats, protect wildlife, produce the raw ingredients that feed our nation, and export food around the globe. It is a seven-day-a-week profession and a labour of love across many generations. I look forward to hearing colleagues’ contributions and to hearing from the Minister, who is experienced and knowledgeable, about his support for British farming.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
Colleagues can see that the debate is well attended. There are nine colleagues wishing to catch my eye, and they will have about five and a half minutes each until the winding-up speeches begin.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Gary, and to follow the hon. Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp); he made an excellent speech, and I warmly congratulate him on securing this important debate.
I should say at the outset that I have a long-standing love of the countryside and have spent a lot of my life on farms over the years. For the purposes of transparency, I want to declare that my son is at agricultural college in Yorkshire, my parents-in-law are farmers, and I am the grandson of a farm worker. I should also say that a sizeable portion of the borough of Barnsley is in a national park, and I am proud that there are a number of farms in my constituency.
Let me say something about the challenges farmers face and what I think we should be doing to support them. The UK benefits from better food security if British farmers produce more food. The war in Ukraine has brought that into sharp focus, as it has caused an abrupt decline in global food production, but the UK has experienced a longer decline. According to the National Farmers Union, we now produce 60% of our domestic food consumption, down from 80% in the 1980s. The Government have an important role to play in reversing that trend, but we can all play our part by buying local produce.
A recent report by the CPRE showed that, pound for pound, spending in smaller, independent, local food outlets supports three times as many jobs as spending at supermarkets, and buying direct can be even better for some farmers. In my area, the Hill family, who run a local dairy farm, have shown entrepreneurial spirit by setting up a very sophisticated vending machine so that people can buy their dairy products directly. They call it “Milk From The Hills”—local milk from local cows helping local farmers.
Members who speak to their local farmers know that farming has rarely, if ever, been easy. So we must support farmers during difficult times, and the latest outbreak of avian influenza is a timely reminder of that. I acknowledge the need for the Government’s national housing order for poultry, along with steps to improve the compensation scheme, although there is some way to go to get that right. Ultimately, strong biosecurity will help prevent and mitigate many threats, but the Public Accounts Committee reported last week that the Government are not prioritising the significant threat to UK health, trade, farming and rural communities posed by animal diseases. That has led to the Animal and Plant Health Agency site in Weybridge having more than 1,000 single points of failure. The completion of the redevelopment programme, due in 2036, will be cold comfort to farmers, especially given that avian influenza is not the only threat.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman is right about the contribution of biosecurity to tackling avian influenza, but does he agree that, because of the interaction between the wild bird population and domestic birds, biosecurity will never be the whole answer to the problem? To be honest, I do not know what the answer is, but to put all our metaphorical and political eggs in the biosecurity basket risks leaving us with no solution in the long term.
Dan Jarvis
The right hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. I understand that there will be a debate on that subject in the House next Wednesday. That is a really important opportunity for Members to put points to the Minister, who takes these things very seriously. I hope that that debate will be well supported. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention.
On biosecurity, African swine fever is a real danger, but the Government have not yet shown that they appreciate the need for strong border checks. I would be grateful if the Minister could say something about the need to keep it out of this country. It is in Germany, and many hon. Members are concerned about the potential for it to come here.
Farmers do diligent work to keep their livestock healthy, and we all respect the fact that farming can be physically demanding. Despite recent advances in technology, it can, as we heard from the hon. Member for East Devon, still require a significant workforce, crucially at harvest time. The seasonal workers scheme must secure the labour needed to ensure that we can produce the food we need.
In response to a written question that I put to the Minister back in October, he said:
“40,000 seasonal worker visas were available in 2022”.
However, the NFU says that farmers need between 60,000 and 70,000 seasonal workers. It is important to note that those workers are not the same as other economic migrants: they return home after performing critical work and filling labour shortages. I would be grateful if the Minister could say something about what his Department is doing to ensure that supply meets demand.
Despite the large workforces sometimes required, we appreciate that farming can be a solitary experience, so we need to ensure that our young people see farming as an attractive option for their future. The Farm Safety Foundation reported in February that 92% of farmers under 40 rank poor mental health as the biggest hidden problem facing farmers. That is a concerning figure. I know that the Minister will understand this issue and take it seriously, so will he say something about the Government’s plans to target outreach to young farmers to make sure they get the support they need?
Dan Jarvis
To conclude, it is very important that we nurture those who feed us and that we support the stewards of our countryside so that they can fill our national larder and protect our green and pleasant land.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I am particularly grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp) for luring me back into Westminster Hall for such an important debate. He spoke eloquently about the importance of rural communities, which we all fundamentally believe in. I represent a part of Essex that is known for its rurality and for its coastal constituency values as well. Farming needs to be recognised as a strong, dynamic and entrepreneurial part of our economy, as well as for the agricultural quality that it brings. My hon. Friend also spoke about the fact many of our rural communities maintain our beautiful countryside and about some of the challenges that come with that.
The hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) spoke about buying local produce, so I will advertise local produce from the Witham constituency, which can be purchased here in Westminster as well. There are the famous jams from Tiptree’s Wilkin & Sons, which holds a royal warrant. With Christmas fast approaching, I urge everyone to make sure they stock up on Christmas puddings from Tiptree.
Importantly, there are many other farms that supply produce, and my hon. Friend touched on the issue of trade—our ability to export around the world. Importantly, we also have the ability to feed our domestic population. In Essex, we have the fantastic Wicks Manor farm, which produces amazing pork products—sausages and bacon—much of which goes across the world. It is also the birthplace of the famous milkshake known as Shaken Udder. We also have Humphreys at Blixes farm; Daymens Hill farm, which has an amazing orchard with nearly 4,000 varieties of apples and pears; and Blackwells farm shop. In addition, this House has the privilege of selling Linden Lady chocolates, which are very famous, in its gift shop—I recommend them.
That is just a small taster of what my constituency’s farmers and producers have to offer. They want more trade and fewer barriers to trade. They want to ensure that they can grow their businesses and see much more progress. Of course, two years of covid have left many challenges. There is the pain of inflation and what that means not only for wages but rising global food prices. Higher petrol and diesel costs also have an impact on farmers’ ability to operate.
Farmers are also being squeezed by the supermarkets. Everyone will be aware of the margins that supermarkets chase. The Government must hold the supermarkets to account.
Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Groceries Code Adjudicator—the regulator for supermarkets, farmers and price controls—needs to be given more teeth and to have greater control so that our farmers are not suppressed?
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I know the Minister has heard those comments, and he is familiar with the issue too.
Avian flu has been mentioned. I appreciate that the Minister has been involved in many debates, and there have been many meetings across the House as well, and I want to express my thanks for that support. But farmers face numerous pressures in terms of the regulations and some of the enforcement. I would welcome further details from the Minister on the measures that are being looked at to support farms.
In Essex and across the country, avian flu is very severe. One farm in my constituency has been left devastated by an outbreak. Despite the farm taking all the measures around biosecurity—I am pleased to hear that there will be a debate on that next week—the strain was still detected. As we know, it is causing disruption to the poultry supply chain, which will impact on the costs of poultry. I hope that we can continue to have constructive discussions and support our farmers around the implications of avian flu.
I would like to touch on investment in farming. I have picked up already the comments that have been made about the labour market, labour market reform, and the infamous seasonal agricultural workers scheme, which has more than 40,000 available places. We should not always depend on overseas labour, not just in farming, but for our country and wider economy. There are active discussions, which I hope the House will welcome, around the development of the labour market strategy. That is something that I, with the former Chancellor—now the Prime Minister—had been pursuing in Government, and I know that the current Chancellor is also looking at that.
It is important that we support our entrepreneurs—our farmers are entrepreneurs; we have heard about the hard work and the graft that goes into farming—but we must be able to give farmers long-term security around investment in technology. When it comes to picking fruit or produce, capital allowances can help enormously, alongside a solid labour market strategy that attracts and develops the workforce.
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak today. Farming and agriculture are the backbone of our country; they need to be nurtured and invested in. I very much look forward to hearing the Minister’s remarks.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), and to be able to say—unlike, perhaps, on some occasions when she was in the Home Office and I shadowed her—that there was a great deal in her speech with which I agree. I congratulate the hon. Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp) on getting this debate, and I am pleased at the measure of consensus, because consensus is very important for agricultural policy. In politics, we tend to work on a four or maybe five-year cycle. In agriculture and farming, that is but the blinking of an eye. I should, parenthetically, remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; I am a farmer’s son and now a landowner myself.
The real support for agriculture that we need from Government is more certainty. That, of course, will come from the future of farm payments; they have hit difficulties south of the border. North of the border, we must still wait and see. We welcome the consultation that is outstanding. I share some of the frustrations of the National Farmers Union of Scotland, which came forward with proposals four years ago that would have put active agriculture at the heart of environmental policy; it feels there has been a missed opportunity. However, if we get what we need from that consultation, it would behove us all to welcome it.
In particular, in my community, I am keen to see a flexibility that shows an understanding of the local social and economic benefits from agriculture. We have two dairy farms left in Shetland; they have been whittled down—salami-sliced away—over the years. Last week, we had four days without ferries, so our supermarkets, Tesco and the Co-op, which would normally import much of the milk, were not able to do so. For those four days, we were reliant on those two dairy farms for milk for our communities. If there is not an opportunity there for public money for a public good, then I do not know where there is one.
Chris Loder
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the supermarkets’ dominance of our national food supply chains is now just too much? It is defeating the objective that he mentions, which I have long advocated for: local food, getting through local supply chains to local people, is the way forward.
Mr Carmichael
The hon. Gentleman risks triggering me—if my children were here, I think that is what they would say—because that is a theme on which I have spoken many times. He is absolutely right. I was part of the Government who introduced the Groceries Code Adjudicator. I am disappointed that it has not worked; it needs to be revisited.
There are other powers in the Agriculture Act 2020, and with the Competition and Markets Authority, that could be brought into force, and I think that the consensus in rural and agricultural communities across the country is that that should be done. There is an imbalance between the purchasing power of the supermarkets—which are maybe 10 behemoth commercial organisations, at most—and that of the thousands, if not tens of thousands, of farmers across the country. The supermarkets have been allowed to take advantage of their market dominance for too long, and that absolutely must end.
There are a couple of other areas where the lack of certainty is becoming difficult for the agricultural sector. The progress of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill is one. I know the Minister understands that, because I was with him when he heard from the National Farmers Union of Scotland about its concerns. There is a real concern that, because of the way the Bill is framed, we risk losing some of the most important legislation, almost by omission. There must be a more pragmatic and practical way to deal with the concerns that that Bill seeks to address that does not risk unintended consequences.
There are other areas in which agriculture, certainly in my community, could benefit from support, but that requires Governments in Edinburgh and Westminster to be prepared to listen. I see some of the debate about the transportation of live animals by sea and it scares me. The people who talk about that issue seem to have no interest in the fact that those of us in the Northern Isles, having years ago designed the state-of-the-art, blue-chip system for transporting animals by sea, risk being caught in legislation that frankly does not take account of our needs and circumstances.
I know the Minister is good at this, and he has a background that will allow him to do it: he must take his heft into Government and deliver. He must be prepared to listen to the people who know most about agriculture: the farmers. If he does that, the benefit is not just to farmers and farm workers, but to the rural communities across the countryside. Good agricultural policy makes for sustainable rural communities; it is as simple as that.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary, and to follow the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), and all hon. Members, in particular my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp), whom I thank for securing the debate. It is also a pleasure to see the Minister in his place. I have been promoting him since I got here in 2010; I have been asking, “Why don’t the Government put him in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs?” He, a farmer, is now here; I cannot believe it. Someone who understands what we are talking about, and what we want, is a Minister with the power to help us. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am a landowner and farmer, so I speak with a lot of passion and experience in this field.
When I was selected as a candidate in 2006, one of my first tasks was to set up a farming group. It meets every quarter. That group started with two members, and now at least 50 or 60 appear. The Minister has often come along to it, either virtually or in real life. We hope this Minister will come long in real life soon, so that our farmers can talk to him and put across their concerns.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
My hon. Friend is highlighting the same point as many colleagues: the importance of listening to local farmers on local issues. Farmers in my constituency have asked the Government to extend the policy of culling on a discreet basis for a further three years, when it ends at the end of this year, as part of the co-ordinated approach in Cheshire to tackling bovine TB. Does he agree that it is vital that we consider farmer-led approaches to such challenges?
Richard Drax
My hon. Friend has taken the words out of my mouth. In the dying moments of my speech, I will talk briefly about badgers and beavers, since I am slightly concerned about their presence in small Dorset rivers.
What we all want, and the public demand, is cheap food. If we as farmers are to produce cheap food, we need help—not to grow trees and all the other green things, although I totally accept that there is a place for that, but to grow food. We frequently hear Ministers refer to the public good; production of food should be at the top of the list of public goods.
As hon. Members have said, we have had a war, a pandemic, world food shortages and climate change, and there are terrifying predictions of food shortages around the world. We will have to become more and more self-sufficient, and farmers will have to farm more efficiently. Farming is an expensive game. Buying or leasing agricultural equipment—combine harvesters, tractors and all the rest of it—costs hundreds of thousands of pounds. Many farmers simply cannot afford it, not least tenant farmers. We would all like to see some form of grant, through which farmers could apply for money for those sorts of things.
As I said, the public need—and want—cheap food. We have left the EU. I was a Brexiteer; I was one of those crying to leave, and I am delighted that we have left. However, we face a danger if we do not help our farmers. Certainty is desperately needed, as the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland said, because as the basic payment scheme slides away and alternatives come in, there is a big hole there; and as a result, many famers, not least those in remoter parts of our country, will struggle. That hole needs to be filled. We need certainty, and they need reassurance. The alternative, which none of us wants, is cheap imports. That is not the way forward. That will not increase self-reliability, or counter all the threats that this country and the rest of the world face.
I will touch briefly on the badger cull. I understand that this is a contentious issue; the badger is a protected animal. I do not agree with that personally. I like to see badgers. We love to see deer, foxes, and every other wild animal, but these animals no longer have predators. If we do not maintain them, look after them and ensure that they are healthy by securing the right numbers, then —as we know—the badger population grows exponentially and disease spreads.
The culling practices have worked. The statistics are pretty impressive; we cannot refute them. They show that culling badgers reduces the impact of bovine tuberculosis, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) said, has devastated the beef and dairy industries. I urge the Minister to go back to this issue. I believe that badger culling will end, but I urge him to stop saying that we will end it. We must continue the cull, just as we cull deer and foxes, but in a balanced way, so that we have the right balance of wildlife in our countryside.
Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon mentioned that rewilding must not come at the expense of growing food. There is a place for green trees and rewilding. However, Scotland experimented with it, and once beavers had bred, they did not keep to the allocated space. They went all over the place. They are not appropriate for small rivers in Dorset.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp) for setting the scene so well. Farming and agriculture are at the heart of both our areas. I declare an interest as a farmer. I am also a member of the Ulster Farmers Union, and have been for many years; we are in regular contact. My main reason for joining, if I am quite truthful, is that the insurance premiums were excellent. I have been a customer for over 30 years as a result.
I am in full support of the farming industry; it is crucial for the UK and an integral part of our economy. It is great to be here to exchange ideas, and also to hear the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) speaking. I happen to disagree with him on one point: I think that all foxes—every one of them—should be controlled, but that is just my opinion. I will put that on the record. All foxes should be controlled. There should not be any foxes, but that is by the by. It is great to listen to other Members, and to see the Minister in his place; he has landed in the right job, and we are all very pleased to him there.
Agriculture plays a pivotal role in Northern Ireland; it brings an estimated income of £501 million as of 2021 —an increase of some 8.3% from 2020. Agriculture thrives in my constituency of Strangford; we have numerous companies that are bywords in the constituency. Willowbrook Foods, Lakeland Dairies, Mash Direct and Rich Sauces have a combined workforce of probably just over 3,000. I have mentioned before that Lakeland Dairies has four factories in Northern Ireland and five in the Republic; that highlights the importance of smooth and frictionless trade. There are countless dairy farmers across Northern Ireland who deal with Lakeland Dairies, and that has proven to be an incredible success in the dairy farming trade.
Employment is a major factor in the agrifood sector, hence the importance of securing funding and support from elected representatives. It does not matter if someone does not come from a constituency that is rich in farming; the supplies from farmers to other local businesses are equally important.
Furthermore, the sector employs some 70,000 people in Northern Ireland, so we cannot take away from the importance of those jobs for us in Northern Ireland. We export some 80% of our goods, so we depend on exports to survive. The Department for the Economy has concluded through economic modelling that there could be up to 10,000 fewer jobs, depending on the nature of the relationships established with the EU. I have to put this on the record, and the Minister knows it is coming: the Northern Ireland protocol disadvantages us in Northern Ireland. I know the Minister accepts that issue, but it is important for us that the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill be agreed to. When it left the House of Commons for the House of Lords, it was where we wanted it. We hope it will return in a similar fashion.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point on the protocol. We have heard today of the challenges facing famers. Would he agree that in Northern Ireland there are additional challenges because of the protocol? Look at the seed potato issue. We cannot get seed potato from Scotland to Northern Ireland. Some 50% of veterinary medicines will not be available to Northern Ireland in January after the grace period. Does he agree that the protocol needs to go? Great Britain’s farmers would not accept it, so Northern Ireland farmers should not have to, either.
Jim Shannon
I totally agree. My hon. Friend is our party’s agriculture spokesperson, so I am pleased to have that contribution made. Land use in Northern Ireland is now dominated by improved grassland management for dairy, beef and sheep production; there are also small pockets of cereals, mostly in County Down. I am privileged to have a farm that is agriculturally sound, and the land is very productive, as it is for many farmers across Mid Down and Northern Ireland. I have highlighted the importance of community farming numerous times, and nominated a constituent of mine, Emily McGowan, for the National Farmers Union community hero award. She is a young girl with a deep interest in farming, and I hope she does well.
Community and local farming are the backbone of business in Northern Ireland and the UK. Mash Direct supplies good, healthy, hearty food to numerous large retailers across the United Kingdom at an affordable price. ASDA and local Spars in Northern Ireland are some of their major retailers. That business started out of a kitchen 15 or 20 years ago. Mash Direct has been looking at becoming more sustainable and protecting the environment by installing solar panels at its family farm. It looks forward and has a vision for the future. This is another milestone in how farming can become carbon neutral. The farming industry is crucial to the UK economy, and we must support it. As stated, farming plays a major role in our achieving our environmental targets. It provides tens of thousands of jobs across the United Kingdom, and supports businesses with fresh and decent food for our constituents.
Finally, farmers face increasing stock prices on items such as fertiliser, due to inflation and Putin’s invasion of Russia, yet they still work hard and do their absolute best to provide for us. We should be incredibly proud of our farmers. I fully support them, especially those in my constituency, who I know work tirelessly to support their local community. If they can support us, we must do the same back.
Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp) on securing this debate. We cannot speak enough about the need to support our farmers, who produce the food we need in a way that is good for the country and our health. We talk regularly about the need to support our farmers and landowners in producing more food. We also talk a lot about the need to protect and enhance our natural environment and countryside, which many of us are privileged to live in or represent; there does not need to be conflict between the two. Food production and biodiversity can complement each other; our mistake has been to give farmers the impression that they bear responsibility for our countryside and natural environment declining, and their job to fix it. I disagree, but there is no denying that consumers, driven by supermarkets and Government policy on inflation, hunger for ever cheaper food; they often want to pay less than the cost of producing it—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax).
Farmers face unparalleled challenges and are fighting fires, barely surviving each challenge as it rolls over them. They have little time to think, plan and change the way they produce the food we need. As a result, small farmers in Cornwall are handing over their land to large contractors to farm. I see a significant number of farmers reducing the amount of food they plan to produce this year and next, and lots of farmers are leaving dairy altogether. The production of potatoes and dairy, which are essential to our daily diet, has reduced enormously in Cornwall.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
My hon. Friend makes the point that we need to build more national food resilience. It is preposterous that in the 1980s we were producing 78% of what we consumed, but now the figure has fallen to 60%. The grant funding discussed earlier would help farmers, particularly in respect of automation, and allow them, once they have become more productive and efficient, to challenge the power of the supermarkets, which have distorted the food chain. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to rebalance the food chain in favour of primary producers?
Derek Thomas
I do agree, and that was the subject of one of the first debates I ever secured in this place, back in 2015. Given how farmers’ plans have shifted in the last 18 months, I suspect that less than 60% of the food we consume is grown in the UK.
Urgent action is needed. I am glad to see the Minister in his place; I met him first thing this morning to discuss a similar issue. One thing that was said this morning, and with which I completely agree, is that food security should and must be adopted as a public good, so that we can focus Government funding and support for farmers in order to deliver food security across our nation.
As has been mentioned, we also need a determined effort to maximise high-quality food production—not just to feed our nation but to do so in a healthy way. We know that our NHS is not properly coping with the demands we place on it, and it will not get any better until we really look at our diet, the food we produce and our gut health. It is a massive issue, and the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, of which I am a member, will be looking at soil quality and how it affects gut health.
We need to attract talent, especially in opening up the opportunity to embrace science and innovation, and to harvest the food we need. I go into schools all the time, and so much work needs to be done across the Department for Education, schools, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and other Government Departments to make farming and food production a key conversation in primary schools, secondary schools, colleges and our homes. Parents also have a real opportunity to talk to their children about jobs in the food and farming sector.
Finally, we need to restore the relationship between the state, Government agencies and non-governmental organisations, so that farmers know they are vital and that we recognise they are vital to our national security and health. They should be supported to transition to modern, sustainable and productive farming and food production. We will not be forgiven by those living in the countryside if we fail to support them and to enable them to play the role they want to play, and are keen to play, in feeding the nation and making the countryside a place that is both secure at home and generous to the world around us.
Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp), who is almost my constituency neighbour, and congratulate him on securing this important debate. I declare my interest as a tenant beef farmer’s son in my home constituency.
Although I could talk a lot about farming across the board, particularly beef and sheep farming, I want to focus my remarks on egg production and the effects we are starting to see. Some people say the situation has been caused by avian flu, but I would like to share some other aspects of the debate that may help to inform the discussion. The egg industry has been going through a period of turbulence for some time. In my opinion, it is because the supermarkets control the supply chain, totally dominate the market and force producers to accept a price at which they cannot afford to produce. I am afraid it highlights the fact that the Groceries Code Adjudicator, which I spoke so strongly in favour of in my maiden speech in February 2020, is proving to be totally ineffective.
Most of my local farmers in West Dorset tell me they do not want to receive Government subsidies, but they have to. Why do they have to? More often than not, they are forced into that position because the Groceries Code Adjudicator is not doing its job and is allowing supermarkets to dominate the field in such a way that farmers cannot continue to provide the goods that we all need to consume. In effect, in my opinion the Government are ultimately subsidising supermarket profits. That has to stop.
We all know that egg production costs have risen. Rising energy costs, the war in Ukraine and inflation have clearly all had an effect on that. But we cannot continue in a situation where large supermarkets’ strong yield-management policies are forcing this to occur. It is not new. Only a few days ago, the British Retail Consortium confirmed that
“some UK supermarkets are putting limits on egg purchases due to shortages largely linked”
to the avian influenza pandemic. Well, I do not agree with that. It is wrong. I think supermarkets are hiding behind that explanation a total failure in their yield-management strategies of probably many months, if not longer.
In West Dorset, a number of egg producers have told me that it is now so difficult for them to make money. Let me to put that into context: supermarkets broadly have raised the price of a dozen eggs by 50p over the past six months. The British Free Range Egg Producers Association says that farmers and producers are receiving just 18p of that, in the light of all the additional production costs they are having to bear. They cannot therefore do things like invest in pullets—new young stock—to ensure the future. This has basically resulted in a gradual 13% reduction in egg production over the past year alone. That is not solely because of avian influenza.
Jim Shannon
I have a number of egg producers in my constituency as well. If they sell their eggs locally to smaller shops, they can get a good price—for instance, £1 has been increased to £1.89. That is an increase that smaller shops have made, but the larger supermarkets are hellbent on screwing the producers to such an extent that they will no longer be in business. It is the big boys that need to be taken on.
Chris Loder
I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman’s remarks, which concur with my thoughts. I am afraid this is the beginning of a ticking time bomb. If ever there was a time that this House had to urge the Government to give the Groceries Code Adjudicator the teeth it needs to sort this mess out, it is now. If we think there is difficulty in the market today, I can assure this Chamber that in less than 12 months’ time we will not be in a situation where we have a reduction in eggs available for sale to consumers—we will be lucky if we have any eggs on the shelves at all.
Sir John Hayes
Before my hon. Friend concludes what is, as ever, a brilliant speech, I want to say that this does not just apply to eggs. The Groceries Code Adjudicator needs to intervene in respect of horticulture, cereals, livestock and a whole range of things in respect of which supermarkets are, as I said earlier, distorting the food chain. Will my hon. Friend ask this brilliant Minister —there is no one better in the House to do this—to use the powers that the Government already have to act in favour of farmers and growers?
Chris Loder
Yes, I will. The Minister has heard that request.
Finally, the NFU has called for a DEFRA investigation into the egg supply chain. The NFU is a bit late with that call, but I think it is right. I hope the Minister will take that on board. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) makes a very fair point: this is not just about eggs. Milk was 49p a pint maybe 18 months ago; it has gone up now to more than £1 a pint in most shops. Ask our dairy farmers if they have received that difference—no, they have not.
Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
I call Gagan Mohindra. He and the final Back-Bench speaker have five minutes each.
Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I applaud my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp) for securing this important debate.
It was not that long ago that throughout the House we were celebrating the Back British Farming campaign. I am conscious that I am probably one of the few people present who does not have a farming background or a link to farming, but as Members know the industry employs more than 4 million people and is worth around £120 billion to the national economy. In South West Hertfordshire, about 65% of our land use is for agriculture.
As someone who does not have many years of farming experience—definitely not as many as my right hon. Friend the Minister—I have proactively spent several months learning a lot more about the industry. Back in June, I held a roundtable in conjunction with the NFU, and I think that a lot of the issues raised then are common throughout the country. They included rising costs, especially for fertiliser; the VAT threshold for those who decide to have farm shops; and rural crime, especially the theft of tools and caravans and the police response. I am lucky that in Hertfordshire we have as our police and crime commissioner David Lloyd, who is very proactive on that.
In a follow-up meeting with farmers in August, I went to the P. E. Mead farm, where they farm more than 800 acres. Although it does not feel warm today, a key issue then was heatwaves and how the changing weather patterns will influence farming in the future. I am conscious that although the Minister is an excellent farmer in his own right, he may not necessarily have the answers, but I wish to put on his radar such important issues from across the industry. Where appropriate, we need to think about how the Government can best support farmers to deal with them.
One of the other things that I did during the recess was work experience: I spent a day with farmers at the PE Mead farm so that I could fully appreciate the trials and tribulations of farmers. As mentioned earlier, mental health is a really massive issue. The Office for National Statistics figures from back in 2015 suggested that suicide rates for male farmers were three times higher than the national average. That cannot be right. We need to think about what more we can do to support this vital industry. Unfortunately, we have seen with the war in Ukraine that food security will continue to be a massive issue. Although there is pressure for the development or change of land usage, my worry is that we are losing a skillset that is really important. Once it is lost, it is lost forever.
I have a personal plea to the Minister on education. One of the few pieces of casework that I have been really successful on is in respect of school catchment areas. I had the case of a young child whose parents were famers and had to live on the farm, but because of the farm’s location they were outside the catchment area for the school that the child wanted to go to. To me, that feels like penalising a family and their children for doing the right thing and ensuring that we have continued food security. I would be grateful if the Minister could take that point away and speak to his colleagues in the Department for Education about how we can ensure that when someone is involved in critical infrastructure related to things such as food production, they have the ability to make appeals about education catchment areas and have their situation considered.
I shall finish there because I am sure that my learned colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson), has more to say.
Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
Last but definitely not least, I call Dr Neil Hudson.
Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp) on securing this important debate.
I am proud to represent a large rural constituency, as a constituency MP and as a Member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. My constituency has a huge farming footprint. Our farmers in Cumbria and across the UK produce food to the highest standards with the highest animal welfare standards, and we should be very proud of that fact. I pay tribute to all farmers in Penrith and The Border and across the UK for all that they do. We must remember that during the pandemic farmers were classified as key workers, and they should be classified as key workers in the future.
The cost of living, which we have heard a lot about today, is really affecting the input costs for farmers. They are not immune to such costs, which include fertiliser, animal feed, fuel and energy. The Government support in recent months—such as the energy schemes, the bringing forward of the basic payment scheme payments, the new slurry grants and the fertiliser rule changes—has been very welcome and much needed, but I stress to the Minister that the Government need to continue to provide the support that farmers need during this crisis.
We have been supporting farmers through these challenging times, and as the funding systems change it is so important that we help farmers through those changes. I have seen at first hand in Cumbria how the new environmental land management schemes can work really well for local communities, and the farming in protected landscapes scheme is very welcome in Cumbria. This issue has been a big focus of the EFRA Committee. The current situation makes it even more crucial that the payments under such schemes are set at a fair and sufficient level and are a proper reward for producing the public goods that communities rely on. It is important—our Committee has been pushing the Government hard on this—that we support all types of farmers, including tenant farmers, commoners and upland farmers.
From talking to farmers in my constituency and across Cumbria, I know that there has been a lot of anxiety during this time. I have hosted regular roadshows with them, and I visit livestock markets regularly. I have triggered an EFRA Committee inquiry on the ELMS transition period. Sadly, I think some of that anxiety and negativity is being fuelled by people briefing against the payment system and misleading people on the levels of uptake.
I was pleased to question the Minister and Janet Hughes, the senior DEFRA official involved, at the EFRA Committee meeting last week. There is a 30% uptake of the environmental schemes, both existing and new. The uptake on the new sustainable farming incentive is not as high as that because it started only this summer. I would welcome the Minister reaffirming the point that we want to encourage people to enrol in those schemes and then inform them so the schemes can be improved. It would be welcome if the Minister said we were looking into levels of payment to help farmers through this period.
We have heard a lot about food security in this debate. The issue came into sharp relief in the pandemic and has been highlighted again by the war in Ukraine. Bolstering our food security is a prime priority for the Government. The EFRA Committee has been looking at this—we are in the middle of a food security inquiry—and has heard about supplies of fertiliser to the United Kingdom. We have two plants in the UK: the one in Ince has been mothballed and the other in Billingham has ceased ammonia production. That is critical infrastructure for our country, and I urge the Government to keep watching that. We must also remember that a by-product of fertiliser production is CO2, which is much needed by the food and beverage industry. It is also needed in the slaughter process for poultry and pigs, so there is an animal health and welfare implication. We need to secure that supply as well.
On animal health and welfare, I declare an interest as a veterinary surgeon. To support British farming, we need to have healthy animals. I welcome the Government’s progress in that area. The new animal health and welfare pathway scheme, as part of the new ELMS, is very welcome, formalising the partnership between vets and farmers. But more can be done, such as responding to the calls for investing in animal health infrastructure—we heard the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) make that point.
As a member of the EFRA Committee, I guested on the Public Accounts Committee for the inquiry on the situation at the Animal and Plant Health Agency headquarters in Weybridge. It needs a radical and drastic refurbishment, and I urge the Government to make that a key priority. I have seen this at first hand: I came into politics on the back of my experiences in the foot and mouth crisis, and I witnessed things that I never want to see again in my lifetime. The APHA needs to be funded. The Weybridge site is pivotal in our attack and defence against infectious disease. We see that critically now with the avian influenza crisis. I pay tribute to the vets, officials and farmers on the frontline in that horrendous crisis. Funding that infrastructure is so important; this is about animals and people. We have to remember that diseases can transfer from animals to people. That work looks at public health and antimicrobial resistance.
We have heard a lot about rural mental health; the impact of infectious diseases and outbreaks have a massive impact on our rural communities. I urge the Government to look at that.
In conclusion, I pay tribute to our farmers. It is possible to produce food and look after the environment at the same time. We produce food to the highest animal welfare standards. As a Government, we must keep our arms around our farmers and ensure we support them moving forward.
Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
Thank you, colleagues for your co-operation; we have come in on time and on budget. We now turn to the Front Benches.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
Thank you, Sir Gary; I will ensure that trend is kept to. I congratulate the hon. Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp) on securing a thoughtful and fascinating debate. The conclusion of all this is that British farmers still need support, and what they have received thus far is not sufficient to ensure that we have good farming practice.
I feel like a veteran at some of these debates. I have only been doing this job for the past few weeks, but the same themes seem to come up. Quite rightly, there is a tension between food production and biodiversity, and there are issues about the costs of supermarkets and concerns about food security and poor mental health among the farming community.
There were a couple of things that did not come up. One that I want to mention, which only the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson) brought up, is the concerns about ELMS payments. I thought that would be a focus of much of today’s debate, but until the hon. Member rose, there was no mention of it all. I am sure the Minister is more than aware of the some of the concerns and anxieties about ELMS. Farmers are saying clearly that they need to know what will happen, so that they can plan their businesses and know whether they will have a viable future, so I was quite surprised that that was not brought up.
I am absolutely not surprised at all that the other huge issue that did not come up—the one that probably has the most impact on agriculture and farming across the whole of Britain and UK—was Brexit. I am not surprised that Conservative Members do not bring it up, because they would have to acknowledge that the past few years have not been their greatest. Brexit has had such a negative impact on everything to do with agriculture, food security, the wellbeing of rural communities and exports—with everything to do with food and drink. We know that things are bad. We only need to listen to the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), when he lamented the poor deal that was struck with Australia and said—this was testament to his powers of understatement—that it was “not…very good”.
That deal was more than not very good; it was a disaster for sheep and cattle producers, and for beef and lamb exports. The one-sided nature of the deal struck with Australia has allowed cheap imports to come flooding into this country and given nothing in return for the hard work of British farmers up and down the countryside. I am not surprised that Conservative Members do not mention Brexit, because if I was them, I would stay well away from it too, because it has been a singular disaster for our friends.
We heard a lot about animals, which quite surprised me. I always like a debate about animals. My constituency in Perthshire was one of the first to secure the introduction of beavers. I know that there is some despondency and negativity around this—I hear a lot of that from farmers, who are impacted quite severely—but there are also benefits to attractions. I represent the biggest river tributary system in the whole of the UK, in the Tay river and its tributaries, and some of the positive environmental outcomes of beavers are there to be seen. There is almost a small tourist industry set up around them, so that people can walk round and see some of the work of the beavers, so while there are issues and management is of course necessary, it is not all doom and gloom.
I heard the profound words of the hon. Member for East Devon —“You can’t eat trees”—but tell that to the beavers, the bears, the giraffes and the many insects that feast upon our woodlands on a daily basis, if not every minute of the day. Let us not be so negative and despondent about some of the reintroductions of wildlife, because this will be ongoing. There are proposals and plans for further introductions. The sea eagle in Scotland has been a great reintroduction. I know that there are issues—it all comes down to the tension between the introduction of wildlife and the management of land—but we have seen positive impacts, particularly through tourism and people coming to watch this magnificent bird flying the skies once again over Scotland, so let us not have all this doom and gloom when it comes to reintroductions.
I listened to the message from the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) about eggs, and he is right. The crisis in egg production did not start with avian flu; it has been ongoing for years, although it is most definitely exacerbated by avian flu. I know that we will have a debate next week, when we will probably all be back together again, including the Minister—I always enjoy our little get-togethers—and discussing this more at length, but avian flu has had a massive impact, and not just on the turkey and farmed poultry sector, but on eggs. I think it is the NFU that is now calling—and it is right to do so—for an urgent investigation into making an exceptional market conditions declaration under the Agriculture Act 2020, given the severe disruption to egg production that UK consumers are experiencing. I hope that is listened to very carefully.
But I will say one thing: we are different in Scotland. We are not run by DEFRA—for which we can give perhaps something of a sigh of a relief when it comes to these things. We are responsible for all the rural decisions that we make. We are responsible for Scottish agriculture, and it us who will make those decisions, which will be the right ones for the farmers and agriculture communities that we represent. Scotland has taken a different approach. We have not taken the three-pronged ELMS approach, which has been a feature of the Agriculture Act.
As the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) said, we are currently consulting on our new piece of agricultural legislation. One thing, among a couple of others, to come out of that consultation so far is a decision to continue with a single payment that will match EU funding up to at least 2025. We have looked at the three prongs of the Agriculture Act and we feel that it is not the way to go. Indeed, we find that there are difficulties associated with much of that. We will do that differently. We will have food production at the core of how we take this forward. NFU Scotland came to the Scottish Parliament last week to tell us very clearly that this is what it wants to see when we design the new legislation. We listened very carefully, and I hope we will be able to satisfy NFU Scotland that a commitment to food production will be at the very heart of the legislation that we bring forward.
We have our own system of grants and support that we are putting forward in Scotland, and we are able to do that. I hope that will be recognised as we go forward.
Pete Wishart
I do not have time, I am sorry.
The last theme I want to mention comes up very often in these debates and that is the shortage of labour. I am sorry to Conservative colleagues, but this is another consequence of their Brexit. I think they know that. They are not prepared to accept it and say that this is a difficult issue because of it, but ending freedom of movement with Brexit has probably been the biggest single disaster that we have visited on rural communities.
I represent a huge rural constituency. I have got strath, fantastic agriculture farming, hill farming and many hospitality businesses. Every single one of them has told me that they cannot get the labour they require because we have ended freedom of movement. What has happened is that people they had who were stalwarts of their sector and businesses have left, and there is nothing there to replace it. In the Scottish Parliament, we want to establish a new rural immigration pilot.
One of the discussions we have had today is about the independence of Scotland. We cannot do this pilot, and we are so frustrated we cannot do this because we are bound by decisions taken in the Home Office, which we have very little influence over. We need to do something. The seasonal agricultural workers scheme has helped, but it is insufficient. We need more people to come across here. It is not just the seasonal staff, it is the permanent staff we have in the agriculture business, such as vets and people who work in abattoirs. All of them are suffering because they cannot get the appropriate labour. I am pleased that we are only partly impacted by decisions that are taken by DEFRA, but we are heavily impacted by decisions taken by the Home Office and some of the arrangements that were put forward around Brexit.
We will continue to work on our agriculture Bill, and maybe when we come back to discuss these issues in the future we will be able to detail more about how we are approaching this, the difference we are hoping to make and how we are hoping to serve Scottish farmers.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Gary. I congratulate the hon. Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp) for securing this debate. We had many positive contributions from across the floor. They echo many of the points that have been made from Labour Benches over the last few years, whether that be on labour supply, trade deals or the importance of food production. I particularly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) on echoing Labour’s cry to make, buy and sell more in Britain, and milk from the Hills will certainly be part of that. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) on convening his farmers groups. I wish him luck with the Minister. Should he be unlucky, I am very happy to oblige whenever he requires.
I will come to the future later, but let us start with the present. What are we seeing, and where is the support for British farming? Frankly, farming is hurting at the moment. There may be good prices for some, but there is still no respite, particularly for those in the pig sector. It is a very grim time for poultry farmers. Avian flu is horrible, and we know the APHA is struggling. As mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central and the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson), I am afraid that last week the Secretary of State ducked my question of what happens if we get another disease outbreak. Crossing fingers and hoping it does not happen does not constitute a plan.
We should not allow avian flu to be a cover for the longer term problems egg producers have been highlighting for many months. Back in the spring, egg producers warned retailers that costs were running ahead of prices. At the egg and poultry fair, retailers failed to show up. They were replaced with cardboard cut-outs. It is a failure in the food system. What have the Government done? Nothing. The Agriculture Act was supposed to produce action on supply chain fairness, but all we have had is consultations and no outcomes.
I ask the Minister once again: where is the dairy code? Where is the pork supply chain code? Can he confirm that the daft proposal to move the Grocery Code Adjudicator into the Competition and Markets Authority is dead? Or is that yet another thing that the “Department for Running Away From Any Problem”—DEFRA as it was formerly known—does not know the answer to? At first I thought the points the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) made about the GCA were slightly unfair, but he pointed out that it does not have the powers it needs, exactly as we argued during the passage of the Agriculture Act.
On trade, we know about the lack of support for British farming, because the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), did not mince his words last week. He said that
“overall, the truth of the matter is that the UK gave away far too much for far too little in return…We did not need to give Australia or New Zealand full liberalisation in beef and sheep—it was not in our economic interest to do so, and neither Australia nor New Zealand had anything to offer”—[Official Report, 14 November 2022; Vol. 722, c. 424.]
I admire his candour. I just wish he had listened to the many organisations, including the Opposition, that made exactly the same points at the time, not many months after the Conservatives sold out British farming. No wonder so many are so furious; they are right to be.
There are more made in Britain—or rather made in Marsham Street—gaffes that are undermining British farming. Look at the meat export sector. I was at Lancaster auction mart last week to see the sheep auctions and to hear from farmers at first hand about the problems they face. There are not just high input costs, fertiliser costs and labour shortages, as if they were not enough. The latest is the gold-plating of rules for export into Europe. If that is not resolved by 13 December, it will kill the export trade. Will the Minister tell us what he is doing to resolve the situation?
How do the growers feel about the support they are getting? The NFU published a report this week showing that many are walking away from contracts and cutting production by as much as 20%. They cite a whole range of extra costs, including fertiliser, wages, packaging and transport, but the killer is energy. Farmers in competitor countries have support from their Governments, but here there is no certainty beyond a few months. The Minister knows full well that farming is a long-term businesses in which decisions about whether to plant are made many months ahead. Without certainty, the only sensible decision for too many will be not to plant. The end result is that this country will be less secure and will depend more on imports, almost certainly produced to lower standards, just as we warned during the passage of the Agriculture Act.
I could give many more examples, but let me conclude by looking briefly at future prospects. To replace basic payments under the common agriculture policy, a new system was introduced under the Agriculture Act. The intellectual case for moving away from direct support was couched in terms of public money for public goods, and we agreed with the broad principle, but we argued then—we believe we have been vindicated by subsequent events—that food security is a public good. I was delighted to hear the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) endorse that point.
Frankly, it was never clear whether the Government believed that a volatile and vital sector such as food production requires direct Government support or just indirect support through environmental schemes. The problem now is that they seem to be achieving neither. The ELMS saga has played out in public view over recent months. The headlines in last week’s Farmers Guardian screamed out: “ELM uproar” and “New Ministers tear up scheme plans”. Perhaps the Minister can tell us what is going on. Perhaps the Minister can also tell us why Parliament is always the last place to be told. Is it true that there will be an announcement on 1 December? If so, are we invited?
Informed sources—I include the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border in that—tell me that the changes may not be as dramatic as the headlines suggest, but perhaps the Minister can clarify that. Is tier 2 ELMS being replaced by countryside stewardship? If so, is that the genuine nature recovery network system promised in the Environment Act 2021? If not, how is it supposed to work? What is happening with tier 3—the landscape recovery part of ELMS? Has it been postponed, scrapped or scaled down? Perhaps the Minister can tell us.
Replacing more than 80,000 schemes under basic payments with just a couple of thousand so far under the sustainable farming incentive leaves a whopping almost £1 billion hole in the rural economy. To some extent, I echo what the hon. Member for South Dorset said. Frankly, is that what the Conservatives mean by supporting British farming? I wonder.
What assessment has been made of the impact of all this? Does the Minister know? I have asked him before and I ask him again: what assessment has his Department made of the economic impact so far on the rural economy? What assessment has been made of the environmental impact? I do not think we will get an answer because I know the answer: none and none.
Under this Government, support for farmers and the rural economy is haemorrhaging. The failures of this Government make them a threat to our farmers, undermine our food security and, despite the heroic efforts of the staff in the agencies, are leaving us dangerously exposed in the event of further animal disease outbreaks. Our farmers deserve support. They are not getting it at the moment, but they will with a Labour Government.
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mark Spencer)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp) for securing the debate. I was going to start by saying that we have seen the Chamber at its best today: we have seen a huge amount of celebration of and positivity about UK agriculture. I am sorry that the speech made by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) soured that mood, to be honest.
Mark Spencer
The truth is that if the hon. Gentleman looks around him, he will see how many members of the Labour party are here to provide support, and how many members of the Conservative party are here. Seeing how many Conservative Back Benchers have come to take part in this very important debate demonstrates how important rural communities are to the Conservative party and to this Government.
I will respond to the hon. Gentleman later; I will start by commenting on the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon. He talked about how the new schemes are going to change the way in which we farm. This will be an exciting moment in UK agriculture: we will move in a direction where we can balance growing food—food security is a very important part of our agricultural production and our supply chains, and it will continue to be so going forward—with improving our environment and our biodiversity.
The good news is that UK farmers are very much up for that fight. They want to get involved in it, and are very proud of the landscapes they have created. I think it was my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) who made reference to people criticising farmers and saying that they are the problem. He hit the nail on the head: farmers are part of the solution. The beautiful rolling landscapes that we see in Cumbria and in Devon are not there by accident, but because farmers have created those landscapes through the way in which they have produced food for generation after generation. The beautiful stone walls in North Yorkshire are not there for decoration, but to keep sheep in. We need to recognise that and celebrate it, and help and support our farmers through this process, because they are up for the fight.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Devon went on to talk about trade Bills. I would put a much more positive spin on this than the hon. Member for Cambridge.
Mark Spencer
The former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), was a very good Secretary of State. He fought tooth and nail on behalf of UK farmers during those debates, and secured a number of concessions from the Government on that journey. What we have been left with is a trade deal with Australia and New Zealand that has brought those countries closer to us and allowed us to co-operate and work with them, which will give us huge opportunities in future. There are massive markets around the world in Asia and North America where we can sell top-quality UK beef and lamb, working with Australia and New Zealand—which have the opposite seasonal activity to us—to supply those markets. Bringing them closer through those trade deals is the first step on that journey, and I am very proud of what UK farmers produce. We should celebrate that and make the most of it in trying to exploit those markets moving forward.
Turning to the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), I am delighted that his son is going to agricultural college—did he say Askham Bryan? I think he just said that it was a college in North Yorkshire, but I hope it is Askham Bryan, which I know is a very good college. If there was ever a moment when we needed bright young people to come into our sector—the next generation to take us forward—this is it, and I celebrate the fact that the hon. Gentleman has family getting involved in the sector. We should do all we can to encourage that. One of the first meetings I had when I took over as Minister was with the National Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs, looking at some of the work it is doing to encourage young people into the sector. It is also very in tune with some of the mental health challenges that young people and farmers in rural communities are facing. Anything I can do in this job to help it on that journey, I will do.
The hon. Member for Barnsley Central also talked about biosecurity, which is very important when it comes to dealing with avian influenza: anything we can do to increase the biosecurity of some of our professional poultry units is to be welcomed. He went on to talk about African swine fever, which is a challenge that is spreading across Europe. That is why on 1 August this year, we changed the rules: we did a spot check on items coming into the UK to see how much illegal or unregistered pork meat was coming in, and have now changed the rules so that no one can import more than 2 kg at a time. Border Force employees are on their toes, looking for any violations of those rules to make sure we keep the UK safe from African swine fever—it would be a disaster if we ended up with it.
There has been a lot of talk about seasonal workers; clearly, I am not in a position to announce those figures, but we are in close discussions with our friends in the Home Office and hope to give clarity on that issue as soon as possible. That neatly takes me to the former Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel). She started with a series of massive plugs for her constituency and the great food producers of Essex, including Tiptree, which I do recognise as one of the premium jam producers in the world, not just the country. She went on to talk about avian influenza. It is fair to say that Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk have been at the epicentre of that disaster. My heart goes out to those poor farmers who have found themselves victims of that terrible virus. The good news, from a national point of view, is that we have robust supply chains in place. There will be turkeys for Christmas. There are some challenges in the goose market, but the chicken market is also fine.
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), who always attends these debates, is a great advocate for his farmers and fishermen. He was the first to raise the Grocery Code Adjudicator, along with my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder), who mentioned the adjudicator a number of times. It is important to understand what the Grocery Code Adjudicator can and cannot do. Their role is to ensure that contracts that are entered into are adhered to appropriately and not violated.
If an egg producer has signed a contract at X per dozen eggs, the supermarket has the right to expect the producer to stand by that price. The producer could procure and secure the feed supply for the same period as the life expectancy of a laying hen, which is about 14 months. The producer could sign the contract for X amount per dozen, secure the price per tonne of feed and therefore protect the margin. The price of feed has gone up exponentially and farmers have reached the point where they must make a decision on whether to enter into a new contract for a new price or at the same price. About a year ago, many of them voted with their feet and said that they were not willing to sign up to that level of contract. The retailers made a mistake when they did not to see the huge challenge coming in the egg-supply market, and we are now seeing that.
What is the role of the Government? It is to encourage conversations between retailers, primary producers and wholesalers on a regular, monthly basis. The Secretary of State and I meet the farming unions, the hospitality sector, retailers and the processing sector to ensure that those conversations take place. I hope that that will continue to bear fruit, but I acknowledge there are challenges in the sector that are not linked to avian influenza.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) has been a great advocate for farming for a long time. He was one of those who celebrated my elevation to this position. So many people celebrated my arrival at the Dispatch Box, I felt like Ronaldo must have felt when he joined Man U and all the fans celebrated. I reflect on how that worked out in the end—let’s see how that goes.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset talked about grant funding, and he will have seen today that we have announced some grant funding to help farmers improve slurry systems. We are very much committed to supporting farmers with capital expenditure to allow them to invest in new tech, especially if that will benefit animal welfare and the involvement of modern practices and technology in food production.
My hon. Friend went on to talk about bovine TB, of course. There is probably not enough time for me to get into that subject today, but what I will say is that we must use every tool in the box to fight bovine TB. That includes vaccinating badgers, it includes ensuring that we have improved biosecurity and it includes culling badgers where that is essential. We should be guided by the science and not by anything else—not by the calendar and not by political lobbying, but by the science. That is what the Government will do.
I think that, for the first time, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) managed to get to the right of my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset when he committed to shooting every fox in Northern Ireland. I wish him well in his pursuit—[Interruption.] I know it was tongue in cheek. He is a huge advocate for the farmers of Northern Ireland, and they are great food producers. He also mentioned the price of fertiliser and the challenges with fertiliser, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson), who talked about CF Fertilisers. Yesterday I met my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to see what we can do to co-operate and work together to assist CF in ensuring that we continue to supply the nation with ammonium nitrate, nitric acid and carbon dioxide, which of course is very important.
I know that I am running out of time, but I want to make a couple of comments about my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives, who talked about potato and dairy farmers leaving the sector and the importance of education. Education of our consumers is one area where we could criticise the agricultural sector. I do not think that we have done a very good job as farmers—I put my hand up as one of those farmers—of ensuring that our consumers understand how and where our food is produced. We have to do better to ensure that the next generation fully understands where and how our food is produced. Education was also mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra).
My hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border talked about grant schemes, which I hope I have mentioned. He also mentioned the work of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which is under the chairmanship of my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Sir Robert Goodwill). It continues to be a great critical friend of the Department, and I would encourage it to continue its great work.
My hon. Friend for Penrith and The Border also talked about the reward for—that is, payments for—hedgerows and so on. I hope that when we announce the new schemes, which I hope will be very soon, he will see the fruits of those discussions. I am very keen to ensure that farmers want to take part in the schemes and feel part of the solution. But money is not the only barrier. I think that we can help, assist with, and tweak some farming practices. Hedgerows are a good example. It is not just about money; it is about being able to get on to the land and cut the hedges at the right time. If we can fund and assist with wildlife strips by the side of the hedgerows, it is possible to cut a hedgerow in January and February without running on to the commercial crop. That has the added benefit of creating a wildlife corridor and leaving berries and so on the hedgerows for wild birds to feed on during that time.
I think I have run out of time—apart from for mentioning the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), who gave us his rant about Brexit once again. We will have to come back to that on another occasion, but I enjoy the same loop of conversation we have with him every time.
Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
Thank you, Minister. We now turn to Simon Jupp, who will have the final word.
Simon Jupp
Thank you, Sir Gary. I thank everyone who took part in the debate to demonstrate our support for the British farming industry. If I may, I will highlight a couple of people who made remarkable remarks. The hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) mentioned mental health. That is an increasingly big problem in the farming sector. My right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) mentioned supermarkets’ pricing structures. They have had their jam; it is time that farmers had some, too.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) mentioned uncertainties over subsidies and also made a plea to continue the badger cull—a message well heard in the west country. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is not a fan of foxes, made a number of good points about agriculture in Northern Ireland. My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) made excellent points about the Groceries Code Adjudicator, on which I have been informed this afternoon. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra) told us about his experience of working on a farm—I am sure it was udderly brilliant. My hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson) talked about food security, and rightly so. I highlighted that issue in my speech. And finally, the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) seems to disagree with the referendum result—’twas ever thus, Sir Gary.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered support for British farming.
Tourism Industry: Devon and Cornwall
(1 year, 12 months ago)
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Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
I will call Kevin Foster to move the motion and then the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates. I call Kevin Foster.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the tourism industry in Devon and Cornwall.
It is a particular pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary.
Why this debate? Although our two counties might be bitterly divided over how to best eat a scone—our friends across the Tamar do not recognise that cream first is the only way to do it—we are united in a shared interest in seeing our tourism sectors thrive. After all, Devon and Cornwall are the most popular destinations for domestic tourism. That means tourism is a key employer for our two counties, representing 10% of all employment in Devon and 20% in Cornwall, with many jobs in other sectors relying on the trade created by providing services to that vital sector.
The scale of the visitor-related spend should not be underestimated; across the wider south-west peninsula, it was an estimated total of £7.3 billion in 2019. It is not only visitors from across the UK who make a big impact on Devon and Cornwall’s tourism sector. International travel contributed £2.5 billion to the south-west’s regional economy in gross value added, equivalent to 3.8% of total gross value added in the area. Given those numbers, it is encouraging to note that international travel in the south-west region is forecast to grow 15% by 2027 compared with 2019 levels.
Such debates often just list the problems, so I should mention the positives before I turn to the challenges. Today is not about asking for a Government subsidy for a failing business or an industry that has not adapted to changing markets and consumer choices. It is about how we can take forward a positive future for the tourism industry in our two counties and not lose it to some short-term challenges. For example, Torbay is seeing a level of private investment in building large new hotels that has not been seen for decades. Last year, a large new hotel opened on Torquay’s harbourside. Large new purpose-built hotels will shortly open on Paignton’s esplanade, the first to be built there since the modern borough of Torbay was formed in the late 1960s.
Other large hotel projects are either planned or already under construction, with the Fragrance Group alone investing approximately £140 million in Torbay—a real vote of confidence in our bay’s future. We are also seeing new businesses opening on our harboursides to serve customers looking for both traditional and more contemporary dining experiences, plus our attractions are innovating to attract new customers and respond to the challenges of the last two years, driven by the pandemic along with changing demand such as for online ticketing.
Tourism businesses can also have wider social impacts beyond the employment and business activity they create. For example, the Wild Planet Trust, which runs Paignton’s and Newquay’s zoos, is dedicated to helping halt species decline. Zoos that in decades past were simply attractions where, for a fee, we could see exotic animals or plants collected from the wild are now places that aim to inspire their visitors to think globally and ecologically while using the revenues generated to provide a vital safety net from extinction for many endangered species as well as, we hope, the reintroduction of some that have been lost to war, hunting or destruction of habitats globally. Similarly, Torbay’s status as a UNESCO geopark not only helps attract those who wish to have a holiday in a unique space but provides a superb location for the study of its detailed geology, with accommodation and services provided by our tourism sector to support it.
It would be odd not to at least briefly mention Torbay’s famous queen of crime writing, Dame Agatha Christie, whose legacy across south Devon still sees many sites visited by her fans to see the locations that inspired her, including the Paignton Picture House, one of Europe’s most historic cinema buildings, which, after a generation lying derelict, is now being revitalised by a combination of the passionate team at the Paignton Picture House Trust and about £4 million of support from the Government.
All that positivity must be seen against the challenges faced by existing and new businesses across our two counties, while bearing in mind that those challenges follow the impact of the pandemic, which saw an average decrease of 52% in turnover of tourism businesses in the south-west, with many businesses still facing repayments on loans taken out simply to survive. Only today we have heard news that the Devon Valley holiday park in Shaldon, south Devon, will not be opening for the 2023 season. Several factors behind the decision have been cited, including significant increases in the electricity bill.
Let me outline some of the challenges. The obvious one to start with is energy and rising prices. For many businesses, Putin’s attack on Ukraine and the resulting spike in energy prices have had a big impact—costs that cannot be recovered simply by increasing prices. Earlier this year I heard from many local businesses, big and small, that faced dramatic increases in their energy bills, with the price of gas potentially up more than tenfold compared with their previous fixed price.
The energy price guarantee has made a big difference; one business owner said that it meant that they would be staying open. However, the Government must look at the realities of the sector as they consider the review of the EPG, due in early 2023. Take, for example, the Meadfoot Bay hotel in Torquay. To compensate for an increase of £80,000 in utility costs, it would need to sell another 550 bed nights, or 1,700 covers in its brasserie, over the coming year. In a buoyant market, that would be a big target for a hotel with 14 bedrooms; in the midst of a recession, it is simply not going to happen. In short, the hotel could face making a loss not because it is not innovating or providing good services to its customers, but because a bill for a basic need of its business has increased dramatically for reasons well beyond its control.
Energy bills are not the only ones that are rising. Food and maintenance bills and other costs are also increasing, presenting a real challenge for hospitality businesses. The next challenge that I want to highlight is business rates; I doubt whether the Minister will be surprised to hear that I am bringing up a tax on doing business from a premises. Trading from a premises is something that tourism and hospitality businesses across Devon and Cornwall have to do by default—a night out online with a computer is not likely to be as attractive as a night out at the pub or a physical business. Fundamentally, such things cannot be moved online. Often it is the business rates bill, enforced through the magistrates court, that finally tips a business over. Landlords might offer a rent cut if necessary and suppliers might cut a payment deal—it is often business rates, which must be paid simply to exist, that are the final blow for a business.
The moves by the Chancellor last week are welcome—extending and increasing from 50% to 75% business rates relief for eligible retail, hospitality and leisure businesses, for example. I note that that will benefit 230,000 retail, hospitality and leisure properties, which will be eligible to receive increased support worth a total of approximately £2.1 billion. Yet more is needed to ensure that businesses that must operate from a premises have a level playing field.
