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Oral Answers to Questions
(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (James Cleverly)
The security situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories remains fragile. Last week I spoke with my Israeli and Palestinian counterparts, and urged both sides to take steps to de-escalate and avoid a cycle of violence. We welcome the United States’ Middle East Partnership for Peace Act and the proposals for increased international funding for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Steven Bonnar
Let me begin by condemning the recent spike in violence and bloodshed in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and on behalf of us all I pay respect to all Palestinian and Israeli victims of conflict. The Secretary of State’s Department has acknowledged that there is a culture of impunity when it comes to crimes committed by Israeli settlers against Palestinians, and the SNP wholeheartedly agrees. What are the Government doing to encourage Israel to end the widespread and systematic discrimination against Palestinian populations? Will he outline any of the concrete steps that have been taken to deter land seizures, home demolitions, and the forced evictions of Palestinian people and their communities?
James Cleverly
The UK enjoys a strong bilateral relationship with Israel, which allows us to raise issues where we disagree. We have disagreed with settlement expansion, which we have raised directly, and we also disagree with the demolition of Palestinian homes. Our position on that is long standing and consistent. In my most recent conversations with the Israeli Foreign Minister, I raised our concerns about the speculation of settlement building on the E1 territories in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. I am pleased that there has now been a moratorium on such expansions, because to do so would be damaging to the prospects of a sustainable two-state solution.
Helen Hayes
In February I visited Masafer Yatta in the south Hebron hills, where the Israeli Government are planning to evict more than 1,000 Palestinians from their homes. That sits alongside Prime Minister Netanyahu’s election pledge to annex west bank settlements, amounting to 30% of the territory, while Finance Minister Smotrich recently said that the village of Huwara should be “wiped out”. Has the Foreign Secretary raised those matters with his Israeli counterpart, and how does he intend to ensure that the new Israeli Government abide by their obligations under international law?
James Cleverly
We raise issues of settlement expansion with the Government of Israel, and I have raised with my Israeli counterpart the need for a careful use of language. I have raised with both my Palestinian and Israeli counterparts the need for all of us to try to find ways of de-escalating the tensions. At this stage, that must rightly be the priority for us all, while we continue to work with the Israeli Government on ensuring that we keep a sustainable two-state solution alive.
Andrew Gwynne
Five years ago, the British Government became the first in the world to endorse a concept of an international fund for Israeli and Palestinian peace. Since then, warm words have followed, but very little action. Given the desperate need for that fund right now, with the deterioration of the situation in Israel and Palestine, will the UK Government commit again to leading on that fund? Will the Foreign Secretary use the opportunity of the G7 summit in May to get other international partners lined up as well?
James Cleverly
People-to-people links between Israelis and Palestinians are incredibly important, and we fund projects to build co-operation, whether at Government-to-Government level, or people to people. We remain in close contact with our US counterparts about the international fund for peace. We want to ensure that it is the most effective use of funding allocated towards people-to-people links, and we will always look favourably at projects to build greater peace and co-operation. We want to ensure that anything we subscribe to, or any funding we commit, is allocated to the most effective way of bringing about that reconciliation.
Andy McDonald
In the west bank town of Huwara, over 400 settlers, backed by Israeli soldiers, torched Palestinian homes, businesses and vehicles, and killed 37-year-old Sameh Aqtash, in what senior Israel Defense Forces commanders have called a pogrom. Israel’s Finance Minister Smotrich, who describes himself as a fascist homophobe, openly said Huwara should be wiped out. Such extremism is given licence by a lack of international accountability, so will the Foreign Secretary, if he agrees with the rule of international law, commit to banning all goods sourced from Israeli settlements illegally built on occupied Palestinian land?
James Cleverly
As I have said in answer to other questions, we have made it clear that the language used with regard to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories needs to be de-escalatory. It needs to be carefully thought through. Inflammatory language, as we have seen, is unacceptable. The behaviour of those settlers is unacceptable. That has been recognised by the Israeli authorities and we want to make sure that those people are held to account for the actions they have taken. We will always seek to reinforce the viability of a future Palestinian state as part of a sustainable two-state solution. The decision with regard to settlement goods is long standing and we do not speculate about any changes to those positions.
Carol Monaghan
I welcomed the recent joint commitment by the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority to reduce the surge in violence, and the Israeli Government’s pledge to halt new settlement constructions, but on the very day that commitment was signed, Prime Minister Netanyahu tweeted:
“Contrary to tweets, construction and regulation in Judea and Samaria”—
the west bank—
“will continue according to the original planning and construction schedule, without any changes. There is and will not be any freeze.”