On the subject of buildings, it is worth starting to reflect on the impact that competition from Airbnb-style operations can have, particularly when short-term holiday lets are created in what were long-term homes for families. Although a certain level of such property is welcome and provides customer choice, there is now a real danger that unregulated growth is bringing negative effects—for example, working families being effectively evicted from a house that has for many years provided a home for rent, to allow a landlord to offer short-term holiday lets instead. The issue is not about avoiding competition. Unrestricted growth not only endangers the local housing supply, but undermines those holiday accommodation providers who, for sensible reasons, must comply with a range of safety regulations that do not apply in domestic properties.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
I must say that I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the unrestricted growth of the short-term holiday let is of some concern, including to my constituents working in the tourism industry. Katie Parsons, who runs Blackdown Yurts, welcomed the Government review into short-term tourism accommodation announced in June, particularly as safety regulations apply differently. However, there are more than 8,000 Airbnb properties in Devon. Does the hon. Gentleman, like me, want to hear from the Minister a date by which that Government review will be published?
Kevin Foster
I agree entirely with my friend from Tiverton and Honiton. It is good to see him here taking part in the debate. We would like to hear a date. I have probably given away slightly where I think the review should go by signing new clause 22 to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which is before the House at the moment. I believe that it would be right to move to a position where converting a residential property into a short-term holiday let comes under the remit of planning. It seems rather bizarre that a whole street could effectively be converted into a holiday park, removing that accommodation from the local housing market.
I think a proportionate response would be to move to having a separate category, which would also allow more appropriate consideration of things such as the balance of regulations that should apply. My uncle served in the Plymouth and then the Devon fire service for 20-odd years, so I know there are very good reasons why we have the fire safety regulations that we have for holiday accommodation, and I know that the legislation was brought in as a result of hard experience, particularly back in the 1960s and 1970s.
It would certainly be good to have a date for the review’s publication. I will leave the Minister under no impression that my mind is not already rather made up on at least one of the outcomes that we probably need to see, and potentially on a registration process, but I very much look forward to hearing from him. I appreciate that planning is probably outside his precise remit, but it is a challenge that we face.
The final challenge is consumer confidence. We must not underestimate its impact. Booking a holiday will be the last thing on anyone’s mind if they are worrying about how they will pay their heating bill. Moves to stimulate confidence and growth in the economy are needed to build confidence in potential tourism customers, including local residents, who can provide vital year-round trade to local tourism businesses.
Let us reflect on what these challenges can result in. Holiday accommodation will not simply lie unused, and the challenges I have set out can result in pressure to use it for other things. A hotelier faced with a relatively light booking sheet can find it all too tempting to take on long-term guests, be they asylum seekers from the Home Office or those owed a housing duty by their local council.
I have been supporting Torbay Council’s efforts to challenge the conversion of properties in our key tourism locations to longer-term accommodation on planning grounds. The objective is to prevent precedents from being set for the conversion of tourism-based accommodation that was designed for short stays into poor-quality longer-term accommodation. That often brings issues of housing standards and antisocial behaviour, while sometimes also helping to block regeneration efforts by giving a building that could have been acquired for a needed rebuild an income stream in its current poor condition. I hope that the Minister will engage with his colleagues in the Home Office and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities about how we can move away from such uses, which affect not only local communities but the tourism sector overall.
I know from responding to this type of debate myself that it is always good to provide a summary of what we are looking for. The first thing is business rates reform. The recent moves by the Chancellor were welcome, but how does the Minister see longer-term reform of business rates being taken forward? What representations are being made about how we end what is effectively a tax penalty for investing in sectors that require bricks and mortar?
The second thing we are looking for is real engagement on energy costs and future support schemes. It is welcome to see hospitality recognised, alongside traditional energy-intensive industries, as a sector that will need continuing support with energy prices. How does the Minister see engagement being done with the sector over the next four months to identify the specific requirements of businesses both small and large, along with how a package could be appropriately targeted at them?
Then there is work to encourage consumers and local residents to use hospitality and tourism businesses where they can. I will be interested to know how the Government will work with the sector to promote its opportunities not only to potential domestic and international visitors, but to investors who could fund the future of our tourism sector. Finally, I am conscious that the Minister is still a relatively recent appointment, but how does he plan to engage with the sector on the range of issues affecting it?
I am delighted to have secured this opportunity to highlight both the opportunities and the challenges facing the tourism industry in Devon and Cornwall. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how the Government will play their part in ensuring that the sector has a bright future in our region and, in due course, to welcoming him to see for himself what our two counties have to offer visitors.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Stuart Andrew)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) for securing this important debate to discuss the benefits of tourism to areas such as Devon and Cornwall. I am aware that my hon. Friend is committed to supporting the tourism industry in his constituency. In his previous role as a Minister, he engaged with my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston), on the importance of supporting its recovery.
My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay listed a number of reasons why it is good to visit Torbay and he has tempted me with a visit, which I hope to comment on a little later. I welcome the opportunity to discuss the strengths of Devon and Cornwall’s tourism industry in the wider context of supporting the tourism offer in other regions of the United Kingdom.
I am the Minister responsible for sport, tourism, civil society, youth and many other issues, so Members will understand that the issues I cover are many and varied. I hope that they will forgive me if that sometimes causes confusion. One day I might be talking about the World cup in Qatar, and the next day I might be where I am now, debating tourism in Devon and Cornwall. To follow on from my hon. Friend’s opening comments, I have to be careful not to mix up my speeches; I would not want to score any “scone goals”. I hope that when I visit my hon. Friend’s constituency next year, I will be able to come to a conclusion on whether cream or jam comes first.
Turning to the really important matters at hand, I want to outline the support the Government have provided to the tourism industry so far. I am aware that a large proportion of businesses in Devon and Cornwall—the English riviera, to be specific—still face challenges from the pandemic, in addition to rising energy costs, supply chain issues and the rise in the cost of living. The Government are absolutely committed to supporting businesses within our visitor economy, which is why last summer we developed the tourism recovery plan.
The south-west of England is a known popular tourism destination. Nearly one fifth of all trips made to England in 2019 were in the region, and that figure has been steadily increasing. That presents us with a huge opportunity to get visit numbers back to pre-pandemic levels by working on the plan’s objectives. As we know, people see the south-west as an attractive destination for a holiday, and the Government have been working to build the sector back post covid and have kept in close contact with stakeholders to ensure that everyone is on board. However, we continue to take into account the new challenges that have emerged in the past year when assessing the sector’s recovery.
The plan was a demonstration of our commitment to regain the UK’s reputation post pandemic as one of the most desirable tourist destinations in the world. We know that we already have an outstanding offer; we just need to advertise and inform people of that offer.
We also want to go further by enhancing what we already offer to tourists so that the UK can reach its full potential. First, we have set out six key objectives. These include the short-term objective of bringing back domestic and international visitor spend as quickly as we can, and the medium to longer-term objectives of supporting the sector to become more resilient, accessible, sustainable and able to benefit every region and part of the United Kingdom. It is about growth, but it is also about productivity.
Secondly, we have started to talk more about the visitor economy rather than tourism as an ecosystem of transport, culture, heritage and hospitality. We believe that that will help to demonstrate how the sector can both contribute to economic growth and support the Government’s objectives of levelling up.
Finally, improving our tourism offer in regions across the country will make us more attractive to potential visitors and event hosts, encourage a higher spend, reduce seasonality and promote investment. That will help to ensure that businesses chose the UK over other destinations, and I strongly believe that we must find ways to encourage international travellers to travel further than London and sample the excellent coastal tourism that areas such as Devon and Cornwall have to offer. This will no doubt bring benefits to such regions.
There are also other levers that the Government can pull. As announced in the Chancellor’s autumn statement, the Government are in advanced discussions on mayoral devolution deals with local authorities in Cornwall. I look forward to hearing about further developments on these plans, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay is, too. There are also plans to help the tourism sector with targeted support to help with the cost of business rates over the next five years, worth more than £15 billion. The Government recognise that businesses are facing significant inflationary measures, so business rates multipliers will also be frozen in 2023-24, and ratepayers facing increased bills will have further support. I heard much about that at the UKHospitality reception yesterday.
My hon. Friend is right to point out that Putin’s war has caused the sector huge issues, which is why the energy bill relief scheme, announced earlier this year, is providing further support for businesses. As my hon. Friend will know, the scheme will provide support through the winter period, protecting businesses against excessive bills until March next year. A review will then be published that will consider how best to offer further support to exactly the types of hotels he mentioned. I will continue to have meetings with stakeholders and colleagues across Government to highlight the need for support.
Tourism is already a devolved policy area, but giving local regions more authority is one way to ensure that growth can be generated from the ground up. Members may be aware of Nick de Bois’ independent review into the structure and organisation of destination management organisations. It was published in August 2021, and the Government responded in July, including with an accreditation framework to streamline and improve the DMO landscape. That will enable more efficient and strategic DMOs, ensuring that they can bring out the best in their local tourism offer. We will also be piloting a funded partnership model in a region of England to be announced on Friday. We hope to use that to collect evidence to showcase the success of the proposed model and to enable it to be rolled out to other regions.
My hon. Friend rightly talked about short-term lets. Cornwall and Devon’s popularity as tourist spots is great for creating jobs and supporting businesses. However, I appreciate that not all of tourism’s impacts are welcomed by local residents. As my hon. Friend will know, there has been a sharp increase in short-term holiday letting in recent years, which has been driven by the rise of online platforms such as Airbnb. While the Government support the sharing economy and the economic benefits that it can bring, we are aware of a variety of concerns, such as the impact on the housing market and local communities. During my time as Housing Minister, I was lobbied extensively on that by my hon. Friend and many other south-west MPs.
To address the concerns and to look towards potential solutions for short-term accommodation, we first needed to hear from all interested parties, so we held a call for evidence between June and September. The evidence has helped us to understand the scale and nature of the short-term letting market in England and the benefits and potential problems it is causing in communities across the country, including in the south-west. It has enabled us to hear from stakeholders and other interested parties about how the sector could be improved. We are now in the process of analysing the near 4,000 responses and will look to provide an update to the sector soon about the next steps.
Kevin Foster
It is encouraging to hear of the scale of response. Does the Minister agree that this is not about tourism versus housing? Ultimately, the availability of housing is vital to ensure that there are staff for the tourism industry.
Stuart Andrew
I completely understand that point. I have done several roundtables on the issue and heard the problems that colleagues face in their constituencies. We will continue to work with colleagues in DLUHC to find a solution.
I will move on to international travel, which is an important piece of work. We are working closely with other Departments to bring back international travellers to at least 2019 levels as quickly as possible. As we know, that will promote growth and increase the UK’s market share of both visitors and spending. Part of that work includes increasing international visitor numbers and spend outside of London and the south-east.
We also want to focus on reducing the seasonality aspect of tourism in this country by increasing off-season visits in the way that my hon. Friend described. Recent figures from VisitBritain show that the visitor economy is heavily skewed towards London and the south-east, with London accounting for 43% of all international inbound overnight stays and 64% of all international visitor spend. VisitBritain has analysed the regional disparity, which compares unfavourably with our competitors in France, Germany and Italy. Nevertheless, I am aware that, for many tourists, a typical trip to the UK involves a visit to the capital, and it is rarer for people to make trips to the rest of the country.
There is a huge tourist offering in regional areas of the UK, and I believe that we should help support those areas to unlock their full potential. Earlier this year, VisitBritain ran a tourism campaign entitled “Welcome to Another Side of Britain”, which focused on encouraging visits to all parts of the UK, particularly those outside London, in order to spread the economic benefits. The campaign delivered a boost to the UK economy of over £190 million, and created more than 3,500 jobs. The marketing campaigns have been better able to disperse visitors into regions outside London, and I would like to see that continue. As part of the Cabinet Office’s GREAT campaign, VisitBritain will market internationally, with its “See Things Differently” strategy focused on the USA and Europe, as they have the highest propensity to visit and spend.
As my hon. Friend will know, tourism in Devon and Cornwall can be very seasonal, with a huge influx of visitors in the summer months. In 2019, 14% of the annual spend in overnight trips was in August alone, with just 5% of spending occurring in January. I know that the fluctuation in visitor numbers can have a huge impact on the ability of businesses to retain staff year-round. I also understand that it is a particular challenge this year, given that Christmas bookings have been slow and there is still some uncertainty about the future for some businesses. None the less, I believe that the changes that we, with the co-ordination of VisitBritain, will make to the structure of DMOs as they become local visitor economy partnerships will really help to boost tourism in Devon and Cornwall.
I thank my hon. Friend again for securing this important debate, and I can assure him that the Government and I are absolutely committed to supporting all areas of the UK’s tourism industry and to encouraging visitors to visit areas outside London that have an excellent tourism offer. This is our vision for the future and, by working with Members from all parties, that is what I hope we will be able to deliver. I look forward to continued engagement with the tourism sector over the coming months, and I promise that I will be a champion of its cause within the Government and will work with my hon. Friends.
Question put and agreed to.
Fire Services: North-east England
(1 year, 12 months ago)
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Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered fire services in the North East.
I am very grateful to see this important debate so well attended; it could not be about a more deserving group of people. Like all our emergency services, our firefighters run towards danger while the rest of us run away. They have always kept doing their job, coming to our rescue and keeping our community safe. It is our job, as politicians, to ensure that they have the money and resources to do so.
Unfortunately, it has been hard to say that the Government have done that job properly for the last 12 years. I have been an MP for all those 12 years—for 17 years, actually—and I have spent a lot of time warning, throughout austerity and various debates, often in this very Chamber, about the impact that Government cuts would have on local fire services and their ability to maintain service levels and protect us.
In 2012, I spoke in a Westminster Hall debate about fire and rescue services. I warned that
“budget reductions will hit the poorest areas hardest… services will have to be cut. That, of course, is after preventive services have been cut to the bone.”—[Official Report, 5 September 2012; Vol. 549, c. 84WH.]
In 2018, I raised the issue again in another Westminster Hall debate, talking about how areas with high levels of deprivation, such as Washington and Sunderland West, had a higher risk of fire-related deaths, and needed a fair funding settlement. At the time, I spoke to Chris Lowther, our chief fire officer at Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service. I told Westminster Hall in that debate that
“He is doing everything within his power to manage the resources currently available, in a way that guarantees the safety of my constituents, and everyone across Tyne and Wear.”—[Official Report, 28 November 2018; Vol. 650, c. 132WH.]
Like many chief fire officers across the country, he did an impossible job, cutting back on everything he could in order to keep the service running safely. But he warned that if there were further cuts it would be difficult to say, hand on heart, that Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service would be able to provide a safe service.
I raised the issue successively at Prime Minister’s questions in the following two weeks, when the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) was Prime Minister. I raised just how concerned our local fire and rescue services were about their very stretched funding.
That brings us to today. Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service has continued to make its service more efficient, but there is very little left to cut back on. If the current trajectory continues, it has nothing left to cut. I have already said that services have been cut to the bone. Having spoken this week to the chief fire officer, Chris Lowther, and the chair of the Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Authority, Councillor Phil Tye, I know how tough the situation is.
In 2010, before austerity, Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service employed 880 full-time fire fighters, and over 1,000 full-time staff. In 2022, that has dropped to just 624 full-time firefighters, and just 860 staff employed full-time in total. Given the recruitment freeze between 2014 and 2019, as well as an ageing workforce coming to retirement, staff numbers are likely to fall again. In 2010, Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service had £59.4 million to spend. To keep up with inflation, that should have risen to £84 million by 2022. But what has happened? Its budget has been cut down to just £54.8 million; that is much less than it was in cash terms in 2010, and a massive and unsustainable real-terms cut. It leaves us, frankly, unprepared for the next crisis we may face.
We can all appreciate that the fire service was put under a huge amount of pressure this summer, with the unprecedented heatwave leading to an increased number of fires across the country—we all saw them on our TV screens, if not more up close. They devasted lives and livelihoods alike.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
I want to commend the firefighters working at Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service, who have attended two major fires in my constituency: one at Shee Recycling in Birtley, where there are environmental hazards, and a second at the Ryrton Willows—one of those summer fires that my hon. Friend referred to. We have also seen the impact of those budget reductions, with the loss of one pump at Swalwell in my constituency.
Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
Order. A reminder that interventions must be brief.
Mrs Hodgson
Coming back to the summer fires, that period included the busiest day for firefighters since world war two. That brings home the important role and work that firefighters do. How do the Government expect them to cope with future heatwaves without addressing the serious concerns this crisis raised about how stretched the workforce is?
In less foreseeable moments of crisis, fire services are the first responders there to protect the public. Following the 2017 Manchester Arena terrorist attacks, we were told that some fire and rescue services would be “unprepared” to respond effectively if a tragic event like that happened again. If such an event happened at one of the big arenas in our region—heaven forbid—how could we be assured that lives would be protected given this funding crisis?
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and I apologise for being a couple of minutes late for her speech. Teesside is served by the Cleveland Fire Brigade. Teesside is one of Europe’s biggest fire risks, yet the formula that determines its income does not take any of that into consideration. Does she agree that risk should be examined as an important factor in determining funding?
Mrs Hodgson
My hon. Friend makes a valid point, which I will come on to. My chief fire officer told me that Cleveland is the worst in the country in terms of the fairness of that funding formula.
On a community level, these cuts will have consequences. Last Friday, I visited Barmston Village Primary School in my constituency. With no prompting from me whatsoever, two young boys told me separate stories of their family cars being damaged in an arson attack and one young girl told me about a time when she had to knock on a neighbour’s door to tell them that something was burning on their property. What is more, all the children were upset about the damage caused to the play equipment in the local park by the big kids—they mean teenagers—setting fire to it.
In previous years, fire services have come out to schools and done talks with the children, especially the older children—the big kids—in the secondary schools, explaining the danger of arson and what to do if they see a fire. However, with preventative measures being cut first, it is becoming even more difficult for fire and rescue services to provide that important community outreach. That will also have consequences.
The Government promised to level up areas like Sunderland, but I fail to see how those promises can continue to be made when basic public services are being starved of cash and millions of working people are facing the fastest fall in their pay in years. That is why the chief fire officer and Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service have called for the fire funding formula to be revised, so it once again takes into account deprivation as a risk factor, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) mentioned is so problematic in Cleveland. That was the case under the last Labour Government and it was changed after 2010 by the current Government.
The change would help local authorities like mine and all of ours that cannot raise huge amounts of funding through council tax to keep our services running. I do not want to go into all the reasons why, but that is a well-known fact. What is becoming ever more clear is that service bosses and frontline workers are on the same page: the service must protect the public, but it equally needs to protect its own staff.
The lack of funding has led to the Fire Brigades Union rejecting an unfunded 5% pay rise put forward by national employers. To be clear, that 5% is unfunded, meaning that fire and rescue services have to find an extra 5% from their existing budget to pay for it—I have already said how stretched their budgets currently are. It puts our chief fire officers across the north-east and across the country, who just want the very best for firefighters, in an incredibly difficult position. They do extremely important work. They just want the funds to properly reward their staff with fair pay for the very important work they do.
If industrial action does take place, there has been talk of the Home Office drafting in soldiers to replace striking staff and then asking these strapped-for-cash fire services to pay £4,000 per week per soldier to train and employ them. No one wants to see a strike. It is now up to the Government to get around the table with the FBU and resolve this dispute. The Government must now make sincere efforts to ensure that fire and rescue staff can continue to provide safe services, which means ensuring that fire services get the support they need and doing everything they can to ensure that fire services get a decent deal. It is clear for all to see how the Government have shamefully cut fire services for more than a decade and how the cuts now risk the safety of our communities in the north-east.
I hope that if I ever attend another Westminster Hall debate on fire services in the north-east, it is under a Labour Government and we are able to properly address some of these issues. How would we do that? We will have grown the economy, provided high-quality public services and ensured that workers have better pay and conditions. That day cannot come soon enough for our communities in the north-east.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
Order. Colleagues, you can see how many of you there are wishing to get in. You will have about three minutes each. I call Peter Gibson.
Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary, and to be called to speak in the debate. Having grown up in a fire service family in the north-east, this is a subject close to my heart. I congratulate the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on securing the debate. Having met with my local fire service—the County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service—just last week, it is very timely. I appreciate the opportunity to speak.
The County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service is a vital emergency service and I am hugely proud of the fantastic work all its staff do every day of the week. Indeed, the service is recognised nationally as being extremely high performing, productive and efficient. I want to take this opportunity to put on the record my thanks to the staff and praise them for their work and dedication. However, I understand that the service has serious concerns regarding the ongoing funding challenges it is facing, which may mean that there is a danger that it cannot sustain its current level of service into the future.
The authority now receives two thirds of its funding from local taxpayers. This reliance on council tax to fund fire and rescue services represents a significant challenge for the authority when it is faced with cost pressures and the council tax referendum limit remains as low as it has been. The impact is magnified in areas such as County Durham and Darlington, where almost 80% of the properties are in council tax bands A and B, meaning that a 1% increase in council tax would raise only an additional £190,000 for the authority, while in other areas 1% would raise significantly more. The reality is that the additional income that could be raised via council tax does not cover the cost increases incurred by the authority through unfunded pay awards, inflation and energy prices. Moreover, no one wants to see an increased council tax burden on our local communities. As such, the current funding mechanism appears to be unsustainable. Can the Minister outline what more the Government can do? I know the service is asking for precept flexibility.
More generally, I welcome that in May ’22 the then Home Secretary unveiled the most comprehensive plans for fire reform in decades in the fire reform White Paper. The proposals put forward centre on people, professionalism and governance and aim to strengthen the emergency services and ensure that people feel safer in their homes. I know that County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service has responded to them. I know that these reforms seek to introduce changes to allow fire professionals to further develop their skills and I think it is important that we also talk about that in this debate.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on securing this debate. I, like her, pay tribute to all members of the fire and rescue service, particularly those in County Durham and Darlington. I also pay tribute to Stuart Errington, the chief fire officer at County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service, who is retiring in January after 30 years of service.
I have just listened to the hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) talking as though this has just happened: no, it has happened because the Government have cut back central Government grants. As he has just said, in Durham, the fire and rescue service relies on council tax services for two thirds of its funding. It is a high-performing, efficient and extremely productive service. That is not me saying that—it is His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services. They have had changes in working practices and there is nothing more that can be done to cut the fat out of the system. By pushing this on to the taxpayer, County Durham cannot fill the gap. For one thing, that is unfair but, secondly, due to the large numbers of band A properties, a 1% increase in council tax in County Durham will not raise anything like it would in, for example, Surrey.
The Government talk about levelling up but what we actually have here is distribution southward rather than to the deprived areas such as the north-east. Unless that funding formula is actually tackled in terms of more central Government grant or changing the formula, County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service will fall over; it will go bankrupt. I know there is a call to increase council tax by 5% from the current 2% cap, but that is not fair and it will not solve the problem. That is pushing the issue on to the local council tax payers.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West said, the situation has been going on since 2010. It has been done by stealth not just in that service, but in local government, where council tax payers in areas such as mine in County Durham are having to raise more through local council tax. With those low bandings, they have a limited ability to do that. As my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West said, we rely on the men and women in the fire and rescue service to do remarkable things on our behalf in times of crisis.
The system is broken. My final point is this: if it is not fixed this year or certainly next year, County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service will fall over. It will no longer be able to provide the service that keeps us all safe.
Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I obviously congratulate the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on securing the debate. As the son of a former County Durham senior fire officer, Bob Howell, I am incredibly privileged to take part in the debate. I begin by acknowledging and thanking the County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service, which I will refer to as CDDFRS from hereon in, for the hard work that they do to protect us all.
Before coming to this place, I sat as a local councillor on the combined fire authority, so I fully understand the position. The chair of the CFA, John Shuttleworth, and the chief fire officer, Stuart Errington, have expressed to me and other colleagues that inflation and staff demands are taking a toll on the fire service’s budget. Although they are solvent this year, even their best-case scenario for next year would see the budget fall into deficit.
In the decade to 2021, the number of incidents that fire and rescue services in England attended fell by 8%, but in my local area a heavy demand continues to be placed on the CDDFRS because, as my inbox sadly shows, arson in particular is a recurring problem. Indeed, in the north-east of my constituency of Sedgefield, in places like Wingate and Station Town, arson is the weapon of choice for a significant part of the criminal fraternity. It is predominately vehicle arson, which puts a disproportionate amount of pressure on the CDDFRS.
The funding model, as has been said, simply does not work. Due to the number of properties in council tax bands A and B, funding raised through council tax is too limited. Coupled with the level of deprivation, which means that many residents pay little or no council tax, fire services in parts of the country like mine cannot rely on making up what inflation has taken away. As a result, the leaders of CDDFRS are seeking changes to balance the budget while maintaining a high level of service and properly recompensing their staff.
I would like the Government to give further consideration to options to resolve that conundrum. The opportunity to move to 3% is a step in the right direction, but at an impact of £1 per percentage point, broadly speaking, the increase would need to be about £5 to bring the budget to balance. That is a relatively small amount, but it is outside the current threshold.
Changing the approach to capital expenditure may be a way to alleviate part of the cost pressure without dramatic funding changes. There is no longer a capital budget, so capital expenditure must be financed through loans or the use of reserves. Clearly, with rising interest rates, loan financing costs become an ever bigger drain. The alternative of utilising reserves is not open to CDDFRS, as it rightly maintains its reserves at a lower level, although I am aware that, across the UK as a whole, fire services do have significant reserves. I therefore encourage the Minister to consider an approach whereby capital expenditure is granted to those across the country with very low reserves.
I will finish by placing on record my admiration and support for Stuart Errington, the current chief fire officer of CDDFRS, who will retire at the end of the year. He has run the fire service with the motto “being the best”. I believe that he has achieved that objective. I put on record my appreciation to him and all his exceptional staff for all the work they have done.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I congratulate my good and hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on her determination in securing this important and timely debate. I declare an interest as a member of the FBU parliamentary group and a proud supporter of our firefighters and their trade union. I place on record my thanks—indeed, those of all of our members—for the excellent work that our firefighters do.
The funding crisis in fire and rescue highlights a basic contradiction in the Government’s rhetoric. Whether we are talking about a northern powerhouse or levelling up, the reality is that we face higher taxes and cuts to services. I saw an interesting statistic from the Office for National Statistics that highlighted that contradiction. It showed that between 2006 and 2020, average wealth fell 17% in the north-east while increasing in every other region, bar the east midlands. London and the south-east led the way, with their wealth increasing 63% and 43% respectively.
As we have heard, County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service has lost around £10 million in Government funding over the past 12 years when we take inflation into account. Our fire and rescue authorities experienced a shift over the past decade so that two thirds of their overall funding now comes from local taxpayers.
I have a solution for the Minister, if she cares to act on it. The problem is that our choice is not between raising council tax and cutting services; due to the nature of the grant and the low council tax base, we are likely to have increased taxes and cuts to services. Clearly, that is unfair and unsustainable. Council tax is an unfair, regressive and broken system that places the heaviest burden on communities with the highest demand for services and the lowest ability to pay. We need to scrap that unfair tax and deliver a fairer system that is based on wealth, the ability to pay, and delivering public services based on need. My message for the Minister is to match the rhetoric with action, whether on the northern powerhouse, levelling up, or one nation, compassionate Conservatism.
The first step to resolving the funding challenge is to replace council tax with a proportional property tax that would balance an area’s ability to pay and deliver services based on need. Can the Minister explain how we will secure additional funding for County Durham and Darlington if not through a proportional property tax, given that it cannot be raised through our low council tax base?
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
Order. Colleagues, because you have all been so disciplined, I will allow the remaining speakers—with apologies to those who have already spoken—to have three and a half minutes.
Jill Mortimer (Hartlepool) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I congratulate the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on bringing forward this important debate.
Hartlepool is in the Cleveland Fire Authority area, which has already been mentioned. I met recently with representatives of the CFA, including chief fire officer Ian Hayton, to discuss some of the challenges that are unique to our area. I will illustrate some of those to give the Minister some context. We have a high hazard area, as we have already heard. We have an industrial cluster spanning two sides of a large river, with few crossings. We have 15 power stations, one of which is nuclear. We also have a large number of urban conurbations spread over a wide geographical area—again, split by the large river—including areas of severe deprivation.
That deprivation causes issues with arson, as we have already heard. In Cleveland, we have 10 times the national average of deliberate property fires. They are used as a weapon by drug dealers, money lenders and so forth. That creates a huge strain on our resources in Cleveland. Despite all that, my firefighters have a fabulous record, and I have admiration for them all. They still consistently manage the seven-minute response time for house fires, despite the number of full-time firefighters having fallen by 33%. However, as we have already heard, they are severely hampered by disproportionate funding compared with other fire and rescue authorities. It is unclear how long that will be sustainable with inflationary pressures.
Alex Cunningham
I thank the hon. Member and my next-door neighbour for giving way. She will have had the same letter as me from Ian Hayton and the chair of the Cleveland Fire Authority, which tells us that there were 494 full-time firefighters in 2010. There are now 330—a cut of 33%. The chief fire officer and the chair are saying that they cannot keep people safe if they do not get more money through a different formula. Does the hon. Member agree that the Minister needs to make change?
Jill Mortimer
Yes, I believe that change must be made, but after my discussions with Ian and his team—I have met them on a couple of occasions now—I do not believe it is all doom and gloom. They do have solutions. This is not just about cuts and funding. We have to accept that money is tight and scarce in this country. We have just gone through a global pandemic and we are fighting a war. It is all our money; there is only so much of it, and it has to be shared appropriately.
The people who know most about this are those in the fire service themselves. They are the people I spoke with. I am not going to stand here and say that I am an expert on how to fund a fire service; they know where to make positive changes, and where to find answers and solutions to the problems. Will the Minister meet me, along with colleagues from the Cleveland Fire Authority area and representatives of the authority, so that she can have the conversations that I have had with them and discuss their ideas, and we can plan positive ways to secure a safe way forward not just for the people of Hartlepool, but for everyone in the Cleveland Fire Authority area?
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) for bringing forward this important debate. I declare an interest as a member of the FBU parliamentary group. I want to place on record my sincere thanks, and those of my constituents in Wansbeck and the people of Northumberland, to the fantastic men and women of the fire and rescue service. They do an absolutely brilliant job. We need to recognise that, and I will focus most of my limited contribution on the pay increase.
Morale in the fire and rescue service is undoubtedly at an all-time low. There have been cuts of up to 30% since 2010, stations have closed, there are more fire engines off the streets, and 11,500 frontline firefighters have been sacked. In real terms, wages are around £4,000 lower than they were more than a decade ago. Is it any wonder that morale is as poor as it is?
When we look at what the fire and rescue service has done in Northumberland, we see that it was fantastic during covid and brilliant during Storm Arwen not so many months ago. It assisted in setting up the vaccine centres and getting personal protective equipment out to the relevant places. That is what the fire and rescue service does as well as putting out huge fires and saving lives. The service has been fantastic in getting humanitarian aid to Ukraine, and it has been really active in saving lives in rural Northumberland, with the wildfires and of course the floods. I remember the floods in Morpeth in 2008, when the fire and rescue service was unbelievable, I have to say.
Offering the fire and rescue service 5% is absolutely insulting—it really is. Inflation is 11.1% and here we are offering these key workers, who we clapped incessantly on a Thursday night, 5%. It is absolutely insulting. It is intolerable. It is not right. We have to remunerate fire and rescue service workers correctly to save our lives, our families’ lives, and the lives of other people in our community, including schoolkids. We have to treat these people with the respect they deserve.
I worry that the dead hand of government is coming across the pay talks with public sector workers—the posties, the rail workers, the teachers—and I worry that the firefighters are going to be brought into some sort of big culture war that is being brewed up, and that they will not be recognised for the great work they do on behalf of our communities.
What a brilliant job the firefighters do. They do a fantastic job. I fully support every single man and woman involved in the fire and rescue service, and I think that we, as UK parliamentarians, need to get behind them and pay them right.
Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)
I thank and congratulate the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) for securing this important debate.
First, I pay tribute and offer my thanks to the brave firefighters across Cleveland who do so much to keep my community safe. Recently, I had the chance to get out on shift with officers from Cleveland Fire Brigade and spend time with the teams at Thornaby and Hartlepool. I got to see at first hand the determination and commitment of those brave officers, who put their lives on the line in the service of my community, facing the challenges of road traffic collisions on our busy road network, adopting a specialist approach to dealing with accidents in the River Tees, taking on the unique challenges of my area’s industrial heritage and its chemical sector, tackling grass fires and floods, and saving the lives of those whose homes or places of work are hit by fire. My local force and officers remain undeterred by their huge task, using every spare minute they have to support fire prevention and community safety, visiting the homes of vulnerable people to provide life-saving checks and safety advice, and supporting the vulnerable and elderly by providing equipment to keep them warm in the winter months.
Cleveland Fire Brigade faces unique financial challenges and pressures. The brigade serves an area with pockets of severe deprivation. Across the Cleveland Fire Brigade area there is an exceptionally low council tax base, with 46% of properties in band A compared with the national average of 24%, meaning that the authority raises from council tax the lowest proportion of core spending when compared with the UK’s other fire and rescue authorities. That makes it incredibly difficult for the force to increase revenue in the way that many other brigades might.
I am saddened to say that Cleveland is the arson capital of Europe. A minority of mindless individuals put the lives of residents and our brave firefighters at risk. Moreover, the heavy industry in my part of the world adds to the pressures on service delivery. The risks and hazard profile of Cleveland simply are not recognised in the funding formula. We are not getting our fair share.
Cleveland has one of the smallest fire brigades in the UK, making it difficult to realise economies of scale. In recent years, the brigade has been innovative in its approach, becoming leaner and more efficient, but its current financial outlook is incredibly challenging. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer), I would be grateful if the Minister would agree to meet me, parliamentary colleagues from across Cleveland, and the brigade leadership to look at how we can ensure that Cleveland Fire Brigade continues to provide a sustainable, safe service, keeping the residents of Stockton South safe and giving our brave firefighters the resources that they need and deserve.
Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) for securing this important debate, the timing of which could not be more pertinent.
In recent years, we have seen the fire service step up when our communities have needed it, first working through the challenges of the pandemic, and then tackling wildfires in places such as Brandon in my constituency during this summer’s heatwave. Almost a year ago today, Storm Arwen ravaged the north-east, leaving a trail of damage in its wake, with many of my constituents in harm’s way. The Government were slow to help after the storm but, as always, the fire service was there when we needed it.
Of course, that is just one example. Every day, across our region, firefighters protect us by running towards danger while we run from it—but we cannot run away from the fact that those working in our fire service are not immune to the cost of living crisis. Their bills, mortgages and rents have spiralled while, like many public sector employees, their pay packet has lagged behind. According to FBU analysis, since 2009, real-terms wage cuts have wiped £4,000 a year from an average firefighter’s salary.
In my constituency, the fire service is already under significant financial pressure; even its best-case projections involve more restructuring of an already stretched service. An unfunded 5% pay rise will push it into a budget deficit. The solution that the fire service in Durham would like to see is simple: a fair pay increase for its dedicated firefighters, funded by central Government. This is another fact that the Government cannot run away from: under their watch, the fire service has had its central funding slashed by 30%. That means that nationally, we have 11,500 fewer firefighters than we had in 2010, reducing resilience, slowing response times and jeopardising the safety of firefighters and the public.
Moreover, in the north-east as a whole since 2010, one in four firefighters has been cut, 600 whole-time firefighter posts have been slashed, and a quarter of fire control posts have gone. This is just another example of public services being run into the ground by the Government while working people see their pay, conditions and living standards eroded. To witness our brave firefighters and control staff having to resort to using food banks is nothing short of a national disgrace.
Climate change means that we will need firefighters more than ever, as wildfires and floods become more frequent. The damage done by extreme weather conditions such as Storm Arwen is no longer a once-in-a-generation event; we will increasingly have to live with it. I echo the FBU’s call for a statutory duty for flooding in England, as there is in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is clear that we need a well-funded service. Let us not forget that it was the firefighters that dealt with some of the most harrowing scenes during the pandemic. It is only right that those who gave so much during that time are appropriately rewarded.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on securing this important debate. She made a powerful speech, and she is an incredible champion for her area. We were all struck by her story of the children in Barmston Village Primary School, who all had stories to tell about arson. I was in nearby Horden last year, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris), where I met the veteran Sean Ivey, whose house was burned down by kids in the area. I heard about the antisocial behaviour and the epidemic of arson in the area; we must not underestimate the impact that those fires have on local communities.
It is interesting that Members from across the House have said the same things today: we need fairer funding and more funding; we understand the inequalities in how the system is set up—the precept council tax in particular; we need more capital expenditure; and there has been a fall in real terms in the salaries of our firefighters. Throughout the debate we have heard about the cuts over the past 12 years. Although the number of fires has been decreasing over the past few decades, we face significant new dangers. The number of fire service call-outs has increased every year since 2007; the number of fires increased by 3% last year; and global warming is leading to increased wildfires, which hon. Members have referred to—we saw a 200% increase this summer.
Alex Cunningham
I take no satisfaction in agreeing with my other neighbour, the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers), who said that Cleveland is the arsonist capital of the country. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need not only a fair funding formula for the fire service, but all the police officers we have lost since 2010 to be rehired?
Sarah Jones
My hon. Friend makes a good point, as always. Labour will put lots more neighbourhood policing back on to our streets to prevent the kind of antisocial behaviour that leads to arson in his area.
As we face a cold winter, when people will be forced to choose between heating and eating thanks to the Government’s mini-Budget and the huge rises in costs and inflation, we have already heard about people using increasingly desperate means to keep warm. Staffordshire’s fire chief warned of people relying on electrical heaters to dry clothes, burning unsafe materials to keep warm or staying too close to open fires.
To add to all those problems, the lessons of Grenfell have not been learned. Shamefully, the Government have implemented only a handful of recommendations from phase 1 of the inquiry: fire regulations are still unclear, sprinklers are still not mandatory, single stairwells are still allowed in blocks of flats, and there is no duty on anyone to develop personal evacuation plans for disabled people—an absolutely shameful reversal of a Government promise. On top of the Grenfell failings, as we move towards the more sustainable building of homes, we are increasingly using timber frames, which risk even more fires, because they are more combustible. Funding our fire service is literally a matter of life and death, not least because of the Government’s woeful record on the economy and post Grenfell.
What an indictment it is that the policies of the past 12 years mean that our firefighters now have lower pay in real terms and that more than 11,000 firefighters have been lost. We have seen a pensions fiasco for firefighters and the police. Fire inspectors have seen some of the largest cuts in numbers—their numbers have fallen by almost one third since 2010, making the job of firefighters even harder. I have heard reports of firefighters using food banks. That is completely unacceptable.
At the height of the pandemic, the Conservative-controlled East Sussex Fire Authority tried to push through sweeping cuts. I was pleased to play a small part in those cuts being dropped. Cornwall’s fire service told me that the Government’s mismanagement of the new contract for our 999 and radio services—called the emergency services network—has put one of its vital centres at risk of closure, while leaving it with an outdated radio system that often breaks down. Will the Minister tell us what on earth she is doing to tackle that extraordinary waste of public money, which is costing each of our fire services literally millions of pounds? It is a shocking example of incompetence in the Home Office.
The Budget showed that, yet again, the Conservatives have loaded the costs on to working people. Our growth will still be the lowest in the G7 and the OECD over the next two years. As pay stagnates and inflation rises, more and more trade unions are balloting about their pay deals. The backdrop to many of the disputes is clear: working people are being hit by the fastest fall in real wages on record, and hammered by the Government’s abject failure to tackle the cost of living emergency.
Strike action is always a last resort, because working people do not want to lose pay, especially in the middle of a cost of living crisis, but they simply feel that they have no choice. I find it extraordinary that the Home Office has written to fire and rescue services to say that they need to pay £4,000 per soldier per week for soldiers to be on stand-by if there is a strike and that local fire services across the country will have to suffer all the costs. Fire services do not want this. One told me that it would go down like “a bucket of sick” with firefighters. I have heard anecdotally that the Army is not keen on it either, because last time this happened, a lot of soldiers were lost to the fire sector, with people joining the fire service. What is the Minister doing and how is she engaging?
Peter Gibson
It is interesting that the hon. Lady refers to the intervention of the Army in previous strikes. I have just been doing some research into when the last fire brigade strikes were. They were in 2002, when Labour was in power, and 1997, when Labour was in power, but all the speeches from the Opposition side of the Chamber this evening seem to suggest that year dot was 2010. It clearly was not.
Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
Let us remind ourselves that we are talking about the north-east.
Sarah Jones
I do not think anyone thinks 2010 was year dot, but the Government have been in power for 12 years, and we are judging that record today.
Mr Kevan Jones
It was year dot in 2010, because the Government took the deliberate decision to cut central Government funding to fire services and to push responsibility for that funding on to local taxpayers. That affected local council tax and fire services.
Sarah Jones
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. They tried to push that funding to make themselves look better, so they could pretend the cuts were smaller than they actually were. We all know what is going on.
What is the Minister doing? How are the Government engaging with the FBU and the fire authorities to help us come to an agreement and avoid a strike? I urge her to clarify the Government’s position, because it looks like Ministers are upping the ante when they should be solving the dispute. Ministers must work to address how we avoid strikes, instead of letting us drift towards them through inaction.
We have heard about the impact of the cuts in Tyne and Wear. In the north-east, one in four firefighters has been cut since 2010. I met fire chief Stuart Errington in Durham, and I want to add my praise for him as he approaches retirement. I also want to put on record my appreciation for Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service and for the amazing job Chris Lowther—the chief fire officer—and his team are doing to keep people safe. In 2018, the Government said they were reviewing the funding formula for fire services. In 2020, they said that that review had been suspended due to the pandemic. Can the Minister tell the House whether the fire funding formula will indeed be reviewed?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Miss Sarah Dines)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. The topics covered in this debate are of great importance to every one of us and to the public. I thank those who have taken part. It has been an extraordinary year for fire and rescue services, responding to wildfires and major events such as the Commonwealth games, providing vital kit to Ukraine and working with the Government to drive forward fire reform.
I held the brief of Fire Minister briefly over the summer, and it was a pleasure to meet the Interior Minister of Ukraine and some of the firefighters who, with firefighters from across Europe, were helping to deliver much-needed equipment to Ukraine. It was very humbling. That work has been a joint effort on the part, not least, of local fire and rescue services and national Government.
Sarah Jones
I add my praise for the work that has gone on to send fire services and support to Ukraine. However, does the Minister know that some areas wanted to send equipment to Ukraine, but it turned out to be too old? Some equipment is so old that it was not deemed adequate to send to Ukraine.
Miss Dines
I had several meetings about that. The fact of the matter was that we were sending much-needed surplus. I know from my experience—one would need to write to the present Fire Minister about this, as I am assisting him today—that there were many circumstances where even old equipment was streets ahead of what the Ukrainians had. They were extremely grateful, and the firefighters I met were tearful to have our old equipment, so I do not think we need to be so critical. We assisted them greatly and saved many lives. I spoke to people who spent weeks taking that equipment over. It was gratefully received. It was never rejected as being outdated, as far as I am aware.
I want to pay tribute to the firefighters at home who dealt with wildfires. As Fire Minister, I was able to visit scenes that required fire services—even one just outside my constituency, in the constituency of High Peak. In addition, fire and rescue services helped to ensure our public safety while the nation paid its respects to Her Majesty the late Queen Elizabeth II. Those efforts should be celebrated, but we still have further to go.
Along with Grenfell and the Manchester arena inquiries, the inspectorate’s state of fire and rescue reports fired the starting gun for reform. There is a clear and growing case for change. Fires and the reaction to them and other threats are growing and changing. Fire and rescue services, like all other sections of the public sector, need to respond to that. They are usually up for a challenge, and I have every confidence that they will perform well.
In May, the Government published a fire reform White Paper that consulted on our vision for reform, and we aim to publish the response to the consultation in due course. The public are rightly proud of our fire and rescue services, and right hon. and hon. Members have spoken eloquently of their experiences of hearing from professionals and constituents in this regard.
It is important that the services are encouraged to put the public first in everything they do. The Government have their part to play in ensuring that we support our fire and rescue services and that they are making the most of the tools and knowledge available to them. The White Paper has set out proposals that achieve that. Firefighters and fire staff do great work and deserve the gratitude and support of us all—I know that everyone present will agree on that.
Let me turn to some of the specific points made in the debate, starting with protection and prevention, to which the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) referred. The Government recognised that additional capacity was required and have provided an additional £50 million. Since 2019-20, that money has been funded to assist increases in capacity and capability in protection teams, which has delivered an increase in the number of staff.
Alex Cunningham
In Cleveland, the fire and rescue service faces inflationary pressure of £145 million, and there is no chance at all of finding further cuts. Either we put the public and industry at risk or the fire authority goes bust. Which would the Minister prefer?
Miss Dines
There are many concerns in this regard. However, I have the utmost faith that local fire and rescue services will be able to work in a way that does not put the public at risk, so I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s argument.
The Government have delivered an increase in the number of staff working in protection, and an increase in the skills and qualifications of those already there.
Miss Dines
There is not a great deal of time left, so I will make some progress.
I would like to talk about live pay issues, which were mentioned by the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones). On concerns about the threat of industrial action by the FBU, I note that it has rejected the significantly increased 5% pay offer made by employers and will now ballot members for their views on industrial action. Under the current system, the Home Office plays no direct role in negotiation or funding of firefighter and control staff pay, which is the responsibility of the National Joint Council. In the White Paper, we set out our intentions to conduct an independent review of the current pay system under the National Joint Council, which has been widely criticised. Of course, firefighters deserve to have a decent pay system instead of the current arrangement, which has been widely criticised. I hope that industrial action can be avoided through continued employer and employee negotiations.
I want to talk about the funding formula, which has been mentioned by various right hon. and hon. Members. Changes to the fire formula are being looked at. As Members may be aware, fire is part of the local government settlement, and any updates would need to be co-ordinated across local government. However, as Members are aware, the fire formula is mainly a population formula, and population will always be a significant driver in any new formula. The important thing is to provide the funding that fire and rescue services need. The local government settlement will be published next month, and it will set budgets for the year 2023-24.
Mrs Hodgson
I look forward to the publication of the new data, but will the Minister respond to the point about taking away the deprivation funding? I think all of us in this room were united in saying that that is a risk factor in a lot of the arson and fires that we see, and it really needs to be put back into the formula.
Miss Dines
I invite the hon. Lady to write to the Fire Minister to express in detail the particular characteristics of her area, which have also been mentioned by other speakers, to see what can be done in that regard.
In relation to capital funding, the Government are clear that fire and rescue services have the resources they need. Standalone fire and rescue authorities have received a 6.2% increase in core funding for the year 2022-23, compared with last year. What is important is that the quantum of funding is right, rather than having specific capital funding grants, which are less flexible for local authorities than funding from a standard local government grant or council tax.
A number of other issues were mentioned. Various hon. Members, particularly the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), raised the issue of firefighter job cuts. Firefighters work very hard to protect our communities, but the nature of a firefighter’s work is changing. Fire incidents have fallen 32% in a decade, although I appreciate that there are regional variations and local issues, and I welcome correspondence about those issues following today’s debate. It is, however, the responsibility of fire and rescue services to ensure that they have the appropriate number of firefighters and control staff to deliver their core functions. The Home Office works closely with fire and rescue services to ensure they have the resources they need to do their work, and funding continues to increase. I want communities to receive the service they desire, which includes firefighters being fully supported to meet those communities’ concerns.
Regarding general funding concerns, when the last Labour Government left office, public services and the public finances were in a parlous state. [Hon. Members: “Oh!”] It would have been irresponsible to continue spending at that rate, so it does not behove Members to moan and groan about the present situation. Where there are international and domestic crises, we need to work together to make the most of the money we have. I hope that Members will not fall into the trap of wanting to play party politics with people’s lives.
I pay tribute to everybody who has contributed to today’s debate. There are interesting regional variations that have to be considered, and where there are issues such as arson, fire, criminality and antisocial behaviour, I expect everyone to work together with their local police to assist in addressing them. That requires joint working, and greater training on how to deal with those social issues may need to take place. Just putting more money into something does not mean it will work—it needs careful thought, and we must all look after every penny and be careful in that regard.
I thank each and every hon. Member who has spoken for raising their individual issues, including flooding and other interesting issues in their constituencies—for example, my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer) talked about the dynamics in her constituency. I apologise to those I have not mentioned due to the time constraints, and I know that these issues mean a great deal to all of us in this Chamber.
In my last 30 seconds, I will repeat my thanks to all who have contributed today. This has been an insightful and interesting debate, but we must not allow it to be political. These discussions provide us with a useful reminder—not that we need one—of the extraordinary contribution that fire and rescue services make to our communities. It is in all our interests to ensure that fire and rescue services are adaptable, inclusive and efficient, and the Government will continue to work with them to deliver improvements and, where necessary, reforms.
Mrs Hodgson
I thank all MPs from across the north-east who have attended today’s important debate. I also thank the shadow Minister—my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones)—and the Minister, who is the one who made this debate political, rather than anyone else.
This afternoon, we have had almost complete agreement on the issues that all four of our fire services face, and we all agree that we need a much fairer fire funding formula—one that once again recognises levels of deprivation as a risk factor that leads, in particular, to more arson. I will take the Minister up on her suggestion and write to her with more details on that issue. We need formula reform so that we can fund this vital service properly but also pay our vital firefighters properly. The unfunded 5% pay offer is just not acceptable, and I put the Government on notice that we—particularly those of us in the Labour party, although I also look to Government Back Benchers—will not let this debate be the end of the matter. The Minister is new to her Department, so if she wants to make her mark, she can do so by getting this issue sorted out as soon as possible, and definitely before Christmas.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered fire services in the North East.
Written Statements
(1 year, 12 months ago)
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UK Earth Observation
(1 year, 12 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (George Freeman)
The Government are announcing today a package of up to £200 million funding to invest in the UK Earth observation sector, to protect the future of UK talent and industry in earth observation and mitigate the impact of ongoing delays to UK participation in the EU Copernicus programme, while the EU continues to block our association.
Earth observation (EO) is a vital science and a growing industry. This is the right time to invest in projects that benefit our planet and grow our economy: EO supports the UK to become a science superpower and prioritises our space and net zero ambitions—more than half of key climate data comes from space.
The UK has a vibrant landscape of world-leading EO academic and industrial organisations and a well-founded reputation for excellence in EO. For example, in climate science, leading UK research institutions have been measuring sea and land surface temperature from space for over three decades—Oxford University, RAL Space, Reading University and Leicester University. This data is used by meteorological agencies around the world to improve weather forecast accuracy, helping to save lives, infrastructure and crops.
In the “National space strategy”, His Majesty’s Government committed to remain at the forefront of earth observation technology and know-how. The investments announced today will deliver an essential funding boost to recognise the importance of this work/market and will benefit academia and industry and build our national capability. The funding is spread across 17 projects delivered through the following Government partner organisations:
£137.6 million UK Space Agency (UKSA)
£19.3 million Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
£14.7 million Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
£11.7 million Met Office
£4.2 million Innovate UK
These projects will deliver benefits across the UK and include a broad range of activities from measuring wind speeds to improving the accuracy of climate data, and from funding small and medium-sized enterprise projects to additional PhD places. Some projects will involve new or extended collaborations with international partners such as Australia.
Investing in the UK EO sector is a vital part of achieving our ambitions in space and with the range of applications of EO data, including net zero targets, but it is just the first step.
Over the last few months, my officials have begun discussions with the Earth observation community about the longer-term plans for the sector. The package announced today provides an interim response to what we have been hearing are their biggest challenges. We will continue to work with the sector to identify strategic priorities to keep building on the world-leading excellence in UK Earth observation.
These investments are UK-wide and will provide targeted support during this time of uncertainty. They aim to support the retention of talent and firms across the sector, and we have particularly focused on how to ensure that both academia and industry can benefit from these projects.
Context
The EU has now delayed our association for nearly two years. The UK has done everything it can to secure association, including entering into formal consultations to encourage the EU to implement its obligations.
The Government remain ready to discuss association with the EU, but with the EU continuing to refuse our request to formalise association, we cannot wait forever. Our priority is to invest in the UK’s EO sector and protect our knowledge and capabilities.
[HCWS380]
Bank of England Asset Purchase Facility
(1 year, 12 months ago)
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The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Jeremy Hunt)
The Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England 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 APF—asset purchase facility—by ceasing to reinvest maturing securities. The Bank ceased reinvestment of assets in this portfolio in February 2022 and has since commenced sales of corporate bonds on 28 September 2022, and sales of gilts acquired for monetary policy purposes on 1 November 2022.
The then Chancellor agreed a joint approach with the Governor, in an exchange of letters on 3 February 2022, to reduce the maximum authorised size of the APF for asset purchases every six months, as the size of APF holdings reduces.
On 4 November the Governor and I agreed to reduce the maximum size of the APF from £966 billion to £886 billion, to reflect the unused portion of the recent financial stability-related APF expansion. Since 5 May 2022, the total stock of assets held by the APF for monetary policy purposes has fallen from £866.6 billion to £851.6 billion. In line with the approach agreed with the Governor, the authorised maximum total size of the APF has therefore been reduced to £871 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.
[HCWS381]
Publication of the UK Joint Fisheries Strategy
(1 year, 12 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)
The UK joint fisheries statement (JFS) has been published today that sets the direction of fisheries management in the UK over the coming years.
The four fisheries Administrations have worked together to develop shared policies which as a package will deliver or contribute to delivering the eight objectives set out in the Fisheries Act 2020.
A copy of the JFS has been placed in the Libraries of both Houses and is available on gov.uk.
[HCWS382]
Manchester Mental Health Trust: Edenfield Centre
(1 year, 12 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)
Yesterday, NHS England announced an independent review will be taking place regarding the unacceptable incidents that took place at the Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust this year. It will focus on how these incidents were able to happen and why the failings were not picked up.
The abhorrent treatment of vulnerable people at the Edenfield Centre shown in the Panorama episode was completely unacceptable. Every patient has the right to be treated with dignity and respect, in a caring and therapeutic environment where their rights are upheld, their needs are met, and they feel supported and listened to.
This is why I welcome the steps taken by colleagues in the NHS to investigate those events. As the Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), stated in Parliament on 13 October 2022, this should not have happened. Therefore, it is vital that we get to the bottom of what went wrong so that we can make sure we do better in the future. As I said at the Dispatch Box, I have also instructed my officials to consider what is needed on wider issues for mental health inpatient care, separately to this independent review. I will give an update on this in due course.
[HCWS383]
Grand Committee
(1 year, 12 months ago)
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Arrangement of Business
(1 year, 12 months ago)
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Bull) (CB)
My Lords, if there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, the Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes.
Battery Strategy (Science and Technology Committee Report)
(1 year, 12 months ago)
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Lord Patel
That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report from the Science and Technology Committee Battery strategy goes flat: Net-zero target at risk (1st Report, Session 2021-22, HL Paper 53).
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to open this important debate on the Science and Technology Committee’s report, entitled Battery Strategy Goes Flat. Before I do so, I thank all those who gave evidence to the committee: our committee staff; the committee clerk, Dr Simon Cran-McGreehin; our analyst, Dr Amy Creese; Ellie Hassan, a POST fellow and the committee constant, without whom chaos would prevail; and Cerise Burnett-Stuart, the committee operations officer. I most sincerely thank them all.
My particular thanks go to our specialist adviser, Professor Clare Grey FRS—who has recently become Dame Clare Grey DBE FRS, and who I am pleased to say is listening to us—and Geoffrey Moorhouse Gibson, professor of chemistry at the University of Cambridge. Their advice, knowledge and expertise guided the committee. Last but not least, I thank all the committee members for their help and hard work; they were never controversial, and they never challenged me, at least.
I regret that, due to previous commitments, our current chair, my noble friend Lady Brown, is unable to take part today. I am grateful to the Minister for taking time to reply to the debate today; I have no doubt that he will do so in his much-appreciated customary manner of answering the questions raised by those speaking and not just sticking to the brief provided. I most sincerely thank all noble Lords, not just the members of the committee, for making time to take part in today’s debate.
The title of our report is Battery Strategy Goes Flat: Net-Zero Target at Risk, and it was published on 27 July 2021. At the time, it seemed a provocative title, but subsequent events and the recent news seem to have confirmed our scepticism. The report—which has four key chapters covering the applications of batteries and fuel cells, technological developments and, importantly, strategic issues facing the UK for decarbonising the transport system—makes several conclusions and suggests government action to make the UK a leader in batteries and fuel cells. The Government’s response, while not disagreeing with the conclusions or details in the report, was not convincing as a clear delivery plan. Most of the responses to our ask for government action used the phrase, “The Government are committed to”, but provided few details as to implementation. I hope that the Minister, in responding, can put that right today.
At the time of the report’s publication, the committee felt that the UK policy of battery manufacture was insufficient to meet the future needs of the automotive industry as it transits to the government policy of full electrification of cars and smaller commercial vehicles by 2030. The requirement of seven to eight gigafactories by 2030, as suggested by our witnesses, is not likely to be met; in turn, our net-zero commitments will not be met either. The committee felt that the pace and scale of the building of gigafactories in the UK will not meet the demands for batteries by the automotive industry, and the UK would risk losing much of its automotive industry to overseas. In our evidence sessions, many witnesses felt that the UK faced serious challenges from our competitors, and that we were behind them not only in the manufacture of batteries but in innovations, supply chains and skills.
I recognise that the UK now has a critical minerals strategy to fill the gap in supply chains—a positive step—but no clear implementation plan, without which the UK will again miss out to competition for securing much sought-after minerals.
We were astonished by the stark disconnect between the optimism of Ministers and officials and the evidence from our many witnesses that the UK will be unable to maintain its automotive industry. The two immediate deadlines, of 2027, when the rules of origin agreement will require batteries and 55% of components to be manufactured in the UK or the EU, and 2030, when production of all petrol and diesel cars and vans will cease, are unlikely to be met. Without scaling up the domestic manufacture of batteries and urgently focusing on improving the supply chain of materials, the UK will end up importing batteries and vehicles.
A recent report in the media summarised well the current state of battery manufacturing in the UK and the future of the automotive industry. Recent events have put an end to the UK’s ambition to be a global hub of the electrified automotive industry. BMW has announced the end of production of its electric Mini in Cowley, which it is moving to China. Johnson Matthey, a leader in the development of battery technology in Britain, has quit the sector, citing competition from China and South Korea as a reason. Arrival, once a promising enterprise for the manufacture of electric vans and buses in the UK, is rumoured to be moving to the USA.
When it comes to battery manufacture, Britishvolt, once highly trumpeted as the UK’s big gigafactory, is now reported to be in serious difficulty and is possibly facing insolvency. Another such enterprise at Coventry airport has hardly got off the ground. This leaves the UK with one gigafactory, so it seems we have lost out on the international race to manufacture lithium-ion batteries.
The UK still needs the capacity to supply its domestic market, so I ask the Minister: what plans do the Government have to attract investment in building gigafactories for the production of batteries in the UK? How many will there be, and what is the timescale for when such facilities will be up and running? Does he think the UK can still meet its commitment to phase out petrol and diesel cars by 2030?