That is an indication of further violations of international law. Does the Foreign Secretary accept that whatever his diplomatic approach is at the moment, it simply is not working?
James Cleverly
The United Kingdom has a like-minded position alongside a number of our international friends and allies. We seek to protect the viability of a sustainable two-state solution. We raised with the Israeli Government our concerns about activities that might put that future at risk. That is not something the UK does alone; it is something we do in close co-ordination with a number of our international friends and allies. That will continue to be our diplomatic stance.
Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)
Last Thursday, a Hamas terrorist shot three Israelis in the heart of Tel Aviv, just a few streets away from the British embassy. Shooting and bombing attacks have rocked Israel for over a year now and this wave appears to be intensifying. Will my right hon. Friend join me in condemning those attacks? What meaningful steps can he take to counter the resurgence in terrorist activity?
James Cleverly
The UK Government condemn terrorism in all its forms. Whatever criticism Palestinians may have of the Israeli Government, there is no justification for terrorist action. We always encourage dialogue, we always encourage co-operation and we always encourage actions that de-escalate. That will continue to be our posture with regard to Israel and the OPTs.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)
The only way to permanently end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is to deliver Palestinian self-determination and preserve Israel’s Jewish and democratic identity through a peaceful two-state solution. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that his Department remains committed to achieving that solution based on 1967 borders and the recognition of Palestine as a state?
James Cleverly
Our position on a sustainable two-state solution is long standing. We will always encourage Israel to take actions that support that and we have the same conversations with representatives of the Palestinian Authority. We encourage dialogue, we encourage negotiation, we encourage co-operation and we encourage de-escalation.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
The emergence of Lions’ Den, a new terrorist group to go alongside Hamas, Hezbollah and many other Islamic terrorist groups, is clearly a threat to Israel’s security, and indeed that of the Palestinians. What assessment has my right hon. Friend made of Lions’ Den and what co-operation is he pursuing with the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli Government to combat this new form of terrorism?
James Cleverly
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We will address terrorism in close co-operation with the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, neither of whom have an incentive or desire to allow terrorism to flourish. We will continue our close co-operation with the security services in Israel to try to ensure that Palestinians, Israelis and Brits in the region are all kept safe.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
When I raised these issues, the Israeli Deputy Prime Minister and chief negotiator simply stormed out of the meeting. Does there come a time when simply raising issues is not enough?
James Cleverly
It is better than not raising them, I would suggest.
Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)
As we have already heard, on 26 February, following the appalling murder of two Israelis, a violent mob of 400 settlers attacked the Palestinian town of Huwara, killing one, injuring hundreds, and burning buildings and cars. As my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) said, a far-right Minister in the Israeli Government called for Huwara to be wiped out. That shocking incident is part of the deteriorating situation in the occupied west bank and the wider problem of settler violence, for which too often no one is held to account. Again, will the Government press the Israeli authorities to condemn and crack down on these shocking incidents of settler violence?
James Cleverly
There has been condemnation of those actions within the Israeli system. We are always clear that where there is lawbreaking, authorities should take action. Within the Israeli system there has been recognition of the action being illegal and provocative, and therefore we will continue to work with the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority to find ways of de-escalating the situation and striving for peace, and for what ultimately is in the best interests of Palestinians, Israelis and the region: a peaceful and sustainable two-state solution.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
In February we welcomed the moratorium on new construction in settlement areas, as the Foreign Secretary has described. As we heard, that was followed by an immediate and blatant breach of trust by the Israeli Prime Minister. The Foreign Secretary says that it is better to raise issues than not, but how does he measure success in raising them, because we see absolutely no evidence of success?
James Cleverly
I do not think it is news to anyone in the House that the situation in Israel and the OPTs is complicated and long standing. We are not the only country in the world that raises these important issues, and we can continue to do so because we have a strong working relationship with both the Government of Israel and the leadership of the Palestinian Authority—as I said, I had conversations with both very recently. We will continue to work at what we think is in everyone’s interests: a sustainable two-state solution. We will not be fatalistic about it. We will not give up just because it is difficult. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that we should walk away just because it is a long-standing challenge, that is up to him. We will not abandon the Israelis or the Palestinian people. We will continue working for a sustainable two-state solution.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
Andrew Western (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Mr Andrew Mitchell)
Ensuring 12 years of quality education for all girls is a British Government priority. We run bilateral education programmes in 19 countries, and our girls’ education challenge programme is supporting 1.6 million girls to secure a quality education.
Liz Twist
During its G7 presidency, the UK introduced two global targets for improving access to education for girls in low and middle-income countries by 2026. Can the Minister say what progress the Government are making in this area; when they expect the targets to be met; what co-ordinating role the UK is playing; and whether he will centre the voices of girls and young women, including those most impacted by inequality and discrimination, in the delivery of the targets?
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Lady is entirely right; those two specific targets were a major priority for the UK G7 presidency in 2021. Prioritising foundational learning—reading, writing and counting well—is at the heart of that. We are on track to achieve both targets by the date agreed at the G7.
Andrew Western
Since the fall of Kabul, some 850,000 girls have been prevented from attending school by the Taliban. Recently, pupils at St Matthew’s C of E Primary School in Stretford undertook a whole-school march in solidarity with the plight of Afghan girls denied an education. They have done all they can to raise awareness of this important issue. What more does the Minister believe his Government can do to raise awareness of this ongoing travesty? Crucially, will he agree to bring forward a comprehensive Afghanistan strategy that takes into account the ongoing crackdown on the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan?
Mr Mitchell
I congratulate the school in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency on that public-spirited statement about the rights of women and the appalling violations that are taking place in Afghanistan. The Taliban are not a monolith in Afghanistan; there are parts of the country in which education is taking place at both a primary and a secondary level for girls. It is the job of the international community to try to persuade and argue with the Taliban Administration that what is happening in those areas should be extended across the whole country.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
With 129 million girls out of school across the world, may I congratulate my right hon. Friend and the FCDO on putting girls’ education at the heart of the women and girls strategy that was announced last week? The International Parliamentary Network for Education brings together parliamentarians from over 60 countries to promote the importance of education. Will my right hon. Friend encourage Members of this House to sign up to the network so that we can continue to work with others to ensure that no children are left behind? Mr Speaker, will you join?
Mr Mitchell
I am certain that if you sign up, Mr Speaker, most colleagues will follow your lead. My right hon. Friend has done a great job in this area herself. Between 2015 and 2020, the UK supported more than 8 million girls with getting into school, of whom 65% were living in fragile countries.
James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)
One of the biggest barriers to education worldwide is poor health. In 2021, more than 600,000 people worldwide died of malaria. Will the Minister please commit to renewing the UK Government’s commitment towards meeting the 2030 Commonwealth goal of ending malaria? Will he also provide maximum support to the Global Fund?
Mr Mitchell
As my hon. Friend knows, we committed to the latest Global Fund replenishment a sum of £1,000 million, so we are right behind the aspirations that he has expressed. A child dies every minute from malaria, entirely needlessly. Dealing with that is a top priority for the Government.
Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)
By the middle of this century, Africa will be home to 1 billion children, yet in places such as northern Nigeria half of girls are out of school. Achieving universal girls’ education would end child marriage, halve infant mortality and drastically reduce early childbearing. Can the Minister update the House on what progress has been made towards our G7 presidency pledge to get 40 million more girls into school? Can he explain how that squares with the Government’s decision to cut the FCDO’s education, gender and equality budget in half last year?
Mr Mitchell
We are looking at the budgets for the next financial year, and indeed the year after, and we will come to the House and set out what they are. However, the hon. Lady should be in no doubt that this is a top priority, as I explained to the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist). If we want to change the world, we can do so by educating girls. That is the first and foremost way of achieving it, and the Government are absolutely behind that agenda.
Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)
We all strongly support the education of girls worldwide. That is something that we should all be working on, but the UK must avoid the danger of reinventing the wheel. The EU already has 100 co-operation agreements on education, of which the UK was a leading part until recently. With the thaw in EU-UK relations, for which I commend the Government for fixing the Northern Ireland protocol difficulties, surely there is an opportunity for the UK to fold itself back into these frameworks, not reinvent the wheel, and get more girls into education.
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Gentleman is right: we take a wholly unideological approach to educating girls and women. We go with what is most effective—with what works—and if the EU produces programmes that are good value for taxpayers’ money, we will of course look at them.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Mr Andrew Mitchell)
East Africa currently represents the world’s largest and most severe humanitarian crisis. We have allocated £156 million in life-saving aid across the region this financial year.
Nick Smith
Oxfam estimates that one person is likely to die every 36 seconds in east Africa owing to food insecurity, but the “Integrated Review Refresh”, published yesterday, failed to acknowledge this unfolding crisis. Drought and famine have displaced nearly 2 million people in Ethiopia and Somalia recently. What further action can the Government take to support people on the ground and ensure that they can return home safely?