Although we may have lost the race to be the global hub of lithium-ion batteries, the UK could be a leader in the development of the next generation of batteries, such as solid-state, lithium-sulphur and sodium-ion technologies. To exploit the competitive advantage that we currently hold, the Government need to show strong support for both research and manufacturing. As yet, there is no sign of the Government doing so. I ask the Minister: do the Government intend to provide a UK strategy for the manufacture of the next generation of electric batteries in the UK, and to increase support for the research and development of such technologies?
We need to grow our innovators, yet this is also threatened. For example, the Faraday Institution, which received flat funding until 2025, will not be able to recruit PhD students in 2023, as funding cannot be guaranteed beyond 2025. How are we to grow the next generation of innovators if we cannot recruit them because of lack of funding?
The Government can still meet their ambition to be a global hub of battery production by demonstrating a strong commitment to the research and manufacture of the next generation of batteries, and not risk losing our automotive industry.
I shall now move on. Our report also reported on the production of hydrogen. Soon after the publication of our report, which asked for a clear policy on hydrogen and fuel cells, the Government published their hydrogen strategy in August 2021. It stated the Government’s ambition to deliver blue hydrogen generation capacity of 5 gigawatts by 2030 and the first 1 gigawatt by 2024. More recently, the Government have increased this by committing to increase the capacity of hydrogen generation to 10 gigawatts by 2030. Will the Minister say how and where this is to be achieved, and in what timescale?
The UK’s current capacity for hydrogen production is way short of the Government’s ambition. None of the strategy refers to the development and production of fuel cells, a technology where UK excels, with several UK companies operating overseas but not in the UK.
There is a lack of clarity about the Government’s plans for the use of hydrogen for light and heavy goods vehicles, the development of infrastructure for the supply of hydrogen, and the use of hydrogen and fuel cells for domestic heating, and in the not too distant future there will be a need for a joined-up strategy on the use of hydrogen, ammonia and aviation fuels. When will the Government make these decisions and will there be a paper describing them?
The Government also need to address public concerns about the safety of batteries and hydrogen fuel cells and the regulatory changes needed to address this. What plans do the Government have to address these issues?
I have no doubt that other noble Lords will speak to many other issues that our report identified, including the need to expand vehicle charging points, address the skills gap and increase research funding for batteries and fuel cells.
If the Government are to deliver on their net-zero commitments, these issues need urgent attention. I will be surprised if someone does not ask about the implications of net-zero policies, given the current energy crisis and rising costs. The view of the committee was clear about the role that batteries and hydrogen fuel cells can play in delivering net-zero policies. The evidence presented to us was also clear that the Government need to do much more. All the evidence suggests that the Government have big ambitions and are doing something, but not enough. We need more action and commitment from government to give confidence to industry, investors and our research community. The Government’s ambition needs to be matched by their action. I beg to move.
Lord Lilley (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and his committee on producing a powerful report, which I hope will send an electric shock through the Government and the industry about the need for urgency if we are to move in the direction that they wish and have a sustainable automotive industry in this country with the necessary battery production.
I want to focus on a precondition of that, which is that we have access to sufficient reserves and resources of minerals to produce the batteries if we have the capacity to do so. I draw attention to two documents which highlight this very powerfully. The first is The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions, produced by the International Energy Authority about a year ago, which paints a fairly disturbing picture of potential shortages of these minerals. It states:
“EVs and battery storage have already displaced consumer electronics to become the largest consumer of lithium and are set to take over from stainless steel as the largest end user of nickel by 2040.”
It predicts that lithium demand will grow 40-fold by 2040, even in the IEA’s more moderate sustainable development scenario. That is followed by graphite, where demand will go up 25-fold, cobalt which will go up 21-fold, nickel which will go up 19-fold and rare earths which will go up sevenfold. In less than two years since January 2021, the price of lithium carbonate has risen more than 13-fold, so the shortage is already demonstrating itself.
The IEA states that the expected supply from existing mines and projects under construction is estimated to meet only half of projected world demand for lithium and cobalt by 2030, and its analysis suggests that on average it takes 16 years from the start of a mining project through to first production, so the scope for ramping up production is much less than one might hope—or so it would appear.
The other source I refer to is a report produced for the Finnish geology institute by Professor Michaux. Those of your Lordships who got up at 6.30 am on Friday to listen to his presentation—750 people did, I am told, although I was too late and had to see it on playback—would have been struck by the analysis that he has produced: to make one battery for each vehicle in the global transport fleet, once we transition to electric vehicles, will require 48% of total global nickel reserves and 44% of total global lithium reserves. He concludes, to cut a long story short, that the whole EV battery solution may need to be rethought and a new solution developed that is not so mineral-intensive.
I hope that he is too pessimistic; I am an optimist where resources are concerned. I recall that famous wager between Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich, in the wake of the Club of Rome and Paul Ehrlich’s book The Population Bomb, in which he forecast that there would be shortages of everything. Julian Simon took him on and said, “Choose a portfolio of minerals or other resources and a period of your own choosing, and I bet you that the price will come down and not go up”. Ehrlich chose five minerals and a period of 10 years. Ten years later, the average of those prices had fallen: three had fallen in absolute terms and all had fallen in real terms.
So the market is quite good at responding to shortages and can develop things, but doing so will be a huge problem if the world is going to move as fast as it is planning—and hoping—to move in the development of electric vehicles in particular and other uses of batteries that are associated with the move to net zero by 2050. I hope that the committee’s recommendations will be followed with greater urgency than the Government and industry seem to have shown so far. I hope too that we will pay attention to the need to develop the sources of minerals and raw materials that will be necessary to make it a reality.
Viscount Hanworth (Lab)
In one sense, there is very little that needs to be said about the conclusions of the report of the Science and Technology Committee regarding the future of the industries in the UK that are pursuing the technologies of batteries and fuel cells. The report declares in its title that the strategy to support these industries has gone flat. The effort to support the emerging technologies has barely got off the ground, and the forewarning contained in the report has since been realised.
During the writing of the report, it was learned that Johnson Matthey has abandoned its project to supply materials to the emerging UK industry aimed at providing the lithium-ion batteries to power the next generation of UK manufactured vehicles. The firm was well established by middle of the 19th century as a dealer in bullion and rare metals. More recently, it has wished to be in the forefront as a provider of the special metals, including lithium, nickel and cobalt, that are essential to the industry. The chief executive of Johnson Matthey stated that the decision to exit the battery materials business was due to
“insufficient returns, increased commoditisation of battery materials”
and
“the need for very high capital investments to remain competitive.”
In fact, the company was short of the funds that needed to be invested in what is liable to become a highly profitable enterprise.
The sale of the assets of Johnson Matthey was mainly to EVM, which is a large European consortium. The sale included the battery technology centre in Oxford and the battery technology centre and pilot plant in Billingham. The assets relinquished also included a research centre in Moosburg, Germany, and a partly constructed site in Konin, Poland. The company’s lithium-ion phosphate battery facility in Canada was acquired by Nano One, which is a large North American consortium and technology innovator in battery materials.
Recently, we have learned that BMW, which owns the production facilities of the UK Mini, has decided to relocate the production of the electric Mini to China. We have also heard that one of the much-vaunted UK gigafactories intended to produce the car batteries—Britishvolt—has gone into receivership. The combination of these announcements is devastating. As regards the decision of BMW to relocate to China, we can assume that the firm has made its decision in view of a clear-sighted negative appraisal of the prospect of there being an adequate supply of automotive lithium-ion batteries sufficiently close at hand to justify its continued presence in the UK as a manufacturer of electric vehicles.
It has become evident that car manufacturers require their supply chain for batteries to be close at hand. One obvious reason for this is the cost of moving such heavy items from a remote manufacturer to the assembly lines of the cars. A more cogent reason is the likelihood that a heightened demand for batteries in future will be met with a dearth of supply. In such circumstances, a car manufacturer needs to be in a position to pre-empt the necessary supply. To do so, it must be located close to the source.
What would have convinced the departing car manufacturer that it should remain in the UK? Surely it is none other than confidence that support for the developing manufacturing infrastructure will be forth- coming from the Government. This is where the attitude of the UK Government has been most discouraging. The Conservative Government are wedded to the idea that free enterprise flourishes best when there is minimal intervention from the Government. Under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, the Government divested the state of its nationalised industries. These had been a legacy of the Second World War and the immediate post-war years, when the Labour Government had begun to take control of the commanding heights of the economy.
An assurance that private industry could be relied on to invest sufficiently in the basic infrastructure of the economy seems to have been provided by the experience of the privatisation of the electricity supply industry. Cheap combined-cycle gas turbine plants, powered by plentiful North Sea gas, began rapidly to replace the ageing coal-fired power stations of the erstwhile nationalised industry. The illusion was created that it is sufficient for the Government to undertake to supplement marginally the capital funds that private industry can raise from the financial markets. This is how the Government have proposed to support the building of factories to manufacture automotive batteries.
The support that the Government have offered Britishvolt is paltry. In January, they pledged a mere £100 million in support as a means of attracting investors. This is a small sum in comparison with the £1.7 billion that is reported to have been raised from private investors. The future of the enterprise was thrown into doubt over fears that it could run out of money, when the Government rejected a request for £30 million in advance funding. The matter is still unresolved, and the episode will serve as a future deterrent to investors in projects that require the support of the Government.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy continues to say that the Government are
“determined to ensure the UK remains one of the best locations in the world for automotive manufacturing as we transition to electric vehicles, while ensuring taxpayer money is used responsibly and provides best-value”.
This kind of boosterism is seen to be pure fantasy when one looks at the commitments of other countries to the future of battery technology. China has 20 battery gigafactories that are either operating or under construction, which have been sponsored by the state. Britain currently has only one sizeable factory that manufactures automotive batteries, which is a plant in Sunderland that is tied to the Nissan car factory. Nissan had planned to leave the UK in consequence of Brexit but, presumably, the tie to its battery producer was too strong to allow this to happen. Pathologies such as those affecting the automotive industry are pervading the British economy, and the fault lies largely with the incumbent Government.
Modern battery technology is closely allied to fuel cell technology. Fuel cells are proposed as a means of propulsion for the freight vehicles that are to replace the large diesel-powered juggernauts that pound our roads. They are also proposed for powering trains and ships. Fuel cells have received even less support from the Government than batteries.
Fuel cells are powered by hydrogen fuel, which is created, nowadays, mainly via the steam reformation of methane. This is an energy-intensive process that releases carbon dioxide. It needs to be replaced by a process of high-temperature electrolysis that splits the hydrogen molecules from the oxygen atoms with which they are combined in water.
The appropriate means of supplying the electricity and the heat for the process of high-temperature electrolysis is a small nuclear plant, dedicated to the task. However, Britain’s project to build small modular reactors, which has been undertaken by Rolls-Royce, has been subject to endless hesitation and delay as a consequence of the failure of the Government to provide adequate funding for the period of development, and the project remains in peril.
Our economic prospects are already dire, at least for the short and the medium term. Unless we can effect an industrial recovery, which would need to be sponsored by the Government, our long-term prospect is of an impoverished country that will be largely dependent on imported foreign technology. The majority of our capital assets, whether industrial or otherwise, will have fallen into the hands of foreign owners, through a process mediated by the financial sector, which will be the only remaining profitable enterprise.
Baroness Sheehan (LD)
My Lords, I start by commending the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for his skill in chairing the committee that put together this report. I am proud to say that I am a member of that committee. I also congratulate him on the way in which he introduced the debate, which leaves me with very little to say except that I agree with the remarks that he has already made.
It is a shame that it has taken over a year since the report was published for it to come before your Lordships’ House for debate. Batteries powered by zero-emission energy sources are on the front line of our battle against climate catastrophe, and this report concludes that the Government need to do much more to secure Britain’s place in the forefront of the battery revolution.
The bans on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030, hybrids by 2035 and heavy goods vehicles by 2040 were welcome announcements, given that emissions from the transport sector make up about one-fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions in the UK, and had shown themselves to be resistant to efforts to bring them down. However, ambition without action is pure hubris and doomed to failure. The committee’s conclusion that it could not identify a government plan for the rapid action needed to achieve the Government’s stated aims has not been disproven with the passage of time.
Since the report was published, there has been a revolution in the car industry. Changes have been hastened by the unpredictable events of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing chaos in the production and cost of fuel. The sales of new EVs in the UK have increased enormously. In the half-year to June 2022, pure-battery electric vehicles enjoyed the biggest growth in any fuel type, with 56% more registrations—and that was in the context of an overall market that shrank by nearly 12%. Furthermore, despite the worldwide semi- conductor shortage and Covid lockdowns in China, global sales of EVs rose 61% in quarter 2 of this year.
Our car manufacturers are first class, but the sharp increase in sales of EVs is steeper than predicted. Can they meet the numerous challenges? For example, we will need a secure supply of critical resource materials— the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, spoke at length about those—chief among them lithium and cobalt. So the Government’s publication, finally, of the 2022 critical minerals strategy is welcome. Some might say it is too little, too late, but it is here now. However, it lacks any statement of where we might find some resilience in the supply of these critical minerals. These supply chains are always risky and fragile and are currently disrupted due to the war in Ukraine, Brexit, Covid-19, and other conflicts in producer regions. So the Government miss a trick when they fail, yet again, to address demand reduction to increase resilience.
According to research by Greener UK—and I thank it for its briefing—reducing demand for electricity in our homes by heat pumps, and on our roads by improving public transport infrastructure, are two examples that could halve the UK’s total future use of critical resources by 2030, compared with the current trajectory. This is a no-brainer, so why are the Government still resistant to action on reducing demand for electricity?
Secondly, I urge the Government, through the Minister, to address recommendation 30 in the report that the Government should set out clear plans for developing industrial-scale recycling of batteries in the UK, including ecodesign rules to make them easier to disassemble. It is another oversight of the critical materials strategy in that it fails to expedite a circular economy and create a market for safer, cheaper and more secure supply chains of recycled materials for battery manufacture. The EU has already introduced rules, and it is time that we tried at least to match them.
We have an excellent car manufacturing industry, but the report concludes that we risk losing it to our European competitors if we cannot meet the deadline of 2027, by when the rules of origin conditions for sale of vehicles to the EU will kick in. This will require the battery in EVs to be wholly made in the UK or EU, and 55% of the rest of the car to be made in the UK or EU, for tariff-free access to the EU. At our current trajectory of battery manufacturing capacity, we will lose production to the EU or other competitors abroad. In October, BMW announced that its hatchback and small SUV electric Minis will start being built in China. Its electric Countryman model will be built in Leipzig, Germany. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, has cited several other examples. This, I fear, is a sign of things to come.
Can the Minister say what urgent steps the Government are taking to meet the 2027 deadline agreed in the TCA? It might be too late for some of our car manufacturers, but it might protect others. In his response, can he reference the situation at Britishvolt and bring us up to date with the Government’s views on its future viability?
In 2017, the then Business Secretary, Greg Clark, announced the launch of the £246 million Faraday Challenge to establish the UK as world leader in battery technology. It was a start, but since then there has been little follow-through. Investor and industry confidence has been further damaged by the abolition of the Industrial Strategy Council.
In conclusion, I refer to recommendation 31 of the report, that the
“Government should explain to industry what will replace the industrial strategy”—
something that is sorely needed if we are to stay at the forefront of next-generation batteries and realise a successful future for our fuel cell manufacturers.
Lord Naseby (Con)
My Lords, I wholeheartedly welcome this report from the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and his committee. It is absolutely timely. While it focuses primarily on vehicles, I would like to look at the broader scene a little bit. However, before doing so, I declare an interest in that I have a modest equity holding in a couple of stocks that are quoted on the London Stock Exchange. They are hydrogen companies.
I start with the report from Goldman Sachs, which appeared in the Financial Times either last Saturday or the one before, in which it highlighted the fact that the US and Europe can cut their dependence on China for electric vehicle batteries through more than $160 billion in new capital expenditure by 2030. It pointed out that China today produces three-quarters of the world’s batteries and dominates production of their materials and components, citing the fact that in the USA
“South Korean conglomerates LG and SK, who have been attracted by massive subsidies from US taxpayers”,
are forecast to achieve from 11% to 55% of that market in a three-year period. The question arises, if the US can do it, why on earth are we not parallel with the US? Clearly, we are not—we are clearly behind the curve.
Rather than repeating what the committee has said, I thought that it would be more helpful to look at a case history with which I was involved, to some degree, when I was on the Select Committee on energy in the other place: the change from coal gas to North Sea gas. That was a massive change, with 40 million households converting to North Sea gas, involving at least 30,000 men and women to do all the work over a period of time. That was a huge achievement, and it was done well—partially because there was a workforce there to do it. It seems that one of the key elements that is not quoted in this report is the involvement of our unions today. Two unions stood out at that time: the GMB and UNISON. If you talk to them today, as I did a few days ago, you will find that they worried stiff about the necessary labour force. Only 12% of the relevant labour force is under 30, yet we should look at the situation with BT, which is laying off its older workforce. So one of the challenges that His Majesty’s Government need to look at is the workforce. That means looking at every level in that area, including our universities, technical colleges and apprenticeships. It may be happening—I do not know—but I would welcome hearing from my noble friend the Minister that the Government are aware of that challenge.
Of course, that particular challenge is not just domestic because, in terms of hydrogen being inserted into existing natural gas, probably at a 20% level, gas is firing our factories up and down the country—so that, again, is another massive challenge. So I ask my noble friend on the Front Bench for reassurance that he recognises that, while the vehicle market is absolutely vital, there are industries alongside that which will produce the goods and facilitate the conversion of our boilers up and down the country from the existing pure natural gas to some combination of natural gas and hydrogen.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, I am no technical or scientific expert in this field, but I did read the report of this committee as soon as it came out, and I found it a very good exposition of the failure of government to work effectively with the research sector and business to develop in Britain the native industries of the future. That is one of my main political concerns.
The second paragraph of the report points out the problem we have here; it says that
“we were astonished by the stark disconnect between the optimism of Ministers and officials that the UK could retain its position in the automotive sector, and the concerns of our other witnesses that the UK is far behind its competitors and faces significant challenges”.
I wonder whether the Minister agrees with that conclusion and, if not, whether he will explain to us why he does not agree with it. This was said 17 months ago, when the report was published, but the situation has become even more desperate in that time. I did a bit of newspaper research with the help of the Library on how things are going. I note, for instance, that this year the
“UK production of cars has tumbled from 1.7 million per year to just 866,000”.
This is in what used to be one of our most successful industries.
I think that the noble Lord, Lord Patel, referred to the same newspaper article that I read in the Times about a week ago. I want to emphasise it again because I would like an answer from the Minister as to whether he agrees that this represents the situation:
“Recent months have been a slow-motion car crash for the nation’s pretensions to become what successive prime ministers have promised would become a ‘global hub’ of the electrified automotive industry.”
We have the examples of BMW and Johnson Matthey, and the fact that Britishvolt is near bankruptcy. Where is there any positive news, other than, incidentally, news of the Chinese-owned battery company that is getting ready to manufacture alongside Nissan in Sunderland, which I welcome and do not see any particular problem with?
When you look at what is happening in Britain by comparison with overseas, it is a worrying situation. The Faraday Institution, which noble Lords have referred to, counts 41 projects in western Europe that are under way. Only three of them are in the UK and the only one that is going well is the one that I referred to: the Chinese company operating beside Nissan. We are in a weak position. Germany has 12 gigafactories opened or planned, while Hungary, France and Italy are making strong preparations. We are losing the Mini from Oxford.
Something has to be done and I would like to know what the Government are planning to do about this crisis. Do they recognise that there is a crisis, because there is? When Greg Clark was Secretary of State, we had a certain consistency and coherence in our approach to industry for the years of Mrs May’s premiership. In the last three years, we have had five different Secretaries of State for Business: Andrea Leadsom, Alok Sharma, Kwasi Kwarteng, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Grant Shapps.
What sort of chaos have these changes produced? What grip do Ministers have on what is going on in the department? What leadership are they offering in this field to try to rescue us from impending disaster? That is the question that I want the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, to answer at the end of the debate. I do not think that they have done very much, because they do not have an ideological approach that is about working closely with businesses to develop new growth opportunities and new businesses of the future.
This was not the approach that Mrs Thatcher adopted in the 1980s when she led the renaissance of the British car industry. She saw the opportunities of the single market and the opportunity to bring overseas companies into Britain to re-establish this great industry. We are in danger of losing all that now. It is not that the Government have not had some successes—I would give them high marks for the Vaccine Taskforce and how it worked—but what is the barrier to Ministers rolling up their sleeves, getting on the telephone and trying to sort out the mess that this report has detailed? If the Minister can answer that question, I will be very happy.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, I first declare my interest as a director of and shareholder in Aldustria Ltd, a battery storage company, and a trustee of Regen, a renewable energy trade association—I think that that is the best way to describe it. Like many other noble Lords here, I very much welcome the report and congratulate the committee and its chair on it.
One thing that always seems to be forgotten outside this area is the timebomb in the trade and co-operation agreement that is around the 2007 rules of origin and when the percentages come into force. There are different ones for cars, cells and assembled batteries and they are a real challenge to that industry.
Soon after the EU referendum, one substantial vehicle manufacturer in the west of England, Honda, at Swindon, was straight on to me, and I am sure to other Members who were interested in the west of England economy, and said, “If something isn’t sorted out on rules of origin, the automotive industry in this country is going to be dead”. And, of course, Honda has gone; it is no longer there, which is a huge blow to the economy of Swindon. It decided to get out while the going was good.
I am not going to go on hugely about vehicles, because that is what other Members have already done, but the point has come over strongly, in the report and in the Faraday Institution’s work, that at the end of the day it is not just around tariffs—we export around 80% of our car manufacturing and 50% of that goes to the EU—but location. In electric vehicles, batteries are the most substantial accessory or part of the vehicle—quite obviously. There is a huge benefit in terms of colocation between the rest of the manufacture and assembly of automobiles and the gigafactory being close by. If we do not have those gigafactories, almost whatever the tariffs are, those manufacturing centres will disappear out of our area.
I want to move on to something that my noble friend Lady Sheehan has mentioned. It comes also from what the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, referred to. It is around resources and the circular economy. If there is one challenge in this area that is being overlooked, although the committee did look at this area, it is the reuse of scarce resources and rare earths that are used in a lot of electronic goods, in automobiles and in batteries. The stranglehold is largely in China and some other economies as well. We need to make sure that we have a circular economy ability to recycle batteries. On the whole they can be refurbished fairly easily. Often when they are at the end of their life, only one or two cells have gone, which can be replaced. Also, they can then be used for other purposes and have a second life. That industry, I believe, is one area where we could get well ahead. Europe is already on its way, but I believe that it is important for both our resource security and for having a viable industry in this area that we are good on the circular economy as well.
In my last comments, I will come to a completely different sector, which is stationary batteries and those that are to be used in grid balancing. It is chaotic at the moment. One of the big things that it is almost impossible to do if you are a developer is to get access to the grid. It is not just around battery storage but around housing developments—even in west London—and around renewables, solar and offshore wind coming into the UK grid system. To quote a current example, a connection in the south-west given by the local transmission network, Western Power Distribution, is for 2038: that is where the queue has got to. There is no way under Ofgem rules at the moment of undoing that queueing mechanism and getting the right priorities for the right place.
If we want to get to a net-zero electricity and energy system, we need batteries to be a part of that. In fact, if energy storage is seen as a solution to the grid and not a problem—not an extra load—we can in fact move a lot quicker towards net zero and a resilient grid system. This is a serious problem at the moment. The figures I looked up say that 25 gigawatts of battery storage is needed to get to net zero—if they are four-hour batteries, that is roughly about 100 gigawatt hours, obviously. As I say, the connection wait times are now out to something like 2038.
Now this is a sector that does not require any public money at all; it is completely mercantile. But it is unable to bring forward that balancing, and through balancing bring down the cost of energy into the future. So I would be very interested to hear from the Minister what the likelihood is of us solving that. There are various studies going on at the moment, but they are slow and there is not really much light at the end of the tunnel. Frankly, what we need in terms of the national grid is anticipatory investment, not the reactive investment that we have at the moment.
I have a last question for the Minister. In terms of battery storage, there were amendments to change battery storage from being defined as an energy generator in the Energy Bill. I know that he will not say when the Energy Bill will come back to this House, but can he say when there might be a decision as to when the Bill might come back to this House?
Lord Mitchell (Lab)
My Lords, despite the ravages of Covid and the requirement for much of this report to be compiled remotely, the noble Lord, Lord Patel, has done a masterly job in leading us to produce this crucial study. We must thank him for it. We must also thank the team who helped us in crafting this high-quality document, again under the difficult conditions of lock- down. Together we present to your Lordships’ House a report of great depth, which contains strong recommendations. Such a pity, therefore, that the Government have given us such short shrift.
This report was presented to your Lordships’ House in July 2021. In September of that year, we received the Government’s response—a document I can best describe as “thin”. If noble Lords can believe it, the narrative of our report talks about our hopes for COP 26 in Glasgow. Since then, COP 26 has been and gone—and so too has COP 27 in Egypt. Can somebody please explain to me why, as we approach 2023, we are only now debating this report for the very first time? Procrastination does not make for good policy.
Certain themes come from the report that are screaming for government focus. The first is the plea for long-term commitment. Scientists and industry need strong direction. Industry, contemplating massive long-term investments, needs to know the ground rules, and to know that the rules will not change. Individuals looking to their careers, whether as academics or scientists, need to know that the rug is not going to be pulled from under their feet. Sadly, this is not the case. It all feels uncertain and unpredictable.
Another feature that we saw when we were taking evidence, and which has been mentioned today, was the contrast in attitude between Ministers and officials compared with those at the coal face. Ministers were gung-ho about our country’s advances in battery technology; scientists and industrialists were much more cautious. My money is with the experts. Even now, I kick myself for not asking every witness just one question. I should have asked: “Do you believe that net zero by 2050 is going to happen?” Sadly, I asked it only twice. Ministers agreed, of course; those who knew lowered their eyes.
Electric vehicles are not pie in the sky; we see them all around us. Tesla’s market cap exceeds that of every other automobile producer. The Government have set a directive that no petrol or diesel cars will be sold beyond 2029. I think that that is a very positive goal, but the Government need to do their part to ensure that it happens.
All of us know of the panic that we get into when our mobile phones are just about to run out of battery. Electric vehicles evoke an enhanced panic of being stranded. Charging points are key to dispelling vehicle panic. It is forecast that we will need 325,000 charging points by 2032. Can the Minister say whether we are on track to hit that target? I would also like to know what the Government’s plans are for encouraging hydrogen charging points. Few charging points lead to reduced take-up—it is as simple as that.
I turn to the geostrategic challenges posed by battery and fuel cell technology and development. This year we have seen all too clearly our vulnerability to energy blackmail. We simply cannot allow any hostile country to hold us to ransom again. China produces 75% of the world’s batteries. It plans to have 149 gigafactories by 2030. The EU has 19, the US 11 and we have two. It makes us very exposed, and it is a clear demonstration of how China plans to dominate automotive production and electricity storage. As the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, mentioned, according to an upbeat report by Goldman Sachs featured in the FT this week, the US and Europe have the opportunity to become independent of China by 2030. It will require a capital expenditure of $160 billion. That may sound a lot but, it is less than the cost of HS2.
The recent US Inflation Reduction Act is showering vast amounts of money in the US by way of subsidies and tax credits on renewable energy and electric vehicles. As has been mentioned, a South Korean firm has invested $3 billion in a cathode factory in Tennessee. I agree that we need our own equivalent of the IRA in terms of long-term financial commitment, otherwise we will just shuffle along.
As has been mentioned, Britishvolt is a prime example of a tepid government response. Launched with such fanfare only three years ago, it is now on life support in the battery ICU ward. Can the Minister say whether the Government are committed to support Britishvolt at this crucial moment? If they are not, they should be.
Success in modern technologies comes not from slogans and bluster but from hard-nosed, long-term commitment. The successful quest for the Covid-19 vaccine showed that in sharp relief. The title of our report begs two questions. Has our battery strategy gone flat? Is the net-zero target at risk? I think the answers are yes and no. Will the Minister please tell me that I am wrong?
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, I start by congratulating the committee on its report, which is brutally clear in its conclusions. I have been fascinated by this debate. I have sat in many Grand Committee debates here but I have never come across one that has aroused such strong views across the Room.
The first sentence of this report says it all:
“The UK’s current trajectory of battery manufacture is insufficient to support the automotive industry’s transition to electric vehicles or to meet our net-zero commitment.”
The committee goes on to say—the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, has already quoted this—that it was astonished at the stark contrast between the optimism of Ministers and the concerns of the experts who came to give evidence.
These conclusions stand even more clearly a year on from the writing of the report. This Government—we are of course three Prime Ministers on from when it was produced, but they are still the same Government—never cease to disappoint. Their ambitions sound good, if rather vague, their rhetoric is florid and fanciful and their practical support for business and industry fails at every step. Only last week, the Chancellor’s answer to perceived misuse of some R&D tax credits was to cut them in half, rather than deal with the problem of fraud and tighten up procedures.
For seven years, I have been arguing for a more proactive approach from the Government to battery technology and the availability of EV charging to ensure what this report calls “charging for all”. I have been very frustrated by the lack of progress. We do not even yet have the simplicity of a proper, straightforward payment system. The Government’s response to this report is disturbingly vague and avoids many of the precise questions the report posed. They continue to fall into the trap of being unrealistically upbeat.
The SMMT—the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders—is clear that the UK must expand its domestic battery production to retain domestic auto manufacturing in the long term. It estimates that the UK needs at least eight gigafactories by 2040, with approximately 120-gigawatt capacity. Currently there is a capacity of only 2 to 2.5 gigawatts, and only two companies: Envision and the proposed Britishvolt factory. Together, if they fulfil their ambitions, those two might produce 40 gigawatts by 2030—but 120 are needed.
If that were to be achieved, the prizes would be great. EV transition alone will be worth £12 billion to the economy in terms of batteries for the UK supply chain. The EV market is developing rapidly; there were 53,000 UK-manufactured vehicles this year, almost 80% of which were exported. One-quarter of all our vehicle exports are EVs. However, we face huge challenges. Rules of origin under the TCA will apply from 2027, but some related issues apply from 2024 and will make life very difficult for the industry.
We also need a major reskilling of the workforce and training of new workers. The recent Budget produced nothing for further education. We need a national skills strategy; for example, we need about 10,000 qualified workers to manufacture battery cells, but we have almost no such qualified workers at the moment. The report points out that government support, for example via the Faraday battery challenge, has been lower and of shorter duration than that of our competitors. The Faraday Institution receives £30 million per annum, compared with the European Commission’s €3.2 billion aimed at seven member states up to 2031. That is £270 million per annum for 10 years. In France, there is an investment of €960 million and in Germany an investment of €1.25 billion. They dwarf the UK in their ambition and commitment.
The truth is that, by leaving the EU, we have cut ourselves off from the benefits of scale in research and development. The Government now face a stark choice. They need either to massively up the scale of their commitment to R&D to greatly outspend our competitors or to tone down their rhetoric and modify their ambitions. They might even consider a Swiss-style trade agreement.
Lord Krebs (CB)
My Lords, one advantage of coming near the end of the list is that many of the things one was going to say have already been said by others, and I can summarise by saying “I agree”. However, I start by thanking our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for his excellent chairmanship of the committee and reiterate the thanks to our specialist adviser Professor Clare Grey for her advice and guidance.
We were told in our inquiry that the availability of raw materials is one of the main limiting factors for battery manufacture, and the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, has given such an articulate and comprehensive summary of the situation that I do not need to say anything more about it, other than to take just one example from the FT on Monday, an article about graphite, a crystalline form of carbon. Every EV contains 25 kilos of graphite —so quite a lot of it. Demand is predicted to rise threefold in the next four years. The price of graphite has gone up by one-third in the past year, 65% of the world’s graphite is currently mined in China and 85% of the graphite is processed in China, which speaks to the point mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, about dependence on certain countries for supplies.
I want to focus on another aspect of the supply chain, which is the fact that the raw materials often come from countries with poor human rights records and poor environmental standards, so when you step into your EV and drive off, do you think about the fact that the cobalt in the battery may have been mined using child labour in the DRC? Do you think that most of the raw materials in your battery might have contributed to serious pollution of the environment as well as damage to human health? For instance, we were told that in South America the extraction of lithium from brine uses large volumes of water and can lead to contamination of both the aquatic and terrestrial environments.
As has already been mentioned, against this background, we made two recommendations. We asked the Government to produce a critical raw materials strategy in order to plan for future supply issues, and we also asked the Government to set out plans for industrial-scale recycling and to require manufacturers to conduct a full life cycle analysis of the environmental and social impacts of batteries.
As the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and other noble Lords have mentioned, we now have a critical raw materials strategy, but I am told that it is a high-level document without a detailed road map for implementation. Equally, the critical minerals intelligence centre established under the strategy at the British Geological Survey has, I am told by scientists from the BGS, no clear remit, so will the Minister tell us when the road map will be published and when the purpose of the intelligence centre will be defined?
I now turn to recycling, which has already been mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. Northvolt, the Swedish battery maker, has said that by 2030 it will have developed three gigafactories with a combined annual output to power more than 2 million electric vehicles and that these factories will obtain half their raw materials from recycling. Will the Minister update us on the UK’s level of ambition for recycling? Does it match that of Northvolt? The Government’s response on this was extremely vague, with reference to an inter- disciplinary circular economy centre funded by UKRI, but no specific targets or dates for recycling.
We also asked the Government to introduce incentives and regulations to speed the transition to more sustainable manufacturing. The European Union proposes to introduce legislation on recycled material in batteries by 2030 and for all batteries sold in EVs in the EU to declare their carbon footprint by 2024. Therefore, I ask the Minister whether the UK intends to use its Brexit freedom to go further and faster than the EU, or use it to lag behind—or are we intending to follow the EU’s requirements?
As many other speakers have said, EVs are undoubtedly crucial for our trajectory towards net zero, but they come with costs as well as benefits—and I have referred to the social and environmental impacts of sourcing the raw materials. I now want to refer briefly to another kind of cost. EVs are typically about 30% heavier than their petrol or diesel equivalents. Furthermore, the most popular models of EV in the UK are nearly all SUVs. The result of this is that our city streets are becoming increasingly populated by large, heavy vehicles. Can the Minister tell us what assessments the Government have made of the consequences of this for, first, damage to road surfaces, especially in urban areas and, secondly, the safety of other drivers, pedestrians and cyclists? Furthermore, as a result of these assessments, are the Government considering following jurisdictions in the US such as Iowa and New York, and countries such as France, all of which have introduced, or are planning to introduce, an extra tariff for vehicles above a certain weight?
In asking these questions, I declare an interest as a daily cyclist in Oxford, where the combination of potholes and tank-like SUVs on the narrow streets presents a serious hazard to those of us who chose a transport method with an even lower environmental footprint than electric vehicles. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, as a member of the committee, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for his excellent chairing of our inquiry and his introduction today. I also thank all the committee staff and advisers, who have done such a good job. We heard from a very wide range of experts, to whom I am also grateful.
The subject that we chose could hardly be more apt for this week, as COP 27 comes to an end, since batteries and fuel cells should play such a crucial role in our ability to mitigate climate change and reach net zero. I am pleased to note that, since the report was published, the Government have met a number of our recommendations, committing to phase out non-zero emitting HGVs by 2040 and publishing the hydrogen and critical minerals strategies, about which more later. However, our witnesses suggested that the Government have a long way to go if they are to realise the potential of the UK’s role in the production and use of batteries and fuel cells.
As the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, pointed out, even the media have noticed that, unfortunately, we have already lost the race to become a global leader in the production of lithium-ion batteries. As the noble Lord, Lord Patel, warned, this provides a serious danger to our UK automotive industry. If we are even to reach our not very ambitious targets for EV cars and vans on our roads, it will have to be done by importing batteries and complete vehicles, and we can be held to ransom by China. The rules of origin laws coming in in 2027 will also mean higher costs and loss of markets, unless we can increase our own production. My noble friend Lord Teverson called it a timebomb, and he was right.
The Government have stated an ambition to build eight gigafactories to manufacture batteries by 2030, but we have only one, and Britishvolt is struggling to obtain its investment in its proposed factory in the north-east. Is that because investors are unsure of the Government’s support and commitment in the long term? I suspect so. Can the Minister reassure us?
As our witnesses told us, there is an opportunity to take a lead on next generation alternative battery technologies, such as solid-state, lithium-sulphur, sodium-ion, et cetera. Focus and funding of research and development of those new technologies is crucial. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Patel, mentioned, the funding of the Faraday Institution is guaranteed for only two years and has no allowance for inflation for that time, meaning a real-terms cut. That means that there will be no PhD cohort starting in October 2023 or 2024. Will the Minister please look at this?
In addition, there is no significant funding in the Faraday Institution project for redox flow batteries needed for static batteries for power storage. As my noble friend Lord Teverson said, this will be essential as the demand for power, for recharging and other things, increases. Will the Minister talk to UKRI about this issue? The Faraday Institution has also brought together a consortium of seven partners to develop a world-leading prototype solid-state battery, but at least two of the partners have either taken themselves abroad, as is the case with Johnson Matthey, or are struggling to fund their battery factory—the case with Britishvolt. So how will this affect the objectives of that consortium? Badly, I suspect.
To encourage uptake of EVs in the domestic market, we need to look at the factors that deter purchasers and fleet owners: cost, range and the charging network. On cost, the Government have just removed the grant that was available to reduce the price premium, and last week they announced that EVs will have to pay vehicle excise duty from 2025. Indeed, some will have to pay a very high rate of VED, because they are expensive. What is the sense of this, if we are going to reach or exceed our targets? The range is gradually increasing as the work progresses on making lithium-ion batteries more efficient. But this will take time, which makes the motorway and major road charging network even more important. Having queued up many times to use the only working charger of two at a service station, I am painfully and personally aware of this, as is my noble friend Lady Randerson. Our committee recommended a vastly increased number of public charging facilities, since many people cannot charge at home. What are the Government doing to speed this up?
Something could be done right away, however, to encourage people without a home charger to get an EV: reducing the VAT on power downloaded from public chargers. This is at 20%, whereas people like me who are charging at home pay only 5%. Can the Minister do this right away? The cost of upgrading the power supply to serve workplace chargers is high, which will deter blocks of flats, workplaces, petrol stations, supermarkets, et cetera; will the Government increase the support for this?
Skilled workers have been mentioned by several speakers. To reach our targets, we need many thousands of skilled workers for the manufacture and maintenance of batteries, fuel cells, vehicles and the chargers and grid needed to service them. The Government have set out a number of industry training schemes, as my noble friend Lady Randerson noted, but there was no new funding announced in the Autumn Statement for the further education colleges that will be key to delivering them. Was that an oversight by the Chancellor?
As the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, pointed out, many of the essential materials needed for current batteries are not found in this country, and the new critical minerals strategy is important here. However, we hear from researchers that there is no pathway and that funding for delivering the strategy is minimal. Can the Minister assure us that there will be more funding coming down the track?
One way to ensure the pipeline of minerals and deliver a sustainable circular economy is through recycling, as my noble friend Lady Sheehan pointed out. The early batteries were difficult to recycle, but this can be made easier through recycling by design. Can this be made mandatory through regulation, at least for those made here? I think that there is one recycling facility for these materials in the UK; batteries are having to be shipped to France for the recovery of vital materials. I understand that the University of Exeter is working on the reuse of cobalt, lithium and rare-earth elements, but we need development and manufacturing facilities too. What are the Government doing about that? My noble friend Lord Teverson also talked about reuse for static batteries for grid balancing.
I make two final points. First, given that some renewal energies are intermittent, there will be a need—in addition to a smart grid, smart meters and so on—for the Government to ensure that energy providers offer variable tariffs to customers to incentivise behaviour change and spread demand across the day. What are Government doing about this?
As my noble friend Lord Teverson said, there is also the need for large-scale battery storage to even out our supply. They also have a role in ensuring that no precious captured energy from wind or solar is wasted. I have always thought it was a terrible waste to have to pay wind turbine operators to stop the blades turning when the wind is blowing, when grid demand does not match supply. Will the Government widen the remit of UKRI, the Faraday Institution and the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre to include static batteries?
I have not yet mentioned fuel cells and hydrogen but, to be very brief, they have an important role in heavy transport, marine and rail as well as space heating, such as in Japan. What are the Government doing to encourage more research on this? As regards reaching net zero, however, only green hydrogen produced by electrolysers has a serious role to play. What is really needed is a large-scale demonstration plant onshore, near to a major wind farm, to use the excess energy to produce green hydrogen. Can the Minister say whether there are any plans for this? We will also need hydrogen storage. Let us not make the same mistake as we did with gas, when the Government allowed the removal of the gas storage capacity, which has caused such a serious problem since Russia invaded Ukraine.
Our report calls on the Government to make many changes and to speed up our progress, particularly since transport is such a major contributor to our emissions. I look forward to the Minister’s positive reply.
Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)
My Lords, this has been an absolutely fascinating debate, I must confess. I have enjoyed listening to it. It has been fizzing with ideas and important points, and coming away from it I feel I have learned something. I do not think I have ever participated before in a deliberation on a Science and Technology Committee report, but clearly, I should do so more often.
I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Patel, on his brilliance in steering the committee in the way he did, ensuring that the report was as thorough and insightful as it was. As other noble Lords pointed out, the only shame is that the report has taken so long to come before us for debate this afternoon. As somebody pointed out, COP 26 and COP 27 have been and gone, and that time has passed and been lost.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, pointed out, the opening lines of the summary perfectly pinpoint the problem: if we do not alter the current course of UK manufacture to support the car industry’s transition to electric vehicles, we will not hit our net-zero targets. That is a pretty stark observation. As the report says:
“Despite recent announcements … the pace and scale of building these facilities will not meet demand”,
and, as a number of noble Lords explained, industry will simply uproot itself and move overseas.
The report was clear that the Government needed to establish a strategy for transport, hydrogen and wider decarbonisation. The committee argued that the Government should produce their promised hydrogen strategy as soon as possible. In fairness, they have now done that, but does it match the risks that the committee identified? I do not think so. It is the “stark disconnect” that my noble friend Lord Liddle drew attention to.
The committee also argued that the Government should support the development of UK battery industry supply chains and establish a strategy for securing access to the raw materials needed to make the batteries. The noble Lord, Lord Lilley, pointed very carefully and clearly to some of the problems we are encountering in the critical minerals strategy, which is another warning to the Government.
The committee also recommended that the Government should ensure that the automotive industry has access to a sufficiently skilled workforce to support the transition from mechanical to electrical technology. A number of Peers drew attention to that, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and the noble Lord, Lord Naseby. The problem here is that we are already far behind our European rivals. As has been said, we have one gigafactory in operation while Germany has five and a further four in construction. France and Italy are set to have twice the number of jobs in battery manufacturing that we are set to have. This simply is not good enough, and it means that our car industry will rapidly become unsustainable.
The committee recommended new research and innovation institutions for fuel cells. It described fuel cells as the Cinderella of UK energy policy, receiving less attention than they deserve, and surely that is right. In response, the Government mentioned the launch of the hydrogen for transport programme to support the development of fuel cell technology and said that they were providing backing through the fuel cell electric fleet scheme. However, these initiatives date back to 2017 and 2016 respectively, so will the Minister say what real progress has been made since?
The committee also called for work with Ofgem to ensure appropriate regulation and incentives are in place to facilitate the expansion of the electricity network. Specifically, the argument was made for the importance of developing smart systems for managing supply and demand. It also said that the Government and Ofgem need to supply the expansion of other more sophisticated services, such as smart tariffs and battery storage. Most importantly, the committee called for the expansion of the public charging network. The fact is that the vast majority of charging points are still located in London and the south-east. The committee wisely argued for the commitment to delivering 325,000 charge points by 2032, as recommended by the Government’s own independent advisory body, the Committee on Climate Change. In response, the Government said that they would deliver £1.3 billion in funding to support the rollout of charge points for homes and businesses and on-street charge points. In March 2022, Taking Charge, the policy document produced by the Government, stated that we would have 300,000 charge points by 2030, but that was rapidly undermined when in June this year the Government ended the support scheme then in place for supporting the electric vehicle grant that focused on charging. Surely this should be the moment where the Government are pulling out all the stops to transition to electric vehicles to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. This is a short-sighted decision that will simply put electric cars out of reach for many. Perhaps the Minister will enlighten us today about the number of charging points now in place and what sort of plan there is for each year to hit the latest target.
I compare this with the attitude of places such as Norway, where I went on holiday this summer. I hired an electric car and experienced no problems with recharge facilities. I was actually stuck for choice when recharging. That was on the Lofoten Islands, their equivalent of the Outer Hebrides. We need the Government to embrace the means and the technology.
The committee also urged the Government to decide whether to phase out the sale of new diesel heavy goods vehicles and recommended that the infrastructure is put in place to support this objective. In a far-sighted proposal, it said that the Government should
“provide a clear timeline for research and development of technologies”
necessary to support this transition, including batteries and fuel cells. Thus far, it seems that the Government have got no further than analysing the responses to their 2020 consultation on banning new petrol, diesel and hybrid HGVs. The sector needs clarity, so when will the Government’s response be published? Will the Government also be spelling out the technologies required to ensure this transition is possible? I know the Government confirmed that they are committed to phasing out the sale of non-zero-emission HGVs by 2024, a welcome move, but surely the announcement in May this year of just £200 million to support this transition is barely adequate as a demonstrator programme.
Finally, the report calls for the acceleration of the rail electrification programme to accelerate the transition away from diesel trains. Will the Minister explain where we have got to on this issue? The Government did not respond to that point when replying to the report. Perhaps they can this afternoon.
Thus far the Government’s response to the report has fallen short of where it needs to be. We need the Government to be speedier in their response to the issues the report raises. We also need them to work in partnership with business better to understand the business perspective in tackling the challenges that getting to net zero imply.
It was drawn to our attention earlier in the debate that we have had a change in leadership, with five Secretaries of State in four years, so we have had plenty of leaders, but not much leadership. Surely, there is a big opportunity for the UK in meeting the challenges. By expanding the manufacturing capacity of battery production nationally we create new jobs and opportunities wherever—the West Midlands, the north-east, the north-west and the south-west. We need an industrial strategy that delivers that promise and opportunity as we move to a greener economy.
For our part on the Labour Benches, we think that the Government lack ambition. It is not just Labour that thinks that—senior industrial leaders do too. In the meantime, this report helps to provide the UK with a useful steer in the right direction and should act as a wake-up call to government. For that, we should all be very grateful to the committee and its members for their wisdom and foresight.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for securing what I agree with other noble Lords has been a fascinating debate and for the excellent way in which he introduced the subject and the brilliant leadership that he provides to his committee, which the number of responses to reports from that committee suggest. I know that he is well respected across the House for the work that he does, so I am grateful to him for that. I also pay tribute to the other members of the committee and to all those who provided the written and verbal contributions that have enabled the preparation of such a thorough and well-thought-out report.
Given the clear priority of the topic, I hope noble Lords will be pleased, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, reminded us, that since the report was issued, the Government have made significant progress on many areas recommended by the committee. We have continued to be clear about our ambitions and expectations —for example, in setting out not only that we will phase out all new diesel HGVs from our roads by 2040 but the intervening milestones that will see us on a trajectory to make that a reality, building on the formal consultation and close engagement that we already have on this topic with industry.
The Government recognise the challenges that such ambitions bring. To address a question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, we do not apologise for setting this bold ambition; rather, we need to continue to focus our efforts, and the considerable efforts of British business, industry and society, on solutions to many of the challenges that we face along the way.
Naturally, many noble Lords focused their contributions today on these challenges. I shall do my best to address as many of these comments and questions as possible. However, it is worth framing the issue briefly on what the Government are already doing. We have published our net-zero, hydrogen, innovation and critical minerals strategies. Just last month, we announced a further £211 million of funding to support battery R&D through yet further investment in the world-leading Faraday battery challenge programme, which was mentioned by many noble Lords in this debate, bringing the overall budget of the challenge to £541 million. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, will want to welcome that as being on a par with her favourite European Commission investment.
Our flagship support programmes have continued to drive real-world successes. Just last month, the Secretary of State attended Green Lithium, supported through our pioneering automotive transformation fund, as it announced Teesport as the site of the UK’s first large-scale merchant lithium refinery, providing battery-grade materials for use in the electric vehicle, renewable energy and consumer technology supply chains. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Lilley will welcome that development.
I move on to some of the other points raised during the debate. A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Patel, in his introduction, the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, asked about companies in this space, including Britishvolt, and about the Government’s plans to attract investment in gigafactories for the production of batteries in the UK.
Noble Lords will understand that I cannot comment on the commercial discussions that the Government may or may not have with private companies or their prospects. What I can say in public is limited in that regard, but the Government have ongoing discussions with a number of companies in this field. It is not our approach to comment on speculation or the commercial affairs of private companies, but we will continue to progress an ambitious pipeline of potential investments which will help to grow our electric vehicle supply chain. This is a priority for the Government.
As we do that, a key plank of our approach is to continue to work with the many investors with which we are in contact through the automotive transformation fund. In 2021, the net-zero strategy announced £350 million of funding in the automotive transformation fund, in addition to the £500 million announced in 2020 as part of the 10-point plan. The ATF supported the £1 billion electric vehicle hub in Sunderland—in my own area, the north-east—in partnership with Envision AESC, which the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and others mentioned. It safeguards 6,200 jobs at Nissan, including more than 900 new jobs, and 750 new jobs at the new Envision AESC gigafactory. The fund has already enabled the announcement of Pensana’s £145 million investment in east Yorkshire to process the critical minerals used in magnets and a £60 million investment by Johnson Matthey in Hertfordshire to develop hydrogen technologies. Through it, as I mentioned earlier, we also backed Green Lithium to build a refinery in the north-east. We have also received a number of other expressions of interest in the scheme and will continue to engage closely with investors. As I said, I cannot go into details in public at the moment, but I and other ministerial colleagues will update noble Lords on this important topic as soon as possible. We will continue to progress these investments.
The noble Lord, Lord Patel, asked whether the UK can still meet its commitment to phase out petrol and diesel cars by 2030. I am delighted to repeat my confirmation to him that we will end the sale of petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030 as planned. To support this, the Government have committed to introduce a zero-emission vehicle mandate to require a minimum percentage of manufacturers’ new car and van sales to be zero emission at the exhaust from 2024. We have been working with the whole UK automotive sector to ensure that it can do that and meet the needs of UK business.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for welcoming the publication of the critical minerals strategy. He also raised the important question of how we will achieve its commitments. As my ministerial colleague in the other place, Nus Ghani, confirmed earlier this month, I am pleased to reassure the noble Lord and others that we will publish a refresh of that strategy by the end of the year. This will include a delivery plan for the commitments set out in that strategy.
The noble Lord also asked whether the UK intends to produce a strategy for the next generation of electric vehicle battery manufacturers. Through the strategies we have set out and the concrete mechanisms already at our disposal, such as the ATF, which many noble Lords mentioned, I hope the Committee will recognise that our strategy in this regard is very much one of activity. The strategy is important, but so is activity on the back of it. I also recognise the importance, brought home in this debate, of joined-up work across government. I reassure the Committee that we are looking very seriously at the best way of continuing to work across departments—BEIS, Defra, the Department for Transport, et cetera—and between government, industry and consumers, all of whom will have to be on board to deliver the important changes we will need.
The noble Lord, Lord Patel, and other Members asked about our commitment to hydrogen. As he noted, we have doubled our ambition to up to 10 gigawatts of low-carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030, subject as always to affordability and value for money—I think the Treasury inserts that phrase into every ministerial contribution. At least half of this will come from electrolytic green hydrogen, drawing on the scale-up of UK offshore wind, other renewables and new nuclear. I very much agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that it is criminal that we pay constraint payments to wind farms not to produce electricity because the grid cannot handle it.
We aim to have up to 1 gigawatt of electrolytic hydrogen in construction or operational by 2025, with up to 2 gigawatts of production capacity overall, including CCUS-enabled hydrogen, in operation or under construction by 2025. The UK Hydrogen Strategy, published last August, outlines a comprehensive road map for the development of the wider hydrogen economy over the 2020s to deliver what is a very ambitious commitment for 2030. The British Energy Security Strategy in April 2022 built on that, with further commitments on electrolytic allocation, hydrogen transport and storage, and an attached certification scheme, which is also important. We also set out detail on our hydrogen production strategy in the July 2022 update to the market.
The noble Lord, Lord Patel, and other noble Lords asked the important question of when the Government will make a choice on the mix of different technologies; I think this point was also raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan. Let me use transport as an example to respond to that question. Here, the Government still remain technology neutral. As set out in the UK Hydrogen Strategy and transport decarbonisation plan, we see hydrogen as likely to be important where energy density requirements come into play and where infra- structure constraints or refuelling times make it the most viable option for heavy goods vehicles, locomotives and so on, where battery technology is not necessarily appropriate.
As outlined in that strategy, we expect that the role of hydrogen in transport will continue to evolve over the course of the 2020s and beyond. To date, road transport has been an early market for hydrogen in the UK. Going forward, we expect hydrogen vehicles, particularly depot-based transport, including buses, to constitute the bulk of 2020s hydrogen demand from the mobility sector. Fuel cell hydrogen buses have a range similar to their diesel counterparts.
The noble Lord, Lord Patel, and others also raised the important issue of battery safety and rightly asked me about plans to address this. The safety of electric vehicles and of their charging is of course of paramount importance to the Government and we keep this under regular review. Multiple safety systems are designed into EVs to protect passengers, emergency services personnel and other users from harm. However, we have to recognise that the risks are different and need to be understood and controlled. To consider EV fires, the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles has formed a steering group of experts from across government, industry and academia. The steering group identified research questions to further develop BEV fire understanding. The National Fire Chiefs Council has also developed national operational guidance for fire and rescue services across the UK. I finish my remarks on safety on a positive note: current evidence does not suggest that electric vehicle fires are any more likely to occur than in petrol or diesel vehicles.
I move on to the excellent contribution from my noble friend Lord Lilley, who raised a number of important issues about having access to sufficient resources and reserves of minerals to produce batteries. My noble friend is absolutely right to raise these issues; it is a challenge that we recognise. We are very familiar with the International Energy Agency analysis that he cited and indeed, as we set out in the UK’s first critical minerals strategy earlier this year, the UK is working with the IEA to explore ways to improve the security and supply of energy-specific critical minerals.
My noble friend raised a question on lithium and nickel reserves and the need for battery solutions to be found that may be mineral-intensive. I can tell him that the UKRI is already funding a considerable amount of research in next-generation batteries. The Faraday Institution has a £35 million portfolio in battery technologies beyond lithium-ion—as well as developing the next generation of lithium-ion batteries—namely in sodium-ion, solid state and lithium sulphur, with applications in stationary storage, electric vehicles and aerospace as well as other high-value niche markets.
The noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, correctly noted the importance of supply chains being in close proximity to battery manufacturers. The Government are committed to supporting the automotive sector through the transition to zero-emission vehicles and the development of the associated supply chains, including through the ATF to support the automotive sector to meet the very important rules of origin provisions that a number of noble Lords quoted. This will of course recognise the significance of the UK and the EU markets for those manufacturing vehicles in the UK.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, mentioned that the Government need to do more to secure Britain’s place at the forefront of the battery revolution, and I agree with her, particularly on the importance of this issue. The Government are committed to growing the electric vehicle supply chain and, as I said earlier, we continue to work with investors through the automotive transformation fund to progress their plans to build a globally competitive electric vehicle supply chain in the UK. Indeed, the recent investment of over £200 million in the Faraday battery challenge, which I mentioned earlier, is further evidence of this commitment.
The noble Baroness also raised a question on the resilience of supply and the importance of recognising demand reduction—she and I agree on that. We also agree that the circular economy, design and innovation are all topics of significant attention in our critical minerals strategy, which will be part of the delivery plan that we will publish later this year. She also raised an important point about the market for recycled materials for battery manufacture. I am pleased to report that my colleagues in Defra are working with other government departments and the devolved Administrations and are currently reviewing the existing UK batteries legislation; they are working at pace to publish a consultation in the second half of next year. The intention is to create a regulatory space that supports the appropriate treatment of EV batteries, protects our domestic supply of critical raw materials and contributes to our net-zero ambition.
On the noble Baroness’s question about recommendation 31 in the report on “industrial strategy”, in October last year we published the net zero strategy, setting out our policies and proposals for decarbonising all sectors of the UK economy to help to meet the net-zero target. This is supplemented by a range of strategies relevant to today’s important debate: the hydrogen strategy, the innovation strategy and the critical minerals strategy. In addition, and of particular relevance to some of the specific points raised today, in July 2021 we published Decarbonising Transport: A Better, Greener Britain, containing 78 commitments setting transport on an ambitious path to net zero by 2050. The Government have an activist and outcome-focused approach to the delivery of the industrial outcomes through which I think those who have spoken today would wish to see the UK succeed, prosper and grow.
The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, raised the subject—which he has raised with me many times—of the energy security Bill. I am tempted, but, yet again, I cannot give him a precise commitment on timing. However, I can certainly say that I have heard what he and other noble Lords have had to say, and I am keen to move on this issue as quickly as possible, because I know that it is an important subject to individuals and many businesses across the UK. I hope to have a reply for him in the very near future, if that is appropriate.
In answer to my noble friend Lord Naseby’s points about the roles of other countries in this area, I note that two of the three pillars of our critical minerals strategy are on collaboration and enhancing international markets. Our engagement in the Minerals Security Partnership is just one example of where we are working right alongside allies on this important topic.
The noble Lord, Lord Naseby, the noble Baronesses, Lady Randerson and Lady Walmsley, and other Members raised the important issue of skills and supply chains. That is probably one of the key areas of focus for me in government at the moment. The Government are committed to safeguarding and growing the 155,000 jobs in the automotive sector across the UK. Ensuring that the sector has sufficient skilled workers to enable its transition towards net zero is one of our key priorities, and we are engaging closely with industry to consider further action that may be needed, including through the Automotive Council skills working group.
The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, accused the Government of failing to work effectively with research centres and businesses to develop the native industries of the future. The noble Lord is wrong, and my colleague Minister Freeman set out in the other place last week exactly what we are doing in this space. In response to his questions regarding resources, the circular economy is a challenge but one that we are embracing. Funding via the Faraday battery challenge through the Faraday Institution’s ReLiB stream has enabled research into the safe and efficient segregation and repurposing of cell components. The Government are also investing in two new interdisciplinary circular economy centres in this area as part of a wider £30 million investment, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley.
I apologise; I see that I am running out of time. I had a few other responses to noble Lords but I will put those in writing. I thank the Science and Technology Committee once again for its significant efforts in raising awareness and progressing our understanding on this important topic. Your Lordships have my commitment that the Government will continue to pay close attention to the many excellent points that have been raised in this debate, and I thank noble Lords for their attention.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister most sincerely for answering many of the questions raised, or at least for making an attempt to answer them. As he said, many remain unanswered, and I am glad that he has committed to writing to noble Lords.