Mr Mitchell
I am sure that when the hon. Gentleman has time to study yesterday’s “Integrated Review Refresh” in detail, he will see that it contains much to be welcomed in respect of the future of Britain’s international development leadership. However, he is right to talk about the intense humanitarian needs that exist in the area that he has mentioned. In Ethiopia we are helping to deliver humanitarian support to 8 million people, alongside efforts to promote water conservation. In Sudan, £320,000 vulnerable people are receiving food support thanks to British assistance. In South Sudan, 200,000 are receiving emergency food and nutrition, and in Somalia—which I visited in December—4.4 million people have received water, sanitation and hygiene support from Britain since 2018, and 3.2 million have received emergency food. The hon. Gentleman can therefore rest assured that we are absolutely on the case, and are doing everything we can to support the international effort to counter what may well be the fifth year of drought.
Mike Kane
The £156 million of aid to which the Minister referred is five times less than the amount provided by the UK Government six years ago to deal with a milder crisis. In a week when we are talking about displaced people, we are facing an exodus of biblical proportions in east Africa. What more can the Government do to help those communities to stay in their homes?
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Gentleman is right, in that the aims of British development policy are to help people to remain in their own homes and be safe and secure and, indeed, prosperous. What we are seeing in the horn of Africa is an immense crisis of extraordinary proportions to which the whole international community must respond, not only with money but with skill and expertise, and British leadership is at the forefront of that.
Sir James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
There is much talk about the deaths on the battlefield in Ukraine, but what assessment has the Department made of the impact of grain prices caused by grain not going into east Africa from Ukraine? It is quite possible—and I should be interested in testing this assertion—that more people have died in east Africa as a result of the war in Ukraine than have died within the confines of that country.
Mr Mitchell
I cannot comment on the hon. Gentleman’s last point, but he is right to suggest that, as a result of Putin’s illegal brutality and invasion of Ukraine, there have been disruptions to food supplies in the Sahel in particular, but also in east Africa. Those disruptions are causing rising inflation and food shortages, and Putin stands condemned for the effect of his actions in that respect as well as every other.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of visiting Kenya and meeting students who described to me graphically the impact that drought caused by climate change is having on their lives and on their food supply. That is due to failed crops and boreholes that are drying up, but it is also having an impact on their education. What more does my right hon. Friend think can be done not just to address the current crisis, but to introduce mitigation measures in the longer term so that climate change does not have such a drastic impact on those communities?
Mr Mitchell
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We discuss resilience and climate adaptation frequently with the Kenyan Government. I was there in December. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary was also there and he spoke to President Ruto. My hon. Friend may rest assured that our relationship with Kenya, which is extremely close, deals not only with humanitarian, trade and investment issues but with drought and the other issues she has raised.
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
Across east Africa, 48 million people are facing crisis levels of hunger, yet east Africa has been taken out of the integrated review. Even the Minister’s own colleagues understand that the fundamental issues in east Africa are climate adaptation and real partnership. What are the Government going to do to address the fundamental causes of this cycle of crises?
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Lady is wrong about it being taken out of the IR, and if she has the chance this weekend to study it in detail, she will see that that is the case, but she is right to say that an estimated 72 million people will require humanitarian assistance in 2023 due to conflict, drought and flooding. On all those issues, Britain is working with its allies across the international community to do everything we can to stop it, recognising that this is the fifth consecutive season of failed rains across the horn of Africa.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (James Cleverly)
The simple principle is that Russia should pay for the harm and damage that it has caused. We must ensure that any proposals are robust, safe and compliant with domestic and international law, and we will of course consider all lawful routes to ensure that Russia pays for the damage and harm it has caused.
Dame Diana Johnson
The UK Government have frozen Russian assets, but the EU has already set out a plan to shift such assets into a fund to help to rebuild Ukraine, and Canada has already passed a law to do the same. What is stopping us? Why can we not do the same?
James Cleverly
Both those projects are still in train; neither has come to a conclusion and no country has liquidated frozen assets. As I say, anything that we do needs to be in complete compliance with both domestic and international law.
Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)
Reconstruction of Ukraine will also require rehabilitating and helping women. In the wake of what we have done on preventing sexual violence in conflict, what steps will we now be able to take to help those who have been victims of sexual violence?
James Cleverly
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work he has done in this area for many years. I am proud of the fact that the UK has been at the forefront of the campaigns for preventing sexual violence in conflict. My noble Friend Lord Ahmad organised a conference on this very issue last year. We must ensure that the perpetrators, the facilitators and those ordering this brutality are all held to account, and we will work with our international partners to ensure that that happens.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
Ukraine’s 2023 budget alone has a $38 billion gap, and the cost of the damage done to critical infrastructure runs into the hundreds of billions. There is one party responsible: Russia. We support the Government’s plans for a reconstruction conference this summer, but we cannot have any dragging of the heels in making Russia foot the bill for its barbarous war. We have heard about other international examples, so when will the Foreign Secretary set out a clear plan to seize—not just freeze—Russian state assets and repurpose them?
James Cleverly
The sad but simple truth is that it is not as easy as the hon. Gentleman’s question implies. The fact is that there have been conflicts around the world before and there have been perpetrators before, but there has never been a seizure of assets. As I say, we need to ensure that we are compliant with both domestic and international law. We will look carefully at the proposals being explored and tested by our close friends and allies, but I can reassure him and the House that we will ensure, working in close co-operation with our friends internationally, that Russia pays for the brutality that we are seeing in Ukraine.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Mr Andrew Mitchell)
UK aid ranging from search and rescue to tents to medical care has helped thousands of survivors in Turkey and Syria, and more than 9,000 patients have been treated by UK medical teams as of 7 March.
Mark Menzies
Last night I was honoured to speak to members of the British-Turkish community to learn about the ongoing aid effort to help those impacted by the disaster. I was also fortunate to visit Gaziantep in 2019 with our late friend Sir David Amess, where I met families displaced by the war in Syria. It is heartbreaking to see so many of these people having to rebuild their lives once again. Will my right hon. Friend commit to ensuring this Government’s efforts go beyond initial disaster relief and provide long-term support for those in the region to rebuild their lives, their homes and their businesses?
Mr Mitchell
Since the Syria crisis began, as my hon. Friend knows, Britain has contributed something like £3.8 billion, which is more than the whole European Union has provided added together. We will certainly focus on that. For now, the British taxpayer has found £43 million and the Disasters Emergency Committee has raised £100 million. All across the country, people are responding magnificently to this crisis. In my constituency, the Sutton Coldfield chamber choir will be playing at a concert at St Columba’s church on Saturday night to raise money for Turkish victims.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
More than 850,000 children remain displaced after the earthquake that hit in early February, with many of these children now in temporary shelters. What discussions have Ministers had with Turkish officials to ensure that all is done to return children to a place of safety, to locate their families and to educate them?
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Gentleman is right on all counts. Immediately after the crisis, Education Cannot Wait allocated $7 million to try to ensure that children, particularly those out of school, could get back into education. We will continue with our efforts to ensure people who suffered so much from the earthquake are remedied in every way we can.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (James Cleverly)
The UK will continue to hold the Iranian regime, including the IRGC, to account for its repression. We have imposed sanctions on the individuals involved in the repression of women in Iran, and we continue to sanction the IRGC in its entirety.
Greg Smith
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary for his answer, but the evidence of the IRGC’s brutality in Iran, particularly towards women, is clear. The evidence of its wider malign influence in the region is clear. Likewise its links supporting Russia and its reach to Europe, including threats on these shores. How much more evidence do he and the Government need to see before they do what I have asked many times in this Chamber and proscribe the IRGC?
James Cleverly
As I said, the IRGC is already sanctioned in its entirety. Where it is involved in illegal activity, our security forces and police take action, and I commend the action they take. We do not routinely discuss future designations and sanctions, but we will always take actions that protect the British people and British interests and that deter malign activity.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
Like the hon. Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith), I have repeatedly come to this Chamber to ask about proscribing the IRGC, which is widely recognised on both sides of the House as a bunch of clerical fascists and homicidal maniacs who particularly enjoy torturing and murdering women. I suspect the Foreign Secretary agrees with us, so why does he not take the final step and proscribe the IRGC?
James Cleverly
The actions this Government take with regard to the IRGC are to deter its malign activity within its own borders, within the region and here in the UK and to protect British citizens, including dual nationals, and British interests overseas. We will always act in accordance with those principles. As I say, the UK Government do not routinely speculate on future designations.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (David Rutley)
The Argentine Government’s decision is disappointing for the Falkland Islands, for the UK and for Argentina. There are many areas in which our countries stand to gain from working together positively, including on the humanitarian effort to identify fallen Argentine service personnel from the 1982 conflict. The joint communiqué covers all these areas and more. The Argentine Government’s decision hurts our mutually beneficial bilateral co-operation, and it further damages the Falkland islanders’ confidence in their intentions, which is why Argentina should reconsider its decision. We are working closely with the Falkland islanders to identify next steps.
Rob Butler
I was lucky enough to visit the Falkland Islands a few weeks ago with the armed forces parliamentary scheme, and from meeting local people there it was clear that they powerfully and passionately stand by the referendum result of exactly 10 years ago, when more than 90% voted for the Falklands to remain a British overseas territory. That makes Argentina’s recent unilateral decision to abandon the joint communiqué all the more outrageous. What are the Government doing to make it clear to the Argentines that the Falkland Islanders have the unequivocal right to self-determination and how the UK will protect that in practice?