When I listened to his answers, I came to the conclusion that everything the Government are doing is fantastic, and we should be world leaders in battery technology, battery science and so on. However, in reality it turns out that we are not. The question that I raised in the first place remains. The Government are doing something, but is it enough? I am glad that the Minister said he took note of the points raised and that the Government will think about it and see what action needs to be taken.
Having heard that response from the Minister, I hope the committee might in due course look at this again in a quick report to ask questions about how much is being done. For today, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part. It has been a very interesting and committed debate on the part of all noble Lords. I thank the Minister again in particular.
Young People: Skills (Youth Unemployment Committee Report)
(1 year, 12 months ago)
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Lord Shipley
That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report from the Youth Unemployment Committee Skills for every young person (HL Paper 98), Session 2021-22.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I am very pleased to speak to the report of the Youth Unemployment Committee, Skills for Every Young Person. It is some 210 pages long and contains 88 conclusions and recommendations. I thank the staff who supported the committee: Simon Keal, our clerk, Francesca Crossley, our policy analyst, and Abdullah Ahmad, our operations officer. I also thank our specialist advisers, Dr Kathleen Henehan from the Resolution Foundation and Oliver Newton from the Edge Foundation.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Baker, for enabling the Youth Unemployment Committee to be created at a time when there were serious worries about the impact of Covid on young people. There are long-term consequences of Covid, which are affecting many young people. I thank the members of the committee for their work over nine months during the Covid lockdown, when we met mostly by Zoom and Teams. I thank those speaking today, who will add their own experiences and insight to our work during this debate.
On behalf of the committee, I thank all the many people who submitted evidence to us or attended as witnesses: all the school, academy and college leaders, employers, charities, academics and, of course, young people themselves. It was of fundamental importance to us to listen directly to young people. Thanks must go to the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, for facilitating our listening engagement with young people in Bolton and south-east Lancashire, to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby for facilitating a similar listening engagement in the east Midlands and to the noble Lord, Lord Woolley of Woodford, for facilitating our listening engagement in London with young people from ethnic-minority backgrounds. This approach proved highly rewarding and played a major part in developing the thinking of the committee.
There has been a long delay of a year in holding this debate, but it has the advantage of being held with a new set of Ministers at the helm. The Prime Minister has put education at the centre of unlocking growth, and it is reported that the Government will attempt to boost growth through investment in training and end the long-standing bias towards academic rather than technical qualifications. Skills are the bedrock of a thriving labour market. We heard again and again that there is a serious mismatch between the skills young people develop in school and college today and those that the future economy will need. This is caused by two key issues.
First, the developing economy has new sectors and jobs—in the green sector and the digital sector, where there is growth in cyber and artificial intelligence. At the same time, existing sectors such as social care are struggling to fill posts. To tackle this, we recommended that the Government develop a long-term national plan for anticipating and addressing skills mismatches.
Secondly, we heard from employers that when students leave school, many do not have the skills they need to find work. The school system is characterised by a national curriculum focused on academic subjects and written exams. This is not helping young people develop or showcase other skills that we need, such as teamwork, communication, creativity or problem solving. Equally, although careers guidance has improved, it is still not being taught uniformly and is not being supported by quality work experience provision. This means that too many young people are not aware of the skills they need to get into a new, growing sector.
Therefore, we recommended that the Government must recalibrate the compulsory components of the national curriculum and performance measures, putting skills at their heart. Digital and creative subjects such as design and technology are seen as less important than other subjects in the Government’s EBacc measure, while essential skills such as oracy, teamwork, and problem solving are not being tested because of the focus on the academic. I was very disappointed to read in the press last week of suggestions that design and technology may continue to decline because of the poor funding situation of many schools. This must be avoided.
We were disappointed by the Government’s response to our report, in which they argued that they do not see a need for curriculum reform. I am confident that the committee is right and that what we have said reflects the general view outside Whitehall and Westminster.
As an example, the president of the Royal Society in a letter to the Times on 28 October said:
“While preparing people for the workplace is not the sole aim of education, if it is failing to do this, it is failing young people and the economy. For too long we have allowed academic snobbery to make vocational education the poor relation and laughed off a lack of maths skills.”
This strikes a chord with our recommendations 82 to 87 on the national curriculum.
On a more positive note, we were pleased to hear that the Government will produce better, more accessible information on skills. The publication of data from the Skills and Productivity Board and the creation of a new Unit for Future Skills is welcome. We still believe that more should be done to facilitate careers guidance in primary schools; it is where individual career decisions start to be made.
While youth unemployment has fallen from its pandemic peak, it remains higher than in several comparable global economies. Although we have seen a fall in the number of young people not in employment, education or training since mid-2020, the recent estimate of over 600,000 young people in this category is simply far too high at a time when we have 500,000 job vacancies across the United Kingdom. This problem is exacerbated by past and present Governments under- funding and undervaluing further education in comparison with the university route, as well as there not being enough apprenticeship opportunities for young people who want to do them, and the apprenticeship levy not being focused primarily on young people.
Young people who are disadvantaged are still not receiving the support that they need—we talk in chapter 6 of the issues that the lack of support creates for those groups. We said that to tackle disadvantage as a barrier to work, we must ensure that all young people—especially the most disadvantaged, including those with additional needs, those in care and those in custody—have access to quality careers advice from primary school age onwards and a strong work experience offer. It became clear to us that more disability employment advisers are needed.
We called for a new education and workplace race equality strategy that tackles discrimination and unequal opportunities. I draw particular attention to recommendations 59 and 60 about young people from ethnic minority backgrounds, who still face barriers. That strategy would focus on collecting data and proposing targeted support programmes. I know that the Government said that they did not feel such a race equality strategy was necessary at this time; nevertheless, they committed to monitoring our recommendations and addressing any concerns. I strongly hope that they will do so.
We heard a lot of evidence about progression routes needing to be available so that those starting a course know what they should move on to do next. The biggest example of that was Kickstart, where there was no clear progression route following taking part in the course. We were told that we needed better promotion of careers and apprenticeships in schools and that there was a need for rigorous enforcement of the Baker clause to ensure parity of esteem for technical and academic routes. We were told, too, that there was a need for a careers guidance guarantee that would enable every disadvantaged young person to have access to one-to-one careers guidance, as well as a need for a constant review of the real impact of careers hubs and the Careers & Enterprise Company on individual schools and colleges and a continuous review of T-levels to ensure their availability in all parts of the country. We were impressed by the potential for the use of the UCAS system to include apprenticeships using local platforms. We thought that there was a need for a lifetime skills guarantee to apply to qualifications below level 3, and also concluded that we had to strengthen digital skills at all levels.
That takes me on to say that I welcome the appointment of Gillian Keegan MP as Secretary of State for Education. She gave evidence to our committee on 13 July 2021, when she was Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills at the Department for Education. She said that she was the first apprentice who had held that role and that she was passionate about apprenticeships because it was a life-changing experience for her. She also said:
“There has always been a disconnect between the education system and employers. That has possibly accelerated in the last 20 years or so, as we have really entered the digital age … That is why the careers hubs are important, because that is working with real businesses.”
Reading that again, and the transcript of what she said to our committee 18 months ago, it seems that there is now huge potential for a change of government direction towards technical education and apprenticeships.
Finally, I draw attention to recent evidence on apprenticeships from the Learning and Work Institute. What I am about to say came in an email from the institute, so these are its words: “Research on apprenticeship outcomes shows that nearly half—47%—of the 2,500 apprentices surveyed dropped out of the training before completion. A lack of support from apprentice employers—37%—or tutor—26%—was the most common reason for non-completion, but reasons also included poor programme organisation—32%—or teaching quality—24%. Those who did not complete their apprenticeships were much less likely to find a permanent job or promotion. It is particularly important that young people at risk of becoming NEET have access to high quality apprenticeships, and steps are taken to address non-completion.” I guess the Minister will be aware of these figures, but they are important to consider so that we understand what action can be taken to alleviate the concerns that have been raised. The Learning and Work Institute also draws attention to the fact that the number of people starting apprenticeships is declining, mirroring not a decline in interest but rather in opportunities available.
Last but not least, the committee called for a new, independent young people’s commissioner to be the voice of our young people. We noted split responsibilities across several ministerial portfolios for the support of young people. We concluded that this split was unhelpful, that it is essential to avoid silos and silo working and that a young people’s commissioner would focus attention on the interests of young people directly in making representations to the Government. I hope that further thought will be given to that because there are other commissioners for other age groups, and it seems that the focused attention of a commission on young people specifically would help to bridge some of the gaps that we identified between Ministers and departments in Whitehall.
I want to borrow something that my noble friend Lord Storey said in one of our meetings. How will we know when we have succeeded with this task of encouraging apprenticeships and greater technical education? We will know when secondary schools have banners on their railings that do not talk just of their Ofsted rating or the number of GCSEs and A-levels they have secured but will also tell the public how many apprenticeships they have produced for young people. I beg to move.
Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)
My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, on being the brilliant chair of this committee. We heard a huge volume of evidence, and for him to marshal it and for us to hear and discuss it was quite remarkable.
This is a radical report, and I do not expect the Government to welcome it at all. I cannot anticipate what the Minister is going to say, but the attitude of the Department for Education to all change is now totally negative. In the last year, there have been six major reports, of which this is one. The first was from the High Mistress of St Paul’s School a year ago. It was a huge survey of 800 people, including from the public sector. She came to the conclusion that the curriculum was not fit for purpose, and nor were GCSEs. She was told—not by a Minister but by the Permanent Secretary at the department—“Forget it, we’re not going to change anything”.
A fortnight ago, we had a debate on the report from the Times Education Commission. The Minister made it quite clear that the Government were going to bin that as well. Again, the report recommended substantial changes in our curriculum. So I do not expect that the Minister tonight will accept any of the 88 recommendations that we have made—and certainly not the most important ones.
Some of the most important ones centre on the curriculum. The evidence we heard from industrialists, big and small, was that it is not suited for purpose because too many youngsters at 18 leave with no employability skills at all—none whatever. By “employability skills” they mean an experience of working on teams. That does not happen in the present curriculum. Experience of collaborative problem-solving does not happen in the present curriculum. Having really good communication skills—“oratory”, as it is called—is not taught in our present system, either. This was the absolutely overwhelming weight of evidence and, quite frankly, the Department for Education does not listen at all.
Nissan, one of the largest car manufacturers in our country, said that design technology should be a compulsory subject—but no chance at all. The Government over the last 12 years have presided over a decline in design technology of 80%—it is absolutely unbelievable. What is more, over the past 12 years they have cut technical education by 20%. They are not interested in it at all. The Department for Education is preoccupied solely with academic subjects.
We took a lot of evidence on data skills. The actual curriculum the Government are following is word for word what was published in 1904 in the Edwardian age: exactly the same subjects as 150 years ago. Well, the Minister might recall that 150 years ago, a man with a red flag would have to walk in front of a car. We have moved on from that now and, quite frankly, the Government should recognise that artificial intelligence is the gold rush of this century—and artificial intelligence is embedded in data skills. So will the Minister accept our recommendation that all primary schools should have coding clubs—all, not some? Every student should have the right to a computer—not just some but every single one.
When it comes to secondary education, does the Minister realise that, compared with 2016, 40% less computing is being taught in our schools? It really is extraordinary. We recommended that computing, which means not just coding but virtual reality, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, should be taught from 11, as soon as possible. I do not expect she is going to accept that tonight, but it is in fact what we ought to do. This is the age in which we are living, and the department is digging in again and again.
The actual problem we have had is that, since 2010, we have been subjected to the theory of an American educator called Hirsch, who says that if you just give to those disadvantaged children academic subjects, they will flourish and expand and all the rest of it. Well, that has failed: we have been the test bed. There is no other country that has followed Hirsch and no state in America that has followed Hirsch, but we have been the test bed and the programme has failed. Today, there are as many disadvantaged students—300,000—as there were in 2010. There has been no real improvement whatever. So what is the result? We have job vacancies. Which department is responsible for job vacancies? It is the Department for Education, because it has not provided what industry and commerce need in the youngsters they are going to employ.
Therefore, we are on the edge of a major change, because the volume of opinion is now building up. The membership of our committee was not a group of eccentric amateurs; it included two ex-Secretaries of State, a former Director-General of the BBC, and the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, who is the greatest advocate in this country of improving the education of black, Asian and minority interest students.
Again, we had recommendations on this—we had recommendations on work experience, but the Government want to phase out work experience. They passed legislation in 2016 to try to restrict the number of people going on work experience from ages 14 to 16. This is so much against what is needed in our country.
This report is radical, and I was proud to be a member of the committee that produced it, but this is not just a single matter. A volume of opinion is now growing. I am very glad to see that the Labour Party is seriously going to consider fundamental educational reform. I can see noble Lords nodding. I hope that my party will also embrace that, and I will do everything I can to support it. We have to bring skills back into education, where they have not been for a very long time.
Are there grounds for hope? Yes, I think there are. The new Secretary of State for Education is the first since 1870 to have been an apprentice. I therefore think that she will be sympathetic to many of the proposals in this report. The Prime Minister, in a briefing from No. 10 to the Times newspaper, said that education was a silver bullet. I hope we might have some indication of the silver bullet tonight. I doubt that we will, but there we are.
Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)
I ask the noble Lord please not to worry about the time I am taking. He should just listen to what I am saying—he will learn something.
I hope that in addition, we will tonight have some evidence of what the silver bullet is—or will it just be a defence of the status quo? The status quo has failed on an absolutely massive scale. Youth unemployment is at 9%. By the way, when we, a committee looking into youth unemployment, asked the Minister and the senior civil servant who appeared before us what was the level of youth unemployment, neither of them knew. It is at 9% but in the depressed areas of our country, such as in Walsall, Stoke-on-Trent and Blyth, it is as high as 20%. I therefore hope that we will see a considerable change.
I conclude by saying that I was very interested to see that the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his speech last week has appointed an assistant, who I know very well, to be his adviser on education. That is clearly an indication that he will not expect very original ideas to emerge from the Department for Education. I wanted to end on a note of optimism, and that is as optimistic as I can be.
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Baker, because in many ways he always allows me to act as good cop. I remind your Lordships of my educational interests in the register, and I very much endorse the thanks given to the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, his committee and to all the staff who worked on this excellent report.
Back in 2009—which these days is prehistory—I was appointed the Minister of State attending Cabinet for Education and Welfare Reform. That was the title, but it was clear that Gordon Brown as Prime Minister basically wanted me to be the Minister for youth unemployment. It was post crash and he, like many of us, was concerned about the scarring effect of long-term unemployment on young people. When I arrived, the Permanent Secretary said to me, “It is inevitable that youth unemployment will continue to rise. You’ve got to face up to the fact that those scarring effects and social problems are just going to happen.” I am happy to say that we managed to get youth unemployment down during the time I was there, from 664,000 to 625,000; it did not do us any good in the election, but there you go. That was thanks to the Future Jobs Fund, which was then imitated in a much paler form by Kickstart when the Covid crisis then hit. However, I will not get bogged down in the detail comparing them and why I think the Future Jobs Fund was a much better scheme.
The reason why I wanted to recall all that is because it was quite a culture shock going into that job, having been Schools Minister for three years. I had been trotting out the rhetoric about how brilliant all our schools were and what a great job we were doing, and then I saw and met the young people who were at the wrong end of the school system and had not been well served by it. As Schools Minister, I was the Minister who made being NEET technically illegal because I conceived of and took through the legislation to raise the participation age to 18. Indeed, that was a success statistically, in that we moved from 15% NEET down to 10% NEET in that time, but the reality for the minority who continue to be failed by our school system is pretty bleak. The noble Lord, Lord Baker, underscored that.
This report goes to the right things: the skills gap and the school curriculum. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Baker, about the curriculum, the need for a much better, all-age careers service, fully staffed by proper professionals who can help people of every age, the need for FE funding and apprenticeships for young people in particular and the problem of Whitehall silos. When I was at DWP I was trying to work with the Skills Minister, who I got on really well with. We both wanted to join up the skills system and the unemployment support system, yet the silos of Whitehall frustrated us.
It is really important that the recommendations in this report are listened to by government, but I will use the remaining time I have to say that I also want to see a mindset change. The reason why we wanted to raise the participation age was to create a mindset change which said that it is intolerable that there are people not in education, employment or training at the ages of 16 to 19. My 11 year-old at home, who has just started year 7 this term, will leave statutory education in 2030. She will then probably have a working life of 50 to 60 years, so she will be in the labour market until something like 2080 or 2090. We have to think about whether, in the remainder of her secondary school experience that she has already started, we are preparing her for the way the world—her world—will change between now and 2090.
We have to think about the need for a greener economy and the sorts of green growth and investment that has just been talked about in the previous debate in this Room. We have to think about STEM skills, but also the craft skills for a retrofit economy, which in many ways is what we need in order to make existing resources go further.
AI machines will be doing much more of the work during the rest of this century, which means we need an education system that helps my daughter compete as a better human, not as a better machine. The danger of our current curriculum is that it is training our children to be machines that will be outcompeted by better machines. We need to be more human, more caring and more curious. We will have an ageing population during our lifetime which simply cannot afford to carry a large number of young people who become long-term unemployed and a drain on the welfare state.
We need to start from there—from a vision of what sort of world this century will create for the people who are currently in school—and work backwards. What will the adult skill system be like? Will it allow people to constantly retrain, change careers and have a proper love of learning and ability to self-direct their learning? What changes do we need in our higher and further education systems so that they work better together in all parts of the country, not just in those where the universities are currently located?
What are the qualification and curriculum needs? I recently went into an E-ACT school in Daventry with a motor vehicle workshop. I asked about the qualifications that are being studied, and none of them include a specification for hybrid cars. Yet, as we just heard in the previous debate, we will not be selling internal combustion engine cars by the time the kids working on those cars enter the labour market. It is shocking that we do not have a skill system that anticipates the future. It looks at what we might need now and the skills gaps now, and tries to fill those with qualifications, but that is inadequate. We need now to be looking to a much more dynamic, future-looking, whole-system change, so that we can urgently achieve the green growth and the much more human-centred society that this country, including my 11 year-old at home, is growing up into.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, when I first decided to look at the report and speak on it, I was struck by the fact that many of us who had been looking at this field and at education had been agreeing with it for quite a long time. We had been agreeing with its general thrust that further education and technical skills have been seen as a second-class option by an education system that is dominated—I forget which noble Lord said this; it might have been the noble Lord, Lord Knight—by an objective to get everybody to Oxford—Cambridge will do. It is a process of acquiring exams, getting them rubber stamped and going through. This is the culture of our education system because it is led by graduates and that is where they want to go. We all know that what is normal is what we did.
We must shift culturally from that, but that it is very difficult to do. The Government inherited a situation where they are trying to do this, but they have discovered not only is that what we do not need for our economy because only a limited number of graduates are needed, especially at higher levels, but that certain people cannot join in with that process culturally or because of special educational needs. The Minister will have been expecting me to say that. When she answers, will she tell us when we will finally get the Government’s response? Last time, she said that it would be December—that is next week. Will it be next week? Will it be before Christmas? That will colour quite a lot of what we are saying because large sections of those who are failing and cannot get into certain universities are in the special educational needs categories or they are factors in their personal cocktail of circumstances which often hold them back from succeeding. If they cannot pass those GCSEs by which we are so keen on defining the success of a school, how are we going to make sure that they carry on? The incentive in the past two years to offload has been absolutely there, and that is why we have such a high number of children who are not in school. If it is not the only reason, it is a factor.
Something else I gathered from this report and by talking to other people is that a key skill is probably not passing that English exam but using a computer efficiently. I remind the Committee of my declared interests in dyslexia and technology. Schools also allow you, bizarrely, to nullify some of those disadvantages—say, if you have dyslexia—of not acquiring those skills that most people have of being able to read and write quite easily. It is actually so commonly available now that there is a shift towards teaching people to use a standard package of technology, rather than putting additional technology on, but you have to use it and you have to get the classroom to use it. It would be a way of allowing more people to acquire a new key set of skills.
Everybody seems to agree on the committee—it is in the committee’s findings—on the fact that that is your new key set of skills. But if you are not going to encourage people to do this by saying that this is what you should be doing now, encouraging them to go and learn other skills, and then insisting that you have to get that 1960s grammar school-type approach to education—that you have to have X number of ticks to get through—you are going to continue to make it difficult to get these groups in, denying the initial stage of entrance to these processes. I have a long history when it comes to apprenticeships. If you are going to allow them in, even if you allow them to take the course, they cannot finish it. I know that there have been changes, some of which I helped to initiate, a long time ago, but I have heard that it is more observed in the breach than in the practice. But that is a battle for another day.
If the Government are not going to accept that radical change needs to take place in our exam system, we will continue to get the same results. We will continue to get an Education Department that is constantly talking about people retaking courses—people who are not achieving and who have not achieved at school—in something that most people do fairly easily. If we are going to carry on doing this, we are not allowing them to go on to further training, and we are effectively writing them off—that is, if they have not already taken themselves away. These factors are accentuated by their background: if they come from a family where everybody has failed exams, they will say, “I’m not going to be different from my folks”, and they will continue to do it.
How do we break this pattern? The only way in which we will start to dent this outside the curriculum is to make sure that there is better careers advice, which gets to the homes of these pupils. If you manage to sell it to the parents, the child may listen. How we do that interaction with the parents will always be difficult, but that is the key structure. It is about making sure that any child says something to the parents and the parents say, “Yes, we’ll buy in”. At the moment, careers advice is that you should work terribly hard, get on with the process and get your degree—but we have excluded hundreds of thousands of people before you have started, because it is not something that they are attuned to. If we make that path more open, which means far more emphasis on further education than we have now, we stand a chance of affecting it.
We need a huge cultural shift, as well as a technical one. Unless we start to embrace that with an aggressive attitude, we will never get there—because the status quo is the status quo because of the fact that people do not like to change.
Viscount Waverley (CB)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Baker, called for bringing skills back into education, and I shall attempt to present a bridge to that end. Before doing so, I fully sympathise with the frustration of the noble Lord, Lord Knight, with silos—a culture that needs urgent dismantling. Being holistic is the key word for going forward, generally through everything in life and particularly in relation to the UK’s management of itself.
I have happily slept-walked into a sector of critical importance to the United Kingdom—namely, the future of the UK’s freight and logistics, for which I serve as co-chair to the parliamentary group. This is to be a strategic evaluation by region, then analysed nationally by modal, by non-conflicted persons in an evaluation for decades to come. Skills and training are crucial, so I welcome this opportunity to draw attention to the opportunity that the sector presents as a career path for the youth of today.
As background, logistics is a large and growing industry across the UK, employing 2.56 million people, either directly or indirectly, accounting for 8% of the workforce. Top employers, of which 11 are pure logistics companies, include world-class players such as DHL Express, Wincanton and CEVA Logistics. Employment has nearly doubled since 2012, outpacing the rest of the UK economy and accounting for 8% of the workforce, contributing £139 billion gross value to the UK economy. A helpful independent report by Frontier Economics, supported by Logistics UK, has looked at the economic, social and environmental impact of the logistics industry, with findings based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis.
A recent school career leaders presentation has challenged current perceptions about logistics roles as presenting an open career structure with the least number of managers with degrees. Some 30% of all roles advertised in the south-east Midlands are for logistics roles, of which one-third are above £30,000, well above the national average. A range of growth forecasts shows that we could be looking at creating 25,000 new jobs over the next 15 to 20 years in the warehousing sector alone.
All this brings me full circle to the report before us this afternoon. Logistics provides opportunities for people who may not otherwise be in work. An independent survey indicates that 20% of people currently in logistics were previously unemployed, of whom one in four was long-term unemployed. Almost two-thirds—62%—of logistics managers do not have a university degree.
There is, however, a call for reform of the apprenticeship levy so that funds can be spent on alternative training and qualifications. Issues raised as barriers to using apprenticeships typically include the 12-month minimum duration and the 20% off-the-job training requirement—in other words, one day per week spent training. It is suggested that they do not get as much out of the levy as they put in, which is supported by the fact that, during the financial year 2019-20, only 15% of apprenticeship levy-paying employers fully utilised the funds available to them. A skills levy, as opposed to an apprenticeship levy, would help to bridge the gap between shortages and skill acquisition. The apprenticeship levy—although originally hailed as a mechanism to link young people wanting a solid start to their career with businesses that needed next-generation knowledge, skills, and behaviours—has not reached the desired target audience.
It should be underlined that truck drivers and other vehicle operators currently struggle with the rigidity of the apprenticeship framework and could recruit and train more people more quickly if it were reformed into a skills levy. As an example, there is a heavy goods vehicle apprenticeship standard; it takes 14 months to complete, but the drivers have their licences in six months. Most employers continue to train their own drivers to their specific standards and work practices long after they have passed their tests, meaning that the continued requirement for individuals to attend college once a week is rather redundant.
While advanced and higher-level apprenticeships are important in professional development planning and for retention, with young people having an appetite to learn and businesses having a need for talent, the pipeline that joins them seems at present not to be sufficiently accessible for logistics and transport. Simplifying offerings and making more of portable modules would go some way to rectify those challenges. Thinking creatively, outside of formal qualifications, could lead to accredited modular learning that could then, if desired, lead to a qualification later. This is particularly important when considering the lean margins of the sector. If qualifications are to be company funded outside the levy for smaller organisations, a lack of return on investment could cause setbacks to future investment.
The propensity to put qualifications on a pedestal over on-the-job learning needs to be revisited to prevent the alienation of those looking to progress. Accredited training is a viable option as an alternative to more traditional qualifications for immediate return on investment to support those who want to pursue a career in the transport sector with businesses that desperately need those skills in their workforce. The Assured Skills Academies in Northern Ireland provide an interesting blueprint.
Generation Logistics is initially a 12-month programme of engagement and promotional activities that aims to bring the industry together, shift perceptions and encourage the next generation of logistics workers to engage with available opportunities. Generation Logistics’ campaigns are centred around increasing the diversity of the sector, ensuring that, when people across all demographics view Generation Logistics material, they see themselves reflected.
Addressing the aspiration gap is also key, profiling the managerial jobs that many will be unaware exist in the sector and so dismiss a career in logistics as not being one that matches their ambitions. Promoting the diversity of opportunities should support inclusion, noting the range of opportunities that are available that focus on certain knowledge, skills and behaviours, not on background, race or gender.
There is a danger, when considering the promotion of the profession, that only the more attractive side is shown to target audiences: robotics, driverless technology and more. However, it is critical to strike a balance to ensure that the sector not only recruits, but retains, new talent. Demystifying the sector, in addition to commonly held myth, is perhaps an attraction strategy better rooted in the everyday roles the sector is crying out to fill. Re-education, such as promoting the benefits of shift work as flexible, rather than undesirable, makes for interesting campaigns for both young people and career changers alike.
To change this perception, those working in logistics, transport and supply chain operations must be positioned as practitioners and professionals against benchmarked standards. Young people cannot be what they cannot see, and logistics is the very definition of a hidden industry, operating behind closed doors and yet keeping the United Kingdom moving. A national campaign to promote the logistics profession to underrepresented groups is being spearheaded by Generation Logistics, supported by the Department for Transport, and is aiming to address the negative perceptions of the sector and promote the availability of attractive, fulfilling jobs at all levels.
Lord Harlech (Con)
My Lords, before we continue, I remind your Lordships that the advisory Back-Bench speaking time is seven minutes. It says “advisory” but it is actually mandated.
Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I am someone who often goes over and tests the patience of the House. I thank the noble Lord and the members of the committee for enabling us to participate in this discussion. It is an incredible report and everywhere I touched, I wanted to read more, but I confess that I have not finished it. I want to refrain from detailing statistics as noble Lords are all too conversant about the level of disparities in Newham, Barking and Dagenham, Brent and, indeed, Tower Hamlets, which are the areas I want to concentrate on, as a result of the significant effect of the lack of opportunities for young people to be meaningfully engaged in education, jobs and training,
I wish to raise two points particularly about Tower Hamlets and more generally on the impending explosion of emerging technologies and our unpreparedness to ensure that a generation of young people profit from opportunities and to consider how we mitigate the gaps which are profoundly highlighted in this report. Tower Hamlets’ young people are encircled within Canary Wharf, Broadgate and the City of London, where the majority of employees commute long distances for work. For the citizens of places such as Tower Hamlets, employment prospects remain at the periphery of hospitality or the food and catering sector. Even graduates are stacking shelves in the retail industry. I urge urgent action to address the skills shortage. How can IT and technical education be intensified in schools, colleges and universities to meet the imminent demand? What assessment have the Government made of the number of skilled graduates employed in the retail sector and the evident overrepresentation of graduates employed in basic positions on the floor and at checkouts? Do we know what the barriers are that prevent their progress to management? What action is being taken to ensure that employers are keeping their commitment to create local jobs and that pathways are in place for graduates to retrain and transfer their skills to meet employers’ needs in, for instance, data management, automation, digital technology and related sectors?
In my long-standing community experience, 30, 20 and 10 years ago employers used to claim that our kids could not speak good English or were not educated to high standards. This rationale is no longer valid, so why do so many large employers continue not to reflect the borough’s population? In financial, health and education institutions, visible representation remains unequal. School, university, health and local authority leadership does not reflect the local highly educated, trained and fit population. What policy changes are required to address these unequal balances and disparities?
A dizzying array of government and think tank reports highlights the gaps and action required, so we cannot say we lack awareness or evidence. This report is a prime example. Walking in any part of Tower Hamlets, night or day, indicates that countless young people do not have sufficient options for activities outside the home, school or college, after a decade of government and local systemic dismantling of youth provision, career mentoring and leisure facilities. Not enough of our young people are gainfully engaged, employed, training or undertaking apprenticeships, and they lack access to adequate community facilities, sports and other services, resulting in devastating social and mental health consequences.
Incidentally, I welcome the latest Tower Hamlets initiative to reinstate the education maintenance allowance, which was summarily annulled by the previous administration, despite tangible effects on educational attainment in Tower Hamlets in that 10-year period. This is good news for young people who wish to pursue education and not feel the pressure to work. It is worth pointing out that this borough has a proud tradition and history of pioneering activism and visionary entrepreneurship, which is responsible for the curry industry, the gentrification of Canary Wharf, the hipness of Shoreditch and trendy Spitalfields Market, and a growing band of IT technology geeks setting up offices.
The immense physical changes to the area have not necessarily improved the lives of the majority, who live squashed between the many offices and residential blocks of highly prized buildings which look sideways to continuous deprivation, poverty and, crucially, young people’s inevitable cycle of lacking opportunities and, therefore, aspiration. This is the reality of the vast and significant population of families who can only look into the distance of so-called social mobility aspiration.
My proposition is simple: we know the issues for young people up and down our country. Tower Hamlets is no different from Cumbria or Cardiff, where there are unacceptable pockets of disparities regardless of the glaring fact that we are the sixth-largest economy in an ever-shrinking world where young people are aware and connected to others through emerging technologies. The revolution we see elsewhere may come to our shore if we do not create a pathway for their meaningful participation in our economy and empower their fullest potential.
PwC and McKinsey highlight the profound shift towards automation and its disconnect to the job markets. We need to address these gaps early in education and careers advice, as well as creating community services which provide support and mentor young people into the lucrative career opportunities that exist within the emerging technology and digital sectors.
Lately I have had the privilege of working with colleagues from across the House, considering the effect of emerging technology as the chair of the APPG on the Metaverse and Web 3.0. I have met significant numbers of stakeholders and leaders in this space. Again, we need to assert those opportunities and ensure that this space does not continue to be the purview of the elites. We must be prepared to assist the innovators to develop in this space, which includes the creative industries, fashion, AI, robotics, digital currency and so on.
There are new sectors that are also disenfranchising communities and not integrating, although I wish to highlight the Surrey Academy for Blockchain and Metaverse Applications and Durham University Business School, which both reach into the community. Both institutions are looking to work with local communities and schools in order to improve people’s understanding of the potential benefit of explaining a new career choice.
I come to my final point, with noble Lords’ indulgence. I know some fantastic local schools that are working in this field. I commend Miss Nina Morris-Evans, who brought a fantastic group of young people from Haverstock School in Camden to meet us at the APPG on Women and Work. I hope their experience will be a long-standing one and will profoundly impact their choice of careers.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, we are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and the Youth Unemployment Committee for their endeavours, which have revealed much detail on the subject and resulted in a most comprehensive report. It is unfortunate that we have had to wait a full year for your Lordships to be able to debate its many positive recommendations.
The headline figures for youth unemployment have improved slightly since the report was published, but they still make grim reading. Some 634,000 young people aged 16 to 24 were economically inactive and not in full-time education in July to September this year. Youth unemployment overall may have gone down, but this has not affected the long-standing issue of disabled young people struggling to move successfully from education into work, with little impact on the disability employment gap.
I will dedicate much of my contribution to a major factor hindering a response to the problem of youth unemployment: too many young people are not receiving appropriate guidance at school on what a career can offer and what path needs to be followed to get there. The Careers and Enterprise Company has done much good work in extending the number of secondary schools delivering the Gatsby benchmarks, but I have long believed that careers education and guidance should begin in primary school. I was pleased to note that the committee reached the same conclusion.
Not nearly enough notice is taken by the DfE of the excellent and pioneering work done by a charitable organisation called Primary Futures. Developed with teachers, it connects primary schools with diverse workplace volunteers to take part in aspiration activities and talk with children about their jobs. Even allowing for the disproportionate number of 10 year-olds who want to be footballers, pop stars or YouTubers, many primary school children develop at least an outline of the career they would like to aim for. Why wait until they reach secondary school to begin that journey?
The Gatsby benchmarks were developed by Sir John Holman, whom I think the noble Lord, Lord Baker, referred to. Last year, the Government appointed him as a strategic adviser on careers guidance to Ministers in the DfE; this was necessary because one in five schools in England does not meet any of the eight Gatsby benchmarks. Only 37% of schools meet at least half of them; on average, schools meet just three. There is a serious lack of careers education, advice and guidance in schools, which disproportionately hits disadvantaged young people and those with disabilities.
The Minister will recall that, during the passage of the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill, I and other noble Lords sought to increase the Government’s proposal for the number of times schools should grant access to employers, further education colleges and others under the so-called Baker clause. She resisted that, as she did our proposal for Ofsted to withhold an “outstanding” grade from schools which restricted access to the provision of information on technical education routes. The Act has now given legal clout to provide that access. I very much hope that will see action taken against recalcitrant headteachers and MATs that think the law does not apply to them. This is about young people’s futures; they must be allowed as much diversity as possible in the options open to them.
The Minister and her officials will be aware of the report published last month by Labour’s council of skills advisers, led by my noble friend Lord Blunkett. The report called for a complete shake-up of the careers service, from school through to adult careers guidance, which should ensure that a trained careers leader is embedded in every school with responsibility for the career guidance programme, supported by and accountable to the senior leadership team. I heartily endorse that recommendation.
Apprenticeships are also a key aspect of tackling youth unemployment, because they can change lives. They also offer huge returns on investment for individuals and employers; the Centre for Social Justice showed in a 2020 report that for every £1 invested in level 3 apprenticeships, there is a £28 return to the wider economy. If used properly, they could help to plug the skills gaps our country is facing and support young people into work. The demand for apprenticeships from young people is at an all-time high, but the current apprenticeship levy system favours older learners—those over 25—by a ratio of two to one. Polling by the Centre for Social Justice found that one in six levy-paying employers uses levy funds to rebadge existing training or to accredit skills employees already have. That is not the purpose of the levy.
As recommended by the committee in its report, the Government should require employers to use the apprenticeship system to focus on young people. The incentives for employers to take on apprentices over the pandemic proved effective in boosting opportunities for young people because three-quarters of apprentices who started under this scheme were aged between 16 and 24. This scheme should be reintroduced and financed using some of the levy underspend. Since the levy was introduced in 2017, in excess of £2 billion has been returned to the Treasury. What is the point of that? A Labour Government would also use some of the unspent levy to fund other types of training, which would also benefit young people by offering modular courses and the development of functional skills to tackle key skills gaps.
I agree with the Social Market Foundation’s call for all apprenticeship opportunities to be listed on the UCAS system, perhaps by establishing and integrating local platforms. This would meet the often referenced but rarely implemented parity of esteem between the academic and technical routes open to young people. The lifetime skills guarantee is an important step towards restoring a funded entitlement for level 3 study. However, as many noble Lords emphasised during the debates on the skills Bill, there is no recognition of the value of qualifications below level 3 in creating progression pathways for young people, which is another issue highlighted in the committee report. A DfE report published last year revealed the return on investment of these qualifications and concluded that the net present value of qualifications below level 2 is higher than for level 3. Why have the Government ignored their own evidence?
In his Statement last week, the Chancellor said that
“Being pro-education is being pro-growth.”—[Official Report, Commons, 17/11/22; col. 849.]
Yet despite an extra £2.3 billion annually being announced for schools, there was no extra funding for further education. Colleges are vital providers of skills for young people entering work, yet FE funding compares extremely unfavourably with both university and school funding after a decade of funding cuts. The committee report calls for the Government to devise a new method of funding for FE, determined by student demand. I hope that the Minister will have something to say on that in her response.
Lord Aberdare (CB)
My Lords, this is an excellent and comprehensive report, on which I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and his committee. Coming in at the tail end of the innings, I will just comment on some specific issues that resonate with me within the report’s very broad coverage.
Careers education, information, advice and guidance, which are not all the same thing, have made much progress over recent years, not least thanks to the efforts of the Careers and Enterprise Company and the National Careers Service. However, as the report notes, there is still a long way to go to assure truly national coverage, consistency and quality. The report, like much policy discussion, tends to concentrate on the education aspect more than on information, advice and guidance. Yet IAG, delivered by qualified career development professionals, especially through personal guidance interviews, should be at the heart of high-quality careers provision. Such interviews at present are often too few or too short to be fully effective. They fall well short of the recommendation of 45 minutes. One of my consistent concerns relates to the lack of investment in developing the careers development workforce to meet this need.
Another issue is whether schools have the funds to attract and retain qualified careers staff. I hear increasing examples of schools, colleges and National Careers Service providers struggling to recruit and retain qualified careers advisers. What plans do the Government have to address this, perhaps through bursaries or other support to gain the necessary qualifications? Careers leaders in schools are not necessarily qualified to provide IAG, so there needs to be proper funding for professional careers advisers who are. Performance against the Gatsby benchmarks for good career guidance is currently assessed by schools themselves. What plans do the Government have to introduce more rigorous external assessment of outputs—for example, based on the Careers Development Institute’s career development framework or the careers impact review being piloted by the Careers and Enterprise Company, or maybe through a careers guidance guarantee, as suggested in the report?
The report also highlights the crucial importance of work experience. Young people need multiple workplace experiences covering a variety of different business sectors and activities—whether they be talks by employers or employees, workplace visits, job shadowing or actual placements—and these must be of high quality. Meeting the requirements of the Baker clause in its latest incarnation should be an absolute minimum, and needs to be enforced, including through Ofsted inspections. I think it is extraordinary that government programmes such as Kickstart do not include careers support as an integral part. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, mentioned Sir John Holman. His recommendations were promised for summer this year; can the Minister tell us when those will appear?
The report rightly includes a substantial chapter on apprenticeships, making recommendations which I fully support. However, I am a little uncomfortable with the suggestion that any employer receiving levy funding should spend at least two-thirds of it on young people under 25 starting apprenticeships at level 2 or 3. There is certainly a need to increase such apprenticeships for younger people, but upskilling and reskilling existing older workers is also vital, and in some sectors and businesses may be a higher priority and more realistically achievable than taking on new, younger employees. Having said that, I fully support increasing the flexibility of the levy and providing mechanisms to encourage employers, particularly SMEs, to take on more younger apprentices.
The new flexi-job apprenticeships scheme is a welcome idea to make it easier for SMEs to take on and support apprentices, and I was delighted to host the launch of the Evolve flexi-job apprenticeship agency in the Lords in July. However, I worry about whether this will prove attractive enough to overcome the barriers facing small firms considering offering apprenticeships, not just the costs but the management time and effort required to support and oversee young apprentices and the bureaucracy involved. It would be a pity if this scheme followed previous initiatives, such as apprenticeship training agencies and group training associations, in having only limited impact.
One topic not covered in the committee’s report is the role of independent training providers—ITPs—in addressing youth unemployment. They are mentioned only once, and only in a quotation from a government report. Having run an ITP providing employability skills training—including via the Future Jobs Fund, which the noble Lord, Lord Knight, mentioned—for young Londoners, many of them at risk of becoming NEET, I know how important ITPs can be in providing training for people who might otherwise fall through gaps in the system and in meeting specific employer training needs that are not covered by existing FE and other provision. ITPs provide the training for some 70% of all apprenticeships, yet the views and capabilities of ITPs are often underrepresented in policy relating to youth employment and skills. I welcome the fact that AELP—the Association of Employment and Learning Providers—representing ITPs, has recently joined the Association of Colleges and City and Guilds to set up a future skills coalition to promote investment in skills, including a much-needed national strategy to support local, inclusive growth. I hope the Minister will engage with this new body in developing relevant aspects of policy on skills and youth unemployment.
Once again I congratulate the committee on this important report, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, on his passionate introduction to today’s debate. I also commend the Government, and in particular the Minister, on their and her commitment to tackling youth unemployment. The report, with its 88 recommendations, presents a substantial challenge requiring a change of mindset, as we have heard. Meeting this challenge is vital not just for young people in or facing unemployment but for our overall national growth and well-being.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a patron of Career Connect and a vice-president of the Local Government Association. It was a privilege to serve on this Select Committee, and I thank my noble friend Lord Shipley for his inclusive chairing and the Members and staff who contributed so much. The report is a must-read document, and anybody involved in education should read it.
If you happened to look at the Evening Standard on Monday, the banner headline on the front page said, “Bosses on Warpath over Foreign Staff”. The piece was about the shortage of skilled staff, particularly in the hospitality and retail sectors, and it was asking the Government to allow more overseas people to come to fill these vacancies. However, it added that the Immigration Minister, Robert Jenrick,
“slapped down those demands … and insisted that employers struggling to find staff should look to the ‘domestic workforce’”.
Really? Where are we going to find these people in the domestic market when we have not been skilling them for the last decade or more? You only have to look at Cumbria, where every restaurant and shop has signs for vacancies, and at the vacancies in the construction industry. We have allowed this to happen. Why has it happened?
Let us take our schools. When I was at school—dare I say it?—there was a grammar school system for those who were academic and technical schools for those wanted to learn skills. Now we have a system where we know that half of our pupils need an academic curriculum and half need a skills-based curriculum, but we forget about those on the skills-based curriculum—they are the failures. When we suddenly wake up and realise that we must have a curriculum for all young people, then Jenrick can make those demands. We are strangling creativity in our schools, while we see the independent school sector sail on in great success.
Unemployment rates and inactivity are higher for young people than the wider population. Generally, that is the case for all countries with limited work experience, barriers to some roles by age and qualifications, and limited work readiness. At the moment, youth unemployment is historically low, but not overall: 12 OECD countries have better rates than us. For example, in the latest statistics, the UK rate is 13.4% compared with, for example, the Netherlands at only 4.6%. Of course, we must ask what the impact of Covid has been. We did not see a large growth in youth unemployment, and we must credit the furlough scheme and Kickstart which helped reduce what would have been a large growth in the figures. Young people, though, were still more impacted as they predominate in the sectors worst hit—the retail and hospitality sectors—where they were not able to work from home. There was disruption to their exams and education, a lack of work experience and an impact on confidence and teamwork skills—and let us not forget that there are significantly higher rates of unemployment for young people from ethnic backgrounds, care leavers and those with special educational needs.
Job vacancies in the past 12 to 18 months have increased significantly, so why are there so many young people out of work? Over the last decade, the number of young people not in employment, education, and training and with mental health issues has tripled. There are a third fewer apprenticeship starts for under-19 year-olds than a decade ago, and still a third of young people leave school without five good GCSE passes. Work readiness is a major challenge because education, with its significant focus on academic attainment, is not preparing young people for work; as I said earlier, we need to have a curriculum which is broad-based and which recognises the importance of skills and learning.
Areas with the highest vacancy rates are in sectors that struggle to attract staff, which is due to low pay and challenging working conditions—the care sector is the prime example. The DWP has run a number of major programmes during the last two to three years, including Kickstart and the youth offer. How effective are those schemes and how can we make them better? Kickstart has been very positive in lowering youth unemployment during the pandemic, alongside the furlough scheme, with 162,000 young people starting Kickstart. There is strong evidence of intermediate labour market schemes working where they were implemented quickly and when they worked closely with the sector, but there were more challenges, not least bureaucracy—it took longer to approve vacancies and advertise them. This is no way for young people to search for suitable roles.
The need for technology is vital. The charity of which I am a patron took three months to have vacancies approved. In Written Questions I have constantly raised issues about 16 and 17 year-olds being eligible for Kickstart. Now the figures are available: 80% of this age group were excluded as they were not receiving universal credit, yet they were not in employment, education or training.
There were major regional disparities. There were one-third fewer placements in the north-east compared with London. This is not levelling up. The north-east should have double the number of placements of the south-east. The £1.6 billion that was spent on the scheme and the subsequent underspend on Kickstart should have been avoided.
Let me turn to the so-called work coaches. How effective are DWP work coaches at supporting young people? They are clearly committed, and work coaches provide an important service. The key challenge is their capacity to support young people. Building trust and rapport are key, along with soft skills, CVs and confidence building. Unfortunately, this is not something the majority of work coaches can provide in the time available. The majority have only five to 10 minutes per young person, which is filled largely with administration and conditionality, and they have a case load of 100 to 150 young people. Training tends to focus on administration and bureaucracy, not coaching.
It would be better to have charities and other organisations supporting young people. These organisations have the time, the expertise and the confidence to support young people. Experience in youth work and careers advice is vital. It takes, for example, two years to train a careers adviser. Can the Minister tell me, when it comes to the career coaches who work for the DWP, what is their qualification for the role? What are they required to have?
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, mentioned apprenticeships and the research that showed the huge number of drop-outs. In a study of 2,500 apprentices, there was a 47% drop-out rate. That is quite concerning and worrying. I am also concerned, as I have already mentioned, by the fact that so many young people under the age of 20 are not taking up apprenticeships.
To end, we are told by the Office for Budget Responsibility that there will be a rise in unemployment in the coming year. Of course, that will disproportionately affect young people. It will have an effect on the industry and businesses that will not be able to fill the skills gap they desperately need to, and it will therefore have an effect on the growth of our economy.
I noted that the Minister for Work and Pensions—it seems that I am having a go at the DWP—sent out a letter in which she referred to “supporting the most vulnerable” through economic challenges. There is no mention in that letter of young people and how they will be supported, particularly if they are unemployed. I also noted that in the Chancellor’s so-called Statement there were extra resources for education. Sadly, there were no extra resources for further education or the skills sector.
I want to see a thriving economy, but you have a thriving economy only if you have the skill set and the people who are trained to fill those roles. We are letting our economy, our country and those young people down. I do have a hope for the future—that we have, as we have heard twice now, a Secretary of State who was an apprentice herself. More importantly, she comes from Liverpool.
Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, I declare that I too am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for leading the production of this report over a year ago and for his introduction, which provided a detailed summary of the report’s findings, together with positive suggestions for improvement. I restate my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Baker, for the introduction in 1988 of those five Baker days, which helped to put professional development for teachers on a positive footing. I will try to give him some optimism tonight as I detail throughout my speech what a Labour Government intend to do about righting the wrongs so exposed by this excellent report.
This report makes for stark reading. At the time of publication last November, 12.6% of 16 to 24 year-olds were neither working nor in full-time study, and youth unemployment was at 11.7%. It is not much better today; now that the pandemic is abating, it is just under 10%. The committee’s report notes
“Unequal access to high quality careers guidance and a decline in work experience opportunities”,
and that careers guidance often starts too late to be useful. Noble Lords may remember my Front-Bench colleagues and I attempting to amend the skills Bill to ensure careers education from year 7, but we were unfortunately unable to persuade the Government of the merits of this, as so well detailed again this evening by my noble friend Lord Watson. Perhaps now they will think again.
Under the current system, employers can use the apprenticeship levy money only on apprenticeships. Some businesses have decided not to touch their levy money, while among those who spend it, employers report spending on average 50% to 60%, meaning that around £1 billion a year is going unspent in England. As a result, the CBI, Make UK, the British Retail Consortium and other business groups have highlighted a number of problems with the system and called for additional flexibility for business. The report that we are discussing today deals with this need for additional flexibility and calls for reform of the apprenticeship levy, such that any employer receiving funding from it is required to spend at least two-thirds of it on young people starting apprenticeships at levels 2 and 3 before the age of 25.
To begin to address these reforms that are so badly needed, my party has committed to a new growth and skills levy, which will give businesses the freedom to use currently unspent money, up to 50% of their total levy contributions, on non-apprenticeship training, with at least 50% reserved for apprenticeships. Clearly, stakeholders of all stripes are united: the levy is not working as it should for our young people.
Last month, my noble friend Lord Blunkett launched his report Learning and Skills for Economic Recovery, Social Cohesion and a More Equal Britain, which set out the scale of the transformation that we must deliver to equip Britain to succeed in the 21st century. Skills England, a new national skills taskforce, should be implemented to drive a national mission to ensure that young people and adults can access the training, reskilling and upskilling needed to thrive. We need to see similar focus and ambition from the Government on tackling youth unemployment, which is still above the G7 average.
My noble friend Lord Knight of Weymouth posed some far-reaching questions on the future needs of young people in education today, and how those needs have to be future-proofed. We must make much more use of developing the green economy and technology in developing young people’s skills. My noble friend Lord Watson referred to the careers aspects of this transformational report.
In taking this forward, Labour will be focused on how we deliver growth and enable people to take up good jobs in towns and cities across the UK. That is why Keir Starmer has already said that we will adopt my noble friend Lord Blunkett’s recommendation to introduce flexibility into the apprenticeship levy, flexibility that businesses are telling us they need to access the range of skills relevant to their workplaces. They will be able to spend money on short, modular courses, or pre-apprenticeship training, helping people to get new opportunities.
After more than a decade of failed Conservative policies, it could not be clearer that it is working people who will drive economic growth in this country, and we will focus on enabling people to succeed. As it stands, skills budgets are disparate, incredibly centralised and, more importantly, clearly not working. If we want young people to get on, we must devolve and combine these budgets, so decisions about training and upskilling are made closer to the people, businesses and communities who need them—those with real skin in the game. There is a tangible need for skills policies to be better aligned with regional economic policy and local labour markets, to deliver a more local, tailored approach to skills provision.
Analysis for the LGA by the Learning and Work Institute shows that the number of people improving their skills or finding work could increase by 15% if councils and combined authorities were better able to co-ordinate and bring together employment and skills provision across a place. Labour will merge the various education skills funding for adult streams, such as the shared prosperity fund and Multiply, with the existing adult education budget. This will then be devolved to combined authorities which, in collaboration with central government, will direct skills spending in their region and use their convening power to ensure that skills provision in their area is aligned with the local labour market, bringing together representatives from new local skills improvement partnerships, FE colleges, universities and local businesses. Skills England will co-ordinate the framework within which combined authorities deliver skills funding to make sure that local outcomes and local priorities are aligned with our industrial strategy and help us meet the challenges the country will face over the coming decades.
We will introduce a list of approved qualifications that businesses could spend their flexible levy money on, which will be developed by a new body in collaboration with businesses, unions and wider experts. We will include modular courses in priority areas which lie at the core of our industrial strategy, including digital and green skills, social care and childcare, which will boost training opportunities with a view to supporting national ambitions such as the transition to net zero. Functional skills and pre-apprenticeships training will help to tackle key skills, especially around basic digital skills. SMEs, which do not pay the levy, will be able to reclaim 95% of co-payments on approved courses in the same way.
Furthermore, Labour is committed to a complete review of the school curriculum, which was mentioned by noble Lords in the debate this evening. We would ensure that young people are equipped for the world and workplace of the future, not of the past. Among other things, we will look to reform the citizenship curriculum so it embeds practical life skills—looking at budgeting or understanding employment contracts—and digital competency, so that all young people gain the digital skills that they will need to thrive. We will ensure that this review is carried out by expert opinion because we want to give young people the best start in life and ensure that they leave our schools ready for the future.
I can go through the Government’s record on this issue to date—I am not normally a negative person, but apprenticeships have declined by almost 200,000, 11 million adults lack basic digital skills, and 9 million lack essential literacy or numeracy skills. There were 4 million fewer adults taking part in learning in 2020 compared with 2010.
What are we to do? A headmaster told me once, “Debbie, the biggest room in the world is the room for improvement.” He was right. He had it on a T-shirt which he liked to wear.
I end by quoting from the conclusion of my noble friend Lord Blunkett’s report:
“If there is not a step change which re-balances the economy, lifts the productivity and growth in regions across the nation to the levels seen in London and the South East, then the danger of stagflation will continue, the country will stagger on accepting mediocrity, gradually sliding further behind those countries who are determined to equip their nation for tomorrow’s world.”
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)
My Lords, the Government welcome the report Skills for Every Young Person and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for securing this debate and for his skilful and inclusive chairing, as has been referred to several times. I thank all members of the committee who contributed to the report and all noble Lords who have spoken today with such clarity. I was also pleased to see that the Government’s successes were recognised in the report, such as the establishment of careers hubs and the decreased rate of those not in education, employment or training for 16 to 18 year-olds in particular, which is currently one of the lowest on record at 6.4%.
As the report acknowledges, young people were some of the hardest hit by the pandemic, but I am pleased to say that through the historic levels of support, which your Lordships have acknowledged tonight, provided through the Government’s plan for jobs package, including programmes focusing on young people, we have seen a strong recovery.
A number of the report’s recommendations and of the comments from your Lordships tonight relate to school curriculums, so I will begin there. Every state-funded school must offer an ambitious curriculum that must be balanced and broadly based, promote the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils and prepare them for wide-ranging experiences of life. I did not recognise some of the descriptions of the curriculum that your Lordships shared tonight. The curriculum currently encompasses both knowledge and skills, and the published programmes of study for national curriculum subjects demonstrate how knowledge and skills are intertwined. A very large body of evidence shows that fluency of knowledge acts as the building block for the development of skills.
Yours Lordships’ report recommends embedding digital skills within the national curriculum, so it might be worth mentioning here that that computing is a statutory subject within the national curriculum across key stages 1 to 4. There was a 16% increase in the number of students taking computer science in 2022. It was the second-fastest growth rate in STEM subjects after design and technology so, with respect, I do not recognise the description by my noble friend that there has been no innovation since the Edwardian curriculum. I am not aware of Edwardians studying computer science or design and technology.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, questioned whether design and technology is seen as important as other subjects on the curriculum. As the noble Lord knows, all state-maintained schools must teach DT to pupils between the ages of five and 14, that is in key stages 1 to 3. There is also a statutory entitlement for every pupil in key stage 4 to take DT if they want to, and the new Ofsted inspection arrangements place renewed focus on that broad, balanced and ambitious curriculum. We are also working very closely with a number of organisations, including the James Dyson Foundation, the Design and Technology Association and the Royal Academy of Engineering, to make sure that the curriculum is up to date and gives the knowledge and skills that employers want.
I turn to careers guidance, which was highlighted by the noble Lords, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, Lord Aberdare and Lord Shipley, as well as other noble Lords. We know that there is huge value in good careers guidance in terms of nurturing aspiration and ambition, and your Lordships rightly focused on the Gatsby benchmarks in your report. To give one example of their impact, evidence suggests that the proportion of post-16 students who are not in employment, education or training fell by 20.1% in the most disadvantaged quarter of schools since they adopted the benchmarks, and 90% of schools and colleges are currently part of a careers hub, which is accelerating the quality of careers provision. We are seeing rapid improvements in hubs and disadvantaged areas are among the best performers.
The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, and the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Storey, raised the important subject of careers education in primary school. We recognise the value of supporting primary schools to help children explore the world of work, and careers provision is embedded in the key stage 2 citizenship curriculum. Thanks to the Careers and Enterprise Company, we have also provided all primary schools with resources to help pupils explore the world of work and, as the noble Lords who joined me in debating the skills Bill will remember, we have allocated £2.6 million over the current spending review period to bring new programmes to support careers education in primary schools in the 55 education investment areas.
The noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Aberdare, talked about a duty for young people to receive work experience. We absolutely agree about the importance of work experience, as is very visible in the whole approach we have taken to T-levels. A lot of work is going on in this area. There are now 400 cornerstone employers bringing together business effort and engagement with local schools and colleges and increasing the number of employer encounters for young people. We have more than 3,500 business professionals working as enterprise advisers with schools and colleges to develop their career strategies and plans for engaging with employers. If I may, I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Watson, on the Gatsby benchmarks and go through the numbers. I fear I may be writing a long letter at the end of this debate, as I fear I will not have a chance to do justice to all the points raised.
The noble Lords, Lord Knight and Lord Addington, made a really important point about the need for a culture change. The Government can do their bit but, as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, parents and employers also need to play a part. We continue with our ambition to achieve equality of esteem between academic and technical routes. That will depend on the quality of the offer and on breaking down barriers between further and higher education.
The report made a number of references to bringing funding for further education more in line with that for higher education, so I hope noble Lords will be encouraged that from 2023-24 higher technical qualification student finance will be brought on a par with degrees. This is just one step, along with the lifelong loan entitlement and other reforms this Government are bringing in.
The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, described a top-down, soviet model of policy in this area. I think she referred to local skills improvement partnerships. I hope she will acknowledge that they are an important positive devolution of responsibility in making sure that we get the best possible interface with local areas.
As a Government, we are delighted that T-levels got off to a great start with the first cohort of students completing their courses this year with an impressive 92% pass rate. Your Lordships will be aware that every T-level includes important modules on digital skills. On the T-level transition programme, we are very clear that we need to support young people who might need a bit more help to access the programme and to ensure that that ladder of opportunity leads to higher technical qualifications.
The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, talked about what Labour would do in terms of a range of short courses and flexible options. I thought it sounded remarkably similar to the short courses and flexible options that we have been providing. The noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, and the noble Lord, Lord Knight, touched on this. We have skills boot camps delivering flexible training for new skills in green construction, renewable energy, protection of natural resources and the transport sector, including, I hope the noble Viscount will be pleased to hear, £34 million so that 11,000 adults have been able to train as HGV drivers to meet some of the gaps there. In terms of green transport skills, I was sorry to hear about the noble Lord’s visit; I went to see a college recently which was very much focused on electric vehicles, so maybe this is just in transition.
Obviously, apprenticeships need no introduction to the House. The report made several recommendations for widening the support for apprentices under the age of 25. Currently, 53% of apprenticeship starts are by young people under this age—I was not sure that I recognised the figures that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, cited. But we want to support even more young people to realise the benefits of apprenticeships; several references were made in the debate to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and her remarkable career starting as an apprentice. Noble Lords will also recognise the voice of my honourable friend the Minister for Skills, who formerly was chair of the Education Select Committee and has been a passionate advocate in this area. So there is no lack of enthusiasm in the department.
One of our measures is a new career starter apprenticeship campaign. We are trying to showcase apprenticeships suitable for those leaving full-time education. We know, too, that there is huge demand for degree-level apprenticeships; we are seeing year-on-year growth of apprenticeships at levels 6 and 7, and we are enabling higher education institutions to grow their delivery through the strategic priorities grant.
The noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Storey, made the valid point about the apprenticeship completion rate, which we are very focused on. We are aiming to reach a 67% achievement rate on apprenticeship standards by the end of the 2024-25 academic year, and we have a programme of actions to make that a reality in terms of investing in a new development programme for the provider workforce, offering targeted support for employees and ensuring that apprentices get the best information, support and advice before and during the programme. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, cited the main reason. How many times can I hit this microphone? It is every time I turn the page. I apologise to your Lordships.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, suggested that levy funds should be ring-fenced for young people and the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, made the case for the need to keep upskilling and reskilling our existing workforce. Clearly, our ambition is to offer opportunities in both areas.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for recognising the work that we have done on the Unit for Future Skills. I remember arriving in the department on almost my first day, sitting down with the Skills Minister and asking for the data on how we join this up—so I am personally delighted to see that we have taken this area forward. The unit is very ambitious about improving the quality and availability of data on skills and jobs, and we are making fantastic progress on that already.
I turn to green skills and I hope that the daughter of the noble Lord, Lord Knight, will have an amazing career ahead of her—I am sure she will. I was very lucky to attend the COP 27 summit, really making the case for the importance of education in our sustainability agenda. We are working domestically but also, importantly, internationally, on the whole green skills agenda. Clearly, there will be global competition for green skills. We will deliver the first ever international green skills conference next year, and we are working with the further and higher education sectors, and with young people. We have been fantastically supported by the young people’s panel, industry and policymakers to deliver a conference that will really showcase the best of green skills learning and training opportunities and highlight green career paths and enhanced international partnerships. We have a very ambitious strategy on this in the department and, of course, many of our T-levels and other qualifications will underpin skills in this sector. I genuinely believe—not just for the daughter of the noble Lord, Lord Knight, but for all young people—that the scale of opportunity in an area that young people care so passionately about is really fantastic, so I hope that young people will leave equipped with the skills that they need and also with the hope that they can use them.
The noble Lord, Lord Storey, questioned the impact of the Kickstart scheme. Since the launch in September 2020, over 160,000 Kickstart jobs were started by young people. Now that the scheme has closed, we are evaluating and learning from it. We built on Kickstart’s success to influence the Way to Work campaign, where we helped over 500,000 job-ready claimants, including young people, into work between January and June this year. The campaign provides claimants with more time with their work coaches and more nurtured connections with local employers to improve their employability. Through the Youth Offer, we are helping thousands of eligible 16 to 24 year-olds from all backgrounds to overcome the barriers and find work. It offers individually tailored work coach support.
The noble Lord asked about the qualifications of work coaches, who are part of the workforce. They are offered a tailored learning and development programme, so they have skills and knowledge, but also technical knowledge of the benefits to coaching, and they are encouraged to signpost customers who would benefit from expert careers advice to the National Careers Service.
Lord Storey (LD)
I presume that is not a formal qualification but an in-house requirement.
Baroness Barran (Con)
That is correct. That is not to say that some of them do not have formal qualifications, but they receive additional support.
The noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, highlighted some powerful examples of children from minority communities, particularly in Tower Hamlets, and the barriers they face. I do not have the detailed data on the boroughs that she referred to, but 24% of those currently engaged in further education and skills education come from diverse backgrounds. We have an apprenticeship diversity champions network, which promotes diversity to employers and encourages people from BAME communities to consider apprenticeships. We have seen a significant rise in apprenticeship starts from those communities, and of course the noble Baroness will be aware that there has been a significant rise since 2010 in the number of 18 year-olds from ethnic minority backgrounds going to university, from 32% to 50%.
A number of noble Lords asked about funding for further education and skills in the recent Autumn Statement. I remind your Lordships that the Government have introduced major structural reforms, investing £3.8 billion in skills over the life of this Parliament.
In closing, we are rightly proud of our successes, and we absolutely recognise that some young people continue to face additional barriers to employment, including those from ethnic minority communities and those with special educational needs and disabilities. The reforms and measures I have outlined are about every young person fulfilling their potential, as well as equipping young people for the future workforce. They aim to give young people the opportunity to progress, whatever their choices and wherever they live. They are about better prospects for disadvantaged young people, because we share the commitment in your Lordships’ report that no young person should be left behind.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister very much for what she has said, and I should say that the government response to our report was extremely helpful. It defined what the issues were, which enables us to have a continuing debate on the conclusions and recommendations that the committee reached and on the Government’s actual actions to reflect what is happening outside Whitehall and Westminster.
As I have indicated, this has been a very helpful discussion and it has shown a broad unanimity of view on the issues. We will continue having this debate, because the country needs this debate. Let us look at the broad facts that we have debated tonight: 9% of young people are unemployed and there are 630,000 young people not in employment, education or training, yet there are 500,000 job vacancies in our country. As employers kept telling us, there is a huge skills mismatch, and they have great difficulty in recruiting the people they need at the levels at which they need them. So I conclude by saying that something has to change, and I hope it may be that this debate, our report and the government response will assist us in achieving the change that the country is actually asking for.
House of Lords
(1 year, 12 months ago)
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Government Contracts: Bain & Company
(1 year, 12 months ago)
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Lord Hain
To ask His Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with the government of the United States of America about the suspension of United Kingdom government contracts with Bain & Company.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville- Rolfe) (Con)
Before I answer the Question, I should say that it was a privilege to hear the South African President addressing Parliament yesterday. I hope I speak for others when I say that I found the Lord Speaker’s vote of thanks very warm and well judged.
His Majesty’s Government have not suspended any contracts with Bain & Company; however, following careful consideration in the light of South Africa’s Zondo commission, Bain & Company and its affiliates have been excluded from bidding for procurements for the award of new Cabinet Office contracts for a period of three years. Other departments were advised that exclusion should also be considered for their procurements. I am not aware of any specific UK government engagement with the Government of the United States of America on this issue.
Lord Hain (Lab)
My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord True, and Jacob Rees-Mogg—I never thought I would say that—for suspending Bain & Company from obtaining UK government contracts for three years. No company should act illegally abroad—as the South African judicial commission found Bain to have done in deliberately disabling the country’s tax-collecting agency, on the direct instruction of the corrupt former President to protect his cronies and his family—and get government contracts at home. The Government’s action sets an important precedent for other global corporates—that they must act legally and ethically abroad or be barred from taxpayer-funded public contracts at home. Bain is Boston-headquartered and I urge the Prime Minister to press President Biden to follow Britain’s lead.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, our understanding is that Bain & Company currently does no work for the US federal Government or US federal government agencies and has done no such work since early 2013, but the UK Government are confident that our key ally, the United States, will undertake the necessary due diligence to investigate such matters.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, it seems to be the settled policy of the Government to cut the size of the Civil Service and then compensate by spending more money on consultancies. Why is this done? Is it because civil servants provide evidence, whereas consultancies tell the Government what they want to hear? Some £60 million has been paid to Bain in the last six years. I understand that £40 million of that was paid for “advice on Brexit opportunities”. Was that value for money?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
Bain is not being paid anything at the moment, and I think that in the last year the figure was £2 million. I share the noble Lord’s view that we have to look carefully when we employ consultants to do work that can sometimes be done well within the Civil Service. At the same time, extra expertise is sometimes needed, especially on subjects as difficult as Brexit.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on being persistent in raising this issue at every opportunity. Corruption at an international level needs international co-operation. While the Minister may say that there are no contracts with the federal Government of the United States, the company will certainly do contract work with states within the US. While she is not aware of any discussions with the US Government, can she reassure us that there will be such discussions so that we can tackle this cancer on the world, corruption?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I agree that the noble Lord, Lord Hain, has been a great campaigner on this issue and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Collins, for repeating that. It is very important that we fight corruption at every level, in every way we can. It erodes trust and undermines public confidence, and it does that internationally. I think we have a good record in recent years, under this Government, in raising corruption internationally. I come back to my point that individual countries have to take their own action on exclusion and debarment.
Lord Hain (Lab)
Since I have the opportunity to come back, I would like to say that I am very grateful to the Minister for her response. The US is a key ally of ours, as are other countries in the G7 and the G20; all of them do business with Bain. Surely Britain having provided a lead opens the door for the Government to lobby their colleagues and friends to follow the same policy. Companies which act illegally—in disabling a tax agency in this case—should surely pay the penalty.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
On the subject of US relations, I can say that the Prime Minister met US President Biden at the G20 in Indonesia, and they agreed on the national and international importance of the UK-US relationship given the challenging economic times and all the difficulties we face together. The US Government have a suspension and debarment regime to which they devote a lot of resources, and contractors found not to be responsible are suspended or debarred, and the US will no doubt study very seriously the Zondo commission and the steps we have taken in the UK to lead the way on this matter.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, is it not about time that directors were held accountable for such actions, and that some of them went to jail?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
There is corporate law which involves the suspension of directors, but I am not able to speak about it today; it is dealt with by another department. However, our new Procurement Bill improves the arrangements for debarment where exclusion is needed, perhaps because there has been insolvency, dishonesty, impropriety or a serious breach of ethical and professional standards. We will discuss that in this House on Report next week. I think we are moving forward in this area although we have to be fair and balanced, as the UK Government always try to be.
Lord Sikka (Lab)
My Lords, as the Minister knows, there is no central enforcer of corporate law in the UK and the whole scene is very disjointed. While the Minister is in the mood to tackle corruption, can I invite her to tell the House whether any of the big four accounting firms, whose tax avoidance schemes have been declared unlawful by the courts, have at any time during the last 12 years been investigated, prosecuted or fined, or have the Government even bothered to recover a penny of the legal costs?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments, but it goes rather beyond today’s Question. However, I can say that the Cabinet Office conducted an in-depth review into KPMG following the finding against the firm of dishonesty in its role in the sale of the Silentnight group of companies. In fact, the review concluded that KPMG should not be excluded because it had carried out self-cleaning measures —that is where a company moves to demonstrate reliability and improve its compliance systems. It is very important that companies can do the right thing, particularly where mistakes have been made.
Civil Society and Human Rights Defenders
(1 year, 12 months ago)
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Lord Collins of Highbury
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking (1) to strengthen civil society, and (2) to improve protection for human rights defenders, internationally.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, the FCDO is taking a leading role in countering the increasing trend of closing civic space around the world. We continue to raise restrictions to civic space with Governments and multilaterally, drawing on the range of diplomatic and development levers available, including sanctions where appropriate. We also continue to work closely with the UN and other key partners, as well as at a country level, to understand how we can improve protection for human rights defenders globally.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for that response. He knows that I have consistently raised this issue, because when nations fail in their most important task of providing safety, security and freedom to their people, it is often—or always—civil society that leaps first to their defence. In the integrated review, the Government committed to promote open societies and work with human rights defenders as a priority, but how is this priority being translated into action? Does the FCDO plan to develop a strategy to resist this global trend of the closure of civil society space? If it does plan such a strategy, will the Minister commit to consult with civil society both here and globally in its development?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, on the noble Lord’s second point, the answer is yes, because you cannot develop a strategy unless you work with practitioners. I am certainly keen to take that forward. As the noble Lord may well be aware, the United Kingdom Government launched a specific document on UK support for human rights defenders back in 2019, and we worked with civil society groups, including Amnesty International, at the time. We are working through our extensive network of diplomats, and indeed through posts, in supporting human rights defenders. At times, we have to be very cautious of our approach in terms of the public profile we give to human rights defenders in other countries through the support we are extending to them, but we stand very much focused on the training of our diplomats as well as working very constructively with civil society organisations around the world.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, on this Red Wednesday, when Mr Speaker has given instructions for the Palace of Westminster to be lit red this evening to commemorate all those who suffer or are persecuted for their belief—hundreds of millions of people around the world—will the Minister say what more we are doing to promote Article 18 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which insists that every person has the right to believe, not to believe or to change their belief? In particular, will he take up again the case of Zhang Zhan, the young woman lawyer who went to Wuhan to expose the origins of Covid-19, motivated by her faith, who now languishes in a CCP jail, with British diplomats refused permission to attend the court hearing and no information given about her whereabouts, or indeed about her health?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I will follow up and update the noble Lord on his second point. On his first point, of course, the United Kingdom stands very firm in our defence of freedom of religion or belief around the world. It is important that we remain steadfast in that. As a country, we celebrate the rich diversity of faith or belief. Indeed, our own journey, while it may have been challenging, is testament to this. As we look around the rich tapestry of faith institutions in the United Kingdom today, we have church steeples, cloisters, gurdwaras, synagogues, mosques and temples; that really demonstrates how we celebrate faith. Equally, many are denied their right to faith or belief around the world. That is why we held a conference earlier this year; the noble Lord was directly engaged with that. He also knows of my personal commitment to ensure that this remains a key priority for His Majesty’s Government.
Baroness Sugg (Con)
My Lords, the work described in the Question from the noble Lord, Lord Collins, is undoubtedly needed. Front Line Defenders identified at least 358 people who were killed in 2021 because of their work defending rights. We have heard that in the Government’s integrated review there is a commitment to work with civil society and human rights defenders as a priority. We have an upcoming review of that; can my noble friend the Minister commit that that will remain a priority?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I assure my noble friend that it remains a priority. Indeed, very recently after the appointment of the new Government my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary, the new Minister for Development, Andrew Mitchell, and I met civil society organisations directly to ensure that each of their priorities was fully understood, both in terms of the work we are doing in defending human rights around the world and equally in terms of understanding their development priorities.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, how can the Minister say that it is one of his priorities when government programmes on open societies and human rights have been slashed by 74% between 2019-20 and 2021-22? We know that the most important human rights defenders around the world are women. It is a year and a week since the Government said they had
“decided to restore the women and girls development budget to what it was before the … ODA … cut”.
Why can I not find any evidence of this reversal? Would this not be a horrific, dreadful broken promise if the Government have reneged on that commitment?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, the first thing I would say to the noble Lord is that it is not just about money. One of the primary assets we have is our advocacy and diplomacy. The noble Lord himself is an example of diplomacy and advocacy around the world. I am proud of the fact that the United Kingdom leads on this agenda, not just on freedom of religion, standing up for girls’ rights, standing up for development, standing up for human rights defenders through practical initiatives, yes, but support through money as well. We stand by our commitment to ensuring that humanitarian support and the priority given to women and girls remains part and parcel of our development and diplomacy effort.
Lord Woodley (Lab)
My Lords, at the heart of civil society are the trade unions, the workers’ last line of defence against bad bosses and authoritarian Governments across the world. Yet, unfortunately our own Government have dramatically undermined workers’ rights for the past 12 years and are planning to go further, even against the advice of employers. Can the Minister confirm that he is co-operating with the International TUC and the ILO to stop the abuse of workers such as we have seen in Qatar, with thousands of workers dramatically losing their lives. Is he not embarrassed that the Government claim to be championing human rights while restricting them at home?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, among other things I am the UK Human Rights Minister and, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Collins, would testify, I believe in co-operation and working very closely with the Trades Union Congress and indeed with the CBI. I assure the noble Lord that in our interactions I meet regularly with the ILO and hear the views of the TUC. Indeed, the TUC forms part of the UK delegation in the annual International Labour Conference. I stand by that. Trade unions play an important role in our consultation and, as he said, both in Qatar and elsewhere we take their views very much on board in standing up for the rights of migrant workers. We have a debate later this week on human rights, workers’ rights and migrant rights. It is because of UK support, technical support, diplomatic support and through experience of our CSOs that we are able to help countries, including those in the Gulf, improve migrant rights as we have seen in places such as Bahrain.
Baroness Coussins (CB)
My Lords, there is an in-principle agreement between the UK and Mexican Governments to hold a human rights dialogue alongside the free trade negotiations. Although the trade talks have already completed two rounds, the human rights dialogue has not even started yet, and there is no sign of a timetable despite the human rights crisis in Mexico. Can the Minister tell the House whether a date has been set for this dialogue to begin and, if not, what the problem is?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I am not sure of the date of commencement, but I will write to the noble Baroness. We work very closely on this agenda with Mexico. I know, for example, on issues of LGBT rights, on the Equal Rights Coalition we handed over in September the co-chairmanship among other countries to Mexico, so we have a comprehensive human rights dialogue with it. As I said, I will write to the noble Baroness about the date.
Lord Cashman (Lab)
My Lords, as we have seen from the tragic events in an LGBT club in Colorado and the staggering rise in trans hate crime in this country —there were 2,630 such crimes in 2021—hate speech, from wherever it comes, has devastating consequences. I would therefore like to ask the Minister this: what specific action are the Government taking to work with LGBT human rights defenders in countries where LGBT people are criminalised and where the death penalty exists for LGBT people, such as the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Qatar?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord is right to raise these issues, and I pay tribute to his work on this important agenda. I assure him that, through our network of more than 280 missions around the world, we deliver direct diplomatic engagement and raise LGBT rights directly, even in those parts of the world. Again, there are noble Lords with whom I confer privately sometimes because of the sensitivity of the issue. I do not hold back; we hold those discussions quite candidly to ensure the rights of all citizens, whatever their faith, belief or sexuality, as we enjoy them here in the UK—notwithstanding the domestic challenges that the noble Lord highlighted. We continue to remain focused. Human rights should be universal for everyone everywhere.
Tobacco Control Plan
(1 year, 12 months ago)
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Lord Faulkner of Worcester
To ask His Majesty’s Government when they intend to publish their Tobacco Control Plan; and whether it is still their intention that England shall be smoke-free by 2030.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Markham) (Con)
Following the publication of the Khan review into smoke-free policies, we are taking stock of whether a fresh tobacco control plan is the best way to respond to its independent recommendations. The Government remain fully committed to the ambition of a smoke-free England by 2030, and we will provide an update on our plans to meet that target in due course.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, I think this is the first time the Minister has answered a Question about tobacco control; I welcome him to this debate. He will know that this House has led the way in putting forward and implementing measures that have led to a significant drop in smoking levels, certainly since 2002. There is cross-party consensus that we should go on in this way.
The Minister’s predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Kamall —I am pleased to see him in his place—is on the record in both March and April as saying not only that the Government are committed to a smoke-free 2030, as confirmed by the Minister this afternoon, but that the new tobacco plan will be published this year. Does the Minister accept that, to achieve the smoke-free target and reduce the appalling inequalities in life expectancy caused by smoking, it will be necessary to implement the recommendations in Javed Khan’s independent review, particularly those based on the “polluter pays” principle?
Lord Markham (Con)
First, I thank the noble Lord for all his work to reduce smoking; I am grateful for it every time I walk into a smoke-free environment in the evening. As he said, a cross-party approach has achieved many great things. As the noble Lord knows, there are some quite radical things in the Khan review, such as increasing the smoking age every year, which would in effect ban smoking altogether. There are many pros and cons to the prohibition argument, but it is something we take very seriously and we will publish our response. I assure noble Lords that we are going to tackle this issue.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend recall that in the former coalition Government, we made considerable progress in reducing smoking in this country, not least by focusing on the level of initiation of smoking among young people? We banned vending machines, for example. Will the Government consider raising from 18 the age at which young people can buy cigarettes?
Lord Markham (Con)
I agree with my noble friend. The key age group to attack, so to speak, is 16 to 18-year-olds, which is often when the smoking habit begins. We must look seriously at every step we can take to reduce smoking in that age group. I am also aware that 18 is the age of consent, of being able to do lots of things, and changing that for smoking would obviously be quite a radical step, but everything is on the table as we review the best way forward.
Lord Rennard (LD)
My Lords, the Health Foundation recently published figures showing that the budgets for tobacco control and smoking cessation have been cut in real terms by 41%. Is not part of the answer to funding treatment for addiction to tobacco, alcohol and gambling the extension of the “polluter pays” principle? What is the argument against a levy on the very large profits of the tobacco companies, in order to pay towards helping their customers who want to quit?
Lord Markham (Con)
There are a number of ways we can tackle this, price, obviously, being one of the main ways, along with taxation. The noble Lord will be aware that we increase the tax by 2% every year, and cigarettes prices here are now the highest in Europe. We are still providing funding of £73 million per year to help 100,000 people stop smoking. But it is not always money that counts. Anti-smoking campaigns, branding restrictions and taxation are all other elements which are proving successful.
Lord Palmer (CB)
My Lords, have His Majesty’s Government estimated the loss to the Treasury if England became smoke-free?
Lord Markham (Con)
I am not aware of those figures, but the general feeling is that the savings to the health system would far outweigh them. I would always err in favour of doing everything we can to reduce smoking, whatever the impact on the tax we raise, because the savings on the health side are far, far greater.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, despite the Government pledging to explore additional measures to clamp down on the sale of e-cigarettes to under-18s, no plan has yet materialised, while vaping among 11 to 18 year-olds has more than doubled. What assessment have the Government made of this alarming trend, and what action is being considered to keep children and young people away from this gateway to a smoking habit?
Lord Markham (Con)
This is a difficult area. On the one hand, I think we all agree that vaping is much better than smoking, so we are trying to get the message out to people to stop smoking and use vaping if need be. At the same time, we do not want vaping to be a gateway, as she says. Giving those mixed messages is never an easy thing to do, which is why we must consider as part of the Khan review the best way to get that message out. The recent Cochrane review shows that vaping is as safe as all other methods of stopping smoking, such as patches, so it should be our key way of stopping smoking.
Lord Geddes (Con)
My Lords, as much as I enjoy my non-political friendship with the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, I totally disagree with the premise behind his Question. Why should Big Brother tell me what I can and cannot do in respect of something I have been doing for 67 years?
Lord Markham (Con)
I am not sure whether that question is for me, but I will try my best. As ever on these things, there is a carrot and a stick. Cross-party, we have introduced carrot measures—the anti-smoking campaigns—and stick measures such as pricing and restrictions. That has worked very well to date. We have halved the smoking rate over the last 15 years, and we must continue to work on carrot-and-stick measures to reduce it further.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that the tobacco industry is very adept at getting round regulations. In 1986, John Home Robertson’s Bill made illegal the use of tobacco pouches that people put in their mouths as substitutes. I understand that synthetic nicotine pouches are now being used to get round that law, so what are the Government doing to stop this?
Lord Markham (Con)
I will need to write to the noble Lord on that. I am aware that different methods exist, but I think we are all united on the need to do everything we can to prevent any circumvention.
Lord Naseby (Con)
Is not any plan meaningless when at least a third of the market is supplied by illegal imports? His Majesty’s Government appear not to have done anything to stop this, and it is the young people in our country who are smoking the cheap, illegally imported cigarettes.
Lord Markham (Con)
We are working very hard with HMRC on this. I think we can all agree that one thing that Brexit was good on was restricting the number of cigarettes that people can bring in legally from other parts of Europe.
Lord Markham (Con)
I will take everything I can. Clearly, we need to stop cigarettes coming in by all illegal means.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
The Government also lose a lot of income through illegal importation. If the Government are working very hard indeed to prevent it, can the noble Lord please spell out what they are doing? As I understand it, the number of staff involved at the ports is being cut.
Lord Markham (Con)
I do not have the figures on that, so I will need to give the noble Lord a detailed reply.
Counterterrorism: Martyn’s Law
(1 year, 12 months ago)
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Lord Harris of Haringey
To ask His Majesty’s Government, further to the letter from senior police officers to the Prime Minister on 21 November calling for the introduction of “Martyn’s Law”, when they intend to introduce counterterrorism legislation to improve the safety and security of public venues.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
I refer to my interest in the register and beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)
My Lords, the Government are grateful to Figen Murray for her tireless campaigning for Martyn’s law. The protected duty will ensure that public places put safety and security first. We are working hard to bring forward this important piece of legislation as soon as possible.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, it is five years since the Manchester Arena bombing and Figen Murray has campaigned tirelessly following the death of her son. Had there been a Protect duty in place at that time, 22 people might not have died. The Home Office has moved with extraordinary sloth since the principle was accepted. It has consulted at length and responded to the consultation. We were promised this in the Queen’s Speech. When is this going to happen, or do we have to wait for another atrocity?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
Bringing forward this legislation was a 2019 manifesto commitment. As the noble Lord noted, there was supposed to be a consultation in early 2020, but that was delayed due to Covid. It was eventually undertaken between 26 February and 2 July 2021. It was a very comprehensive consultation process with more than 2,500 responses, and the duty has received strong support from businesses and others. As I say, the Government are committed to bringing forward this important legislation, as per the Queen’s Speech, as soon as parliamentary time allows.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that one of the best ways to tackle terrorism is to prevent people becoming terrorists in the first place? What is his department is doing to work with the many local civil society organisations that are working with young people in many communities across the country, to prevent them being recruited by terrorists?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I thank my noble friend for his question. The Contest strategy is the Government’s counterterrorism strategy and has the four Ps at its core, one of which is Prevent. Many sections of the community are engaged with that and the Government expect to publish an updated and enhanced version of Contest early next year.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)
My Lords, notwithstanding the horrific slaughter of young people in the Manchester Arena, a clear majority of the 100 or so deaths from terrorism in Great Britain this century have been on public transport or on the streets of London. Knowing the risks, we still prize the ability to run for a train or hop on a bus without submitting to checks or scrutiny of any kind. Does the Minister agree that we need to reflect long and hard before requiring precautions at public venues that are not required on public transport? I think particularly of the hundreds of thousands of small venues, such as cafes or parish churches, where there may be no money to spare and no specific threat.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
The noble Lord makes a very sound point. He is, in effect, asking me about the scope of the proposed legislation and that work is ongoing. It would not be appropriate for me to comment at this point.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, and to Martyn’s family for their work on these issues. What else can the Government do to encourage small venues to improve security, while we await this long-overdue legislation? What about a public information campaign or a security rating scheme for venues? Lives may be unnecessarily at risk because of government inaction.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
The noble Lord makes an interesting point. ProtectUK was launched in March 2022 as a digital tool. Its work includes offering guidance, advice and engagement with counterterrorism experts via an online platform. As it develops, it will establish itself as a central digital location for counterterrorism support. There are a number of other aspects to that, which I could go on about at some length, but considerable work is being done in that space.
Lord Blunkett (Lab)
My Lords, seven former Home Secretaries have written to the Prime Minister today, asking for this matter to be expedited, given that it is almost 18 months since the end of the consultation. I am being only slightly facetious when I ask the noble Lord if he will make sure that the Prime Minister gets the letter because, when Tony Blair’s dad wrote a letter to Downing Street and signed it “love, Pop”, he got a letter back saying “Dear Mr Pop”. Perhaps we could make sure that this letter reaches Rishi Sunak.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I will make sure the Prime Minister is aware of the letter.
Baroness Newlove (Con)
My Lords, as the former Victims’ Commissioner, I have met Figen and other campaigners. For the Government not to have any legislation in place after five years is inhumane to the families who are grieving and fighting to make other venues safe. After all, at the end of the day, the Manchester inquiry has a huge profile and it is up to the Government to put legislation in place for the sake of the lost family members and for those fighting to protect others—as Figen has and will continue to, in a dignified manner.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I agree with my noble friend that the campaign has been conducted in a very dignified manner. Of course, I express my sympathies with all the victims and their families. As I say—I cannot improve on this answer—the legislation will come forward as soon as parliamentary time allows.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, we are not going to let the Minister off the hook with that. My noble friend Lord Harris has been campaigning with Martyn’s family on this issue for years. It has been five years since the Manchester Arena bombing. It is not good enough for the Minister to say that this will be done as soon as possible, “We are trying to do it expeditiously”, et cetera. When will we see this legislation put into practice to honour the memory of those who died at Manchester and elsewhere?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I am sorry to disappoint the noble Lord again, but I will have to stay on the hook. The fact is that it will be as soon as parliamentary time allows. I cannot improve on that answer.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, in 2009, I signed off a mass of work to do with security in crowded places. My right honourable friend was in a nearby office at the time and we increased the number of NaCTSOs, as well. Can the Minister confirm that that work—a great deal of work—on exactly this stuff is being looked at and used in the context of this legislation? If not, as with so many things, we will be going round and round in circles.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
As I say, the Government are still working on this and all aspects of it will be included in the legislation and in the other things I have referenced, such as the Contest and Protect strategies.
Lord Flight (Con)
My Lords, do the Government consider counterterrorist measures the most suitable measures to deal with the security of public venues?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
As outlined in the Queen’s Speech, yes.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, can the Minister explain why the legislation programme seems much slower with this Government than it was with the previous ones?
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, while we wait for this proposed legislation to pass through this House and the other place, can we be assured that one of the main failures that was a contributory factor to the Manchester bombing was the lack of joined-up thinking and joined-up work by the emergency services? Can we at least have the assurance that that is in hand and that all venues, small or large, now have proper contingency planning while we await the legislation?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My noble friend makes a good point. I am, of course, happy to try to give that assurance from the Dispatch Box but, as we know, all police forces and emergency services remain operationally independent to some extent. The fact is that they have access to the various services I have outlined, through Contest.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, I am sorry to come back to the Minister, but the question just asked by his noble friend highlights that there is a lot of guidance there. The whole point of this proposed legislation was that it would place a duty to act proportionately on those responsible for public venues. I cannot understand why there is this continued delay. Is it simply that there is no parliamentary time, given that both Houses seem to have a very light load at the moment?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
From my personal point of view, I am not sure that it is a particularly light load. As the noble Lord says, the duty will enhance public security by introducing new requirements for certain public places to ensure preparedness. It is necessary: there is no disagreement about that. It will come forward as soon as parliamentary time allows.
Energy Bill Relief Scheme Pass-through Requirement (England and Wales and Scotland) Regulations 2022
(1 year, 12 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
That the Regulations laid before the House on 31 October be approved. Special attention drawn to the first and second instruments by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, 18th Report. Considered in Grand Committee on 22 November.
Biocidal Products (Health and Safety) (Amendment) Regulations 2022
(1 year, 12 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Stedman-Scott
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 18 and 20 October be approved. Relevant document: 16th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 21 November.
Subsidy Control (Subsidies and Schemes of Interest or Particular Interest) Regulations 2022
(1 year, 12 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 20 October be approved. Considered in Grand Committee on 21 November.
Ballot Secrecy Bill [HL]
Wednesday 23rd November 2022
(1 year, 12 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Ballot Secrecy Act 2023 View all Ballot Secrecy Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: HL Bill 15-I Marshalled list for Committee - (16 Nov 2022)
Solihull Murders
(1 year, 12 months ago)
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Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, this terrible tragedy highlights the fact that although domestic abuse crimes recorded by the police have been increasing annually by between 5% and 6%, prosecutions have slumped for the fifth year in a row. What are the Government going to do about the endemic misogynistic culture among the police and prosecutors which means that they do not tackle these dangerous crimes against women, which can, as here, with unanswered and unresponded to calls, prove fatal?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)
I begin by saying that my thoughts are with the loved ones of Khaola Saleem and Raneem Oudeh. For a mother and daughter to lose their lives in this way is truly heartbreaking. We should bear in mind the perpetrator, who bears the ultimate responsibility for this sickening act.
The noble Baroness asked about misogyny in the police. The Government remain determined to tackle misogyny in the police. That is why the independent policing inspectorate was tasked with reviewing vetting and countercorruption arrangements in policing across England and Wales, looking in particular at what forces are doing to identify and deal with misogynistic behaviour. We welcome the report’s conclusion that the culture is improving. The findings about adverse attitudes towards women are unacceptable and I expect all forces to take action in response as a matter of urgency.
Baroness Sugg (Con)
My Lords, tragically, these deaths were preventable. Does my noble friend the Minister believe that the police are appropriately trained in cultural sensitivities in relation to domestic violence?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I thank my noble friend for that question. Training includes those issues. I will quote the Minister in the other place yesterday, because she summed it up perfectly. She said:
“It is about time that people who work in this field do not look towards colour as being an excuse for non-activity. This Government take the matter very seriously. It does not matter what colour, creed or sex a person is; if they need the police’s help, they need the police’s help. I expect those themes to be included in proper police training.”—[Official Report, Commons, 22/11/22; col. 158.]
So do I.
Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)
My Lords, in her remarks yesterday, the Minister also said:
“We need thorough risk assessments, and they need to be followed with proper training.”—[Official Report, Commons, 22/11/22; col. 156.]
I am sure all noble Lords would agree. Can this Minister tell the House why some police forces have failed to carry out assessments and training of their officers? Can he give me any good reason why this training should not now become compulsory?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that question. We agree: it is incredibly important that the training reflects the gravity of these sorts of situations. We are taking action to improve this. I am sure she will be aware that we are supporting and funding the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth in her role as full-time national policing lead on this sort of subject. We are committed to funding the continuing rollout of the College of Policing’s Domestic Abuse Matters programme for front-line responders, and to adding VAWG to the strategic policing requirement.
On the training that has been developed by Maggie Blyth, which I think was released last December, so far only two-thirds of police forces have adopted it. That is not good enough. The Minister in the other place said the same and I am happy to repeat it.
Baroness Crawley (Lab)
My Lords, will the Minister say why it took until these last 12 months for the Government to recognise that violence against women and girls should be included in the definition of “serious violence”?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I am not sure that is strictly true. I do not wish to comment on the precise timings, but I repeat the statement I just made. The Government are taking violence against women and girls incredibly seriously and will continue to do so.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, the five officers in question have been served with management action by the Independent Office for Police Conduct over the missed opportunities. Can the Minister explain exactly what this means? Furthermore, the Home Secretary has instructed police authorities to make sure that they do all they can to investigate every single burglary. Can the same principles not be applied to domestic violence as well?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My noble friend is completely right. In fact, nine officers from West Midlands Police were served with misconduct notices, and the IOPC found a case to answer for five of them at level. They received management action; I am afraid I am unable to define what “management action” actually means. I apologise for that. I will try to find out more on the subject and, if I can, I will write to my noble friend.
Baroness Newlove (Con)
My Lords, this case is horrendous. It makes me feel very sad that people are still dying unnecessarily under the laws we put in place in this Chamber. I inform my noble friend that, while I appreciate his answers to these questions, on the ground it simply is not happening. I am receiving lots of emails from women who have been asked by police officers to do their own investigations into domestic abuse, acid attacks and stalking; I guide them to go back to the police and ask the questions. The inspectorate says it will attend every burglary; I agree with my noble friend that it should do so for every crime. No victim should be asked to investigate the horrific crimes that they are going through.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I completely agree with my noble friend. It may help if I go through the list of recommendations made by the IOPC to West Midlands Police in this case. The learning recommendations concerned domestic abuse risk assessments being completed without intelligence checks and misunderstanding by officers around when such risk assessments would be reviewed by their public protection unit. Other recommendations were that the force should consider PPU oversight of all domestic abuse cases with repeat victims, and further training around the use of domestic violence protection orders—DVPOs—and domestic violence protection notices.
My noble friend is quite right that no woman should be asked to undertake her own investigation; that is absolutely absurd. It is for the police to do it. The police have recognised it, the IOPC has published recommendations and West Midlands Police in particular is acting on it. I hope all other forces do too.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister says that every force should carry out this training, yet we know that a lot are not. Between the Home Office, the inspectorate and the police forces, where is the accountability in the system to make sure that this crucial training takes place?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
As the noble Lord is well aware—I have said it many times from the Dispatch Box—police forces in this country remain operationally independent. That is right, but of course the PCC is also the interface here between the public and the police. The statement on this case by the West Midlands PCC, Simon Foster, was very robust and made some solid points. With the noble Lord’s permission, I will quote a bit of it:
“My Police and Crime Plan makes it clear that West Midlands Police must impose bail conditions on perpetrators rather than releasing under investigation, make full use of civil protection orders and restraining orders and make arrests for breach of non-molestation orders.”
He goes on at some length and I will not repeat it all, but I think that is the appropriate response. I commend him on his actions and urge other PCCs to follow suit.
Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)
My Lords, police failed repeatedly to come to the rescue of Raneem Oudeh and her mother, despite 10 complaints and six 999 calls, including on the night of their death. We have heard the police pledge to attend every single home burglary, but I just wonder what the priorities are here. Surely, saving the lives of women in these situations should be of equal importance as attending burglaries, if not more important. Why are women just not listened to by the police?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I think it is of rather more importance than investigating burglaries; we should all think that. I do not necessarily agree that it is not a priority for the police forces. The police forces are certainly saying the right things but, as I have already said from this Dispatch Box, I, the Minister in the other place, the Home Secretary and the Government think they have more to do.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, is not the problem here—the difference between burglary and domestic violence—the attitude of police officers towards women? What are the Government doing about that?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I went through some detail on that, as regards the strategy on tackling misogyny in the police. I agree that there are some clear failings on this, certainly in regard to this case. The way the police failed to investigate some very clear signals was clearly unacceptable, but the Government are determined to tackle the misogynistic culture that has been identified.
Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)
My Lords, police attendance on a crime-by-crime basis is a difficult thing to sustain. The police should attend all reports of crime if the victim wants them to or if it is a very serious event, which is something I have always pursued, but should the Government not also work with the College of Policing to share the best evidence about what highlights those most at risk? For example, Professor Larry Sherman, recently at Cambridge, highlighted a high correlation between suspects who had threatened suicide and people who eventually became murderers of victims they had previously threatened. We had previously been told that threatening the victim prior to their murder was also an indicator. Both matter, but the police’s response needs to be based on good evidence. I am not convinced that the college has yet got that connection between the evidence base and passing that on to the police to share, so that their training improves.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for that, and commend him for investigating all the crimes when he was still actively policing. I will take back his suggestions on the College of Policing because they make sense. Obviously one of the college’s primary duties is to ensure that best practice is shared and disseminated.
Counsellors of State Bill [HL]
Wednesday 23rd November 2022
(1 year, 12 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Counsellors of State Act 2022 View all Counsellors of State Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 66-I Marshalled list for Committee - (21 Nov 2022)
Viscount Stansgate
“(c) on the death of a person named in paragraph (a) or (b), any person named by His Majesty the King by Order in Council.(1A) A statutory instrument containing an Order under subsection (1)(c) may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, I will not unduly take up the time of the Committee in introducing this amendment because my sense is that there are many Members who would not necessarily want to waste scarce parliamentary time unnecessarily.
My amendment is simple and straightforward: it proposes that, once the Bill has reached the statute book, if a Counsellor of State dies then the King may provide a replacement. It does not say the King has to do so; it simply says that he may if he wants to, and proposed new Section (1A) in the amendment provides the mechanism for doing so with the suitable involvement of Parliament. That is it.
The amendment is designed to be helpful. After all, the Bill is before us because the King has suggested that changing the Regency Act 1937 would be helpful to him in the discharge of his duties, and has asked us that two new names be added for life to the list of Counsellors of State. The Committee will know that both Princess Anne and the Earl of Wessex have already served in this role in years gone by.
As the Leader of the House said at Second Reading, it is the custom and practice for Counsellors of State to act in pairs, and he gave several examples in his speech. We saw that with our own eyes at the State Opening of Parliament when the Prince of Wales, as he then was, and Prince William, as he then was, acted as Counsellors of State and made it possible for this Session of Parliament to be opened. I believe that is the only time that Her late Majesty the Queen ever delegated these functions to Counsellors of State because of illness.
The Bill before us will solve the immediate problem and my amendment seeks only to avoid another, and to save some time. If one of the new Counsellors of State proposed in the Bill were to predecease the King, action would have to be taken again. We might even have to have a new Bill. Why? Because, as the Committee well knows, underlying the Bill is the fact that at least two of the existing Counsellors of State would not be publicly acceptable in the role that they would then have. That is why the King has recognised that there is a problem and why he has suggested the solution outlined in the Bill. My amendment is designed merely to help the King in future, and I commend it to the Committee.
Lord Pannick (CB)
My Lords, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee reported on the Bill in terms that are regrettably rare nowadays. It said:
“This Bill contains no delegated powers.”
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, has not had the opportunity here to complain about delegated powers, and I am very pleased about that. I should be very sorry to see a delegated power introduced at this stage, particularly a delegated power conferred on His Majesty. In 1867, Walter Bagehot wrote that the monarch has three rights—the right to consult, the right to encourage and the right to warn. The monarch has no right and no power to produce delegated legislation. I can think of no precedent for the Crown having a delegated power—certainly not since 1689.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord True) (Con)
My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, presses his amendment with good intent. He has expressed his views at every stage of this process with the utmost civility and courtesy. I thank him for that.
I understand that, from his perspective, he seeks to add a certain flexibility or, as he would see it, some insurance to the system. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, implied in his important intervention, it would add further rigidity, novelty and potentially delay to the procedure. The steps in the amendment are not required and they are unwelcome. The amendment goes considerably further than the limited modification proposed in the Bill. As I submitted to your Lordships at Second Reading, the nature of this Bill flows from a message from His Majesty. I think it was the feeling of the House at Second Reading that the Bill is appropriate and proportionate to the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
The noble Viscount is proposing a wider change to the underlying architecture of the legislation. As indicated in the intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, it would grant the sovereign a new authority—one which was not referenced in the King’s message—but does not indicate on what basis any such decision would be made. It would also introduce a novel parliamentary process into these matters. In this respect, it is a departure from the current framework and the proposition before us, and the Government do not believe that it is necessary or desirable.
I repeat that the Government believe that the approach suggested in the Bill is a reasonable and practical solution in the current context. The Bill as currently drafted will create a sufficient pool of counsellors who will hold this role for their lifetimes. As the noble Viscount will understand, with the effluxion of time, the order of succession will evolve and so will the situation once this Bill becomes an Act.
Although I acknowledge the spirit in which this amendment is tabled, the history of the Regency Acts demonstrates that it is a challenging task for Parliament or any legislator to predict the future. I suggest that we do not seek to do so here but seek rather to respond to the task at hand and proceed in the light of the message that the sovereign has sent us. It indicates his wishes and, I feel, the wishes of the House, that this practical, limited and moderate approach should be taken at the present time. I urge the noble Viscount to withdraw his amendment.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. I would say only that it has almost been worth it to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. I of course beg leave to withdraw my amendment. I hope that this Bill will succeed in its intention. Time will tell how events will turn out in the future.
Lord Berkeley
“and as if they excluded—(c) His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex,(d) His Royal Highness the Duke of York, and(e) any other person who in the opinion of the Lord Chancellor has not in the immediately preceding 2 years undertaken Royal duties on a regular basis.”
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, in speaking briefly to Amendment 2 I can also say that I will not be moving Amendment 3 because, in his reply at Second Reading, the Minister gave an excellent and wide response. Amendment 2 is designed to formalise the Counsellors of State after the accession of King Charles, adding the Earl of Wessex and the Princess Royal to the list.
It is constitutionally very important that when the monarch is not there, this will allow the Government to continue, because we have a constitutional monarchy. That means that some of the counsellors—all of them, probably—come from the family. It is a large family and I know that King Charles has previously said that he thought it should be smaller. I do not think he has said that since he inherited the Throne, but there we are. The interesting thing to me is, what is the concept of a working royal? The counsellors obviously support the monarch in his constitutional role, so, as I think the Lord Privy Seal said at Second Reading, they clearly should be both in the UK and working, if for no other reason than that they know what is going on.
Parliamentary approval of counsellors is necessary, too, which is what we are talking about today, because there has been a history—if not recently—of monarchs going a little mad or otherwise breaking the law, as Parliament saw it. It is right that we prepare ourselves for the future. While it is also right that Parliament agree to the monarch’s proposal to add two Counsellors of State, I do not see why we cannot at the same time remove those who are no longer apparently thought suitable.
The Lord Privy Seal said at Second Reading that
“the legislation already contains provisions whereby Counsellors of State are excepted from duties if they are overseas”
and that
“in practice, working members of the Royal Family will be called on”.—[Official Report, 21/11/22; col. 1194.]
My Amendment 2 just tries to clarify that. Why not name the people concerned, rather than having to interpret what a working royal is?
I do not know whether this is from embarrassment or fear of a media frenzy. I hope it is not, but it is an important constitutional issue. It has nothing to do with who has what title or what clothes they wear for television appearances, or anything else like that. If the members of the family are not working royals, there is a fear, as the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, mentioned in his excellent speech on Monday, that the Duke of Sussex would jet in and claim that he was working because he thought that would be a good idea. A definition would be a good thing, and I see no reason why they should not be named in the Bill.
I am not going to press this amendment because I support the Bill, on the whole. However, a little clarification from the Minister, if he is able, would be very helpful. I beg to move.
Lord Pannick (CB)
My Lords, it seems unnecessary to exclude the Duke of Sussex and the Duke of York who, for reasons we all know and understand, are not going to be performing royal duties in the immediate future in any event. As to the drafting of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in proposed new paragraph (e), that there should be excluded
“any other person who in the opinion of the Lord Chancellor has not in the … preceding 2 years undertaken Royal duties on a regular basis”,
this leaves rather open for analysis what “regular” means. Does it mean once a month, once a week or once a year? What if they are ill for a period of time? The idea that the Lord Chancellor should determine this question without any criteria seems rather unsatisfactory. Mr Dominic Raab has more than enough to do at the moment.
Lord Balfe (Con)
I will make one small point. We will have five Counsellors of State, two of whom are not going to be used, namely the Dukes of Sussex and of York. That means that, since you have to have two Counsellors of State acting if the monarch is away, if either the Princess Royal or the Duke of Wessex were unavailable, we would have only Princess Beatrice left. We do not have anyone else on the reserves bench, so to speak.
I doubt whether we have heard anything, but noble Lords will recall that I suggested that the Princess of Wales should added to the list. I still think that would be a sensible idea because she will of course become a Counsellor of State when her husband succeeds to the Crown. Again, I will not support any votes, but the palace should look at this because you only need one person to be ill, and you have Princess Beatrice as a Counsellor of State. Although she is probably acceptable, she is virtually unknown.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
I apologise for not being able to be here on Monday for Second Reading; I was in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, chairing a conference on press freedom organised by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
However, I will make one point. At an earlier stage, I was slightly concerned that there seemed to be a sharp intake of breath in some quarters in relation to whether we ought to discuss this. That concerned me. We need to reaffirm the sovereignty of this Parliament. This is a constitutional monarchy: Parliament is responsible for considering all these kinds of Bills, and it is right that we do so. It is right that my noble friends Lord Stansgate and Lord Berkeley—I note that both are hereditary, which is interesting, but that is another story—should be able to move amendments, and that we have a debate on this.
This is especially so when the whole role, function and composition of this second Chamber is being reviewed. We ought to recognise that a number of constitutional questions are being considered at the moment, and Parliament should have oversight of any such Bills in a constitutional monarchy. It is right that we hear from my noble friends Lord Stansgate and Lord Berkeley, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and anyone else who wants to comment on this.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, it is of course right, and what the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, said is entirely justified: Parliament has a role. But, in this particular case, we can rely upon the good judgment and discretion of the King, and we can recognise that he is a father and a brother as well as a king.
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
My Lords, I will make a more lawyerly point. I heard the wise intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, on what is regular and the powers of the Lord Chancellor. I will not comment on either of those points. But I heard the noble Lord say, in moving the amendment, that his wish was to provide some clarity. I respectfully suggest that its wording actually does the precise opposite, because he has used the verb “excluded”—although, when he moved it, he used the word “removed”. In the context of this legislation, verbs are important. A Counsellor of State can be excepted if they are overseas, for example, which means that they cannot act but they do not lose their place in the pecking order. If they are disqualified, they lose their place in the pecking order, and the next person in line takes that place. It is not immediately clear to me whether “excluded” is “excepted” or “disqualified”. With the greatest respect, I suggest that it is this amendment that ought to be excluded.
Lord Sentamu (CB)
My Lords, I also apologise for not being here on Monday; I had to handle some serious matters in Berwick. Yes, the constitutional monarch has consulted, and this House considered this at Second Reading and agreed the terms as in the legislation. So there is no question of the supremacy of Parliament not being recognised. The suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is almost like rubbing it in—it is just one of those words we would not want to use. We should restrict the Bill to what was asked of us. This was considered, and therefore the wording is there.
Another thing is that we can never predict anyone’s future. I could be ill tomorrow, or I could be dead, and that would be the end of me. Anticipating what may or may not happen in legislation is always pretty difficult, so leave it well alone.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, I have considerable sympathy with the thoughts behind this amendment, because the debate has shown that there is a certain amount of confusion about which members of the body of Counsellors of State will undertake royal duties, do undertake royal duties or might be asked to do so. In addition to the Duke of Sussex and the Duke of York, Princess Beatrice—although I might be wrong about this—is also not a working royal. That means that three members of this extraordinarily small body will never be asked to perform the function, which just seems strange.
An amendment of this sort would enable matters to be clarified. There are a number of deficiencies in its drafting, some of which were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. It also raises in my mind the question of what would happen if we were to exclude two or three Counsellors of State. Who would replace them? Would they be replaced and, if so, on what basis? There is ambiguity. In an ideal world, this ambiguity would be dealt with by consideration of these matters.
For example, it is up to the King to decide which members of his family he considers working members of it. He decides who acts as a working member of the Royal Family, so I think we could get round all that. However, as we debated on Monday, once you start down this route, it takes quite a lot of time and effort to deal satisfactorily with all the wrinkles. Given everything else that lies before us, I am not sure it is a priority. However, one idea is that the work could be done on this to the extent that, at some point in the future, there may need to be another Counsellors of State Bill to include an additional person. It would be a good thing if this could be cleared up at the same time.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, listening to noble Lords talking about the definition of working royals, I sometimes think we ought to look at the definition of working Peers, over which similar anomalies arise. Monday’s significant debate made it clear that very few of us have considered this issue before. It is not something that we deal with every day. We debated the Bill at length but it is wrong to chastise those who want further debate. I would have thought, however, that His Royal Highness, the palace authorities and Parliament would have given considerable thought to whether the Bill would deal with the problems that may occur if there were not adequate members to fulfil the responsibilities of Counsellors of State.
I appreciate that my noble friend is not pressing his amendment to a vote; I think the House is quite anxious to see this legislation go to the other place and get on to the statute book. We quite like the idea of Bills that start in your Lordships’ House and then go to the other place, rather than the other way round. Therefore, we should send the Bill to the House of Commons, as it is now, unamended, as the noble Lords who proposed these amendments have suggested.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I thank all those who have spoken, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for putting this matter before us. Perhaps it would not be inappropriate at the start to thank the Official Opposition and the noble Lord, Lord, Lord Newby, for their support on behalf of their parties, which I am sure will be noted and much appreciated.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, who always likes to bowl a different ball, as it were, that if he had been here at Second Reading he would have known that no one has ever sought to say that this matter should not be discussed. In fact, His Majesty’s Government have presented a Bill before Parliament for the single purpose of enabling Parliament to consider the matter. His Majesty the King himself has invited us to discuss the matter, so it is 180 degrees away from the position that the noble Lord sought to represent. I cannot go into the point about the future of your Lordships’ House, but it was not my party that recently put that matter before the newspapers.
We believe that this amendment is a disproportionate step. What the Government are doing, as referenced in the King’s message, is a practical and limited modification that allows royal functions to be delegated to a wider pool of Counsellors of State. It is a practical and proportionate response. The Bill follows established precedents. There is no precedent for a measure to exclude individuals from acting as Counsellors of State. Any further changes to the pool of Counsellors of State by, for example, removing certain individuals, would require more fundamental amendment to the Regency Act 1937. These arrangements have been in place for 85 years and have, in my submission, served us well.
The Bill follows the precedent, as I said at Second Reading, of 1953, when Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother was added, and adds the Princess Royal and the Earl of Wessex to the pool of Counsellors of State. I must remind my noble friend Lord Balfe, who suggested that this was a very narrow pool, that he did not mention the fact that Her Majesty the Queen Consort and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales are Counsellors of State, so the pool is slightly wider than he suggested. The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, to exclude individuals would be a substantial change that departs both from precedent and the approach set out in the King’s message to both Houses. With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, the approach set out in His Majesty’s message is appropriate and effective. I follow the noble Baroness opposite in saying that your Lordships should respect it, having considered it and reflected on it as we have.
I intend no disservice to my right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister, for whom I have the very highest regard, but I have noted criticisms in your Lordships’ House of the fact that the office of Lord Chancellor is now held by a Member of the House of Commons. I have heard that often at this Dispatch Box. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, to allow the Lord Chancellor to exclude those individuals who have not undertaken royal duties in the preceding two years is, in our submission, an unnecessary addition, introducing complexity into the scheme where it is not required.
The amendment proposes a significant change to the underlying Act and shifts the decision-making to a member of the Government. It would now be for the Lord Chancellor to make a judgment on what counts—and what does not—as regularly undertaking royal duties. The word “regular” is subjective, and that is a lot to load on one individual. It might be asked “What is regular?” I remind the House that there are working members of the Royal Family, some very senior, who undertake public duties but have never been Counsellors of State and are not intended to be. As was wisely put to us by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and my noble friend Lord Wolfson, this approach would add complexity where previously there was none and impose an unnecessary duty on the Lord Chancellor.
The amendment must be regarded as practically unnecessary if the Bill is to pass. The Regency Act already includes provisions—the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, was kind enough to allude to our debate at Second Reading—whereby Counsellors of State are excepted from duties if they are overseas. I repeat what I set out at Second Reading: the Royal Household has confirmed that, in practice, working members of the Royal Family will be called on to act as Counsellors of State and diaries will be arranged to make this practicable. I think it is well known and understood who those persons are. The Bill as it is drafted and the flexible constitutional arrangements in place ensure that the effect of the amendment is already achieved. In my submission, and I believe this is the view of most noble Lords who spoke at Second Reading and today, that is sufficient and nothing more is required.
The underlying structure provided by the legislation has proved effective and it would be a mistake to seek to modify its effect in response to short-term contexts which are, of course, subject to evolution and change. To conclude, for the reasons I have set out and those set out by other noble Lords who have spoken helpfully in this debate, I hope I can convince the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that his amendment is redundant and disproportionate. In fact, it would add complexity and subjectivity to the system and is not suitable to the intent of this practical and precise Bill. I urge him to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
I am grateful to so many noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. Clearly, the amendment as it stands had many defects in it and I apologise for that. I spent a lot of time talking to people about what the right solution was, but I think the key thing is we have had a good debate. Many different noble Lords have expressed their views, and from my point of view I think the Bill is fine for the moment—of course I support it. I think it is an issue which we will have to look at in not the short term but in the longer term, as it may be useful to come back and review it again in a more structured way. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
My Lords, this may be a convenient point to remind noble Lords that the deadline for any Report amendments will be in 30 minutes’ time—that is at 5.02 pm. Amendments can be tabled at the Public Bill Office in the usual way.
Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill
Wednesday 23rd November 2022
(1 year, 12 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 View all Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 4 July 2022 - (4 Jul 2022)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Caine) (Con)
My Lords, as I rise to speak in this Second Reading, before I move to the Bill itself, I would like to put on record my thanks and gratitude to the Police Service of Northern Ireland and partners who, at this time and around the clock, are working to keep Northern Ireland safe and secure. I am sure the whole House will join me in condemning the recent attacks in Northern Ireland on the rule of law, and condemn terror in all its ugly guises.
The period of what are sometimes euphemistically referred to as the Troubles in Northern Ireland has left a terrible legacy and an indelible mark on society. More than 3,500 people were killed during the Troubles, with an estimated 40,000 more maimed or injured. Families were shattered, businesses destroyed along with livelihoods, and society was torn apart by atrocities that for many of those who suffered are as vivid, raw and painful today as they were at the time they occurred. Widespread disruption, either as a result of terrorist activity or the security presence needed to counter it, was a daily fact of life. In this Government’s view, the main responsibility for this appalling legacy rests firmly with the terrorist organisations, both republican and loyalist, which between them caused some 90% of those deaths—or, more specifically, the 60% that were down to republicans and the 30% down to loyalists.
Of those groups, the Provisional IRA was the terrorist organisation responsible for more deaths than any other: approximately 1,700 people, including some 300 Catholics. That is more than the police and the Army combined—something, I suggest, that those who today think it cool to chant “Up the Ra” might wish to reflect on.
This Government are equally clear that none of the terrorist campaigns that took place in the Troubles could in any way be warranted. Terrorism was always wholly wrong. No injustice in Northern Ireland, either perceived or real, justified the taking of a single life and the violence of paramilitary groups. There was always an alternative to terrorism in the past, just as there is today. The terrorist campaigns caused untold misery and suffering, and this Government will never agree with a version of history that seeks to legitimise them, just as we will always reject any suggestion of moral equivalence between the security forces and those who carried out acts of terrorism.
Ultimately, of course, terrorism in Northern Ireland did not succeed. In our view, there are three main reasons for that: first, the sheer resilience of the overwhelming majority of people in Northern Ireland who rejected violence and would never bend the knee to terrorism; secondly, the determination of successive UK Governments of all parties that the future of Northern Ireland would only ever be determined by democracy and consent, which is enshrined in the 1993 Downing Street declaration and is such a key pillar of the 1998 Belfast agreement; and, thirdly, the extraordinary dedication of the men and women of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and our Armed Forces.
More than 1,000 members of the security forces lost their lives during Operation Banner, the longest continuous deployment in British military history, while over 7,000 awards for bravery were made. Of course, I fully acknowledge that, at times, some might have wrongly acted outside the law and that mistakes were made, sometimes with deeply tragic consequences. We should always be prepared to admit that—I speak as one of the authors of David Cameron’s statement in June 2010 in response to the report of the Saville inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday—yet of the more than 250,000 who served, the overwhelming majority did so with exemplary professionalism, bravery and restraint, and without their efforts there would have been no peace process. So, this Government will always salute their service and their sacrifice, and we will always remember the debt of gratitude we owe them. As I said in this House in July, we will always resist a pernicious counternarrative of the Troubles that seeks to put the state at the heart of every atrocity, denigrate the record of the security forces and, as I said earlier, legitimise terrorism.
Terrorism did not succeed but the legacy of the Troubles, as I indicated at the outset, continues to cast a dark and long shadow over Northern Ireland. As we have seen all so vividly in recent years, legacy issues retain the capacity to poison and paralyse politics, divide society and, in certain circumstances, create the potential for public disorder. For all the progress we have seen over the past quarter of a century, education and public housing remain highly segregated in many areas, while so-called peace walls still loom large in a number of areas. Far too many still live with the physical suffering and mental scars of what happened, and the costs of division continue to place additional burdens on an already highly overstretched public purse.