David Rutley
It would be remiss of me not to welcome the 10th anniversary of the referendum on the future of the Falkland Islands. It is only for the people of the Falkland Islands to decide their own future. We consistently make clear to Argentina and to international partners our unbending support for the Falkland Islanders and their self-determination rights.
Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The Falklands are British and that is the end of the story. Santiago Cafiero is undoubtedly engaging in a bit of electioneering during a general election, and we should just—[Interruption.] Exactly as the Foreign Secretary just indicated, we should not be surprised when these things are said.
Many of my constituents lost loved ones killed on the Sir Galahad in the defence of the Falklands many years ago and some of them are worried that some papers have not been published yet and will not be until 2065. They would like to see the full papers that were provided to the board of inquiry, so will the Minister investigate whether those can now be published?
David Rutley
I thank the hon. Gentleman for making those points in his original remarks. There are usual processes to go through, but I will take those points away and discuss them with the Minister for overseas territories.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (David Rutley)
We are concerned by the recent wide-ranging arrests in Tunisia, including those of politicians, former civil servants, businesspeople and media representatives. The UK underlines the importance of due legal process and respect for human rights, especially freedoms of expression and association. Tunisians should have the space for legitimate political opposition, civil society and independent media activity.
Margaret Ferrier
I thank the Minister for that answer, but President Kais is seeking to impose one-man rule in Tunisia, including with a sham Parliament and the arrest of critics. He now appears to be looking for scapegoats, such as black Africans, to distract attention from the dire economic and social situation. Will the Minister condemn what is happening now in Tunisia and support those working for democratic and tolerant governance in the country?
David Rutley
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, the Minister for north Africa, publicly commented on this matter on 16 February. He has also raised the issue with the Tunisian chargé d’affaires, and G7 ambassadors in Tunisia have also made a number of joint statements since July 2021. We are also aware of reports of racially motivated discrimination and violence towards perceived sub-Saharan African migrants, and we encourage Tunisia to comply with the international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Mr Andrew Mitchell)
We welcome the independent review by the Bishop of Truro and ensure that it is central to our human rights work.
Fiona Bruce
Almost a year after the expert independent review, which highlighted that there is still much work to be done to fully implement the Truro review, can the Minister point out what progress the FCDO has made in better advocating for those who are persecuted for their religion or belief? Not least, will he confirm that, as our manifesto promised and in accordance with recommendation 6 of the Truro review, the role of Prime Minister’s special envoy for freedom of religion or belief will now be established in law?
Mr Mitchell
I want to thank my hon. Friend for all her work and commitment in this vital area. Who can doubt that she, like my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) before her, is the very personification and essence of how this role should be performed? Last July we had an international ministerial conference to advance FORB and we always regularly raise cases of concern. On recommendation 6, she makes an extremely good point and the Government are considering it.
John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Mr Andrew Mitchell)
We are working with a range of jurisdictions, including G20 nations, and global financial centres to promote beneficial ownership transparency and to make it a global norm.
John Penrose
My right hon. Friend has a superb personal track record on this issue. May I urge him to redouble his efforts? Does he accept that transparency about who owns what means that oligarchs, kleptocrats and crime lords have fewer places to stash their dirty cash; that it is the single cheapest and most effective measure that any country can take to cut the social and economic costs that international criminality imposes; and that it becomes ever more powerful as the network of truly transparent jurisdictions grows?
Mr Mitchell
Open registers of beneficial ownership are extremely important. My hon. Friend and I, and indeed the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), did a lot of work on that from the Back Benches, and it is now Government policy. All overseas territories and Crown dependencies are committed to open registers. All have made voluntary commitments, and the Government intend to make sure that they stand by those commitments.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
I was in Cox’s Bazar just on Saturday, when I was able to visit the site of the terrible fire that affected 12,000 people and destroyed 2,000 homes. I was able to announce a new package of funding of £5.26 million to support the Rohingya, and to meet the agencies that are all working at incredible pace to help them to rebuild their homes.
Rushanara Ali
I thank the Minister for her answer and for making that important visit. She will be aware that the UN Food Programme has announced that it has been forced to reduce rations for Rohingya refugees by 17% because of wider funding cuts. Despite her recent announcement, UK aid for the Rohingya refugee crisis has gone down by just over 80% since 2020. How can that be justified when this population has faced genocide at the hands of the Burmese military? Has she discussed with the Chancellor restoring the overall aid budget, which is the best way to ensure that we tackle refugee crises?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
The UK has been a leading donor to the Rohingya crisis, providing over £350 million since 2017. Last week at the UN, the joint response plan was published; it is only just over 40% funded so far, so we will be working with our friends across the world to find the funding to support it completely.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Mr Andrew Mitchell)
I had the pleasure of meeting all the front-runner candidates ahead of the election, and officials have continued engagement with a range of counterparts throughout.