Against this background, therefore, the Government have a responsibility to do what they can to attempt to tackle the legacy of the past. While I am the first to acknowledge that we will never agree a common narrative as to what happened, the question is whether we can find structures that will enable society as a whole in Northern Ireland to move forward.
Of course, there have been a number of attempts to do this since 1998. The last Labour Government established the commission chaired by Denis Bradley and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames—who is in his place, I am pleased to say—which reported in 2009. In 2013, the Northern Ireland Executive invited the former US special envoy to Northern Ireland, Ambassador Richard Haass, and Meghan O’Sullivan to examine the issues of flags, parading and the past. In 2014 the Government reached the Stormont House agreement which, although motivated primarily by the need to address problems at the time around the Executive’s finances, contained far-reaching proposals to tackle legacy issues based on earlier initiatives.
Yet despite the best and very genuine efforts of many, over a number of years, none of these initiatives has succeeded in delivering for those directly affected by the legacy of the Troubles. I speak as someone who from 2010 to 2019 served four Secretaries of State and was intimately involved in trying to find ways forward on these issues. I participated in all 11 weeks of the talks leading to the Stormont House agreement, and then spent the subsequent four-and-a-half years in extensive and painstaking efforts to implement it—without success.
I know that some, including members of your Lordships’ House, still regard the Stormont House agreement as the best way forward. Yet as somebody who was there, it is clear to me that any broad consensus once held no longer exists, and it is easy with the benefit of hindsight to overplay the extent to which it ever did. Even in December 2014 it was not supported by all the parties, and in the months and years that followed what high-level support that had existed began to diminish as the Government and political parties sought to convert the paragraphs of that agreement into legislation.
Indeed, I recall in early 2015 Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness asking the then Secretary of State to take all the Stormont House agreement through Westminster, due to the difficulties of doing any of it via the Northern Ireland Assembly, even though most of it was technically devolved. I remember clearly in November 2015 Martin McGuinness vetoing any reference to the Stormont House legacy proposals in the fresh start agreement, such were the difficulties Sinn Féin had with them at the time.
Stormont House was eight years ago next month, and, in the absence of an agreed way forward, those affected by the Troubles continue to be left with processes that have largely evolved piecemeal and which for the vast majority will never deliver justice, information, accountability or any form of acknowledgement. That is why the Government have introduced the Bill before your Lordships’ House today.
Taking into account previous attempts to tackle legacy, the Bill seeks to deliver an approach that focuses on what can practically be achieved when dealing with events that in some cases occurred half a century ago. It provides victims and survivors with information in a way that can provide some acknowledgement and some accountability. It has the potential to provide better outcomes both for those who suffered and those who served, and is able to help society look forward together to a more shared future, which I hope is the objective of all of us in your Lordships’ House.
The Bill seeks to do these things in the following ways. Part 1 of the Bill sets out for the purposes of this legislation the meaning of “the Troubles” and establishes its period as beginning on 1 January 1966 and finishing on 10 April 1998, the date on which the Belfast agreement was reached. Part 2 of the Bill provides for the establishment of a new independent commission for reconciliation and information recovery—the ICRIR. I think the first prize in Committee will be for anybody who can come up with a snappier name. This will carry out reviews, mainly at the request of families and surviving victims, into deaths and incidents resulting in serious injuries that occurred during the Troubles.
More than two thirds of Troubles-related cases are now over 40 years old, and it is commonly accepted that the likelihood of prosecutions, regardless of resources, is extremely remote. The Government have therefore taken the view that better outcomes for families are more likely to be achieved by a process of information recovery, acknowledgement and accountability, and that is what the ICRIR will seek to provide.
The commission will be chaired by a former or serving senior judge and will be equipped with the same investigative powers as the police to carry out criminal investigations, as well as, like coroners in inquests, the power to compel witness testimony and documentary evidence from individuals. It will be able to use these powers in relation to any case to fulfil outstanding procedural obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. Although the term “review” in the Bill is deliberately broad, the commission will be under a duty to look into all the circumstances of a death or incident, including criminal activity.
The commission will be fully operationally independent, while, for its part, the state will be under a legal requirement to disclose all relevant information to it. Written reports of the commission’s findings to the families and surviving victims who request a review will be publicly available. To encourage those who might have relevant information to share it, the commission will be able to grant immunity from prosecution, on a case-by-case basis, to an individual who acknowledges their role in a Troubles-related incident by providing an account that is true to the best of their knowledge and belief. These accounts will be tested against information that is already in the public domain and information that is not—for example, from previous investigations and intelligence. Where an individual chooses not to engage with the commission, they will remain liable to prosecution in the normal way should the evidential test be met.
Part 3 of the Bill deals with ongoing and future proceedings within the current criminal, civil, inquest and police complaints systems. As the Bill is drafted, once it comes into force, no other body in the UK other than the commission will be able to take forward an investigation into a Troubles-related incident. Where a decision has already been taken to prosecute an existing case, this will continue. Any civil claims filed before the Bill was introduced will continue but no new cases will be allowed. Inquests that have reached an advanced stage by the time the commission becomes operational will continue; however, new inquests and those that have not reached an advanced stage will not continue but may be referred to the commission.
Part 4 of the Bill will build on proposals in the Stormont House agreement and provide for the establishment of an expert panel to devise a memorialisation strategy designed to promote reconciliation and greater understanding, as well as a major new oral history initiative.
I am the first to acknowledge that some of the proposals outlined in the Bill have met with far from universal acclamation in Northern Ireland itself. I fully appreciate that, for many, this legislation, despite some significant changes since the publication of the Command Paper in July 2021, remains deeply challenging. In being completely candid with your Lordships, I count myself among that number. I personally have found this legislation extremely challenging.
I have been involved in the affairs of Northern Ireland for some 35 years, and worked in the Northern Ireland Office while the Troubles were still raging in the 1990s. Only weeks before he was murdered by the Provisional IRA in July 1990, I had lunch with the very great man, Ian Gow, in the Strangers’ Dining Room in the other place, where, with typical generosity, he offered to sponsor me for the Conservative Party candidates’ list. Indeed, one of my first jobs in politics was to take the minutes of the Conservative Back-Bench Northern Ireland Committee, of which Ian was chairman. I have probably spent more hours with victims and survivors than just about anybody outside of Northern Ireland, and have heard countless harrowing and heart-wrenching stories of suffering. So I am hardly immune to the feelings of those affected by the Troubles who find this Bill difficult and challenging.
At the same time, I am as conscious as anyone, based on experience, that we will never solve the past or bring, to use that horrible word, closure in every case. Equally, I am clear that no Government can legislate to reconcile people, though we can strive to promote it. However, we can attempt to provide better and realistic outcomes. It is because of this, and in fulfilment of a commitment I made to the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, in this House on 14 July, that, since late July, I have carried out some 25 legacy-related engagements and meetings, all but a couple in Northern Ireland itself. I have done so on the basis of being open to sensible and constructive proposals to improve the Bill—commitments I have also made individually and collectively to Members of your Lordships’ House.
As a result of my discussions, and of those between my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and a number of groups within Northern Ireland, I intend to bring forward a series of proactive government amendments in Committee to address a number of concerns that have been raised. These will include amendments to underpin the Bill’s compliance with the ECHR, by making it clear that the commission will be able to carry out Article 2 and 3-compliant criminal investigations in cases where it judges them to be appropriate. We will strengthen the commission’s independence by making clear that the Secretary of State should consult named individuals before appointing the chief commissioner.
To make the information recovery process and the provisions around immunity more robust, we will create an offence for those who choose willingly to mislead the commission and give the commission the power to revoke immunity where individuals have been found subsequently to do so. We will disapply the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998 for individuals who choose not to tell the commission what they know and are subsequently convicted of an offence, so that they face a full rather than a reduced sentence, as well as increasing the fine for non-compliance with the commission.
I wish to work with noble Lords across this House to enable us to fulfil our important constitutional role as a revising Chamber and make further improvements to the Bill where possible as it proceeds. That is my commitment, and that of a Government who are prepared to listen. On that basis, I beg to move.
Amendment to the Motion
Baroness Smith of Basildon
At the end to insert “but that this House regrets that the provisions contained in the bill do not command the confidence or support of groups and organisations representing the interests of victims and survivors of the Troubles, of Northern Ireland elected representatives, or of the wider community, including communities across the United Kingdom affected by the bill.”
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, to be helpful, I intend to speak to the Bill and my amendment at the same time rather than have two debates, and I do not intend to move to a Division on my amendment. I apologise to the House; I will have to leave the Chamber; the previous business started slightly later than anticipated and I have another engagement, but I will be back as soon as I can.
I am grateful to the Minister. Like other noble Lords, I am trying to register the late announcement of some possible changes to the Bill by the Government, but in the last Queen’s Speech the Government committed to bringing forward legislation to address the legacy of the past. They said then that that would provide better outcomes for victims, survivors and their families, giving veterans the protection that they deserve and focusing on information recovery and reconciliation. As the Minister indicated in his speech today, we all know that these issues are complex, sensitive and deeply emotional.
Your Lordships’ House is as one in condemning terrorism from whatever quarter, and we concur with the noble Lord on that. As a party we are proud of the role that we played in securing the Good Friday agreement. But in the 30-plus years before that agreement, the euphemistically named Troubles—which I always find an uncomfortable term—saw more than 3,500 people lose their lives, with thousands more injured and maimed. No community was immune. The scars on physical and mental health remain evident throughout Northern Ireland and beyond, as this impacted on communities outside Northern Ireland. It is worth noting that this week is the anniversary of the Birmingham pub bombings, when 21 people were killed, 182 were injured, and six men wrongly convicted of those bombings served 16 years in prison before their convictions were quashed —so much suffering.
When I spoke in the Queen’s Speech debate in May, I made specific appeal to the Government about this legislation. It is not possible as Leader of the Opposition when speaking in the Queen’s Speech debate to refer to all proposed Bills, but I declared a particular interest in this one, as a former Northern Ireland Victims Minister, succeeding my noble friend Lord Browne of Ladyton, and appointed by my noble friend Lord Murphy, who was then the Secretary of State.
I said then of the legislation:
“I appeal to the Government: please understand that this needs support from the widest possible coalition.”—[Official Report, 10/5/22; col. 13.]
It is for that reason that I have tabled the amendment in my name today. The Bill as it currently stands does not have the support of the widest possible coalition. In fact, it is opposed by the widest possible coalition. That is quite an achievement; I think this is the only issue on which the Government have been able to unite every single political party in Northern Ireland, but it is deeply unfortunate that they have all been united against the Bill. The Government recognised the need for wider consensus in the New Decade, New Approach agreement, even going so far as to say that any UK Parliament legislation must have the consent of the Northern Ireland Assembly. I would be interested to know whether that commitment still stands.
So many of those affected by this Bill have come together to share with us their reasons for opposition, and how they would be impacted. I am sure they have listened to the noble Lord’s words very carefully. Noble lords may have seen an article in today’s Daily Telegraph, regarding a letter to the Prime Minister from Andy and Martha Seaman and Michael O’Hare. As a bereaved military family, and a victim of the Armed Forces, they have come together to express their concerns about the Bill, and in their letter say that it is not too late to do the right thing and scrap it.
I understand that that must be deeply disappointing to Ministers, but it was clear when this was debated in the other place that the consultation and the engagement with those affected was inadequate. I listened to what the noble Lord said about the additional meetings he has had since that time, and look forward to hearing more about those as the Bill progresses through Committee.
My noble friend Lord Murphy and I are grateful for the meetings we had with the Secretary of State and the Minister, who even though he had to join via Zoom, was nonetheless engaged. At that meeting, we asked that the Bill be withdrawn for further consultation and engagement. They were not willing to do that, but both said they were open to significant amendments, and that the Bill was now paused.
I am grateful for what the Minister said at the end of his speech, but I am disappointed that, since that meeting, we have had no response on what steps Ministers were willing to take. It would have been helpful to have had some response prior to this debate, to get a sense of what the Government intend. We want to work with the Government only on something that is workable. It would have been helpful had there been some engagement with those of us participating today—a briefing, a letter or something—and I regret that has not happened.
The Secretary of State has already said that he is open to significant changes. It would be helpful to know from the Minister whether the changes he has outlined, which we will take time to reflect on, are the limit of what the Government are looking at—he is indicating that that is not the case—or whether they would be prepared to listen to other suggestions as well. We have already been approached about the scheduling of the Bill, and it seems that the Government are going at some pace, with Committee indicated to be during the train strike week, which may not be the best arrangement.
Seeking to pass legislation that has no support from the political parties in Northern Ireland, or any party here apart from the governing party, is not the best way to deal with this issue. I am not going to suggest to the Minister that this is easy, nor that it should be put in the ‘too difficult’ box and only paid lip service to. I commend the Minister; we know of his personal commitment and he indicated, very honestly I thought, how difficult this Bill is for him, and we appreciate that there have been so many attempts to address this over many years. I pay huge tribute to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, and to the late, great Denis Bradley, who I thought were both courageous and powerful in the work they undertook. That report still stands the test of time, thanks to the effort, commitment and care that went into it.
In the Stormont House agreement, dealing with legacy issues was a key part of several rounds of talks between the then British government, the Irish Government and the political parties. The Minister seemed to dismiss that at the time, but the overarching principles of that agreement still stand as being some way to look to this issue:
“promoting reconciliation … upholding the rule of law … acknowledging and addressing the suffering of victims and survivors … facilitating the pursuit of justice and information recovery … is human rights compliant; and is balanced, proportionate, transparent, fair and equitable.”
It is hard to see why those principles should not underline anything when looking forward.
The Government said in response to their consultation that
“new ways to address the legacy of the past will only succeed if the institutions can command broad support and trust from the community.”
At that time, they said that they remain
“fully committed to the implementation of the Stormont House Agreement and it is essential that our work continues.”
Is the Minister saying that the Government are not now committed to the principles of the Stormont House agreement? I was unclear from his comments. It seemed he was saying that the Government do not now respect those principles and it is hard to see how this legislation fits in with them.
I will underline some specific areas of concern. Some of what the Minister said addresses some of these issues, but I am not 100% certain. First, on Clause 18 —the immunity test—in the Government’s response to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, the NIO said:
“Immunity must be granted where certain conditions are met, including that the person has provided a truthful account of their involvement in the death or incident resulting in serious injury.”
Those “certain conditions” are very limited, at present, to just two: one is an offence for which there could be a criminal investigation or prosecution, and the second that immunity is asked for. I listened carefully to the noble Lord’s comments and he seemed to be proposing something to address the issue of someone not telling the truth. He did not seem to be making a change to the conditions or to the fact that immunity had to be granted, but he might be able to respond on that in his wind-up.
I agree with the Minister about the less than snappy title of the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery.
From my time as Victims Minister, I concur with the noble Lord’s comments: there were times when the emotions really cut through and I have very vivid memories of some discussions and conversations I had. So often, I heard that families and survivors want to know the truth. Truth can be painful and difficult, as noble Lords in the Chamber recognise, but, for many, that process of investigation was essential to fully understand what had happened.
It was not flagged up previously that the Bill has made a fundamental change from investigation to review. Can the Minister say if this implies a far less rigorous process of understanding? That is one of the great concerns that people have. Alongside those measures is a proposal to, in effect, cut off civil cases and inquests, which adds to families’ suspicion that it will be much harder to obtain the information that ensures that the truth is heard.
I am glad the Minister said something about the ECHR, because just saying that the Bill is compliant does not make it compliant. I think he implied that he will bring forward measures to ensure that it is compliant, and I am sure he will work with the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission to ensure that that is the case, because it said it is “gravely concerned” about the current draft.
As the Bill progresses, we will hear more of the detail, but we may need to look at the depth and breadth of where the opposition comes from and how it can be addressed. From my time in Northern Ireland, I was struck, when talking to those who lived through that period, by how the pain and memories do not just fade away, over time. Many still experience what I might describe as the aftershocks from what happened to them, their loved ones, friends, co-workers, neighbours and the community as a whole. As those of us who attended some briefings for victims in your Lordships’ House were told, so often that damage is passed on to and through future generations. That means that all sides have to acknowledge and be accountable for their actions.
When Brandon Lewis spoke at the Second Reading of the Bill in the other place, he was passionate about the protection of veterans from the RUC, the Armed Forces and the Security Service. So many served with honour, courage and great distinction. Hundreds lost their lives.
A particularly sharp memory I have is from meeting a group of RUC widows. While impressed by their dignity, I was shocked by how little support they felt they had and how difficult their lives and their families’ lives had been. The acts of terrorism, the killings, reached into every corner of Northern Ireland and beyond its shores: from those RUC widows to the families of those killed at Ballymurphy—it was not until the coroner’s report 50 years later that their killings were officially found to be “without justification”—from organised attacks of terrorism to random acts of violence, and from the accounts of great courage to those who lived in fear, and the trauma of the families of the disappeared, it is not hard to understand why a legacy of pain, hurt and mistrust remains.
I fully understand the frustration of Ministers who feel that they have created a way forward, only to find that they have not taken people with them and that few agree. Passing the Bill without significant amendment might create a structure that will establish the new commission, but unless it has the understanding and support of those who have a direct interest, it will not make any difference. The tragedy is then that the legacy of the past will linger on.
We want to play our part in addressing the issue—to reflect and hear more about the proposed amendments the Minister has suggested today and discuss them with him. But until those very real concerns raised are taken on board and addressed in legislation, and until there is real work with those impacted, any legislation will just be words on a page. I beg to move.
Baroness Suttie (LD)
My Lords, I echo the sentiments of the Minister about the recent escalation of tensions and the attempted murder of two police officers in County Tyrone last Thursday. There is never any place for violence or terror in resolving the issues of the past. The current increase in tension, however, does demonstrate the fragility of the peace achieved since the signing of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, nearly 25 years ago. It also serves to remind us that this is a process that requires constant care and attention: it is not something that can, or ever should, be taken for granted. The process of reconciliation and dealing with the legacy of the past is not something that can be achieved through legislation alone. It is vital to allow people to feel that the events of the past are recognised and acknowledged. We need to acknowledge that the time available for this to happen is becoming short.
As Ian Jeffers, the Commissioner for Victims and Survivors, put it so aptly in a letter to the Telegraph earlier this week:
“As a civilised, just society we owe it to victims, survivors and their families to support them and find a shared way that we can address the legacy of our past.”
That brings me to the Bill we are debating this afternoon. I welcome the Minister’s tone and approach in his Second Reading speech. It was a very personal speech—indeed, an emotional speech—and that is to be welcomed. The Minister knows that so many people feel uncomfortable about—indeed, strongly oppose—several of the key elements in the Bill. Some have suggested that its very title is wrong, as it achieves so little in terms of bringing about reconciliation.
In the conversations that I—and I am sure many other noble Lords—have had with victims and their families, it is the removal of the hope of seeing justice that the Bill represents that has been so devastating to so many of them. There are many points I could make about the Bill, but I shall limit myself to five key areas where I believe that substantial amendments should be made.
The first, of course, is compliance with Article 2 of the ECHR. As the Joint Committee on Human Rights states in its summary:
“Our concerns reflect a view that despite the good intent, the operation of the bill as drafted would come into conflict with the government’s legal obligations and as such, risk frustrating the intended objectives.
We have serious doubts that this Bill as drafted is compatible with Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights”.
I very much share the assessment of the JCHR that the conditional immunity scheme is likely to breach the UK’s obligations under Articles 2 and 3. We urge the Government to remove Clause 18 from the Bill, or at least significantly amend it. I am sure we shall return to these issues in much greater depth in Committee but, like the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, I would be grateful if the Minister could, in his concluding remarks, say a little more about how the Government intend to amend the Bill in Committee to ensure that it is Article 2-compliant.
A second substantial area of concern is that of the clear lack of consent for this Bill, as currently drafted, by key stakeholders. The parties in Northern Ireland, the victims groups, some of the victims, human rights organisations as well as wider society in Northern Ireland have all expressed very grave concerns about the Bill. The Constitution Committee, of which I am a member, has stated that the has stated the “strength of opposition” risks undermining the Bill’s stated aims of dealing with the past and promoting reconciliation.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, also said, there has also been a general lack of consultation with key stakeholders prior to the drafting of the Bill. Given the complexities of these issues, this is precisely the kind of legislation that would have benefited from some form of pre-legislative scrutiny, perhaps particularly at a time when, tragically, there remains no functioning Assembly or Executive in Northern Ireland.
I know that the Minister has had many recent meetings with victims and other groups. Again, I am grateful for his reporting on that. He is very aware of their concerns about the Bill, so would he agree that continuing with it unamended because of a Conservative Party manifesto commitment would be unhelpful at this time of heightened tensions in Northern Ireland?
A third area of concern, which has also been highlighted by the Constitution Committee, is the very substantial increase in regulating powers that the Bill grants to the Secretary of State, and the subsequent concerns that this will have regarding the genuine independence of the ICRIR.
A fourth area of concern is something that the Minister touched on, which is the use of language. Throughout the Bill, the terms “review” and “investigation” are used interchangeably. These two terms have a distinctly different impact on the legal process. It is welcome that he has indicated that he will consider bringing forward amendments in this regard but, again, I would like a little more information on that if possible in his concluding remarks.
Finally and most importantly, the fifth area of serious concern is that, although the Bill claims to be victim focused, it is clear that this is very far from the case. In particular, the closing down of civil cases and inquests, as proposed by the Bill, has caused huge concern and upset to the victims. The victims I have spoken to all say that what they want is the truth and justice, through information and acknowledgement. What they do not want is the removal of that hope.
I therefore ask the Minister, who, with all of his experience, understands the complexity of the situation so well—I believe that he is someone who listens and will stick to his word of speaking to us all and moving forward together on amendments—to take on board the strength of feeling that he will hear on behalf of the victims and their families in the debate. They have already waited so long already. Surely the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday/Belfast agreement is the time to give them back that hope.
Lord Judge (CB)
My Lords, I respectfully support the last two speeches from the Leader of the Opposition and the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie. I rise with a certain degree of concern that I have no experience of Northern Ireland; many of my colleagues on the Cross Benches will speak on these issues. I do, though, have some experience of terrorism and terrorism offences in England.
Although I deeply sympathise with the Minister’s personal position—who can avoid being sympathetic with him?—and I share everything he said about the courage, dedication, commitment and the years of service we have received from the security forces, I am just a little worried that we do not fully appreciate what the Bill actually amounts to. We are being asked to legislate that men and women who are guilty of murder should be exempted from prosecution. If the Bill is enacted in its present form, they will literally be getting away, or will have got away, with murder. They will have got away with some of the most deliberate and cold-blooded killings that we have known in this country.
We cannot avoid that that is the consequence of this Bill. Before we enact it, we really need to know whether we are prepared to create an environment in which laws that betray the families of the victims, the victims themselves and society’s desire for peace and abhorrence of killings, among others, should be ignored.
The Title of the Bill is very misleading. I will not identify every word that is misleading, but the Title contains “Northern Ireland Troubles”, the Explanatory Notes say,
“prepared by the Northern Ireland Office”,
and Clause 1 is
“related to Northern Ireland affairs”.
It would be unacceptable anyway if it was so limited, but I have read it and I think this is a correct analysis: it applies to troubles associated with the Troubles in Northern Ireland that manifested themselves in this country.
That means, for instance, the IRA’s attempt to blow up the British Cabinet, in which many received catastrophic injuries and many died. If fresh evidence emerged demonstrating that two people who had not previously been suspected were involved in that dreadful offence, the Bill would apply to them. The Bill, and the exemption from prosecution if they went through the processes, would mean that they would not be prosecuted.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, raised the Birmingham case and the number of casualties there. If further evidence emerged demonstrating that A and B, or Z and Y, were involved in those killings, is it really right that through this Bill we should provide a means by which, although there is a very good case against them, they too should escape prosecution? These are the issues with which we are dealing.
However much we address the issue in general terms about the necessity of eventually achieving a peaceful outcome and reconciliation in Northern Ireland, these offences matter greatly to people here in England. I have one question for the Minister, apart from all the other questions that have been asked. How will this new commission, which is what I shall call it for today’s purposes, investigate offences committed in England or Wales?
Beyond the difficulties of the Bill, there is a certain illogicality that troubles me too. It applies to murder but not rape or a serious sexual offence. Rape is a foul crime—so is murder. Let us take an example. I do not know whether this ever happened, but it might have. A man decides to rape the daughter of a member of Sinn Féin as an act of revenge to counter some murderous Sinn Féin atrocity. The rape is associated with the Troubles. He could be prosecuted for the rape—the exemption provisions would not apply—but the Sinn Féin people responsible for the atrocity would be able to seek the exemption. To take the example a little further, if having raped this unfortunate girl the man then used a knife to kill her, we could have the absurd situation arising in which he could be prosecuted for the rape but seek exemption for the murder. If that is what the Bill means, there is an absurdity about it that has to be recognised. I am not offering a solution to it; I am simply pointing out the logical problem with some parts of the Bill.
I am also concerned that we are allowing ourselves to put overmuch emphasis on the length of time that this all goes back. Not very long ago it was proposed, and enacted by this Parliament, that any of those who served in Nazi concentration camps who could be proved to have been involved in those horrors could be prosecuted here. We saw men in their late 80s and early 90s being tried. There is no limitation position in our criminal justice system. Of course, there are safeguards for those who are charged with offences committed long ago. There is an abuse of process argument that the defendant is too old even to comprehend what is going on, or that there would be witnesses who have died. All that is a well-understood part of our criminal justice system.
To the extent that this legislation is concerned with those who served in Northern Ireland as part of the security forces who are alleged to have committed violent offences of their own, juries perfectly well understand that in the heat of battle, as for some of them it must have seemed, there is no time for detached reflection. Mistakes are made and things are done that are not intended. You can rely on a jury to try to appreciate this—they usually do, and they would be very sympathetic with a young man faced with some of the problems that faced some of our young men in Northern Ireland—and to return a true verdict according to the evidence.
We need to understand what the Bill actually proposes. That may be fine, and Parliament may decide that it will enact the Bill, but it must do so knowing what it will be enacting.
Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)
My Lords, I start by remembering the thousands of innocent victims of terrorism who died or were injured in the decades of the Troubles in Northern Ireland and elsewhere—ordinary people going about their everyday lives who were cut down by terrible violence—the families and loved ones left behind to grieve and the survivors left with life-changing injuries. We should not forget the heroic efforts and sacrifice, as have been mentioned, of the tens of thousands of people in the security forces without whom many more innocent people would have died at the hands of terrorists. Hundreds of police officers and soldiers laid down their lives in serving the cause of peace and security.
Just recently the Sinn Féin vice-president Michelle O’Neill, in remarks that have sickened victims and all right-thinking people, stated that there had been no alternative to all this wanton carnage and bloodshed. Terrorism was never justified. There was always an alternative to murder and the destruction of the livelihoods, hopes and dreams of generations of people in Northern Ireland, no matter who they were or what background they came from.
One would think that in speaking of victims today there would be at least a degree of reflection or self-examination on the part of those who spoke for terrorists during the Troubles and who now apologise for them even 25 years later, but no. Virtually every day we are subjected to the glorification of violence and the eulogising of terrorist murderers by leading Sinn Féin figures. This is happening in 2022, 25 years after the Belfast agreement, not in 1972. Fifty years on and still the innocent victims are being traumatised.
There are many valid criticisms that can be made of this deeply flawed Bill. Many of the innocent victims of terrorism whom I have spoken about feel deeply aggrieved, and understandably so, but their anguish is compounded by the sight of these apologists for terrorism pretending to defend victims’ rights in their attacks on the Bill. The victim-makers who slaughtered thousands of people over 30 years are busy whitewashing their own crimes, selectively singling out certain crimes for condemnation while celebrating their own violence. They have actively encouraged the now toxic atmosphere where many nationalists feel it is okay to chant “Up the Ra”, even in the face of IRA victims. These people do not speak for victims.
The criticism of the legislation which we have heard here today and from outside the House is widespread. This is not the first piece of legislation which has done victims a grave injustice. They have already had to endure seeing people who were convicted of some of the most brutal and heinous crimes given early release after serving only two years in jail. That was and remains a terrible injustice for many victims. It was, of course, opposed by some of us at the time but many in the other place and in your Lordships’ House who now vehemently oppose this piece of legislation vigorously backed that injustice. In my view, many of those people who were released after two years literally got away with murder.
A previous Government secretly handed out letters of comfort to IRA terrorists on the run. It is estimated that about 300 such letters were given out. One was famously used by John Downey to escape prosecution. There would be no harm if this Bill included a provision that these letters could not be used to evade future prosecution. We are assured that this is the case, but a specific provision to make it absolutely clear and certain would be helpful to victims. Some 365 royal pardons have been handed out over the years to people convicted of terrorist-related offences. It would be good to know exactly who received these letters of comfort and the royal pardons. In his reply, maybe the Minister can agree to furnish us with all the details. The 2006 definition of a victim is widely felt by innocent victims to be defective in including the perpetrators of violence. A move to bring forward a proper, up-to-date definition would be helpful to victims.
We have heard the concerns of the Irish Government about the Bill. For decades, they allowed their territory to be a safe haven for IRA terrorists who crossed the border. If there had only been the same desire over the years to put victims first and at the centre of our concerns, both here and in the Irish Republic, perhaps we would not find ourselves in this place, facing this piece of legislation. The cause of justice should never be sacrificed on the altar of expediency. No matter how difficult or challenging the situation, people should have the right to expect that, if there is evidence, all possible avenues of investigation will be explored.
I fully accept the argument about the current one-sided nature of the approach to legacy. People are tired of it. Soldiers and police are being harried and harassed into court. It is coupled with an industrial-scale propaganda effort to besmirch and denigrate the Army, the UDR, the RUC and the PSNI. We have had large, costly inquiries into Bloody Sunday and many others against the state. There has been no inquiry into the Enniskillen and Teebane atrocities, La Mon or Narrow Water or into the role of leading republican politicians in terrorist acts.
The approach taken by this Bill is wrong and an affront to justice. It would extinguish the flame of justice for countless families. It would draw a moral equivalence between terrorists intent on bloodshed and those who served our communities with dedication and professionalism. The way to address legitimate concerns about vexatious investigations against veterans who served in Northern Ireland is not simply to impose a wholesale restriction on historical investigations or prosecutions. It is to restore balance, ensure that investigative activity is proportionate and bring an end to the growing culture of politically motivated actions against those who served in uniform. Closing down routes to justice arbitrarily would not be tolerated for hate crimes or gang crimes in Great Britain. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said, it has not been tolerated in relation to war criminals. It should not be deemed acceptable in relation to victims of terrorism in Northern Ireland and across the rest of the United Kingdom.
As we consider this legislation going forward in your Lordships’ House, changes need to be made to tackle some of the worst excesses of the Bill. It has to be said that even if accepted, those changes will fall short of making its overriding aims justifiable or honourable.
I welcome what the Minister has said today about his willingness to be open to considering some changes, and about there being no incentive in the Bill as drafted for perpetrators to come forward or any material consequences for their failing to engage. In fact, the Bill incentivises not engaging. Under the current arrangements, people can be convicted and serve two years, but under the Bill, if a person stays quiet and does not co-operate, under Schedule 11 there will be no possibility or prospect of any kind of prison, whether they engage in the process, seek immunity, tell the truth or do nothing. I welcome what the Minister said about looking at that again, and I look forward to examining the detail.
We need to look at the issue of people who have evaded prosecution in this jurisdiction and fled elsewhere. For them to be eligible for immunity under the framework of the Bill is perverse. It would encourage offenders to return to Northern Ireland to live out their final days, in close proximity to those they terrorised, because there is no stipulation that anyone previously subject to a warrant, arrest or charge and who subsequently fled Northern Ireland would be prohibited from claiming immunity.
There are a significant number of active PPS files under threat from the sunset clause on criminal enforcement proposed by the Bill. This has undermined previous decisions by the Government to establish far-reaching investigations into Troubles-related activity, including Operation Kenova. Those files need to be processed and should be allowed to take their course.
There needs to be something to deal with the glorification of terrorism. As I mentioned earlier, right across the entire community in Northern Ireland people are tired of and sickened by the continuing glorification of violence by Sinn Féin. I know that the victims’ commissioner has raised this with the Government and pointed out the great hurt felt by many who served in the security forces, and by innocent victims. There needs to be something that deals with this open and public display of glorification, the commemoration of murder, in Northern Ireland in the 21st century. To expect people to continue to put up with this, given that we are now almost 25 years on from the Belfast agreement, is something the Government have to address. I welcome what the Minister said about a mechanism for revoking immunity where individuals are proven later to have lied or not co-operated properly with the commission.
There are many issues here, and I am sure that we will go into many more of them in detail in Committee—the definition of a Troubles-related offence, the investigation review and so on. However, the fundamental point is that innocent victims must continue to have hope and the prospect of justice. That is all they seek, and it would be wrong for this House, and Parliament, to take that away from them.
Lord Godson (Con)
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn. I remember well that I was with him on the night when the IRA attempted to assassinate him. He was visiting his sick son, who is no longer with us, in hospital. I think of that night, and I know that the whole House will join me in appreciating the full force of his analysis and the sentiments he just expressed.
I also express appreciation for the opening remarks of my noble friend Lord Caine, and for the longevity of his commitment to and interest in these matters. How appreciated it is that in these times, the Minister still uses the word “terrorist”, because it is not present throughout all the discourse on this subject in this era, including in the media, including the BBC. That goes to the heart of my remarks today.
In this context, I welcome that the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, also used the T-word—terrorists. Again, it seems important that we retain some moral boundaries, because they are not always visible in discussion of these matters, as we approach the 25th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement.
I support the principle of the Bill, not least because of the Conservative Party’s manifesto commitment in the last general election. I will particularly focus my remarks on Part 4, the section on “Memorialising the Troubles”. In May this year, when the Bill was introduced in the Commons under the then Secretary of State, he stated that it would launch
“A major new oral history initiative”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/5/22; col. 185.]
It was hailed as one of the most “ambitious and comprehensive” approaches to oral history that has ever been attempted in such situations. It sought to draw on “international models” and concentrate on collating “lived experiences and testimony” and setting them within the appropriate historical context. Putting that into effect, Part 4, on “Memorialising the Troubles”, is designed to provide a pathway for societal healing and perhaps even, we hope, reconciliation. But, as we all know, in the context of Northern Ireland, the Troubles are being refought the whole time through the rewriting of history.
Commendable as the proposals for an oral history are—like many others, I welcome that this history will be guided by international best practice—it is possible that it will also be politicised and enrolled in an ongoing effort to retell the history of the Troubles from an anti-state perspective. I note that the Bill and Explanatory Notes state that one of the purposes here is to ensure that groups that have not had a sufficient voice in telling their history of the Troubles have a greater say. It is a great irony that the British state has been one of the most disfranchised groups. Perhaps it has disfranchised itself in this respect, in terms of an official history, but I will go on to say more about that later.
Thus, history is one of those battlegrounds that are often described as the fulcrum of culture wars and the politics of identity. This has of course been prominent in Northern Ireland for many decades, including during the Troubles, but it has come increasingly to the fore, as other noble Lords and noble Baronesses have noted. This may have been referred to in another place, but the notable recent poll by LucidTalk stated that 65% of those from the republican nationalist community now believe that
“violent resistance to British rule during the Troubles”
was the only option, with a mere 25% disagreeing. This is of course utterly at variance with where that nationalist community was for much of the Troubles, hence the fact that Sinn Féin did not become the majority party within the nationalist community until 2003. A precedent is the sad and unfortunate recent episode of the Irish women’s football team making pro-IRA chants.
All of these developments in historical narratives will make the task of restoring the institutions in Northern Ireland harder, as an ever more rancid grievance culture comes to the fore. As I say, the mistelling of history is damaging to communal relations, making reconciliation and the building of social solidarity harder. The promotion of these relentless historical grievances continues to embitter the communal mood and makes the restoration of those institutions harder.
In particular, I draw attention to Part 4, particularly the bits that have been criticised for being governed by the Secretary of State, for it gives a central role to the United Kingdom research and innovation councils, specifically the Economic and Social Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Research cited previously by Dr Cillian McGrattan of Ulster University demonstrates how funding from these councils has
“fostered and supported an effective monopoly in Northern Ireland as regards the policy area of dealing with the past for many years.”
The funding councils have financially supported and promoted the work of a small group of “transitional” academics at Queen’s University Belfast. A significant part of this group includes academics who are also directors of the Committee on the Administration of Justice—CAJ—a lobby group that is focused overwhelmingly on state-perpetrated violence and abuse. These academics have also come together with key CAJ staff to form what is known as the Model Bill Team to campaign against the Bill.
I wish to give now—this why the T-word seemed to me so important earlier—a taste of the CAJ’s position from the introduction to its annual report reflecting on its own origins at a conference in 1981. It describes 1981, perhaps one of the key years of the Troubles as
“one of the worst years of the Troubles, with 117 people dying, 10 of them on hunger strike and seven through being hit by plastic bullets. Many of the others were victims of armed groups of various kinds”;
in other words, there was no use of the T-word for terrorism; rather, a euphemistic reference to victims of armed groups of various kinds.
I mention this, of course, because the definitive work on the Troubles—Lost Lives, by David McKittrick, Brian Feeney and others—notes that 18 Protestants and 33 Catholic civilians were killed. Some of the latter were killed by republicans as suspected informers. Twenty-two RUC officers and RUC Reserve officers were killed, along with 24 Army and Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers. Six republican paramilitaries were killed and 10 died on hunger strike; three loyalist paramilitaries were killed and a further two others died. More than half the dead—64 people—were killed by republican paramilitaries, 14 by loyalist paramilitaries. The Army and the UDR killed 14 people and the Royal Ulster Constabulary three. This is hardly the picture presented by CAJ’s annual report. It demonstrates a failure to contextualise the relevant facts. Contextualising within the historical context is, however, one of the key aims that the then Secretary of State set out in the House of Commons in May.
The CAJ report goes on to say:
“Most shocking of all are the proposals for a total amnesty in regard to the Troubles, which are contained within the government’s Command Paper on legacy (published in July 2021). These would not only provide for an end to prosecutions, but also ban all recourse to law of any kind in relation to Troubles ‘incidents’. We have yet to see any draft legislation, but the Government’s clear intention is to provide for total impunity for state agents, completely contrary to the rule of law.”
This annual report by the CAJ effaces the crimes of loyalist and republican terrorists and their role in policing the ethno-religious divides and oppressing and terrorising entire communities, particularly working-class communities. The focus of the Committee on the Administration of Justice—and its central concern—is on anything it sees as state violence. What is alarming in the context of the Bill is that UK funding through the UK’s research and innovation councils has focused on a group of academics who form a large part of the executive of this organisation and who are working so closely with that organisation through their joint work on the Model Bill Team.
The funding councils are thus being given a major role in the funding of “Memorialising the Troubles”, the title of Part 4 of the Bill. This is problematic, given their role over the last 15 years in funding just one group of researchers with over £3.5 million of research funding, and creating what Dr Cillian McGrattan has called
“a monopolistic capture of legacy ideology and policy within Northern Ireland.”
Not only are non-violent unionist and nationalist voices and their collective memory downplayed but the voices of those who were oppressed and manipulated by the terrorist gangs in their own neighbourhoods are unlikely to be sought, although they are, of course, among the most affected of the communities here.
Given these problems, it seems to me that Part 4 of the Bill risks being placed and built on insecure foundations, and the devil is very much in the detail here. I note some of the attempts in the legislation before us to ensure balance, but it does need to be pointed out—given the contested nature of so much of this history and the issues associated with the current research programmes funded by the funding councils—that in this context, they are simply not good enough.
There is nothing to stop the entire exercise being divorced from the historical record and being used to rewrite history, to shape views and attitudes as a means to a political end, one that might well turn out to be far removed from the reconciliation that the Good Friday/Belfast agreement envisages. One of the problems here may be that the Economic and Social Research Council and the Humanities and Arts Research Council require research to make impacts beyond academia, including disseminating their findings through third parties and engaging with stakeholders. There is a danger that academic research engages through one ideological and community relationship alone, but can still point to high levels of engagement, dissemination and impact. That is unlikely to provide robust academic work, let alone to progress reconciliation.
With this ideologically driven monopoly already established in the field of legacy in Northern Ireland, this problem is now made all the greater. The relevant legislation here should ensure that those funders who helped to create and sustain that monopoly are also now required to exercise a degree of judgment that has, it seems, so far been singly missing and that they can properly be held to account now for doing so. The existing monopoly and ideology around remembrance needs to be robustly challenged in this House at this stage of the Bill and beyond. Experience to date suggests that this exercise may well not deliver what the Minister intends.
As I say, I support the Bill in principle, but I urge the Minister to look closely at strengthening Part 4 to ensure that government funding and UK taxpayers’ money goes into projects that will support reconciliation and not drive sectarianism and support extreme or politicised interpretations of Northern Ireland’s history. I am reminded of the exchange between Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in the White House on the night before the President resigned. Kissinger said to him, “What will be the verdict of history on us?” Nixon replied, “It all depends on who writes the history.” That is at the very heart of our deliberations today.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
My Lords, I was 11 in 1969, when the Troubles started. I lived in an area of Downpatrick in County Down which was largely unscathed by terrorist violence. However, that changed in 1994, just before the ceasefires, when six of my neighbours were brutally murdered by loyalist paramilitaries. None of those people was ever involved in any political act, apart from voting, and none ever espoused violence. Whenever I visited those families, one little boy said to his granda and his mum after the murder of his father and his uncle that night, “Am I now daddy?” I found those words terribly evocative, but to me they bring back what this is all about: the violence, the terrorism and the dirty war, which I totally reject, had an enormous impact on ordinary families throughout the island of Ireland and also here in Britain, and we must never forget. We must never go back to those days.
The Minister referred to the violence of the last six or seven days in Strabane and Derry. Those acts of violence are also wrong and those people should be getting off all our backs and leaving us to live in peace and harmony. For those reasons, we need the restoration of political institutions, but this legacy Bill is not fit for purpose and should be scrapped. There was an alternative, and I have heard the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, refer to that. Yes, there was an alternative. I was part of that alternative in terms of democratic Irish nationalism and as a member of the SDLP, and very proud to be so, because we espoused non-violence and respect for political difference and we rejected all forms of violence. We wanted to see the three sets of relationships addressed in the Good Friday agreement.
The Bill is not supported by victims, international organisations representing victims’ groups, political parties in Northern Ireland or wider society and it is contrary to the provisions in the Stormont House agreement, in which the Minister was deeply involved.
Closing off criminal investigations and reviews such as Kenova, civil cases, inquests and police complaints relating to the Troubles will deny justice to victims and families. I have only just learned today that the police review of the Loughinisland case, to which I referred earlier, cannot continue because there is insufficient money in the legacy branch of the PSNI to do that work. The noble Lord, Lord Dodds, referred to the need to fund the PPS, and that is critical to allow the Kenova cases to come forward, because they deal with investigation and review. The replacement proposed in the Bill, the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery, is entirely inadequate and will be too closely controlled by Westminster. The provisions granting immunity from prosecution for Troubles-related incidents will see people who have committed the worst acts imaginable granted irrevocable immunity in return for partial and self-serving testimony that may already be entirely in the public domain.
The Bill stands to breach the UK’s obligations under Article 2, the right to life, and Article 3, freedom from torture, of the ECHR, and threatens the Good Friday agreement’s requirement for complete incorporation of the European Commission. Undoubtedly, addressing the legacy of Northern Ireland’s past demands great care and sensitivity, but it is not served by the Bill, which is unworkable, undemocratic and in breach of our international obligations. Victims and families right across the community, some of whom I know and some of whom we have all met—I am thinking of Mr Raymond McCord’s video, shown in 1 Parliament Street some weeks ago—deserve truth and justice, but the Bill will not provide for that. I believe there is a deliberate attempt to cut down truth and justice for other means and ideas.
I have talked to various people and we are faced with the worst of outcomes—an outcome that benefits and best serves state and paramilitary-vested interests, whatever the claims to the contrary. They have a shared interest and common agenda. This has been a fundamental fault line in legacy discussions over the years, as the Minister will be aware, having been involved in many of those discussions. State and paramilitary elites, both republican and loyalist, do not seriously wish to comprehensively address the past, or would do so on self-serving terms, and do not intend to offer forthright answers to searching questions. That is what motivates this obscene legislation and I believe it should be totally cancelled.
It is contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights. A recent joint report by Houses of this Parliament decried this legislation and recent developments at the Council of Europe support these concerns. The Council of Europe has the responsibility to support and safeguard implementation of the ECHR. In a decision of September 2022, the Council of Ministers expressed its ongoing risk concerns regarding the UK’s departure from the Stormont House agreement to the present Bill, and stated that any legislation must be in full compliance with investigative duties under the ECHR. I ask the Minister: how will that issue be addressed? The Council of Ministers also expressed serious concern about the lack of formal public consultation on the Bill, ECHR compatibility and the “minimal support” for, and public confidence in, the Bill in Northern Ireland. The Swiss Government state that the UK should ensure that the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill is in line with the Stormont House agreement and the necessary means are provided to carry out independent and impartial investigations.
Reference has already been made to the Committee on the Administration of Justice, which has been working in this area in Northern Ireland for many decades, and the Model Bill Team, which is based between the CAJ and Queen’s University Belfast. One of those working on it is a neighbour of mine and I know her very well; I think she is a person who will believe in truth and justice. Amnesty International and the international rights and solidarity committee, formerly known as British Irish Rights Watch, have indicated that the Bill is unacceptable.
In abandoning the Stormont House agreement, the Government are in breach of commitments in the UK-Ireland New Decade, New Approach agreement that restored power-sharing in 2020. As far as I know, the Irish Government were never consulted about the Command Paper and the Secretary of State’s Statement of 18 March 2020. What about the co-guarantors of the Good Friday agreement, the British and Irish Governments? Surely, in very sensitive matters such as legacy and victims, they should have been involved.
New Decade, New Approach committed to legislating for the Stormont House agreement within 100 days. It is now three years later. The Bill also conflicts with the Good Friday agreement over both the duties to ensure incorporation of the ECHR in Northern Ireland law, with direct access to the courts and remedies for breaches, and the framework for the devolution of justice. I cannot stress clearly enough that victims need access to truth and justice. The PPS in Northern Ireland needs to be adequately resourced. The legacy branch of the PSNI needs to be adequately resourced to carry out the outstanding inquiries required. We need issues to do with state collusion and the use of agents, which led to so many deaths of innocent people, to be fully investigated. I am aware of many reports from the Police Ombudsman’s office, not least that into Loughinisland, which show levels of state collusion. There is consensus within the human rights community that the legacy Bill is not fit and, in some instances, they say it is unamendable. It is definitely not compatible with international human rights standards.
I take no great delight in saying that I honestly feel that the Bill should be scrapped and scrapped now. We should revert to the Stormont House agreement and involve all parties in discussions to deal with these very vexatious issues to do with legacy and victims. In my mind, violence and terrorism were never, ever justified. The killing and maiming of people and the destruction of property, in the name of a cause, were never, ever justified. I say to the Government that what they are trying to do—to grant immunity from prosecution to certain groups, such as veterans who may or may not have committed illegalities and serious crimes—is wrong. In that vein, the Bill should be abandoned and scrapped.
Viscount Brookeborough (CB)
My Lords, it is an honour and a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, whose stand on terrorism and violence, and what she has done for many years, I admire very much. I do not necessarily come to the same conclusions as her on everything, but she is fully aware of that.
I appreciate, from Northern Ireland’s point of view, the amount of effort that is going into trying to do something about the legacy, especially from the Government Front Bench, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and the Liberal Democrat Benches. We must all be grateful for the amount of effort they are putting into this. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, went into the depths of the trauma, and I would like to follow up a little bit on that.
I declare an interest: my wife and I were both in the home-based security forces in Northern Ireland, and my wife looked after the families of those who were suffering from terrorism. We also host a veterans’ mental welfare charity at our home.
Whatever you think about the Bill, it is giving a form of indemnity to people, and we should look at why we are here. Is this setting a precedent in Ireland? It is actually not, because in August 1923, the Republic had an indemnity Act for its own forces and then an amnesty for all prisoners in 1924. In 1961—this is a relatively little-known fact—there was an amnesty in Northern Ireland, passed by the Northern Ireland Government when my grandfather was Prime Minister, for those people who were involved in what was called the “50s trouble”. This is not a precedent way out on its own.
We have to note how and why we got here. We are here because the state and society have failed to convict terrorist criminals over the period of the Troubles. If that had been possible, we would not be here at all. First, we had internment, which failed—as we are all fully aware of—for a lot of reasons. That was a disaster. Secondly, we had the Diplock courts, where we could not run trials with juries because of intimidation, so the trials were decided by one judge, or three judges on appeal. Although Sinn Féin and the terrorists, and the so-called loyalist terrorists, objected to Diplock courts, by their very nature they were slightly less unfriendly to them, because a jury convicts beyond all reasonable doubt, but the judges had to write down why that person was guilty. For those people who say—it has been said here before—that the Diplock court convictions were roughly level with other types of courts and so on, that may be so. However, I am fully aware of some of the particular cases which arose from Fermanagh, and the police and the investigators could not bring them forward because they knew that they would fail in a Diplock court. That was a slight appeasement to the terrorists.
We have heard about letters of comfort. I believe that when the Government, who were talking to Sinn Féin/IRA, got the list of people, they then checked with Northern Ireland investigators whether they had evidence to bring to court. They quite clearly did not, otherwise they would have done so by then. However, their reply went something along the lines of, “Currently we do not”. In the Chinese whispers, “currently” got lost, yet we are all fully aware that forensic science moves on, and convictions and cases—even more civilian-type cases, if you like—suddenly get new evidence, which comes from new forensics and various other things. So, this was an omission that was simply not acceptable, but it happened.
On the decommissioning of weapons, the terrorists decommissioned the weapons they wanted—presumably the ones with the most forensic traces on them—and got rid of them. That was an elimination of evidence.
We then have—it was not brought out for them—in this country, as compared with most modern countries, inadmissible evidence, which comes from telephonic and intercepted sources. We have discussed this in other Bills. As a result, we have quite a good idea of information, which is not evidence, that adds up to the fact that people had actually committed these crimes. However, that evidence is inadmissible.
Then, of course, we also had the release of prisoners.
People may think that the terrorists were discriminate —no, they were not. The noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, has already mentioned the number of people who were killed from both communities. When I was in the regular Army in Belfast, we had come-ons the whole time, where somebody left a device—whether it was a proper device or a hoax—and then a cordon was put in while the real bomb was some distance away. Most of them were IRA, I have to say, and because of the nature of Belfast, the chances of Roman Catholics from west Belfast going past them were incredibly high—and they did go past, and the terrorists never turned a hair. Then, of course, they had to disappear. We should not give much credibility to these terrorists, I am sorry to say.
Under the Bill, the commission must grant immunity on three conditions, which your Lordships are all aware of—I am not going to waste time going through them—but apparently this is unpopular and unacceptable to all parties. Somebody with a certain amount of intelligence said to me the other day, “Don’t you think that that’s not very true? This is a smokescreen by Sinn Féin.” Public relations-wise, Sinn Féin has to continue to hope that some members of the security forces will be brought to court for things that they should not have done. That is what its PR position is. However, Sinn Féin is very practical about this, and the numbers of terrorists we are talking about—I admit that there were loyalist ones as well—far outnumbers those people; we are talking about a multiple of 100, 200 or 300. However, the Bill is here and it will probably go through—QED, Sinn Féin gets what it ultimately wants: a clean sheet for all those people.
So, we must be aware of the effects of the Bill in giving immunity. Is the bar on this evidence going to be high enough? If somebody admits to driving a car and being part of an incident—there were sometimes 20 or 30 people, especially on border incidents—are they going to be obligated to give the other names? Where do we go from there? This is going to rattle down the thing. I cannot see how somebody making an admission of what they did could avoid giving the names of their fellow conspirators. What is going to happen here?
What we really have to look at are the ordinary people and the families, and what it was like. I will focus on the families of security forces, prison officers—people who contracted for the Government. We lived with constant tension and threat every minute. We had bomb detectors on our cars and alarm rockets on our houses. We were armed at all times, whether it was going out to dinner, going to church, or whatever. Some of our houses were seriously targeted, where SAS or covert people were even put into them. It may sound funny, because it is more like “Yes Minister”, but there were gas mask drills for the families. It went to that extent.
These were serious times. Down with us, a policeman was being covered by the very best of soldiers, but they were withdrawn when the threat had supposedly gone down, and he was shot the next night. We did pattern of life studies for all our soldiers and everybody we connected with so that they could be covered. The bin lorry, with two soldiers on it, was covered 24 hours a day by a plain clothes patrol. They were called “pixies” by some. Bus drivers were also covered—it was everybody who had a routine. From my point of view, when I was lambing ewes at three in the morning, there would always be a police car somewhere locally for the same reason. That is what people were living under, and it did not produce anything other than an awful lot of stress.
Soldiers, victims and the community suffer from intergenerational trauma. We have heard about that, but we should look at it. Perhaps overidentification with victims causes trauma—the term used is vicarious traumatisation—among people who are so close to the victim. It is not just families; it is also friends. If one of your friends came to the attention of terrorists, it would affect you too. So, this goes much wider than just the victims. According to Children in Need, PTSD in parents translates into very much higher rates of ADHD in children. We have instances in our charity where the trauma has gone down to grandchildren—this is serious. People also say that when parents are stressed, babies and children lack bonding in their formative years because their parents are not smiling. This is serious stuff. It is not just the victim but an ever-increasing cascade of traumatised people. It is vast.
There was a study published in the National Library of Medicine in Maryland on its intergenerational effects. It says:
“Intergenerational transmission of memory is a process by which biographical knowledge contributes to the construction of collective memory—
which we have been talking about—
“(representation of a shared past).”
Participants were children from Croatia and were asked to recall the 10 most important events that occurred in one of their parents’ lives. Approximately two-thirds of people from eastern Croatia, where there was more conflict, and one-half of people from western Croatia, where there was slightly less violence, reported war-related events from their parents’ lives. War-related memories impacted the second generation’s identity to a greater extent than non-war-related ones, so it is totally out of proportion with all this violence.
From our area, I knew three brothers who were soldiers. Jimmy was ambushed when he was going to work on a school bus in the morning. Luckily, he was only wounded. He was then shot months later in Derrylin on a school bus, in among all the children. Ronnie was shot delivering vegetables for a shop, about eight months or a year later. Cecil had married across the community and was killed on the doorstep when visiting his wife’s family in Donagh. Their sister Hilary who joined up—and the ladies were not the fighting part—was killed in a hit and run accident while serving her country on a VCP. Look at the trauma and look at where it all goes.
Then, of course, you have Enniskillen and the Omagh bombing and enough said about them—but there is never enough said about them. Therefore, the effect of the Bill is to give terrorists a get out of jail free card while yet again doing little or nothing for terrorists’ victims, their wider families and their friends. The mental trauma continues. Why are people, especially Sinn Féin, allowed to glorify terrorism? We have heard about it almost daily. This is psychologically induced, perpetuated trauma, which is an issue and an effect. It is also far too commonly believed that knowing more will help give closure to the victims. I am not suggesting that it may not help but, when I talk to the bereaved and injured, they say this will not give closure. What they want is some form of accountability for what has happened.
There is virtually no glorification of the successes of security forces by themselves or by the peaceful majority. That does not happen and would be totally unacceptable among our peaceful communities on both sides of the religious divide. I would just ask that when we talk about the hurt and lasting feeling of injustice, people understand that it is not a skin-deep protest. This is real and the grief is normally dealt with privately—and most people like to deal with it privately—but it becomes public when tormented by glorification of terrorism and the constant appeasement of those groups.
I hope we will see that this Bill might work with amendments that will come through and I thank the Government for being prepared to accept them.
Lord Rogan (UUP)
My Lords, I find it a special privilege to follow my noble friend Lord Brookeborough. Next April will mark the 25th anniversary of the Belfast agreement. I say “mark” rather than “celebrate” because, from my own perspective as someone who was there on Good Friday 1998 when that deal was done, a wish to celebrate was not in the forefront of my mind.
There was a feeling of great relief. There is no question about that. After almost 30 years of death and destruction, was this really the end of the violence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland? No one knew for sure but, in the immortal words of my late noble friend Lord Trimble, it was about giving the people of Northern Ireland a chance. David Trimble was right about that and I do not regret for one moment what he did to help the citizens of Northern Ireland. Indeed, I am very proud of that.
However, reaching agreement that day did not come without an incredible amount of pain, particularly for those individuals and families who lost loved ones over the previous three decades, or who suffered life-changing injuries. I lost many friends, as did other noble Lords taking part in the debate. As an Ulster Unionist, I thought of the Reverend Robert Bradford, the Member for Belfast South in another place, gunned down by the IRA in 1981 at Finaghy Community Centre, along with the caretaker Kenneth Campbell. I also recalled the vicious murder of Edgar Graham, a rising star of the Ulster Unionist Party, shot dead by the IRA in 1983 in the precincts of Queen’s University, where he was a law lecturer. I could go on and on.
The main problem for me with the Belfast agreement, as it was for most law-abiding people across the political divide, was the early release of terrorist prisoners. It was a bitter pill to swallow but one which we hoped would lead to a much better, healthier future for everyone living in Northern Ireland. That is why I find this Bill so distasteful and why I shall be opposing its passage in the Division Lobby.
Back in 1998, I had been around long enough to know that the Belfast agreement could not ultimately be the end of the story. In the Ulster Unionist Party we knew there would be twists and turns as well as inevitable betrayals from the United Kingdom Government to this day. The issuing of on-the-run letters and secret royal pardons to terrorists certainly falls into that category. Introducing this Bill, which is opposed by all Northern Ireland’s political parties and His Majesty’s Official Opposition, does so too.
As your Lordships will be fully aware, more than 3,600 people lost their lives in the Troubles: 90% of the killings were at the bloody hands of terrorist groups—two-thirds by republicans and a third by loyalists. Some 10% of the Troubles-related deaths were attributable to the Army and the police, which, in stark contrast to the terrorists, operated within the law and had to justify their actions. His Majesty’s Government holds detailed records of who within the security forces was deployed in Northern Ireland, when and where, and what they did. The republican and loyalist terrorist groups have no such paperwork. This inevitably leads to a distorted process that focuses on the security forces alone, coupled with a parallel Sinn Féin/IRA campaign to rewrite history and whitewash the crimes of the brutal terrorist killers.
As the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, alluded to, we have witnessed graphic evidence of this in the past few weeks with Sinn Féin/IRA vice-president Michelle O’Neill claiming that there was no alternative to the IRA’s campaign of cold-blooded murder and Sinn Féin/IRA president Mary Lou McDonald arguing that there is no comparison between the Provos and gangland criminals. Both could not be more wrong, and their attempts to romanticise the actions of IRA killers have real-world consequences, particularly in the minds of young people with no first-hand experience of what Sinn Féin/IRA—or indeed loyalist terrorists—did. As the noble Lord, Lord Godson, mentioned, a video recently shared on social media of the Republic of Ireland women’s football team singing “Ooh ah up the Ra” after a victory was one disturbingly awful example of what can indeed happen.
Have I understood the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, correctly? She felt that the Irish Government should be consulted and she was totally correct. In the context of a discussion about legacy, there is often a lack of focus on one key actor throughout the Troubles: the Irish Republic. We hear a great deal of noise from across the border about what His Majesty’s Government must do, what they must reveal from their files and so on. However, many people in Northern Ireland would like to know more about the files held by the Dublin Government—and there is no shortage of questions that demand an answer.
For example, did the Garda Siochana agents in the IRA know in advance of numerous high-profile terrorist attacks, and when did they pass this information on to their handlers? What knowledge did the Irish security forces have about IRA training camps in the Republic, and what action was taken to eradicate them? What operations were launched to intercept the importation of terrorist weapons into Irish ports and, if not stopped there, to halt their journey and stop their use in the murder of innocent citizens in Northern Ireland and Great Britain? Why, for so many years, did the Irish Republic allow itself to become a safe haven for IRA terrorists escaping back across the border after carrying out numerous attacks on targets in Northern Ireland? How much intelligence was there about the network of IRA safe houses south of the border? Why was there such reluctance to extradite terrorist suspects to Northern Ireland?
I could go on and on. Put simply, we must never forget that, when it comes to resolving legacy issues, the silence from Dublin continues to be somewhat deafening. Perhaps the Minister could update us in his response about any discussions that His Majesty’s Government are having with the Irish Government about receiving answers to these questions.
On the substance of the Bill before us, it is important to place on record that the Ulster Unionist Party did not support the legacy arrangements contained in the Stormont House agreement of 2014, believing them to be imbalanced. Victims want truth and justice. Some want both; others focus on one. Justice means different things to different people. The terrorists have already had their amnesty. They sleep in their beds at night knowing that they have got away with it—got away with murder. They have their comfort letters. They know the outcry that Sinn Féin/IRA will generate if any “good Republicans” or “friends of the peace process” are questioned, let alone charged.
What we now see is an attempt to go after the police and the Army—sometimes 50 years after the event—aided and abetted by Northern Ireland’s well-financed and self-appointed guardians of human rights, who claim a desire to hold the state to account but have little interest in the abuses perpetrated by the terrorists. I pay tribute to the bravery and restraint of those who served in uniform in Northern Ireland, such the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough. They stood between the terrorists and the terrorised. They defeated the IRA’s terror campaign.
The Ulster Unionist Party believes that those who broke the law should be held accountable to the law, no matter who they are—terrorists, police officers, soldiers, civilians or politicians. We have always opposed the idea of an amnesty. Victims and their families have a right to retain the hope that, one day, they may get justice even though they realise that, with the passage of time, that prospect becomes ever more difficult.
I shall vote against this misguided legislation receiving a Second Reading.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, it is an honour and something of a burden to follow three distinguished Members from Northern Ireland: the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, and the noble Lord, Lord Rogan. Of course, I cannot begin to claim the detailed knowledge that they have, but I was with Airey Neave the night before he was assassinated. I knew very well Robert Bradford, who had an office next to mine in the Norman Shaw building and was murdered at his surgery. When she was acting as a secretary for me, my wife shared an office with Ian Gow’s secretary; I shall never forget when I received the news of his death.
I got to know Northern Ireland well when I had the honour of chairing the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in the other place. We had a true all-party committee, with four parties from Northern Ireland represented, only one other Tory and seven Labour Members. We worked together. All our reports were unanimous. I enjoyed the confidence of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, when he was Secretary of State, and that of his successor, Shaun Woodward. From time to time, the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, would ring up and discuss Northern Ireland affairs. I not only got to know the Province but grew to love it and its wonderful countryside, its quite remarkable people—in both communities and, at its best, with one community.
In 2006, we published a well-received and unanimous report on organised crime in Northern Ireland. I learned so much from the evidence, all of which had to be taken in camera; it was, I think, unique for a Select Committee to have all its sessions in camera because those people who came to speak would not otherwise have been able to open up in the way they did. We heard some terrible and grisly stories from them. When we published the report, which we did in Armagh with a special session, we had to get the permission of the chief constable, Sir Hugh Orde, because all previous reports had been published in Belfast, mostly in Stormont. However, he was very encouraging and helpful.
I then had the great privilege of getting to know one of the most remarkable men in Northern Ireland in recent years, who is deservedly a member of the Order of Merit and a Member of your Lordships’ House. I am of course referring to the right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, a former Primate of All Ireland, who, along with Denis Bradley, produced that remarkable report; I had the great privilege of being able to discuss it with both of them. He did a great service to Northern Ireland.
The other vivid memory that I have of terrorism and crime was addressing a meeting in Crossmaglen village hall. I was told that I was the first Conservative politician to do such a thing since 1906, but it was because a brave couple—the Quinns—came to see me; I then introduced them to my committee. The murder of that young boy, Paul Quinn, was one of the most dastardly murders in the Troubles.
So I approach this Bill as one who has some knowledge of, and a great deal of concern for, one of the most beautiful parts of the United Kingdom; indeed, I want it to remain so. However, we must face up to the fact that legacy can be both a poison and paralysis, and can become a cancer in the body politic. I pay great tribute to my noble friend Lord Caine, who made what I thought was a very moving and powerful introductory speech. It was one of the most honest speeches I have heard from a Minister on the Front Bench in either House because he actually said to your Lordships, “I don’t much care for this Bill. I’m troubled by it. I shall be bringing in some amendments.” We should all reserve our final verdict. I say that to the noble Lord, Lord Rogan; I know why he said what he said, but let us give the man a chance. Let us see what the amendments are like. There are other amendments, some of which I have signed, which are to be tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hain. Let us try and see what we can do with this Bill.
We must remember that there will come a time, and it is fast approaching, when almost everybody involved in the Troubles, in whatever capacity, will advance into real old age and within a decade or so, a very large number of them will be dead. We have to ask ourselves the question—it is a painful one, but it would be dishonest if we did not ask it in this debate—is the proper answer a statute of limitations? We have to be very careful to distinguish between those who died in the course of duty and the innocent civilians who were murdered by terrorists, and the terrorists themselves, who sometimes lost their own lives, mostly by accident—they did not go in for self-immolation. We have to face up to these questions as we debate this Bill in Committee.
I was one of those who, in another place, spoke out and voted against the War Crimes Bill, which was rejected in your Lordships’ House, one of the main arguments being that as time passed by, memories faded. Let us be honest: they sometimes become distorted as well. Therefore, I did not think it right, in the 1990s, to be passing a Bill dealing with crimes committed in the 1940s. Of course, very few people have come to trial. There have been a few in Europe, but nobody has been sentenced in this country.
These are painful questions that we have to face up to. But I want to end on a note of hope that is my most remarkable memory of my time as chairman of that committee. Ian Paisley and I entered the House of Commons on the same day. I got to know him perfectly well. I liked him, though I did not agree with him on many things. At the service to commemorate the 450th anniversary of the death of Sir Thomas More, I was the steward who escorted Ian Paisley out of the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft when he got up to protest.
When he became First Minister, he asked me to see him. The Secretary of State made his study available at Hillsborough. When I went in, he said, “I want you to know something. Martin McGuiness has a spiritual dimension.” You could have knocked me over with the proverbial feather; but he meant it. When Ian Paisley stood down as First Minister, I had the honour to be at the dinner at Hillsborough, hosted by the Secretary of State and attended by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Taoiseach. The panegyric to Ian Paisley—for it was nothing less—was delivered by Martin McGuiness, to his “friend and mentor”. As we all know, they were known as the Chuckle Brothers in the popular press. If those two men could come together in that way, then we need people of stature to come together now. We need Stormont reactivating. We need an Executive that will look after the affairs of Northern Ireland for its people, rather than refusing to do so because of a disagreement on a wholly different political issue.
I very much hope that in Committee, we can come to an agreement across your Lordships’ House, send back to the Commons a Bill that is much better than the one it sent to us, and move forward; and that, at the same time, those who have been elected to Stormont can realise the proper obligations of the elected, come together for the people of Northern Ireland and work together for them, both Executive and Members of the Assembly. This is the challenge. We must see that it is achieved if we possibly can. All those of us who care about the future of the United Kingdom in general, and the future of Northern Ireland in particular, have a duty in this.
Lord Hain (Lab)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure and a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, whose care and concern for Northern Ireland has always been exemplary. I thank and commend the Minister for the last part of his speech, which I hope signifies a complete rewrite of this Bill, not just tinkering amendments. To his great credit, he was pretty transparent that it would not have been his Bill; obviously, it was drawn up by others higher up the government ladder. It needs rewriting completely if it is to pass this House.
I ask the Minister when he replies to answer this question on the record. Did I understand him correctly in saying that the only way immunity can be revoked under this Bill is if the perpetrator lied, not if evidence is uncovered showing that the perpetrator was guilty of, let us say, murder? I would be grateful if he could clarify that.
The word “Reconciliation” appears in the title of this Bill, and there is a cruel irony in that, because it is not about reconciliation and, if enacted, would not aid reconciliation. In essence, it is saying to victims and survivors of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, “What happened to you and your loved ones no longer matters”, and to the perpetrators of some of the most horrific crimes imaginable, “What you did no longer matters”.
What is set out in this Bill is utterly shameful, and I cannot support it. I will give your Lordships a worked example. On 10 August 1996, John Molloy had nearly reached his home in north Belfast when he was confronted by a group of young men and women. He was repeatedly stabbed in a frenzied attack and was left to bleed to death on the pavement. He was just 18 years old. Can the Minister explain to the House and, more importantly, to John’s still grieving parents, Linda and Pat, what precisely the difference is between the sectarian murder of John in Belfast and a racist murder in Leeds?
My right honourable friend the shadow Secretary of State raised this case in the other place but got no direct response. I hope that the Minister, who cares deeply about Northern Ireland, will respond tonight. Saying that Northern Ireland is a place apart just will not wash. It seems that with the protocol, Northern Ireland must be as British as Finchley, but when it comes to the life of a young man in Belfast, the Government’s legacy proposals in this Bill put Northern Ireland closer to Pinochet’s Chile.
This Bill, if passed in its current form, would offer the thug who murdered John the chance to seek a kind of legal absolution—indeed, it would encourage it. All that is required under this Bill as it stands is for the perpetrator to tell the story of that night to the best of their “knowledge and belief”. “I murdered him because he was a Catholic”—and that will be it. The perpetrator will be free to walk up to Linda and Pat Molloy and laugh in their faces. Perpetrators can boast about it to their friends and the world at large if they so wish, because Clause 18(14) of this Bill says that once granted, immunity cannot be revoked except, possibly, if a lie is discovered, no matter what they do subsequently. Are the Government seriously asking this House to sign up to that? Will we really sink so low, just because the Commons did so when the Government rammed it through, in the name of so-called reconciliation?
When the noble Lord responds to the debate, perhaps he could also explain to the House what comfort he thinks this process will bring to the Molloy family, or to the families of those murdered because they were Protestant while singing hymns in the Darkley Pentecostal Church in 1983; or to Jean Caldwell, whose husband Cecil was blown up by the IRA along with seven workmates at Teebane in January 1992. The Bill puts the interests of the perpetrators over the needs of victims and survivors at every turn. Perpetrators are given choices denied to victims and survivors. If any come forward, they will control the narrative: it will be their version of events, “to the best of” their “knowledge and belief”, as the Bill specifies.
The Bill is sold as protecting veterans and other servants of the state from investigation and potential prosecution where their actions have resulted in deaths which are contested. I should like to make some observations on that. The first concerns the number of references from the Government Back Benches in the other place to “vexatious prosecutions”. I am not a lawyer but I am not aware of that as a legal concept. Perhaps they mean “malicious prosecutions”. In any event, I have yet to hear anyone from the Government Front Bench take issue with it. In which case, when the Minister responds, will he tell the House which part of the Northern Ireland criminal justice system the Government hold responsible for these “vexatious prosecutions”? Is it the PSNI, the Public Prosecution Service, the judiciary or a combination of all three? Perhaps he could tell the House how many vexatious prosecutions there have been in Northern Ireland since 2010.
My second observation is on the line of attack—again, particularly from some elements on the Government Back Benches in the other place and expressed at Second Reading—that anyone opposed to this legislation is therefore hostile to those who have served and those who continue to serve in the Armed Forces. That is specious nonsense—indeed, worse: a vile calumny. Those of us who had the privilege to serve as Ministers in Northern Ireland, as my noble friends Lord Murphy and Lady Smith did, had the privilege of doing so under the close protection of the RUC, then the PSNI and the Metropolitan Police. We were always aware that those officers would be prepared to put their lives in danger to protect ours. We worked with successive chief constables and we fully recognise and salute the role of the police, who, often in the direst of circumstances, served to uphold the rule of law and protect the people of Northern Ireland.
Equally, former Secretaries of State for Defence and distinguished noble and gallant Lords who served at the highest level in the Armed Forces know first-hand of the professionalism and bravery of those we put on the front line in Northern Ireland. That is not to say, however, that they could do no wrong. The unqualified Bloody Sunday apology made by then Prime Minister David Cameron, for the behaviour of soldiers that terrible day, underlined that. The Minister explained his role in drafting it. If the authors of the Bill have their way, Lord Widgery’s cover-up inquiry—for that is what it was—would have been the final word on Bloody Sunday. Those killed in Ballymurphy, including a priest and a mother of eight children, would have remained a gunman and a gunwoman. The truth that emerged through that inquest would have remained hidden and the reputations of innocents been trashed forever.
Those who argue the veterans’ case also stress two other points. First, they do not want equivalence with those who brought murder and mayhem to the streets of Northern Ireland, to our cities here and beyond. The Bill does not differentiate because, as much as the Government might want to, they know it cannot.
Secondly, they say that if someone in uniform has broken the law, they must be held to account. Who can argue against that? It is what those who serve with honour want and deserve, but the Bill does not deliver that. It is specifically designed to close down all routes to justice and accountability, including civil proceedings and inquests. As the Bill stands, there will be no proper criminal justice investigations, merely reviews into the balance of probabilities standard. We must presume that a Bill coming before us has been drafted with great care. We must presume that the words used express precisely what the Government intend to be enacted —and we all know the difference between investigation and review.
To say that this could lead to the prosecution of anyone who refuses to take advantage of the immunity process—in effect, an amnesty—is disingenuous at best. A Director of Public Prosecutions could not put a case before the court on the basis of a balance of probabilities review. The effect of this legislation will be to make some of the most heinous crimes simply disappear. It is an insult to victims and survivors and an affront to the rule of law, which, as parliamentarians, we are all committed to uphold. Among other things, it will create the bizarre and absurd situation whereby someone applying for a job with an unspent conviction for shoplifting would be required to tell his or her potential employer but a self-confessed mass murderer would not. As the Bill stands, once the low-bar immunity is granted, it cannot be revoked, even if it subsequently transpires that the perpetrator has misled the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery, or indeed has re-engaged with a proscribed organisation.
There are so many fundamental flaws in this legislation that it may be that, as the Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, Alyson Kilpatrick, told the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, it is not capable of being amended. As she told the committee in a devastating critique of the Bill:
“It is clearly in breach of the Human Rights Act”
and it is
“not going to be possible to remedy this Bill, certainly not without very significant redrafting such that it would change the whole nature of the Bill.”
I am flatly opposed to the Bill and, given the opportunity, will vote to kill it. Meanwhile, any amendments proposed must fundamentally address the perpetrator, victim and survivor imbalance in this legislation currently before us.
I have heard it said that throughout the peace process, compromises on the rule of law were made and that this is simply another one. The Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill of 2005-06, which I introduced as Secretary of State, has been cited as one example. There is no doubt that it was difficult and controversial legislation, but it came nowhere near to granting the amnesty that this current legacy Bill explicitly does. Anyone who went through the offences Bill process would have had to appear in a special court. They would have emerged with a criminal record. They would have been required to submit fingerprints and DNA samples to the police and, crucially, any benefits they gained could have been revoked if they committed further crimes.
The last Labour Government worked towards the goal of inclusive power-sharing in Northern Ireland, including the devolution of policing and justice powers. We achieved the first part in 2007, when I was Secretary of State, and completed the process in 2010 under my successor. This legislation attacks that settlement to reassert the primacy of the Secretary of State—something else wrong with it. The chief constable will be instructed by the Secretary of State which cases can and cannot be investigated. The courts will be told which cases they can and cannot try. The Northern Ireland Justice Minister, the Northern Ireland judicial system and the Northern Ireland Policing Board, all central to the devolution settlement, will be overridden by the Secretary of State. Whether this is an intended or unintended consequence, it is a massively retrograde step by any measure. Indeed, the powers of the Secretary of State to control the whole legacy process run right through the Bill and that is deeply concerning.
My thinking on legacy matters has evolved over the last number of years. Those of us who have grappled with them know that these are difficult matters. The Minister has tried to grapple with them honestly as best he could over many years. In 2018, I and other noble Lords with a close interest in Northern Ireland, including the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, who signed the letter, wrote to the then Secretary of State about pre-Good Friday agreement prosecutions. I believed then, as I do now, that there was little to be gained by devoting precious police resources to cases where there was little prospect of a successful prosecution.
The Historical Enquiries Team completed work on 1,615 cases involving more than 2,000 deaths, yet only three resulted in prosecutions and convictions for murder. I still believe that the PSNI should be focused on keeping the population of Northern Ireland safe in the here and now and into the future, rather than precious police resources being diverted to legacy cases. I have put these points to the Minister in terms of the amendments that I, with cross-party support, intend to table tomorrow.
A key point is that there is now an alternative to the less than satisfactory arrangements we have been criticising. Operation Kenova, headed by former Chief Constable Boutcher, is a working model of the way to deal with legacy that provides the information that many victims and survivors desperately want, and at the same time leaves open the route to justice where the evidence reaches the necessary threshold. For the last two years, more than 30 files referred by Kenova have been sitting with the under-resourced Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, and he was quite right to do so.
It is quite wrong, however, for Secretaries of State to criticise Kenova for failing to deliver any prosecutions when they knew full well that none had been put before the courts by the PPS, because it is under-resourced. Kenova, under the leadership of former Bedfordshire Chief Constable Jon Boutcher, has widespread support from the families who work with it. It is a model that can be upscaled and at a lower cost than current strategies, and it would release the PSNI from the burden of legacy cases. As I said, I will be tabling amendments to try to introduce this into the Bill. I hope the Minister will accept them, because I think they will create a consensus around the Bill that is palpably lacking.
Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hain, for the opportunity to intervene. It was merely on his point about Operation Kenova which, as he said, has gained widespread support. It included four investigations and one review. The noble Lord, Lord Dodds, mentioned Operation Denton, which I believe is reviewing 93 incidents and 127 murders. Whatever happens with this Bill, it seems important that that review continues and is not interrupted by what the Bill delivers. The prospect of that being stopped would be a terrible thing for all the families who believe that progress is being made because of Chief Constable Jon Boutcher’s good work.
Lord Hain (Lab)
I am grateful for the intervention, particularly as the noble Lord has long experience of policing, and he makes telling points. In short, Kenova is the way in which we can get consensus in this House to proceed with the Bill, heavily amended. I have suggested some amendments that have cross-party support. The Minister has seen them privately and, if the issues are only technical, I am willing to discuss them with him to try to reach agreement.
In conclusion, we frequently refer in this House to the need to develop consensus in Northern Ireland on a range of issues, not least on dealing with the legacy of violence. With this Bill, the Government have contrived to create a consensus: it is opposed by every political party in Northern Ireland and by all victims groups. When the 2006 offences Bill faced that kind of opposition, I withdrew it. The Government should follow that example with this ill-conceived Bill. They must think again before they do irreparable damage to victims and survivors who have suffered so much already.
Lord Eames (CB)
My Lords, it will not surprise the House, bearing in mind that Peers from Northern Ireland have lived through and experienced the events that have been referred to by virtually every speaker, that this is an extremely emotional occasion for me. The years of my adult life have almost totally been lived out in the years of the Troubles, and the jobs I tried to do all centred on people. They centred on the bereaved, the injured, the devastated, on those who committed terrible deeds and on those who were encouraged eventually to find a better route.
I have listened carefully to each speech tonight and have tried to put together the jigsaw of people referred to in my mind. Then I looked around the Chamber and saw many of my fellow Peers who do not live in Northern Ireland but who have taken the trouble to identify with our lives and experiences. I thank them for that. Then I looked across and saw the noble Lords, Lord Hain and Lord Murphy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith. In each case, memories flooded back of working with those with responsibilities for the government of Northern Ireland, as they had, and I am grateful.
At this moment, however, I think most of the houses in which I have stood, the bedsides besides which I have knelt and the families, particularly the young people, whose futures were devastated by the Troubles. So I make no apology for being personal in what I will say. It will not take long, for virtually everything that I feel needs to be said about this Bill has been said, and by people of such expertise as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge—lawyers, people with human emotions, politicians from Northern Ireland and people who have endured some of the emotional stress of these past years.
When I heard the title the Government had chosen for this Bill, I was encouraged, as “reconciliation” has now found some structure in legislation. Then I read the proposed Bill and began to ask whether all the years of work and in seeking agreement were useless. Were all the tears shed and pains shared useless and unproductive? I could find nothing in the Bill that would increase the human expectation or realisation of true reconciliation; rather, it will add to the hurt and uncertainty, and to the dismal prospect of that hurt being endured for generation after generation.
My next reaction was to scrap the Bill totally, as it will not serve any useful purpose. I have sympathy with Members of the House who said, “Start from scratch. Start again”. But my memory goes back to Denis Bradley and me, and the Consultative Group on the Past, which made the first attempt to deal with legacy. We made many mistakes. We learned as we went along and society made its judgment, because we were at the wrong time. Society was not ready to look at its legacy. But, as I listen and read what has happened since, how many aspects of that report continue to surface? Put different labels on it, use different words, but the thoughts are there. There must have been something that was worth saying.
That led me to my second conclusion: we do not need to scrap the Bill totally but, as it goes through this House, must give it the sort of scrutiny that leaves no stone unturned so that we get to what is needed for the Northern Ireland of the future. That will mean questions about the work of the proposed commission, about its control and the control of it. It will raise questions about whether Westminster will be too involved and exercise too much control that could be exercised in Northern Ireland. It will ask questions of jurisprudence, which has not been mentioned tonight. My memory goes back to many years ago, when I tried to teach jurisprudence to reluctant law students. If there is one memory I have of those days, it is the knowledge that there is a sense in which the definition of justice is what must emerge at the end of any process dealing with legacy, wherever it is. I honestly believe that the Bill in its present form is totally guilty of running a horse—and, dare I say it, a hearse—through the nature of justice.
I believe that we must look at the Bill and not totally scrap it but take it to pieces and see which Lego bricks should remain. Many things have been said tonight about ways in which we can improve our approach. To conclude these brief remarks, I believe that the new legislation we seek must be centred on the victims, and on the suffering of the people who suffered most in our Troubles—above all recognising their claim to justice and to a better future—and on a generation of young people who deserve far more than my generation has been able to offer them. If we cannot do that, we need to move away from looking at the disaster on the decks of the “Titanic” and have a look at what caused the iceberg.
Finally, I say this to the Minister. I think we are getting a sense tonight of what he personally has gone through and is going through regarding this Bill. He deserves genuine tribute for his honesty in his introduction to this session. I say this to him: he knows Northern Ireland; he knows what we are like; and he knows where we have come from. I beg of him, in the face of his colleagues and those who wish this Bill to continue, to pause, and have the courage to say some of the things that he has heard said tonight, and realise that there is a future but it is a different sort of Bill.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
My Lords, there are many parts of this Bill that I find not just problematic but actually quite dangerous. There are also some parts of it that I agree with, and I am very pleased indeed that the Minister made it clear that he was prepared to look at a number of amendments. There is probably no other Minister with his knowledge and background that could actually succeed in making something out of this Bill, if that is what your Lordships’ House decides.
It is important to look at how we got here. The Stormont House agreement of 2014 has been mentioned before, but let us not forget that not every party in Northern Ireland supported that agreement and it is not an international agreement, despite what some nationalists have been trying to claim. The Stormont House agreement’s 200-page document—which included the new non-crime crime of historic police misconduct, to be directed at retired George Cross RUC officers—is a draft that is now nearly a decade old. I am pleased that it has been dropped and superseded by this Bill, even with all its problems.
The second thing in this history was the 2019 Conservative Party manifesto commitment, as has been mentioned, which read:
“we will introduce new legislation to tackle the vexatious legal claims that undermine our Armed Forces and further incorporate the Armed Forces Covenant into law.”
We saw that legislation enacted in the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act 2021, but crucially it omitted Operation Banner veterans who served in Northern Ireland. The result has been the continuing prosecutions of soldiers for alleged crimes committed in the 1970s, some 50 years ago. More are possible, following the papers submitted by Operation Kenova to the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland. So we see that lawfare, in its many forms, has continued unabated.
It is worth reminding your Lordships that, as some have already made mention of, some 300,000 Army and police served in Northern Ireland during those years, 1,000 of whom were murdered. Their ECHR Article 2 right to life, which we hear so much about, was colossally violated.
I proposed an amendment in April 2021 that the overseas Bill’s effect should depend on a report being made on
“progress made towards equal treatment of veterans of operations in Northern Ireland since 1969”.
In reply, the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, said only that Northern Ireland was “a different issue”, while adding
“we will not allow our brave service personnel who served in Northern Ireland to be forgotten.”—[Official Report, 13/4/21; col. 1187]
The noble Baroness said very little else on that, but let us be clear that the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act was not an amnesty. It introduced several new evidential hurdles before a prosecution could be mounted when there had been a previous investigation and if no compelling new evidence was available. It insisted that the public interest in finality was paramount.
That Act was a far better vehicle than this Bill, which has had unworkable—or more precisely, never likely to be worked—immunity arrangements tacked on. They corrupt the law and need to be improved. We all need to be honest: the law has already been corrupted by the many amnesties and mini-amnesties deemed politically necessary in the 25 years since the Belfast agreement.
The question of compelling and credible new evidence is one where this Bill fails badly, and strong amendment is needed to Clause 11, titled “Requests for reviews: general provision”. Unless narrowed to include a phrase such as “compelling new evidence”, it means that the new investigation body, the ICRIR, simply becomes a one-stop shop for nationalist and other lawyers, who have now given themselves the grand title of legacy practitioners. It will replace, and perhaps even streamline, the current options of fresh inquests, civil suits and compensation claims—1,000 of which are now in the Belfast courts, as I heard in an answer to a Question—plus PSNI and Police Ombudsman reinvestigations.
The third way that we have got here is, of course, the understandable desire of bereaved families for access to the details of their relative’s death, the documentation available and memorialisation. Crucially, they also want justice, which is, I am afraid, in terms of convictions of terrorists, no longer deemed likely. This was even stated by police investigators, such as Jon Boutcher of Operation Kenova.
People also talk about truth. We know that prosecutions, other than those of soldiers, will not happen after such a passage of time. Terrorists in particular cannot be brought to court because evidence sufficient to convict is not there. The IRA kept no paper records, and recently harvested DNA alone will not suffice. Millions of pages of state documents are promised and that is welcome, but they are only part of the truth and will need assessment by lawyers and historians. Here I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Godson. We hope these will not just be the monopoly group of Queen’s University academics, currently funded by UK research councils to the tune of £4 million, who seem to concentrate entirely on anti-state issues rather than real victims of terrorism.
The Government should be much more up front about the fact that human rights law—the ECHR and the Human Rights Act—will necessitate the removal of large portions of text, especially from MI5 files that refer to individuals, both good and bad. Unconvicted killers cannot be named, nor must informants be, so amendments will need to be tabled, which I hope the Government can accept, to strengthen the Bill’s human rights dimensions in terms of the neglected safeguards in the ECHR—those on the right to a fair trial and the right to a reputation. Too many people think the phrase “Article 2 compliance” covers the whole convention, but there are 18 articles that we need to comply with, especially Articles 6, 8, 10 and 17. I know that the Minister said that he wanted to put Article 2 into law. We should look at the other articles as well.
To look at one county in Northern Ireland, Fermanagh, which the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, knows very well, 115 people were killed during the Troubles, over 90% of whose deaths were caused by the IRA. Sixty-five of the dead were members of the security forces and 40 were civilians. There were only five killings by loyalists and two murders by rogue soldiers; in other words, our security forces, at colossal cost to themselves, protected both sections of the community. I fear that not many legacy practitioners will draw attention to that noble achievement or the contrast in numbers.
Another group that upheld justice was our judges and magistrates, who took a terrible toll in death and injuries as a result. We rarely hear their names: Martin McBirney, Judge Rory Conaghan, Lord Justice Gibson and his wife Cecily, Tom Travers and his daughter Mary, Judge William Doyle, William Staunton, and Judge Eoin Higgins, who was targeted, with Robin and Maureen Hanna, and their six year-old son David, instead being murdered. Their Article 2 right to life was drastically breached.
I will say another few words about amnesty, because there has been some slight hypocrisy about that in this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn, mentioned a few of the amnesty agreements, but in the Belfast agreement and since a series of amnesties were put into legislation or operated administratively. Most happened under the premiership of Tony Blair and three Labour Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland: the noble Lords, Lord Mandelson and Lord Reid, and most notably the noble Lord, Lord Hain, who I am sorry is not in his place at the moment. As he mentioned, he tried to put through the Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill 2005. That never made it into law because it was scuppered by Sinn Féin, which decided that it would not support it because it would give amnesty to soldiers as well as terrorists.
Just for the record, these part-amnesties were all agreed with the Irish Government, who are now making great play about this Bill: the Belfast agreement and the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998, with its early release of hundreds of terrorist prisoners after two years served in jail; immunity from prosecution, called an amnesty in law, for evidence discovered on the decommissioning of terrorist weapons; the request in 1999 by Bertie Ahern for the UK to discontinue current and future extradition proceedings, acceded to by Tony Blair and the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson; royal prerogative of mercy grants, issued silently in hundreds of cases and whose paperwork, I discovered, when I asked questions, had oddly gone missing; immunities regarding the Saville inquiry into Bloody Sunday, and the Hamill, Nelson, Wright, and Breen/Buchanan inquiries; immunities regarding evidence recovered from the bodies of the disappeared; and the so called on-the-runs, which have been mentioned already, a secret administrative scheme only for IRA members supposedly hiding in the Irish Republic, which operated contrary to the advice of the Attorney-General. At least 187 IRA men were granted OTR letters of comfort promising no prosecution, John Downey being the most famous one. I hope none of those are now in the mandatory coalition Government that the people in Northern Ireland were forced to endure.
Above all, we have to push back against the rewriting of history through the development of this moral equivalence between those who died defending our country, who saved lives in border areas out in the dark in the middle of the night, protecting people at the expense of their own lives, and those who set out deliberately to murder. The Government should change the definition of a victim. It is absolutely disgraceful that, in Northern Ireland, the definition of a victim, unlike in Great Britain, treats the bomber, if he injured himself, as a victim. How can we have such a moral compass to support amnesty for murder?
I will just mention Aileen Quinton, a very brave woman whose mother was murdered by terrorists, blown up at the war memorial on Remembrance Sunday 1987. She is now a volunteer with SEFF, one of the excellent victims’ groups. She wrote to tell me:
“Of course it is wrong that veterans who have been guilty of nothing but brave service are hounded but that is no excuse for putting them into the same bracket as the very few who have disgraced the uniform. No one should be subjected to unfair persecution and hounding but that is an argument for protecting the innocent and not letting off the guilty. Some innocent men get accused of rape and that is dreadful but that is no excuse for a blanket amnesty for rape.”
She mentions the Graham family, who have already been mentioned: three brothers and one sister, picked off one by one. After each murder, the others continued to serve in the Ulster Defence Regiment, standing by the law until they were slaughtered by the IRA. The sister was killed in a hit and run at a checkpoint when she was on duty as a UDR Greenfinch. If the forces of law and order could not save them from terrorists, the least they should expect is that they would seek proper lawful justice for their deaths.
I have one final thought for all your Lordships from Aileen:
“I did not become a terrorist when my mother was murdered. Now my government is more or less telling me that I should have. Far from leaving no stone unturned to bring her murderers to justice, my government is cementing those stones down unturned.”
If we are really going to move on, we need to accept that there is opposition across the board to this Bill in Northern Ireland but that it comes from very different angles. The idea that everyone is against it for the same reason is just not true. The difficulty that we have in your Lordships’ House is in recognising and separating what is genuine opposition and what is opposition for opposition’s sake to continue the sort of lawfare that many people in Northern Ireland seem to want, just to attack the state forces. I am very keen to see that amendments strengthen the Bill to ensure that we do not allow the innocent victim to be ignored at the expense of those people who just want to attack our state forces.
Lord McInnes of Kilwinning (Con)
My Lords, I do not stand before your Lordships as someone from Northern Ireland and I have never been a victim of terrorism, but I care very much about Northern Ireland’s place and people. I am very concerned about the way in which Northern Ireland is too often treated as somehow outside the mainstream of UK politics, as if only people from Northern Ireland may speak about the situation in the Province.
Secondly, there may be a little cynicism in my remarks about the Bill, but they in no way reflect my opinion of my noble friend the Minister and his commitment and expertise. Already today we have heard his commitment to listen to noble Lords and the people of Northern Ireland, and to try his very best to improve the Bill.
James Hughes wrote a chapter entitled “Reconstruction Without Reconciliation: Is Northern Ireland a ‘Model’?” in the 2015 academic book After Civil War. While we may have a model reconstruction and end of violence, I am afraid that on reconciliation we are on less sure territory. After almost 25 years of trying to grapple with this issue, we are now faced with a Bill that, at first sight, seems far from creating the consensus that Northern Ireland requires around such sensitive issues.
However, despite its flaws the Bill can be worked on. It would have been far more satisfactory if it had evolved as part of the long process, as we have already heard this evening, going back to prisoner release in 1998; the work by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, on the Consultative Group on the Past in 2009; the Stormont agreement; and even the New Decade, New Approach agreement of 2019. One starts to wonder whether, when such good work was being done by Ministers who are now Members of this place and the other place and people on the ground in Northern Ireland, there was—I think my noble friend Lord Cormack obliquely referred to this—a feeling within Whitehall generally that this problem would go away through time and that legislation to address it was not necessary.
However, we have had to respect and recognise the significant change that has taken place since 2019, first of all in the response to the Command Paper in 2021. The slow burn of codified and state-sanctioned reconciliation that should have been the natural path from the Belfast/Good Friday agreement was a necessary symptom of that agreement. It is unfortunate—but the reality—that the fundamental political structures of Northern Ireland were more easily addressed in 1997 and 1998 than the reconciliation necessary to deal with ongoing legacy issues. That is not in any way to criticise the way in which an end to the Troubles was sought or the bravery shown by all those involved, but it did leave a need for further structure, thought and work.
The kind of instrumental reconciliation that was carried out in Northern Ireland, bringing both sides of the political elite together, was the necessary step before the socio-emotional reconciliation of finding peace that then needed to follow. It is not a reflection on those who have sought to do so that it has taken 20 years for us to get here.
It has been extremely disappointing, and has contributed greatly to the negative press the Bill has suffered, that all too often it has been seen as a Bill driven by a debate outwith Northern Ireland—a debate about veterans and the internals of the Conservative Party over the last two years, rather than what was best for the people of Northern Ireland and the veterans who served there. As the noble Lord, Lord Hain, said, this is not to say that the rights of veterans of our armed services should not be protected and respected, but it seems to me that it will be the judgment of many in Northern Ireland that the Bill has come about only because of a media debate in Great Britain that had nothing to do with Northern Ireland.
The Government had the opportunity to build far more upon the foundations of the previous attempts in 2009, 2015 and 2019, to which I have alluded. In each of their arguments, they created a degree of consensus around certain elements and went some way, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, just said, to there being different elements that can be pulled together.
However, given that this Bill is now the vehicle, it is incumbent upon us to ensure we have a Bill that gives more confidence to the victims of the Troubles and, for those who wish it, a means to get to the truth. There are now opportunities to do that, but significant changes to the Bill will be required. I am slightly more optimistic than the noble Lord, Lord Hain, that we will be able to achieve these.
I recognise that the answer to some of these suggested changes may well be that the independent commission, or whatever the name ends up being, requires more resource, but to deliver what it says on the tin, we will need to be willing to meet the challenges of victims, or else the Bill will be a meaningless act. In fact, as the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, said, it could be counterproductive.
I would be grateful if my noble friend the Minister responded to and further reflected on the following reasonable demands from victims’ groups, beyond those he mentioned in his opening remarks. First, in Clause 1 there should be a broader definition of harm to allow a greater range of victims to come forward to make use of the independent commission, and to reflect the experience of Northern Ireland society as widely as possible. This new definition would reflect the UK Parliament order and definition of victims as of 2006, including those who have suffered psychological as well as physical harm.
Secondly, victims must feel part of the process, and I support calls for them to be able to respond to draft reports from the commission before actions are taken. I welcome my noble friend’s commitment to looking at stronger penalties for those who choose not to co-operate or to lie to the commission, and I look forward to those coming forward in Committee.
Victims must not have equivalence with perpetrators in this process but should be the dominant voice as we move towards reconciliation. When it has completed its progress, the Bill must clearly differentiate between victim and perpetrator; I fear that it does not at the moment. I will leave it to noble, and indeed learned, Lords to opine on the Bill’s compatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights. Again, I hear my noble friend the Minister’s commitment to look at the robustness of the process to ensure that concerns over rights to life and remedy are properly addressed.
We must also be realistic about the concerns and lack of co-operation with and community support for both the Historical Enquiries Team and subsequent PSNI initiatives. If this new independent commission is to be effective and to have public confidence, we need every single assurance over its membership and the independence of its members. If it is to have a lifespan of five years, what assurances will my noble friend give that it will be properly resourced to ensure that victims’ requests for investigation are not timed out?
I welcome the change in the Bill from the original Command Paper, making immunity at least conditional. I recognise that many in this Chamber and the other place are concerned about any immunity evading justice. I see the earned immunity as important in ensuring that there is a process through which all can be judged and have an opportunity to make a choice. Yes, the reality is that from the early release scheme onwards, and its further extension through this Bill, we have probably come to the end of the road for imprisonment for pre-1998 offences. This is very difficult for many of us to accept, but it is a clear evolution of previous positions and it is probably correct that it be incorporated in the Bill.
It is clear from all that has come before that there is still a desire in Northern Ireland for a formal process of reconciliation. The Bill may not have come about for the correct reasons or been a natural successor to the other attempts that have taken place, but it is the Bill we have. This process must not become the traditional zero-sum game of any one side feeling dominance over a process or being able to be portrayed as such.
If the Bill is about legacy and reconciliation, it is important that its clauses reflect a well-resourced plan to bring about reconciliation and deal with the painful legacy of the Troubles. To do so successfully, it must have at its heart a victim-focused and Northern Ireland-focused process intent on truth.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, it is a privilege—and a coincidence, which I will explain—that I should rise to speak after the noble Lord, Lord McInnes of Kilwinning. I am very pleased that his opening remarks made the case for those of us who are not Northern Irish, or indeed Irish, although I have extended family in Northern Ireland, to contribute to these debates.
I shall explain why that is particularly the case for both him and me. For those who do not know the geography of Ayrshire, Kilwinning is a really important railway hub. It is the point at which the train from Glasgow to Ayrshire splits and goes north and south all the way down to Stranraer, where it is a gateway to Northern Ireland. As it goes north, it comes to a town called Stevenston. I was born and grew up in Stevenston and was educated in Kilwinning.
Interesting as all that is, the important point here is that the demography of that part of Ayrshire is the mirror image of Northern Ireland. It is not the only part of Scotland that is the mirror image of Northern Ireland in that sense, but it is a part of Scotland that, through all of my young life and, I am sure, much of the noble Lord’s life, there was persistent cross-fertilisation between that part of Scotland and Northern Ireland—not all of it positive and enhancing, I have to say; quite a lot of it criminal; and at times, I have no doubt, some of it terrorist.
So, far from saying that we are entitled to participate in this debate, I think we both have a duty and a responsibility to participate in it, and we should declare an interest. If the legacy issue for Northern Ireland can be dealt with and reconciliation achieved, that will be reflected in our communities, which will be massively enhanced by that having been achieved. There are victims of the Troubles in the communities that we grew up in who are not counted in any of the arithmetic we have been discussing today. I do not intend to speak for victims; there are people in this debate much better qualified to do that than I am.
I respect and admire the Minister for a number of reasons. His honesty and the way that he introduced the Bill are only a part of it. I admire him for his persistent contribution to finding a way to deal with these and other issues for Northern Ireland. He merits our support, and nothing that I say—and I will be significantly critical on one theme of the Bill—is in any sense a criticism of him.
I was a Minister in the Northern Ireland Office for a period and had responsibility for victims and criminal justice matters, so I do not underestimate the difficulty or complexity of what the Government are faced with, but I do not think the Bill is the answer. I wholly adopt an element of my noble friend Lord Hain’s speech and that of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames: this needs to be substantially reworked. Others have made the same point. The willingness of the Government to rework it may or may not produce a workable piece of legislation; the jury is out in respect of that.
I pay tribute to those planning to table and support amendments that seek to palliate some of the problematic provisions of this legislation; indeed, I may do so myself. I am minded to table amendments that will deal with one part of it, though not nearly the most challenging part. Those amendments that have been proposed by the Law Society of Scotland, whose consistent advice about legislation in this House has been of the highest quality over the time that I have been here. They will deal with the Bill’s provisions to the extent that they limit the Lord Advocate’s constitutional position as the head of the system of criminal prosecution and investigation of deaths in Scotland, as set out in the Scotland Act 1998. The system of criminal prosecution and civil liabilities are matters devolved to the Scottish Parliament. In my view, the Bill’s provisions engage the legislative consent convention, the Sewel convention, and therefore require the consent of the Scottish Parliament.
To the extent that I have the capacity to do so, it is my intention to participate where I can and where I think I can make a contribution to the debates on other amendments, both in Committee and on Report. However, in these remarks I shall focus on those faults of the Bill that are intrinsic to it and which cannot be removed without making it a wholly different, and not guaranteed to be better, piece of legislation. I therefore support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon, because it encapsulates many of those.
I regret that I have to say this but it would be difficult even for the most Panglossian optimist to contest the view that the UK’s reputation for adherence to international law has been degraded by the actions of successive Governments since the Brexit referendum. The Secretary of State has declared his belief that the Bill is compatible with our obligations under the ECHR, but others have raised significant doubts as to whether that is the case. For example, the European Commissioner for Human Rights and two UN special rapporteurs in relevant areas have raised concerns that the legislation threatens a de facto breach of our obligations. Nearer home, the JCHR and the Select Committee on the Constitution—the latter in a commendably short and accessible five-page report—persuasively explain why the Bill, as drafted,
“is unlikely to comply with the Convention”.
The aggregate of this convincing cacophony of concern is that the measures set out either are incompatible with the UK’s obligations under the ECHR or create a risk of incompatibility. Either way, the effect of the Bill will ultimately be more litigation before our courts or, if the present Government deploy their overwhelming majority in the other place to secure the Bill of Rights, before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, because applicants who will then not be able to enforce their rights domestically will be more likely to take their cases to the ECHR. That will be directly contrary to the UK Government’s ambition to bring an end to litigation; in my view, it will significantly increase the possibility of it.
Of particular concern is the fact that the new ICRIR will be given wide discretion in deciding whether actions should be referred for prosecution and in setting time limits for future criminal and civil actions. In addition, by creating a limited immunity scheme, potentially barring certain civil claims and affecting existing and potential future inquests, the Bill potentially undermines the rights of victims in significant ways.
I think we all received the same email yesterday from the Northern Ireland Victims Commissioner. In it, he urged me—as I read it—
“to keep the victims, survivors, and their families at the front of your mind.”
Earlier in the letter, he explained:
“Since the Bill started its passage through Parliament on 17 May I have met with many victims and survivors including the Commission’s own Forum, to fully understand how or indeed if, the Bill could work for them. The cold reality is that no-one I have met believes that the Bill is going to help heal or reconcile.”
That environment is not likely to bring us to one of the fundamental objectives that the Government have set themselves here—of bringing an end to this litigation —and which other noble Lords have spoken in great detail about the necessity of achieving.
Article 2 of the ECHR requires that:
“Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law.”
In that light, it is incumbent on the Government to explain how the proposals for the ICRIR, which is created to recover information about a death or serious injury but does not provide any legal remedy, are compatible with their ECHR obligations under Article 2.
This is a point that I do not think anyone else has made, but it is an important and serious one that we should make in the current conditions: while the risk of the UK breaching its obligations under international law is serious in and of itself, it is perhaps exceeded in seriousness by the fact that it compromises our ability beyond these shores to challenge other nations when far more serious and fundamental breaches occur.
Those hostile to human rights in authoritarian states are watching. So too are human rights defenders in other states who substantially depend on us. How will we be able to insist that, for instance, Russian commanders are held accountable for atrocities in Ukraine? We are presently and properly investing millions of pounds in collecting the evidence of those very possibilities. The retort is dismally predictable. How can we insist upon accountability under the rule of law when we have exempted potential offenders of our own from just that mechanism?
If accountability is to mean anything, this basic principle must be maintained: that crimes, when proven, are punished and that victims receive justice. While I sympathise with the desire to draw a line under the Troubles and focus on reconciliation, it is an uncomfortable and regrettable truth that justice cannot conform to a politically expedient timetable. More than 1,000 killings remain unsolved. Although I accept that the chances of prosecution diminish with every passing year, the granting of immunity in exchange for information will be seen by many—nay, all—victims as an attempt to achieve present harmony at the price of their past and enduring distress.
Greater unity in Northern Ireland is desirable, although I suspect that unifying the leaders of the DUP and Sinn Féin in disapproval of this measure is not quite the spur to unity that the Government had in mind. How can imposing a set of measures that have attracted disapproval from all communities and shades of political opinion possibly heal the fractures that remain in Northern Ireland?
I applaud those who are seeking to amend this legislation and to improve it, but I have fundamental concerns about the direction of travel represented by the Bill. In her foreword to the 2018 consultation document, Addressing the Legacy of Northern Ireland’s Past, the then Secretary of State, Karen Bradley, wrote:
“We … continue to believe that any approach to the past must be fully consistent with the rule of law. Conservatives in government have consistently said that we will not introduce amnesties or immunities from prosecution.”
What has changed in the four years since to cause this Conservative Government to jettison what was apparently an immutable principle in favour of this new approach? The answer is clear: either it is not a fixed principle practised by Conservatives in government, or this legislation does not do what it appears to do. I look forward to the Minister clarifying which of these two interpretations is correct.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, this debate will adjourn and resume not before 8.15 pm, to allow us to move on to Report and Third Reading of the Counsellors of State Bill.
Counsellors of State Bill [HL]
Wednesday 23rd November 2022
(1 year, 12 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Counsellors of State Act 2022 View all Counsellors of State Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: HL Bill 66-I Marshalled list for Committee - (21 Nov 2022)
Counsellors of State Bill [HL]
Wednesday 23rd November 2022
(1 year, 12 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Counsellors of State Act 2022 View all Counsellors of State Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 66-I Marshalled list for Committee - (21 Nov 2022)
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord True) (Con)
I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. I again place on record, as I did at an earlier stage, my gratitude to His Majesty’s Official Opposition and the Liberal Democrats for their support in expediting this measure. We have heard important arguments put forward in the House. I believe that we have acquitted our responsibility in responding to the message from His Majesty. I thank all those who have been involved in putting this measure together at such short notice.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Lord Privy Seal for his comments. This Bill has been a learning curve for many in your Lordships’ House. In conducting our debate, we have reached a sensible conclusion which concurs with the wishes of His Majesty the King. This Bill is a proportionate, moderate measure, which has the support of this House. Other issues may arise in due course that the House will wish to look at. This is not something that happens every day. I thank the noble Lord for his courtesy in engaging with the Opposition at all times about the detail of the Bill. We greatly appreciate it. We also thank those officials who have worked on bringing this Bill to the House.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, I echo the comments of my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition. I thank the Minister for the way in which he has dealt with all the issues and for the way in which he has taken the Bill through the House. It is not every day that a Bill goes through in three days. I also thank him for his personal courtesy to me, not least with regard to the amendment that I moved earlier. It is quite clear that he and others would have preferred it if I had not tabled it at all.
We have waited 70 years for a Bill of this kind. I am tempted to say that, having waited 70 years for a bus, I hope, on this occasion, another one does not come along at once. I hope that this Bill will succeed in its purpose and provide the resilience for the constitutional arrangements to which the noble Lord and others have referred. In the fullness of time, we may have to come back to it, but I hope this is not for a very long time. Meanwhile, I wish the Bill well. As has been said before, it is not often that Bills go from this House to another place. It will do the other place no harm to find that this Bill reaches them from this direction, rather than the other way around.
Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill
Wednesday 23rd November 2022
(1 year, 12 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 View all Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 4 July 2022 - (4 Jul 2022)
Baroness O’Loan (CB)
My Lords, I acknowledge and applaud the integrity with which the Minister introduced the Bill, and the way he articulated the problems that exist. Given the range of amendments apparently to be introduced by the Government, though, it is difficult to understand why we are actually debating this difficult and challenging Bill.
In starting my words, I pay tribute to all those with whom I have worked over the years. For 25 years, in one way or another, I have been in this business of investigating and overlooking the Troubles. I pay tribute to the people who came to me, particularly when I was Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, because that took a lot of courage. I remember one mother who came to me and was terrified; she knew the name of the person who had murdered her young son but was too afraid to tell me his name. As she sat at my table, I ran through the names of IRA men whom I had identified as working in the area until she nodded. That seemed to open some sort of gate, which enabled her to talk to me.
I think of the victims, including the police victims: people such as Constable Colleen McMurray, Detective Sergeant Joseph Campbell and Lance Bombardier Stephen Restorick, the last soldier to die in Northern Ireland. I think of all the victims of all the shootings and bombings. The first I dealt with in some detail was Omagh, where 29 people and two unborn children died, which was really traumatic and went to the heart of what the Bill is about. One of the problems we have is that although most people who were in the security services and the forces in Northern Ireland served with great distinction and integrity, not all did. We have a significant problem in relation to many agents of the state. I think of people such as Stakeknife on the one side and those in the UVF on the other, who were engaged in terrible crimes.
Noble Lords have referred to the extent to which the Bill has been rejected by people, organisations, statutory organisations, former police officers and soldiers, including veterans who served honourably and have stated that criminals who served alongside them should be prosecuted. It has also been rejected by numerous independent and distinguished human rights lawyers and other experts, the UN committees, the European Commissioner for Human Rights and so on.
However, at the heart of this, as we have heard tonight, the legacy of the Troubles lives on in the hearts of all of us who have been affected by them. I include all those affected by the deaths which occurred here in Westminster; I think of Airey Neave and of all the bombs that there were here in England. They live in my heart for my lost baby, who died before he was born in a bomb explosion; they live in the dreadful and murderous sectarian attack on my son when I was police ombudsman, which left him with terrible injuries. There was an investigation but we always knew that it would go nowhere, because people were so afraid of the loyalist paramilitaries that nobody would come forward to give evidence.
That is the legacy and reality of life in Northern Ireland, and it lives on still. On Saturday night, I will go to a place called Oristown in County Meath, where they are trying to recover the bodies of the remaining disappeared. There were three of them: Columba McVeigh, who was 17, Joe Lynskey and Captain Robert Nairac. It lives on in all our hearts and all our souls.
I did a search to find out how these new provisions will promote reconciliation. The word “reconciliation” is used in the Bill on 168 occasions, some 167 of which are in the titles of the Bill and the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery. There is one other reference to “reconciliation”: Clause 44(4) provides for a study of memorialisations and requires that there must be consideration of
“how … memorialisation activities currently, or will in the future, promote reconciliation in Northern Ireland”.
That is the sole provision aimed at reconciliation. Can the Minister explain whether the Government intend to amend the Bill to provide mechanisms by which they might promote reconciliation?
The Bill does four very important things, which are being articulated here. It terminates existing criminal investigations into Troubles deaths, including the Kenova investigations, with which I am involved. It provides for review in limited circumstances, which may lead to prosecution but is very unlikely to. It terminates civil actions from 17 May this year, and there will be no Troubles inquests after May 2023. I hope that the Government will not come back and tell us that they will allow it to be May 2024, which would be an insult to people in Northern Ireland. All inquests currently under way but that have not reached the stage of substantive hearing must be terminated by the coroner. The Bill also provides for conditional immunity for those involved in the Troubles, as we heard.
Earlier proposals included roles for the Northern Ireland Department of Justice and the Northern Ireland Policing Board, but the Bill makes no provision for any involvement of any of the devolved part of Northern Ireland. The Secretary of State is even responsible for making decisions about memorialisation projects. Does the Minister not agree that, like so much in the Bill, this should be a matter for the devolved Government rather than the Secretary of State?
The Bill makes the commission the only body that can examine legacy cases throughout the UK. As noble Lords have said, the structures will lack operational independence. I was pleased to hear the Minister say that there will be changes in how the Chief Commissioner will be appointed. However, the Bill provides for extensive involvement by the Secretary of State in operational matters, including giving guidance to a whole range of bodies, including the commission, about the exercise of its function; proposing cases of death or harmful conduct for review; determining resources—we all know that the way to render a new institution impotent is to limit its funding and powers, and there is scope for both here; determining applications for immunity; monitoring the work of the commission; and guarding access to information.
The Secretary of State can rule that information is
“protected international information … which … if disclosed generally might, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, damage international relations.”
The Constitution Committee observes that Clause 4(1) prohibits the commission doing anything that might “prejudice … national security”. There is no provision for the review of any national security claims made by the Secretary of State.
Clause 2 provides for the work of the commission. The language of Bills is normally very carefully chosen. As has been said, the need for proper investigations of Troubles-related deaths was previously acknowledged, and the language has changed in the Bill. The functions of the commission include the review of deaths and harmful conduct and the production of reports on the review of each death. Reviews are not investigations; they are conducted to help a senior investigating officer who is investigating a crime, or is proposing to investigate an unsolved crime, to detect that crime by identifying lines of inquiry. There is national best practice for how to do a review so that it is thorough, is conducted with integrity and objectivity, looks at all investigative opportunities and makes recommendations for further investigation. Reviews are there to assist investigation, not to substitute for it. They should result in further investigation, not just final reports. I do not believe that it is an accident that the word “review” has suddenly appeared in the Bill.
One of the requirements under Article 2 for investigating the crimes of the Troubles, especially those crimes in which a state agent or actor has been involved— although many served with honour, there were hundreds of these crimes—is that the investigation be independent. Taken together, the structures created by the Bill restrict and inhibit the operational independence of the commission. The right to independent investigation is guaranteed, not only through the convention on human rights but through the Good Friday agreement and, most recently, Article 2 of the protocol, which provides for no diminution of our human rights. Your Lordships have been debating with great interest the effect of Article 2 in the protocol debate.
International bodies and eminent experts do not accept that the structures created in this Bill will satisfy the UK’s international and legal obligations. The powers available to the commission do not even appear to include unfettered use of police powers—the powers of the Secretary of State seem to extend even to the use of those powers. This Bill does not provide the existing right of access to information held by state bodies. There is an obligation on state bodies only to provide information and documents that are “reasonably required”. As Police Ombudsman, I had a right to all information held by the PSNI. In other cases, I had to seek information from state agencies such as the MoD, MI5 and GCHQ. Sometimes they were helpful; on other occasions they were not. More recently, as a member of the international steering group for Operation Kenova—I have been there for nearly seven years—investigating the activities of the republican state agent known as “Stakeknife”, I have seen the difficulties experienced by this investigation, which was commissioned by the Police Service of Northern Ireland. It is not a new problem. The language of this Bill will make the work of information retrieval from the state much more difficult.
Under the Bill, in addition to his other powers, the Secretary of State gives guidance as to the identification of sensitive information. Sensitive information includes anything held by GCHQ, MI5, the MoD, the Army, the PSNI and any British police force. The Secretary of State can issue regulations on the holding and handling of that information. Those regulations may create criminal offences. The Constitution Committee has said that this provision is constitutionally unacceptable because criminal offences should be created in the Bill itself, not by negative resolution, where there is no provision for amendment. In addition, the holding and handling of such information can be regulated by the Secretary of State, and they can even provide for biometric information to be destroyed.
The decision as to reasonableness—the Bill refers to information that is “reasonably required”—will be made by the state agencies, not by the commission. In many cases, I am sure that the MoD, MI5 and GCHQ will decline to provide access to much of the information they have. They will say this is necessary because the material is secret, or its disclosure may put lives or methodologies at risk. I have seen material classified as secret which should not have been. I saw that most recently when I was investigating the Metropolitan Police. The European Court of Human Rights has found that determinations of national security threats must not be arbitrary and must contain sufficient safeguards to give the individual adequate protection against arbitrary interference. I have seen methodologies protected that are no longer relevant. It is most unlikely that the commissioner will get access to what they need for review, or even for investigation.
We must add to these difficulties and restrictions the fact that the commission must grant immunity to a person who has requested it, and who has given an account of their own conduct that formed part of the Troubles that was true to the best of their knowledge and belief. Immunity is not possible for Troubles-related sexual offences. Both the Delegated Powers Committee and the Constitution Committee have said that the power given to the Secretary of State to define sexual offences should be removed from the Bill. But what sort of regime prohibits immunity for sexual offences but grants immunity to murderers?
The Secretary of State can issue guidance on making a request for immunity or determining whether an immunity applicant’s conduct falls within the legislation and is criminal conduct, et cetera. The Delegated Powers Committee says that the statutory guidance should be subject to parliamentary procedure. The Constitution Committee suggests that your Lordships may wish to consider whether the guidance should be incorporated in the Bill. There is no requirement to inform victims or family members of a request for immunity or the outcome of that request. Victims, family members or interested persons cannot provide information to inform the commission’s immunity decisions. In many cases, the families of murder victims have gathered vast amounts of information about the murder of their loved one which they could provide to the commission, as they have in the past provided it to me, and which might demonstrate that the applicant has not told the whole truth about his or her own criminality.
The Government, in response to the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers, said that they would expect the commission to inform families and that
“information about the granting of immunity should also be included in the published family reports”.
The whole immunity process will be vested in secrecy. There will be no transparency and no accessible accountability for the decisions made.
We also know that accounts given to members of families by those who were involved in the murders of their loved ones are very often inaccurate and sometimes wrong. The harm caused to families by inaccurate information cannot be overstated. There is no penalty for an offender not telling what they really know, although this may change. Where there cannot be a prosecution of an individual because they have immunity, that will impact on the ability to prosecute others for that offence, just as there have been difficulties in prosecuting pursuant to the operation of the current arrangements for assisting offenders under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act.
Even if the commissioner were to get access to information, to attempt to deal with the complications involving a request for immunity and to proceed to a review using police powers with a view to making a submission, there are very restrictive provisions as to the disclosure which may be made by the commission. In particular, paragraph 3 of Schedule 5 permits disclosure to a range of persons—the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Lord Advocate, a member of the police force, coroners, judges—but the Secretary of State must be notified. What is the purpose of notifying the Secretary of State? What is the Secretary of State going to do with the information? Why should case-sensitive information be disclosed in this way, rather than, for example, being dealt with under the normal rules for disclosure in prosecutions?
Paragraph 4 of Schedule 5 requires that proposed disclosure be notified to the Secretary of State, and he can then give consent for disclosure or withhold it if it would prejudice national security. Again, there is no clarity as to how this might impact on disclosure to the defence or, indeed, the prosecution in any criminal trial. What will be the impact of this provision? Can the Minister reassure the House that this will not have the potential to result in prohibition of the disclosure of material relevant to a prosecution? More importantly, what will the perception be of the victims?
These are not normal provisions. They build in delay. The Secretary of State has up to 60 days to make his first decision and 60 days to make his second decision, and that is for one piece of information. I can tell noble Lords that there are multiple pieces of sensitive information involved in any case. The power of the commissioner to submit a case for prosecution will be severely compromised by these provisions.
I have a few final points. The commission is charged to produce a historical record of the remaining deaths—those which it did not investigate. How will this record be created when there is no investigation? We already have that wonderful book, Lost Lives, which so many of us have used, which tells the story of every death of the Troubles. Will this process add anything to that work? Given that the commission’s work can be concluded or shut down
“if the Secretary of State is satisfied that the need … has ceased”,
the question must be, can the Minister confirm that the commission will be funded until its work is completed and that the work of the commission itself will not be terminated after five years? Cases will run on after the five years.
Our history is very complex. Somehow, a situation evolved in which the police, the Army and MI5, having successfully infiltrated terrorist organisations, lost their way. There grew a time when many of the agents of the state currently under investigation were allowed to carry on their involvement in terrorism to preserve them as agents. People died because of this, and it should not have happened. Even when they admitted their crimes to their handlers, they were just sent back on the street. As this emerged, as people began to realise that their loved ones had been murdered by people such as informants—agents of the state who had not been dealt with—there grew an ongoing sense of betrayal in both communities.
There were of course also cases in which members of the police and Army were involved in crime. I emphasise that I know that most officers served honourably. I dealt with so many of them in my time; I lectured them. I remember giving evidence to a Diplock court against an IRA man who had been gathering information against judges and police officers, with a view to a spectacular shooting. That was a difficult thing to do, but it had to be done.
All I want to do in my work on this Bill is to try and help noble Lords to ensure that it will provide justice and enable hope for the people who, like so many of our noble colleagues, have suffered so much through the Troubles.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the moving and forensic speech of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan.
I hesitated before putting my name down to speak because I cannot claim the knowledge of Northern Ireland that other noble Lords can. Having had the privilege of being a member of the independent Opsahl commission that considered the future of Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and having visited numerous times subsequently, I took very seriously the passionate opposition to this Bill voiced in a number of quarters. I apologise for any repetition, but I hope it will serve to reinforce the case against the Bill.
I intend to make just two general points, relating to human rights compliance and to the failure to listen to the virtually unanimous opposition to the Bill in Northern Ireland, reflected in my noble friend’s amendment. These two fundamental concerns support the conclusion of the Joint Committee on Human Rights that the Government should “reconsider its whole approach”. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, which I thank for a very useful meeting the other week, argues that the Bill requires
“immediate and thorough reassessment, which should take place through meaningful engagement. The result should be victim-centred and human rights compliant”.
Its view is that
“this is not delivered by the present Bill”,
and nor can it be simply by means of a few amendments. This is a pretty damning conclusion from the official body established to advise on human rights matters in Northern Ireland.
On human rights, the JCHR voices its agreement with stakeholders that the Bill is unlikely to comply with the European Convention on Human Rights. It expresses serious doubts as to its compatibility with Articles 2 and 3, but also with Articles 6 and 13—the right to a fair trial and to an effective remedy—despite the former Secretary of State’s statement that the Bill is compatible with convention rights. One of those stakeholders, Amnesty, describes the Bill as a “flagrant breach” of human rights obligations. The NIHRC expresses grave concern and focuses in particular on what it considers to be the Bill’s incompatibility with Articles 2 and 3, and by extension suggests that the Bill contravenes the Belfast/Good Friday and Stormont agreements. It suggests that there is “little evidence that expert views on human rights compliance were meaningfully considered.” The Minister’s welcome, conciliatory speech offers some hope that they have, to some extent, been so now, but as colleagues have said, we need to see the detail, and it is not just about Article 2 compliance.
A briefing from Freedom from Torture and Survivors Speak OUT warns that the Bill “provides impunity for torture” and in doing so breaches the UK’s obligations under multiple international treaties, including the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. It quotes the Committee against Torture, which has made clear that in order to ensure that perpetrators of torture do not enjoy impunity, state parties must
“ensure the investigation and, where appropriate, the prosecution of those accused of having committed the crime of torture, and ensure that amnesty laws exclude torture from their reach.”
The briefing explains: “We know as torture survivors that seeking justice helps recovery by affirming the unfairness of what we endured, restoring some control”, yet the Bill “silences victims and survivors”. Liberty makes similar criticisms and dismisses the attempt in the ECHR memorandum to the Bill to argue that it is consistent with the UK’s obligations under the convention against torture.
The Constitution Committee echoes concerns raised about the Bill’s implications for the UK’s international obligations and the rule of law, and it quotes criticisms voiced by two UN special rapporteurs and the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights. The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers has urged a fundamental rethink of the Bill, as my noble friend Lady Ritchie pointed out.
The Constitution Committee also notes, as the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, said,
“the strength of opposition to the Bill—particularly by victims—which risks undermining its aim of addressing the past and promoting reconciliation.”
That is such an important point. In his letter to Peers, the Minister stated that “the Secretary of State engaged widely and listened to many different views”, but this is not how those affected see it. To the extent that the then Secretary of State did engage—and that is disputed in relation to the drawing up of the Bill itself—he may have listened, but he certainly did not take on board what he must have heard.
According to the NIHRC,
“the Bill does not reflect the views of 17,000 consultees who engaged with the NIO on the previous legacy bill and is staunchly opposed within NI, including among victims, survivors and their families.”
It suggested that public confidence is lacking due to the Government forging ahead with the Bill without “meaningful consultation”. As far as I can tell, apart from possibly a small group of veterans and the Malone House Group, no organisation or political party in Northern Ireland supports the Bill. I acknowledge that veterans—whose views are reported by the Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner—tended to be more equivocal and show what the commissioner terms “begrudging acceptance”. Nevertheless, he also makes clear that veterans
“do not want an amnesty”.
Indeed, an invitation to a meeting with bereaved families of British Army soldiers said that they feel “deeply aggrieved” that the protection of veterans is said to be the justification for the Bill.
The Constitution Committee warns:
“It is constitutionally inappropriate for such a significant measure to pass without consent”,
which is clearly lacking at present, regardless of whether or not the Assembly sits.
Could the Minister explain why the Government are railroading the Bill through despite such widespread and fundamental opposition? This opposition calls for more than the few improvements that the current Secretary of State himself acknowledged are needed when answering Oral Questions a couple of weeks ago, and which the Minister has suggested would lead to amendments being tabled before Committee. Welcome as that acknowledgement is, I am not sure that it reflects an understanding of how fundamental the opposition to the Bill is.
Surely the Government cannot believe that reconciliation can be achieved by imposing it in this form on an unwilling population. Reconciliation requires treading carefully. As the then Secretary of State noted when introducing the Bill’s Second Reading in the Commons, it concerns the
“most difficult and sensitive of issues.” —[Official Report, Commons, 24/5/22; col. 176.]
The Bill may have succeeded in uniting Northern Ireland’s political parties and civil society groups, but unity in opposition to the denial of justice and internationally recognised human rights does not offer a path to genuine reconciliation.
Could the Minister explain why the Government, in drawing up the Bill, have ignored the advice of bodies established to provide advice on human rights issues? In this context, could he respond to the request made by Simon Hoare MP, chair of the Northern Ireland Select Committee, at the Commons Second Reading that, in order to assure the House that the Bill is Article 2-compliant without “setting a precedent”, the Government give
“active consideration to putting Treasury counsel’s advice on this matter in the Library”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/5/22; col. 195.]
The then Minister of State did not respond in his summing up and it seems that we are expected to accept a simple assertion that the Bill is compliant, despite all the advice we have received to the contrary from the JCHR, NIHRC and others. Indeed, he ignored the whole issue of human rights, despite concerns raised by the former Secretary of State, Julian Smith, who I know earned considerable respect in Northern Ireland.
The Minister’s letter to Peers claims that the Bill fulfils a manifesto commitment to address the legacy of Northern Ireland’s past through providing better outcomes for victims, survivors and their families, giving veterans the protection they deserve, and helping Northern Ireland’s society to look to the future, which I think was reflected in his speech today. These are admirable aims, but I do not know of anyone outside of the Government who believes that this Bill achieves them.
The JCHR, the NIHRC and the Northern Ireland Victims and Survivors Commissioner have asked the Government to think again. Informed by the view of victims and survivors, the commissioner expresses deep unhappiness and warns that the legislation is
“fundamentally flawed, and is not victim and survivor centred.”
In a letter to me, he explains that
“no-one I have met believes that the Bill is going to help heal or reconcile,”
and in a recent letter to the Daily Telegraph he states:
“A draconian Bill, designed by one party in splendid isolation, is not the way forward, and it is not what our victims and survivors need.”
The JCHR spells out what alternative legislation would need to look like. It would ensure first that
“investigations are independent, effective, timely, involve next of kin, and are subject to public scrutiny; (ii) perpetrators of serious human rights violations are held to account; and (iii) that all possible avenues for the pursuit of justice and the provision of an effective remedy are available to victims and their families.”
Many in Northern Ireland believe that it should reflect the Stormont agreement which, while not perfect, I believe commanded sufficient support to offer a way forward, despite what the Minister said in his speech.
While I welcome the fact that the new Secretary of State and the Minister are engaging in a way that should have happened before the Bill was drafted, I can think only that they will have heard a clear message that it is not fit for purpose. It will not achieve the Government’s aims, but it will create considerable resentment and unhappiness among those it purports to help. It should be withdrawn—or at the very least, as the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, said, should be paused—so that the Government can go back to the drawing board and return with a Bill that is human rights compliant and can command support among victims and survivors of the conflict. They deserve no less.
Lord Bew (CB)
My Lords, I want to say some words in favour of this Bill. One might assume that we had a situation at present that was viable. I very much sympathise with the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and others who have looked at the word “reconciliation” and said that it is tossed around in the Bill in a way that is not entirely convincing, to put it politely. I absolutely understand that, but the truth is that we have an entirely rancid situation in Northern Ireland. The continuation of lawfare is just a contributory to what is perfectly obvious to anybody who pays the most casual attention to public opinion in Northern Ireland: there is an increasing mutual contempt between the two communities. There is a reason why the Government are trying to introduce this Bill. I fully accept the point from the noble Lord, Lord McInnes, that in part it is to do with a manifesto commitment and the issue of veterans, but it is also to do with the fact that the status quo is simply not tolerable, and in our discussions I think we should acknowledge that.
I was very impressed by the introduction to the Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Caine, not just because of the careful and calibrated way in which he spoke and acknowledged the difficulty, even the anguished way he spoke, but also the precise way that he spoke. But he did not really have much effect on the broader tone of the debate. As the debate went on, we learnt that the Bill was obscene and again and again it was said that it was depriving people of hope.
The noble Lord, Lord Hain, talked about Pinochet’s Chile. Perhaps it is because I was at Cambridge with people who suffered under Pinochet, I thought that was a slight stretch. I accept that the noble Lord was a remarkably effective Secretary of State. He has made it clear tonight that he is on a journey and that he has now modified some of the positions he previously held on this matter in the light of his hopes for what might come from the Boutcher inquiry. I must say, as someone who knows Jon Boutcher, that that is a big wager; it is a Pascal’s wager of a big sort that that inquiry will somehow challenge the terms of this debate, for all the brilliance of his police work. Everybody who knows about his career in London knows that he was—indeed, still is—a very fine policeman.
This language is striking and so different from the tone that the noble Lord, Lord Caine, adopted in an attempt to be precise and face up to difficulties. Again and again tonight, reference has been made to the fact that there were sexual crimes. In fact, the Government have tried to move on this; it is there, but you would not know it from anything that been said in the past two or three hours.
The crucial thing, above all, is that I find myself thinking again and again about the friend of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, at the time of the initial report, which he has talked about so eloquently tonight. Everybody knows that his friend, Denis Bradley, is no particular friend to British Governments. When this Bill was published and it was clear that the Government were going to act in this way, did Denis Bradley talk about “obscene”? Did he talk about depriving people of hope? No. He went into a television studio and, to the annoyance of people who expected him to use that sort of language, he said, “There is no realistic hope. Politicians are merely playing a game if they try to defend the idea that there is hope somehow. They are making a public display. They are actually misleading people.”
It is important to remember the tone with which he spoke at that time. He said, “We cannot deliver more justice now, but we may be able to deliver more truth”; again, that is part of the thinking behind the Bill. That is what Denis Bradley said in the immediate aftermath of this Bill’s publication—quite different from the tone of so much of what has been said tonight, but at least it respected what the Government are trying to do. I am absolutely certain that, if he were here tonight, he would say, “There are loads of things in this Bill that I really don’t like,” but that is a different point. The noble Lord, Lord Caine, has already acknowledged that there are problems in the Bill and creative work will have to be done to sort it out. However, given the tone of what we have heard, it is worth remembering Denis Bradley’s initial response.
Again, the reason why I am sympathetic to the sceptical talk about reconciliation is that I was a historical adviser to the Bloody Sunday tribunal. As historical advisers, we all thought, “This is it. The Government’s great failing is that they won’t fess up to the things they or the state did wrong. We will put a line under it.” When the report came in, David Cameron made a fine speech, partly drafted by the noble Lord, Lord Caine, fessing up to what the British state had got wrong. The hope was, “Well, that’s it. That’s a dividing line. People will accept that we’re not afraid to criticise ourselves or our state’s performance.” The hope was that things would move on and the mood in Northern Ireland would change, but the mood did not change at all. It is as simple as that. I accept that it was a fine industry for the lawyers who worked in it, but the mood of the people did not change at all and the impact that David Cameron was aiming for in his speech ultimately amounted to zero. I am prepared to accept that it would have been worse had he not given that speech. But that is why I accept the talk that it is going to be difficult to achieve reconciliation and why I respond so sympathetically to what the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, said.
However, it is important to understand that the status quo is radically unacceptable, defective, and helping to create an increasingly rancid and divisive public mood in Northern Ireland. At this point, the Bill has unified both communities, but it is a false unity. They each simply want the terrorists of the other community to be brought to law. The unity disclaimed against the Bill is not a real unity.
What has surprised me most this evening is how the Supreme Court ruling in the McQuillan case in December 2021 has not been discussed in any serious way. It has a very significant impact. The headline in the Times law report on 10 January stated that the Supreme Court had said that Northern Ireland police are not required to reinvestigate incidents from the Troubles. That is not being said by the Minister or the British Government, and nor is it a clause in this Bill. It is a very firm statement of Supreme Court policy.
I am sure that there is debate about this, and that many do not like or accept it, but it is a Supreme Court—
Baroness O'Loan (CB)
Does the noble Lord accept that the Times headline writer might not have been quite accurate, and that the judgment in the McQuillan case might have been slightly more complicated than that?
Lord Bew (CB)
It is no more inaccurate than any other headline that I have seen. I accept that it is a complex ruling. However, the Northern Ireland police force issued a statement after the judgment:
“The Police Service welcome the clear legal ruling that there are no legal obligations arising from Article 2 ECHR to investigate these cases. We will now carefully consider the judgments and their impact on the legacy caseload.”
The Government have been attacked for depriving people of hope but, at the minimum, fairness requires us to say that the Supreme Court is depriving people of hope. Only this week we have had an attempt to assassinate two policemen, and serious business with loyalist paramilitaries. Anyone who thinks that the Northern Ireland police force does not look at that ruling and think it significant—and significant enough to be mentioned in this debate—is living in cloud-cuckoo-land. Yet apparently, no one thinks that because it is better to say that this Bill is obscene, is depriving people of hope, et cetera.
I am insistent because we have a problem. The public debate in Northern Ireland now—the way that lawfare operates and the way that these cases are now exhumed on a regular basis, which the Government are responding to—does not relate to what happened in the Troubles. To give a very simple example, the RUC, as was, suffered 309 deaths. It killed 53 people, including 10 of its own in error, carrying heavy weapons in police cars and so on. RUC officers were killed at five or six times the rate of their killing. This is very crude but factual. The killings committed by the republican movement were something like five times the rate of their own deaths, but no one would know that if they looked at the cases running through the courts in Northern Ireland, and at how lawfare was operating. No one would consider that to be the balance of killing and of suffering. Nobody would know that.
That is the problem that we are trying to address with this Bill and why I am willing to give it a degree of support. It is not in doubt that there are problems with the Bill. The Minister has made it clear that the problems are significant. The House can do a lot of work to improve it. Yet everyone must remember that the Bill does not exist on its own but alongside a Supreme Court ruling that unquestionably moves the dice—moves the balance. There is no question that it does that. It may not move it 100%. There may be requirements for other developments, but it certainly moves the discussion in a way that we have not acknowledged in several hours of debate tonight.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, perhaps I should declare my position as a former Times headline writer, from which I am able to confirm that the headlines very often do not reflect the nuance of a story—or, indeed, quite often the facts.
I rise to make a modest and short intervention in this enormously powerful debate. One of my chief reasons for doing so is to reinforce a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, in her presentation of her amendment. The noble Baroness said this Bill is
“opposed by the widest possible political coalition.”
My remarks today come after a close consultation with the Green Party of Northern Ireland. The words are my own, but I received from the Green Party of Northern Ireland a very clear message, as reflected in the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, that this Bill should not go forward.
That is also the message I have personally received here in meetings with victims’ families in Westminster. I also note that, while we are focusing on the Bill, we are debating an amendment to a Second Reading. In my three years in your Lordships’ House, I have taken part in many debates—something the Whips often comment upon—but I have never seen this form before, and I think that is a reflection of the general feeling of the House.
I will acknowledge, as have many others, that the Minister has approached this debate in a conciliatory spirit and has clearly expressed his personal position, and I think the House collectively has thanked him for that. But that does not get us away from the fact that the Government are putting before us an unacceptable Bill. That is the view that has been expressed around your Lordships’ House and, indeed, around Northern Ireland.
An amnesty is not the answer. There is no appetite for it in Northern Ireland, from victims, veterans, political parties or former police officers. An amnesty is the negation of criminal and civil liability. Linking the avoidance of prosecution to any truth recovery body or mechanism undermines the credibility of that body.
The problem is not the awkwardness of its title, much as the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery is indeed a terrible mouthful, but, again, speaking as a former journalist, often when you see awkwardness in expression and explanation, that is an indication of underlying problems with the whole approach.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, says that this is a Bill that allows murderers to get away with murder. I am going to speak personally here, as I am still recovering from and processing in my own mind a visit last week to Ukraine: to Kyiv, Bucha and Irpin. That is where I saw unmistakeable evidence of war crimes and atrocity. To be absolutely clear, I am not making a comparison between the conflicts but I am making a comparison between two societies with a burning desire for justice.
In Ukraine, the international community and the Ukrainians themselves, even in the midst of an attempt to wipe their state off the face of the earth—something we have seen with increased hideousness even today—are making strenuous efforts to document crimes and collect evidence, to ensure that there is a possibility, however distant, for future justice.
The UN assistance mission told me at the weekend that it had reports of 47,700 potential war crimes. That desire for justice—to ensure full legal acknowledgement of what has happened, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, put it—is a reflection of the impact on ordinary families and people’s lives. That cannot be forgotten, no matter how many years have passed.
I was particularly taken by the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, when she was talking about the impact of family loss on a six year-old boy. On the sleeper train back from Kyiv I shared a compartment with a Ukrainian family with a boy of about that age. You could see the impact that the war had had on that child’s life, and that will obviously continue right through his life. That is what we are looking at in the Northern Ireland situation today.
I also bring that in because it is important that we consider that we are operating in an international context, in which the rule of law and human rights are under concerted attack. As the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, and many others have said, independent sources have judged the Bill to be in breach of Article 2, “Right to life”, and Article 3, “Prohibition of torture”, of the ECHR.
It is not my place or, I suggest, that of this House to propose alternatives. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, said, the way forward must have the support and full input of those affected. Moreover, the solution should be co-created with them. It has been said to me in these discussions that, if I am going to oppose this, I have to provide a solution instead. I do not think that is something that your Lordships’ House can do. The noble Lord, Lord Hain, said that the Bill needs to be completely rewritten. I agree with the sentiment, but I propose that this is not something that the Government are in a position to do, particularly now. It needs much broader and more democratic input.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, my noble friend Lady O’Loan provided an analysis of the Bill in granular detail. We have heard remarkable speeches from Members of all sides of your Lordships’ House and particularly from Northern Ireland. We have heard from noble Lords, and will hear from others, who have held high office in Northern Ireland. My noble and right reverend friend Lord Eames said that he was glad that some who are not from Northern Ireland spoke in the debate. We just heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and before her from the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. Now, I hope the House will listen to a few words from me.
For the best part of two decades, I represented a constituency in the city of Liverpool, which some wags refer to as the other capital of Ireland. Liverpool has a history of sectarianism but, in recent times, it has a different story to tell of reconciliation. My friend the sculptor Stephen Broadbent made a remarkable statue called the “Reconciliation Triangle” and two more, one in Glasgow and one in Belfast. Why did we do that? It was to explain something of the tarnished divisions that had disfigured the stories of our and other people’s cities. It was an attempt to understand one another’s stories and to stand in each other’s shoes.
My interest in British-Irish affairs has its antecedents in my origins, as is the case with thousands of people who live on this side of the Irish Sea. My father was one of five brothers who served in the Armed Forces in the Second World War. One was in the Royal Air Force and was killed. My grandfather served in the First World War, but my mother was from a Gaeltacht, an Irish-speaking area, in the west of Ireland. Irish was her first language. Growing up in family that had to live across the religious divide and across different traditions, I had some experience of the way in which it would take several decades for the old prejudices of the early 1950s to dissipate.
The need for reconciliation was also something I saw throughout my years as a city councillor and as a Member of Parliament for the city of Liverpool, when sectarianism was still part of its politics. It took patience, time and commitment to make progress. Some called it the “Mersey miracle”.
In the 1980s, as Irish affairs spokesman in the House of Commons for the SDP-Liberal Alliance, I worked on the alliance report What Future for Northern Ireland? with the late Baroness Shirley Williams of Crosby and the late Lords, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge and Lord Hunt of Llanfair Waterdine—the conqueror of Everest. We travelled together to Northern Ireland in the course of preparing that report. In it, in 1985, we were unanimous in trenchantly advancing the arguments for devolution and power-sharing. That is the issue I most want to talk about in my brief intervention.
In a leading article in 1985, the Irish Times said that the report was
“one of the most important documents published on the Anglo-Irish question in recent years … it shows signs of hard work, rigorous thinking, and a commendable attempt at objective analysis. The report set out in detail how power sharing could work and was forthright in defence of civil rights and the rule of law including the conduct of justice.”
We published that report believing that power-sharing and devolution were the only way we would ensure that the hopes, fears and aspirations of both parts of the community could be met. Short-circuiting devolution and power-sharing by pushing on with yet another Westminster Bill is simply disempowering of devolution. It is emasculating of power-sharing. It is disrespectful of opinion in Northern Ireland and those represented, most especially the victims who should be at the heart of the Bill. I strongly believe that there should be no Committee stage of the Bill until the Assembly in Northern Ireland is restored, and until it has first considered this Bill, providing for the pause that my noble and right reverend friend Lord Eames mentioned in his earlier remarks. Bypassing Northern Ireland does not represent progress: it is retrograde and unwise, and fundamentally diminishes the principle of devolution.
In introducing the Bill today, the noble Lord, Lord Caine, in his candid, measured and very honest remarks said that you cannot force through reconciliation via legislation. But that is exactly what we are in danger of being asked to do. It is why the Commissioner for Victims and Survivors has asked us to reject these proposals. It is not just the use of the word “reconciliation”; even the words “Northern Ireland” are inadequate and insufficient. They do not recognise the nature and extent of what are also euphemistically called “the Troubles” in its title. God knows that, at its worst, the hatred and violence that we have been recalling today disfigured, maimed and caused extraordinary suffering and anguish throughout these islands.
Some 3,720 people were killed as a result of the conflict and 47,541 were injured. There were 36,923 shootings and 16,209 bombings. Who will ever forget Bloody Sunday in 1972 or the Enniskillen Poppy Day massacre in 1987? As the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, rightly reminded us, there are still those who glorify violence and those who perpetrate it. Yes, the Bill is entitled the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, but the ramifications and consequences of three decades of unspeakable violence have been felt by individuals, families and communities way beyond Northern Ireland.
Noble Lords will recall the deaths, injuries, and millions of pounds’ worth of damage in 1996 at Canary Wharf and in the Manchester shopping precinct, or the Provisional Irish Republican Army’s attempt in 1984 to murder the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, and members of her Cabinet at the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Five were left dead and 31 injured, among them our noble friend Lord Tebbit and his wife Margaret, who was left paralysed from the chest down. I am privileged to share an office with the noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, who has been here for most of this debate today; of course, an attempt was made on his life, too, in 1972. The noble Lord, Lord Caine, referred to the death of Ian Gow, with whom I served in another place, but in 1979, just 24 hours after I was elected to the House of Commons for that Liverpool division, Airey Neave, the shadow spokesman for Northern Ireland, was murdered here, within these precincts, when a bomb was fixed underneath his car by the INLA.
In my maiden speeches in both Houses, I reflected on the futility and unacceptability of such violence and was able to point to long, and ultimately successful, attempts in Liverpool to lay to rest sectarian ghosts and learn the art of respecting difference. It was why, on taking up my responsibilities as a spokesman, I spent a lot of time with Northern Ireland MPs, whom I enormously admire for their commitment to finding non-violent ways forward. I echo something that the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said earlier when he referred to his visit to Crossmaglen. It was a place I visited with Seamus Mallon, the SDLP MP for Newry and Armagh, who played such an important part with John Hume and David Trimble in bringing about the Good Friday agreement.
The defining moment for me—and, I suspect, for John Major, when he was Prime Minister—came in February 1993, when we both attended the funeral of the boys murdered in Warrington after the Provisional IRA left bombs in the high street. Fifty-four were injured and a 13 year-old and a 12 year-old boy, Johnathan Ball and Tim Parry, were killed. Out of that tragedy, Tim’s father created a peace initiative to promote greater understanding among all communities affected by conflict and to deepen understanding between Great Britain and Ireland. Out of it also came new initiatives from Sir John Major, on which Tony Blair was able to build after 1997.
Not all of us will be able to find it in our hearts to seek reconciliation, or offer forgiveness like Gordon Wilson did in the aftermath of the murder of his daughter at Enniskillen—or, for that matter, like Her late Majesty did in 2011 when she set aside the 1979 murder of the Duke of Edinburgh’s uncle, Lord Mountbatten, to seek with President Mary McAleese a different context for our future relationships. No Act of Parliament could have legislated for that, and no Act of Parliament will ever be able to legislate for reconciliation or forgiveness.
That is why I believe that issues such as those contained in the Bill should first be debated in Northern Ireland and that its elected representatives should be given the first say in what should happen next. It is simply not good enough for Westminster to emasculate devolution, as it is inclined to do, by taking to itself decisions which were intended to be settled by Stormont. The continuation of that process will destroy devolution, not expedite its restoration. As the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, said, we need to tread with great care and re-engage the institutions of Northern Ireland.
I have just one more thing to add. If this Bill goes further, I think many of us will feel forced to table amendments and, in effect, oppose it. That is not in anybody’s interest at this time. I recall the way in which leaders from both parties in both Houses worked with one another to bring about the Good Friday agreement. This is a moment to stop and to exercise some wisdom, rather than try to rush pell-mell with legislation which, as we have heard today, is resisted by people right across the divide. It might be, as the noble Lord, Lord Bew, said, that this is not something about which the detail is agreed. People are opposed to it. We have to work with the grain. That requires us to endeavour to work with those in Northern Ireland by giving them the first say and to work for the restoration of the institutions there before pressing on with this legislation.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)
My Lords, two or three times a year I attend, for reasons unconnected with this Bill, human rights meetings of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. The committee’s function is to supervise the execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. Its members are neither lefty lawyers drunk on the elixir of judicial power nor campaigners for human rights—far from it. They are the ambassadors of the member states, representatives of the Governments who routinely have to respond to human rights claims brought against them, either in their domestic courts or in Strasbourg. As potential defendants themselves, each has a strong interest in ensuring that any measures required for compliance are practical—there but for the grace of God go they.
The committee’s workload, brought from 46 countries, is immense, but it has chosen to make this Bill, in the context of the McKerr judgment, one of its very small handful of top priorities. It has been debated anxiously and at length in successive quarterly meetings. This September, the committee urged the Government to amend the Bill, including by—I quote its decision—ensuring that
“the ICRIR is independent and seen to be independent; ensuring that the disclosure provisions unambiguously require full disclosure to be given to the ICRIR; ensuring that the Bill adequately provides for the participation of victims and families, transparency and public scrutiny”.
The committee also urged the Government to reconsider the scheme for immunity and expressed “serious concern” about the arbitrary way in which ongoing inquests are dealt with. It will debate the Bill again next month.
The committee’s decision represents a consensus that Articles 2 and 3 as interpreted by the court require the Bill to be substantially amended in precisely the respects that have been identified by a wide spectrum of opinion, and not only legal opinion, here at home: consultation, independence, disclosure, participation, transparency and immunity.
Those concerns are close to those of the Commission for Victims and Survivors and reflect the principles that have been deployed to such good effect by Operation Kenova. Jon Boutcher’s remarkable work, and its legacy to date of more than 30 cases awaiting the decision of prosecutors, is proof that effective independent investigation can take place in a fully human rights compliant manner.
I invite the attention of noble Lords to the independent review of human rights compliance conducted last year for Kenova by Alyson Kilpatrick, who was my special adviser in Northern Ireland when I served as Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation and is now the chief commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. Ms Kilpatrick concludes of Kenova:
“without any hesitation, that in so far as Article 2 ECHR compliance is concerned, it is the exemplar of what such an investigation should, and can, be”.
So human rights compliance is attainable, even to the satisfaction of somebody the noble Lord, Lord Hain, rightly described as an exacting judge.
From these Benches, I can only guess at the political pressures the Minister is facing. He was an invaluable guide to me when I first started to visit Northern Ireland, he is engaged with us and he has given an impressive and heartfelt speech today. But this is not a happy time for the protection of human rights in this country. We somehow seem to be sleepwalking into a depressing world in which legal obligations are there not to be simply followed but rather to be taken into account, and in which Downing Street sources can be quoted as saying that the proposed Bill of Rights
“would allow UK courts to ignore European case law more often”—
as if departure from the international norms that we have done so much to create and to export across Europe is some sort of badge of honour.
In Northern Ireland, of course, the European convention is central to the political settlement and is understood by all communities in a way that is not always the case in England. If an excessively relaxed attitude to legal requirements cannot be eradicated from our political culture, let us at least ensure that it is excluded from the Bill.
We owe a great debt to the Joint Committee on Human Rights for its constructive work on these issues since the Bill left the Commons. The Constitution Committee has referred approvingly to its concerns. It was good to hear that the Government have sympathy with some of those concerns, though not, on the basis of what we have heard so far, those relating to the most fundamental issues in Part 3 of the Bill. In that connection, I hope the Minister will agree to reconsider the arbitrary distinction drawn between inquests in which a substantive hearing has or has not begun.
The elephant in the room is the issue of immunities for criminal investigation and prosecution for unlawful killings and torture. The McQuillan case is of course relevant to that issue, but not conclusive of it. I believe it is perfectly realistic to suppose that decisions to charge for Troubles-related crimes may be possible in England as well as in Northern Ireland and perhaps elsewhere.
I recall that even the overseas operations Act 2021, which caused your Lordships a good deal of unease and was substantially amended in this House, provided only for a presumption against prosecution, not for immunity. That Act affects the prosecution only of British forces. This Bill, as we have heard, will predominantly affect the holding to account of terrorists for their crimes. There seems to be something not quite right there. The Minister has indicated flexibility, and it sounds as though he may need it.
Let us turn over the stones that the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, mentioned in his moving speech. The current situation is far from ideal, and the Bill too will not be ideal—but I hope we will end up with something we can live with.
Lord Browne of Belmont (DUP)
My Lords, today we have heard from many noble Lords of their personal experiences of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. We have listened to the long list of the atrocities carried out by terrorists, leading to death, injury and suffering of innocent persons. I could add to that list, but the point that victims deserve justice has been well made.
For much of the past 25 years, there has been an erosion of justice when it comes to dealing with the troubled past in Northern Ireland. For many innocent victims of terror in Northern Ireland, there has been a hope of justice, but for many justice has only ever been a repeated word, as this word has not brought results alongside it. Regrettably, this began with a process whereby terrorists were being released from prison. That was followed by comfort letters, which offered no comfort to the victims of terror. Since then, due to the slow pace of this process, many innocent victims of terror have continued to suffer and have asked of many of us the question: when will I see real justice for the murder of a loved one?
Today we are addressing the legacy of more than 30 years of violence, and of 25 years since the drafting of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. These matters deserve our fullest attention, and they deserve respect and time to consider carefully. I trust that that will be the case when the Bill reaches Committee and Report.
It would be wrong to view the Bill as the answer to the question of how we deal with the legacy of Northern Ireland’s troubled past. Regrettably, the Bill does not provide the answers to these outstanding matters. In my view, the Bill as it stands would in fact do much more harm than good to the fragile and delicate balance that exists in Northern Ireland. Ultimately, since 1998 there has been a failure to address these incredibly sensitive matters, and innocent victims have watched on as there has been an attempted rewriting of history in some very clear and obvious instances, as the noble Lord, Lord Godson, vividly illustrated in his excellent speech.
Many victims’ groups and individual victims continue to express real concerns about large parts of the Bill before us. They are understandably concerned about a process that could offer an amnesty to the victim-makers. A blanket amnesty would further add to their suffering, as it would continue to deny them the justice they seek. Across Northern Ireland, many people realistically accept that there is a limited possibility of a successful prosecution and meaningful jail term for those who carried out atrocities against their loved ones. Many innocent victims accept the harsh and regrettable reality that, 20 or 30 years on, the possibility is only very limited that they will receive justice. However, the Bill as drafted would remove that possibility altogether. There would be no possibility of jail time for bomb-making, murder or attempted murder, nor jail time for maliciously wounding a soldier. I could give examples. Because of the Bill, the limited possibility of justice would evaporate. The Bill is therefore unacceptable to victims.
In addition to the concerns over an amnesty, there is also concern about some other aspects of the Bill. Terrorists and victim-makers would be rewarded regardless of whether they stayed silent or told the truth. Surely, as a bare minimum, prosecution should be the alternative to not fully co-operating.
While every person in this nation should absolutely be equal and equally subject to the law, an opportunity has been missed to make a definitive distinction between the victim-maker and the innocent victims of their actions. For justice, there needs to be a clear definition of a victim. When no such definition exists in legislation, the danger is that we equate direct victims of terror with those who have been injured as a result of their own actions in carrying out acts of terror. Those who would be granted immunity for Troubles-related crimes or those injured by their own hands must not be defined as victims for the purpose of remembering the past. In the Bill as drafted, a blanket amnesty is set above investigations. Perhaps the most important, fundamental point of all in the Bill is that it gives more rights to the people who committed crimes during the Troubles than to the innocent victims of their crimes.
The Bill before the House today is described as a legacy and reconciliation Bill. In the eyes of many victims of terror-related offences in Northern Ireland, reconciliation remains a deeply challenging ask when the prospect of any sort of Troubles-related amnesty looms large. Many victims have said from the outset that they will struggle to support any legislation that falls short of delivering accountability and true justice. Large swathes of the Bill are inconsistent with the desire to pursue justice. If the Bill succeeds, many of those who have openly evaded the authorities for years will seemingly be able to reap the benefits of immunity.
While it is true to say that the passage of time presents obstacles and prosecutorial difficulties, the answer to this problem does not lie in arbitrarily halting routes to justice for innocent victims. Such a system would not be accepted elsewhere in this nation for criminal gang-related offences. A blockage to justice of this nature should not therefore be deemed acceptable in Northern Ireland.
Like others, I wish to see an outcome that deals with the legacy of our troubled past. We all wish for this. I acknowledge and recognise the Government’s desire to move this long and challenging process forward. However, it would be a mistake to rush through or proceed with a Bill that ultimately does more harm than good when it comes to delivering for victims of terror.
To deal with these matters adequately, fairly and proportionately, we need a transparent process in place that commands broad support across the wider community in Northern Ireland. We have not reached this point with the Bill before us. As we have said in respect of many other matters relating to Northern Ireland, agreement has been and should be built on consensus. Where there is no consensus, there cannot be a fair and balanced way forward. It is clear that consensus does not exist on supporting this Bill in its current form. I oppose the Bill as drafted, and I am sure that my noble friends will have much more to say as it proceeds to its next stage. I look forward to listening to the Minister as he winds up this debate.
Lord Sentamu (CB)
My Lords, I apologise for not putting my name down to speak. Having listened to the whole debate, I thought it would be good for your Lordships’ House if I gave a very short contribution, inspired by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The President of South Africa’s address to us yesterday gave me the confidence to contribute briefly to this debate.
First, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Caine, on his speech, which graciously tried to reconcile irreconcilable problems. I also congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge; the issues he raised and the questions he posed have to be answered. We cannot have a situation in Northern Ireland where those who committed crimes are simply pardoned and not prosecuted. The same situation is not true for England and Wales. Our law would become confused.
I commend the noble Lord, Lord Hain, for his efforts towards achieving the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. The speech of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, warmed my heart. If the Minister is wise, he will pause this Bill and ask noble Lords such as these to work out what should come before your Lordships’ House. If not, we may pass this Bill but it will not happen in Northern Ireland.
What did we learn from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu? There had been a few prosecutions of very high-ranking officials from the security forces, including the former Minister of Law and Order, Adriaan Vlok. He was given a suspended sentence following a plea bargain. Many other such cases were not prosecuted. The victims felt that the Government were strengthening impunity and that the beneficiaries of apartheid had escaped accountability for their actions. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up to try to deal with that feeling. Despite the challenges and limitations, the commission’s decision-making processes and hearings attracted global attention. It was the first commission to hold public hearings at which victims and perpetrators were heard. While amnesties were generally considered inconsistent with national law, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission provided a basis for showing that conditional amnesties were a useful compromise, particularly if they helped to secure confessions from perpetrators. If they led to a confession, there was a positive; if they did not, they did not.
This was a major departure from the sort of trial there was at Nuremberg. Although it was built on justice, the methodology was very different. It provided the world with another tool in the struggle against impunity and the search for truth and justice. The regret that Archbishop Desmond Tutu had was that it did not have “justice” in its name. It had “truth and reconciliation”; the truth was found and reconciliation was attempted but, in the end, justice was not delivered.
I took part in the Drumcree reconciliations in Northern Ireland. For me, that was a statement of public policy. Could we not enshrine in law what most people are saying we should not do and pause, like we did with the health Bill in this House, and come back with something slightly more wonderful, as the noble Lord said?
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, with that interesting comparison because everybody has said that the one thing the Bill does not do is promote reconciliation. We certainly need to have a debate about what would promote reconciliation.
I join others in showing appreciation to the Minister for his opening speech. I think we all genuinely appreciated his sincerity. When he said that the Bill is challenging for us and for him, it was pretty obvious that there was a very sincere situation. He has our sympathy, which is perhaps not what he wants, but I believe he will get engagement. What we will get at the end of it is obviously yet to be determined, but it is important to put that mark down.
Another thing that has been said is that the term “Troubles” is euphemistic. It is a terrible understatement for what was a bloody conflict. It convulsed Ireland and Northern Ireland for 30 years and has left, as we now appreciate, a tragic and very complicated legacy. It is also worth saying that while none of us who live on the mainland can possibly appreciate what it did to the communities in Northern Ireland—we have heard so much about that and all appreciate the contributions made—it has left deep scars across the whole of the United Kingdom. This is not just because of the atrocities committed in Great Britain. In so many meetings over many years just as a local MP, I heard the sense of inadequacy, guilt and despair at the conflict and the inability to bring it to an end. I think that affected people right across the UK; we were just so used to news bulletins about another bombing or shooting, and we wanted it to stop.
The Good Friday/Belfast agreement laid down hope for the whole of the UK, as well as the island of Ireland. The question now is: will we be able to celebrate the 25th anniversary of that agreement with a process of reconciliation and a functioning Executive and Assembly? That would attract well-wishers from across the world. Right now it does not look likely and if not that, what?
Reference has been made to the Stormont House agreement. I recognise that the Ulster Unionist Party said that it did not support the agreement but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, I hope it did not reject the basic principles: any legacy solution should promote reconciliation and uphold the rule of law; it should acknowledge and address the suffering of victims; it should facilitate the pursuit of justice and be human rights-compliant. That is surely not a point of contention.
The other thing we are all concerned about is the switch in the Government’s position. At the 2017 general election, the Government said:
“We … continue to believe that any approach to the past must be fully consistent with the rule of law … Conservatives in government have consistently said that we will not introduce amnesties or immunities from prosecution.”
That was said by Karen Bradley, the Secretary of State at that time, but we have had an election since and the world has changed. The Minister has been here throughout that and will of course have his own appreciation of that change and development.
I think all of us accept the views of some that the uncertainty over possible prosecutions of service and security personnel causes stress and anxiety—of course it does. But surely that does not justify setting aside human rights issues and the rule of law; it cannot do so. We have to recognise, as the noble Lord, Lord Hain, did, that the security forces did an incredible job, took huge casualties, were brave, saved lives and kept the peace, but some of them clearly did not conform. In fact, it is in the interests of the overwhelming majority who performed absolutely professionally that those who did not should not be given absolution.
It is important to say that this is not simply a domestic issue: it affects our reputation as a nation and an upholder of human rights, as the noble Lord, Lord Browne, said. We uphold human rights and the rule of law, but this has been seriously damaged by the conduct of this increasingly discredited Government who, as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, said, now think that law should just be taken into account, rather than respected and followed.
I was a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe—its political wing, if you like —and I am concerned when I hear debates within certain sections of the Conservative Party calling for Britain to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, alongside Belarus and Russia, the only non-members of that organisation. I am glad that Dominic Raab said that he does not think that useful, but that was not a robust defence of our membership, nevertheless. The idea that we should do that is unconscionable, and a dying Government with no mandate have no right even to consider it.
The problem, which has been mentioned, is that all of this should be happening in a debate among the elected representatives of Northern Ireland, who need to make an honest assessment of the role. We are here because they are not there, and that simply has to stop.
The Minister said that he has had many meetings recently, and I believe him; he probably listened and engaged sincerely and genuinely. But the fact is that the stakeholders are all saying that they have not been properly consulted and certainly have not been listened to, perhaps apart from in their engagement with the Minister. So we have to recognise that the Bill is supported by no one in Northern Ireland. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Bew, that it is not good enough to say that, because they all have different motives, the fact that they are united against it is not valid. For a Government to pursue a Bill that no one in Northern Ireland supports shows total contempt for devolution, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said. It is unacceptable.
Lord Bew (CB)
I absolutely take the point the noble Lord is making, but some polling suggests that significant groups on both sides of the community do want to draw a line under this dispute, to use that horrible phrase. I am not suggesting that it is a majority, but you cannot deduce from the political parties their hostility. Do not forget what I said about Denis Bradley. The parties are playing a game whereby they apparently offer justice to people, but realistically there is no chance of justice. So you cannot deduce anything from the parties’ positions. Some of the polling is more mediated, and there is the position of the veterans’ groups, which has been referred to.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
I do not for a minute dispute that people have different motives for their objections, and they may have motives that I do not like or respect. But it is indisputable that no political party in Northern Ireland supports the Bill, yet the Government say they are determined to legislate against the wishes of all of the elected representatives of Northern Ireland. I repeat: those elected representatives should be sitting in Northern Ireland—
Lord Hain (Lab)
More importantly, all of the victims’ groups are opposed to the Bill. It is quite difficult to get them to agree on anything, but they agree in their opposition to the Bill.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
I thank the noble Lord for that intervention, which is obviously important —it was my final point. The most important thing of all is that the victims should determine the shape of whatever legislation we come up with. They are the people who need to know and be consulted.
This is a distasteful point to make, but the Bill is being driven by a wing of the Conservative Party that wants to protect service personnel from prosecution, which does not help the victims in any way. I plead with the Minister and I look him straight in the eye, because I believe that he will relate to this. Whatever he comes up with—he says that he wants to amend the Bill substantially, and he will have to—it has to be something that the victims recognise and that addresses their real issues and their desire for hope and justice. He has to reconcile the rule of law, human rights and the needs of victims; that is a huge challenge. I believe that he genuinely wants to try to do it, and he deserves support and help to do so, but clearly, if he cannot, the Bill can go no further.
Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)
My Lords, this has been a very powerful, informed and serious debate. In fact, nothing else could be graver than the issues that we have been discussing for the last number of hours. It is about life and death; it is about the whole way in which Northern Ireland has suffered for so many years. So many people have lost their lives; so many families have been bereaved; so many people have been injured and maimed in all sorts of mental and physical ways. Of course, nothing could be more important than what we have been debating this evening.
I have been involved in Northern Ireland for about 28 years now. A Welshman with an Irish background, I was called by Mo Mowlam to be her deputy back in the time of the Labour Opposition before 1997, and then I became Minister of State and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Some of the highs—indeed, the highs—of my political life have been there. The Good Friday agreement was obviously one of them. However, some of the lows were there, too, and this debate is talking about the lows. The lowest point was when I had to fly back from a holiday in France to go to Omagh and talk to all the parents of those children who had been blown up by that terrible bomb. That occurred not long after the Good Friday agreement had been signed.
I believe that everybody who has spoken in this debate spoke from the basis of great sincerity and a belief that they want to ensure that right is done in terms of where we are going on legacy and reconciliation. I have done a little tally of Members of the House who spoke on this: about 19 Members have spoken against the Bill, four have spoken absolutely in favour of it, and about four were somewhere in between. That is not a scientific or mathematical way to look at how we should deal with these matters in the House, but it is an indicator of what people—people who take a great interest in, or come from, Northern Ireland—are feeling about this hugely important subject.
I agree very much with the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Bruce, and others too, who said that we should not be doing this at all. It is not a matter for us: it is a matter for the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Northern Ireland Executive to do. As we know, however, neither of those institutions is up and running, and that is why this House of Lords and the House of Commons have to deal with it. It is a great pity because, although I think it would probably be more difficult for political parties in Northern Ireland to deal with it, ultimately those parties in Northern Ireland own this problem and need to resolve it.
The Minister made a first-class speech, mainly because he spoke from his very great experience in Northern Ireland and knows what he is talking about. He was right to say that we could have amendments to this Bill, including amendments that the Government themselves will table to try to improve it. There are those who think that the Bill is entirely unamendable—that it is so bad that it should be dumped. I am veering that way myself, but, of course, we do not dare dump Bills in this House. We go through a Second Reading and we go through all the other stages. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and others made wonderful speeches saying in general what the principles behind the Bill are, how they are wrong and how we ought to be able to change that.
Your Lordships ran through a huge number of issues which will undoubtedly come up in Committee: immunity, the powers of the Secretary of State, human rights, the rule of law, the glorification of terrorist acts, oral history, reviews as opposed to investigation, inquests, civil litigation, and others. These are all hugely significant issues that will undoubtedly occupy us for some weeks ahead.
We talked about veterans and their importance in all this. I sometimes think we overlook the problems of veterans in Northern Ireland who, more than veterans in any other part of the United Kingdom, have been adversely affected over the past 40 years. Above all, the theme, if there is a theme of this debate, is victims. That is at the heart of this. All the organisations in Northern Ireland, so far as I can tell, including the Victims Commissioner himself, are opposed to the Bill. That should be so important in our deliberations. I think what actually underpins the objections of everybody who is against this Bill, from whatever part of the community in Northern Ireland they come, is how it deals with victims, survivors and families. All those people would feel so adversely affected and let down if the Bill, in its present form, were allowed to go through. It has lots of flaws, and we will address them in the stages to come, but the biggest one is the issue of victims. I know the Minister has met victims’ organisations, he has met victims, but at the same time, we have to understand that they are crucial to all this.
The other big issue, of course, is that people are against it. Everyone is against it. Every single political party in Northern Ireland does not want it. Had the Assembly and the Executive been in operation, it would not have seen the light of day: it would not have got anywhere because everybody would have been against it. The NGOs are against it. The Human Rights Commission is against it. Amnesty is against it. Ireland is against it, which is important because Ireland is a co-guarantor of the Good Friday agreement. The United States is against it. The European Union is against it. The Council of Europe is against it. That is a pretty substantial and impressive list of people who do not want it.
As a consequence of that, it is bad law; it is unfair law; it is unworkable law. If I were still Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, I would not touch it with a bargepole. I would say, “Let’s start again.” It is an important issue: we cannot dodge the issue—of course we cannot. If we keep on saying, “It’s all too difficult, we can’t do this,” we would be wrong. Try and try. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, referred to South Africa. Many years ago, I went to talk to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa and listened to people, including the current President of South Africa, and heard some wonderful ideas, but South Africa is not Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is too small. South Africa is huge, but there were issues we could learn from.
We must not rush this through; that will not be good for anybody. I urge the Minister, even at this late hour—and it is pretty late—to go to his boss and say, “It’s not good enough; let’s start again.”
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Caine) (Con)
My Lords, I said in my opening remarks some hours ago that I have found this legislation challenging and difficult, and the subsequent few hours have done nothing to reduce that one bit. I have listened to a very powerful debate. First, I thank a number of noble Lords for their kind words in response to my earlier remarks, which I genuinely and deeply appreciate. I also thank one or two noble Lords—the noble Lords, Lord Browne of Ladyton and Lord Bruce of Bennachie—who were kind enough to remind me of certain words I had written for previous Secretaries of State on this subject and into previous Conservative manifestos.
There have been a number of very powerful and moving speeches. As ever, I refer to the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick. She reminded us of the Loughinisland massacre. I remember it very well because I was with a friend from the Republic of Ireland, watching the same football match that evening, when the news came through. I was an adviser, as the noble Baroness knows, to the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the late Lord Mayhew of Twysden, so I deeply sympathise with the case to which she referred. My noble friend Lord Rogan, who is in his place, the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, my noble friend Lord Dodds of Duncairn and many others referred to incidents during the Troubles which deeply affected them, people right across Northern Ireland and people across the whole United Kingdom.
I concur with the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, that, of all the speeches, the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, made an outstanding contribution, which I think moved the whole House. I thank him very much for that, and I am aware of the tremendous work he has done over many decades in Northern Ireland, and his great record of service to the community there.
In my opening comments I said that there have already been a number of attempts to resolve these issues over many years. Going back to 1998 and the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, legacy was the untouched issue, if you like, and at the time it was one of those matters that was—probably for good reason at the time—put into the “too difficult” drawer. There have been a number of attempts since and they have all foundered for one reason or another.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Bruce of Bennachie, talked about the need for the Assembly to be more closely involved in this. I remember, and referred in my speech to, the attempt by the Executive to deal with this issue back in 2013, with the Haass-O’Sullivan talks, which unfortunately did not lead to an agreement.
I referred also to the Stormont House agreement, when most of the institutions contained in that agreement, such as the Historical Investigations Unit and the ICIR, were very firmly in the devolved sphere. It was always our assumption at the time that it would be the Assembly that would take them forward. There would have had to be legislation in parallel here to deal with certain national security issues and issues around disclosure of the sort that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, referred to. It was at that point that the then First and Deputy First Ministers came to see the then Secretary of State to say, “This is all far too difficult for us—could you do it all at Westminster?” I completely appreciate the sentiment of working with the local politicians and the local political parties in Northern Ireland, but there are difficulties in just handing it back to them. I do take on board the points about the need for a collaborative effort.
I think that is one reason why people refer to the shift in approach in 2020 by the then Secretary of State. If I am being fair to him, I think he genuinely looked at the previous attempts made to resolve this and at the possibility of prosecutions. We have heard a great deal about that this evening, and I have enormous respect for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, with whom I agree far more than I ever disagree on a range of subjects. When he talked about people literally getting away with murder, unfortunately, in Northern Ireland they have for many decades because of the lack of evidence to convict. When I talked earlier about the vast majority of cases now being over 40 years old, the reality is that the likelihood of any meaningful prosecutorial process leading to a conviction is very slim indeed.
Lord Caine (Con)
The noble and learned Lord touches on some of the issues that have also troubled me in dealing with this over the past months. I can see an argument to do with the chances of a prosecution being so slim in a very large number of cases. I talked to the retired police officers about this, who were very clear that in most cases, if the evidence had existed at the time, there would have been convictions, but it is simply not there and the chances are incredibly slim. Therefore—
Baroness O'Loan (CB)
I want to interject the fact that in the 1970s, a process was adopted which prevented prosecutions—there were to be no prosecutions for murder of any military personnel—and there was a process through which the Royal Military Police produced statements which have now been declared to be totally unacceptable, so there were processes which made it impossible. I ask the Minister again: will he make the money available for the prosecution of the 33 files which Operation Kenova has submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions? If you have the money, you can prosecute.
Lord Caine (Con)
The noble Baroness has asked me this question a number of times before. The Public Prosecution Service is not funded by the Northern Ireland Office; it is funded by the Executive, and it is a devolved responsibility. It would have to find the money from within its own resources, if resourcing is the only issue here. I have heard from a number of respected figures within Northern Ireland, within the legal system, who would argue that it is not just about resources at all.
I was trying to set out what I think the Government’s position was, because the chances of prosecution in so many cases were so remote, even where people have held out for prosecutions. I have given the example before of Bloody Sunday and the Saville inquiry, which reported in June 2010. The PSNI then very methodically went through the report and investigated the cases again to see whether there were any grounds for the prosecution of soldiers. It took nine years for the current DPP to come to a decision around prosecutions, concluding that prosecution would be justified in one case. As we know, that case subsequently collapsed. I think it has now been re-referred, but it did collapse. One noble Lord mentioned the fact that people are getting older and dying, and this example points to the fact that these processes can take a very long time.
Therefore, the purpose of what the Government are putting forward here is to try to bring forward information and get people to the truths in a much more timely way. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, shakes her head and disagrees, but that is the genuine intention: to try to get more information out there while it is still available. As noble Lords know, the problem with a prosecution if it collapses is that no information is provided to families, and they are literally back at square one. We can have these discussions, but I just wanted to say that that was one of the justifications for this. In order to encourage people to come forward and co-operate, as noble Lords know, the Government originally put forward in the Command Paper a blanket statute of limitations of the kind referred to by my noble friend Lord Cormack, but they then refined the position on the basis that if people were going to be given immunity from prosecution, there should at least be some incentive to earn it. That was the way in which the Government approached this back in 2020.
I have taken on board the very strong feelings expressed this evening. If noble Lords will forgive me, I think I have been fired hundreds of very detailed questions from across the House, which I could not possibly answer, particularly at nearly 10.05 pm. But what I am prepared to do is to sit down with noble Lords, both individually and collectively, before Committee, which I hope will not be rushed. That is certainly not my intention. I think somebody used the phrase “pell-mell” the legislation through the House, but that is not my approach or my intention. I would want to take sufficient time to look at the Bill in detail and give it the scrutiny that it absolutely deserves.
In my speech I tried to respond to some of the concerns that have been expressed already and which were brought out in the debate. I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, that I was not in a position to flag, if you like, at an earlier stage what these amendments might be. I think the noble Baroness is familiar with government write-round processes, which do not always proceed at pace and are the subject of discussion. I do apologise. In all genuineness, I hope that these amendments, when they are drafted and I bring them forward, will go some way to allaying concerns on the issues that have been raised outside the House and inside the House this evening around ECHR compatibility, independence of the new commission, greater incentives for co-operating with the body, and penalties for misleading, lying and not telling the truth, including revocation of immunity where that has already been granted, and full sentences for those who do not co-operate with the body but are subsequently investigated and convicted.
I also assure the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, that I do not expect those amendments to be the end of the story. There are other amending stages in your Lordships’ House beyond Committee, and, again, I hope we will not rush from Committee to Report and can have a reasoned and genuine discussion and debate between those two stages of the Bill.
While I will look at what further amendments the Government might be able to bring forward, I will genuinely look constructively at those which are put forward by other noble Lords across the House. As I have always said in my engagements within Northern Ireland itself with victims groups and others, I am the least precious person when it comes to amendments and where they come from. If they are sensible and constructive, I will always look at them and give them a fair wind.
As I say, I am very happy to sit down individually and collectively and engage with noble Lords before Committee. I will seek to go through the speeches made in your Lordships’ House this evening and, where detailed questions have been put to me, I will respond in writing, if noble Lords will allow me, rather than detain the House for a great deal longer this evening.
As I said at the outset, it is challenging and difficult, but there is no perfect way of dealing with this. I want to try and genuinely use this House in its proper constitutional way to revise and improve legislation.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister. His comments tonight have been very helpful to the House. He has clearly listened to the concerns that have been raised. The most important thing he said is that he does not want to rush the process but wants to take the time to listen, engage and get this right. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Caine
That the Bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House, and that it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House that they consider the Bill in the following order: Clauses 1 and 2, Schedule 1, Clauses 3 to 6, Schedule 2, Clauses 7 to 9, Schedule 3, Clauses 10 to 14, Schedule 4, Clauses 15 to 26, Schedules 5 and 6, Clauses 27 and 28, Schedule 7, Clauses 29 to 39, Schedules 8 and 9, Clause 40, Schedule 10, Clauses 41 and 42, Schedule 11, Clauses 43 to 52, Schedule 12, Clauses 53 to 58, Title.