Chi Onwurah
The UK has a vibrant and engaged Nigerian diaspora. I know; I count myself one of them. Ndi Igbo North East England, in my constituency, has expressed concerns about serious failures of technology, security and communications in last month’s presidential elections, as has the European Union. Given that the Government have provided financial support to Nigerian civil society on election integrity, and technical advice to the Nigerian independent national electoral commission, what does the Minister think went wrong?
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Lady is entirely right to say that we provided £5 million of taxpayer’s money to civil society, to boost citizen education and voter engagement; also, the British high commission deployed observers to polling stations across seven states. We commend all those involved for their commitment to democracy and, importantly in respect of her question, to resolving disputes through the courts and through peaceful means.
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I am enormously grateful, Mr Speaker. Nigeria is a fast-growing country and connections between our communities are flourishing, so if Nigerians lose trust in their political institutions, it will affect our prosperity and security too. Yet the Government’s development support for Nigeria has been slashed, our offer is lacking and our voice is weak. Surely we need to develop a strategy for partnership in Nigeria and across the whole of Africa. How is the Minister going to deliver on that?
Mr Mitchell
We are working incredibly closely with all our partners across Africa, none more so than Nigeria. We have been heavily engaged in recent events. We note that the gubernatorial elections have been rescheduled for 18 March, but the Government have congratulated President-elect Tinubu. We look forward to working with his Administration and dealing with exactly the matters that the hon. Lady has so eloquently raised.
Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (James Cleverly)
Yesterday I set out how the Government will ensure that the country remains safe, prosperous and influential. In San Diego yesterday afternoon the Prime Minister, alongside President Biden and Prime Minister Albanese, announced that we will deliver a multi-billion-pound conventionally armed but nuclear-powered submarine capability to the Royal Australian Navy.
Last month we negotiated the Windsor framework for Northern Ireland with our European Union colleagues, and last week at the UK-French summit we struck a deal that will help to stop the boats bringing illegal migrants to the UK.
On Ukraine, the UK stands ready to provide a further $500 million of World Bank loan guarantees to cover the cost of vital Government services. We are accelerating delivery of our £2.3 billion-worth of military aid and Challenger tanks and will keep—
Matt Vickers
On behalf of the people of Stockton South, I offer our deepest condolences to the families of victims of last month’s devastating Turkish-Syrian earthquake. I was glad to see the Government’s fast response in sending humanitarian aid, but can my right hon. Friend ensure that the UK will assist both Syria and Turkey in elaborating strategies to prevent any future natural disaster from having such a devastatingly high fatality rate?
James Cleverly
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Development Minister, who travelled to the region shortly after the earthquakes, keeping a close eye on the swift financial and technical response we deployed. I can assure both my hon. Friend and the House that we will continue to pay close attention to the humanitarian need as a direct result of the series of earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
In recent weeks, allies in the US and EU have moved to ban TikTok from Government phones, but the UK Government’s response is to say that it is a personal choice. Will the Foreign Secretary clarify whether the Government will recommend a Government agency ban, or whether the UK will be behind the curve again?
James Cleverly
As it is a security matter, this issue is taken up by the Security Minister, which is a Home Office competency.
Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)
James Cleverly
We continue to work closely with our international partners and the leadership of the IAEA on Iran’s nuclear activities. Our position is clear: it is unacceptable for Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon or nuclear weapon technology. We will continue to work with our international allies to prevent that from happening.
Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Mr Andrew Mitchell)
The hon. Gentleman is quite right to accentuate the importance of aid match, which has done an enormous amount to swell the funds that can be deployed. I will come back to the House as soon as we are able to set out the amounts we will be spending in the next financial year and, I hope, in the financial year thereafter as well.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Leo Docherty)
The UK led the international response to Turkish actions in 1974, including through drafting UN Security Council resolution 353 calling for the immediate withdrawal of Turkish troops. The best way to address the situation in Cyprus is through a just and lasting settlement, in line with the UN parameters based on the model of a bizonal, bicommunal federation, and the UK will continue to engage actively in pursuit of that.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Mr Mitchell
The integrated review published yesterday sets out a comprehensive approach to dealing with all those issues, including migration in particular. Migration is a complex area that requires a whole series of different interventions. There is, alas, no silver bullet.
Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)
James Cleverly
We have sanctioned individuals and entities in response to their malign behaviour, including the sanctioning of the IRGC in its entirety. We continue to work very closely with our international allies and friends in the region to deter Iran and the IRGC from further such actions.
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
James Cleverly
We continue to work with the International Criminal Court on ensuring that it is able to bring people to justice. We are working closely with our friends internationally to look at what other legal vehicles we may need to ensure that everybody—from perpetrators and facilitators right up to the decision makers in Moscow—is held to account for the brutality and perverse actions taken by Russian troops in Ukraine.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, after giving assurances that it would not carry out death penalties, has just executed Hussein Abo al-Kheir, a father of eight. Will the Foreign Secretary try to arrange to make a statement to the House later this week on the ramifications for our relationship with Saudi Arabia, recognising people such as 14-year-old Abdullah al-Huwaiti, who was tortured into making a confession for a crime that he could not have committed?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (David Rutley)
The UK strongly opposes the death penalty in all countries and circumstances. We regularly raise our concerns with the Saudi authorities. Saudi Arabia is well aware of the UK’s opposition to the death penalty.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
David Rutley
As I said, we strongly oppose the death penalty in all countries and circumstances. On the al-Kheir situation, Lord Ahmad has raised that case with the Saudi ambassador, the Saudi vice-Foreign Minister and the president of the Saudi human rights commission on multiple occasions since November, including during his visit to the kingdom in February.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
The abduction, so-called re-education and illegal adoption of 6,000 Ukrainian children is an act of genocide. So far, the UK has sanctioned only two Russian governors who are complicit in that activity, which has clearly been learned from China in Tibet and Xinjiang. Will we now back the Avaaz campaign and sanction the further eight responsible individuals, including the directors of the so-called boarding houses for Ukrainian children?
James Cleverly
The abduction, forcible deportation and—to all intents and purposes—kidnapping of Ukrainian children is a terrible and perverse act. I assure my hon. Friend and the House that we will not rest until the people who are involved in that are held to account. She will know that we do not routinely discuss future sanctions designations, but I can assure her that, with our international partners, we look very closely at that terrible state of affairs.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
David Rutley
There was a lively debate on this in Westminster Hall last week. I can confirm that our sanctions regimes are under constant review, and our enforcement activity at His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs in particular will be focused on these issues.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
In the least developed countries, over half of health centres do not have hand-washing facilities, and I recently saw the benefits of delivering those during a trip to Ghana with the charity WasteAid. The Government’s new health position papers contain approaches to integrate water, sanitation and hygiene within health programming. Will the Minister commit to progress the implementation of that, to raise standards of hygiene and reduce levels of infection across the developing world?
Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
The crisis in Kashmir now spans across nine decades and, today, those living in the region still face unimaginable human rights abuses. Police brutality, arbitrary arrest and the repression of journalists there are still too common. Will the Minister ensure that the plight of the Kashmiris is not forgotten, and will he launch a renewed effort to facilitate dialogue between Pakistan and India, so that a political solution can be found?
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
The UK’s long-standing position is that it is for India and Pakistan to find a lasting political resolution on Kashmir, taking into account the wishes of Kashmiri people. We continue to monitor the situation and encourage both countries to engage in dialogue and to find those lasting diplomatic solutions to maintain regional stability.
Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)
The Ukrainian economy is suffering immeasurably because of the war imposed by Russia. One of the things that would help the Ukrainian economy now and post conflict is more joint ventures with western multinationals, which help with not just economic growth but governance reforms. What steps are we taking to help Ukrainian companies to partner with western multinationals?
James Cleverly
My hon. Friend makes the right point. As well as ensuring that the Russians who have violated Ukraine repair the damage they have caused, there will be a need for a long-term relationship to rebuild the Ukrainian economy. UK Export Finance will help British-based companies to help Ukrainians rebuild their homeland once we have helped them to successfully defend themselves against this invasion.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
For the past 15 months, my team and I have been battling to bring five British children who are in hiding in Kabul to safety. Their British father was blown up by the Taliban. Their Afghan mother will not be granted a visa by the Home Office and they are too young to travel alone. Neither the Foreign Office nor the Home Office are responding to my correspondence on this case. Please will the Secretary of State or one of his Ministers grant me an urgent meeting, so that we can bring this family to safety?
James Cleverly
I will look into the point that the hon. Lady has made about her correspondence not being responded to, and I will—[Interruption.] I will, of course, take the opportunity to meet with her to find out the situation. As she knows, we do not have a consular presence in Afghanistan, but our consular teams in neighbouring countries provide remote support for British nationals overseas.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Earlier in this session, we heard about the importance of respecting self-determination when it comes to the future of the Falkland Islands. Can my right hon. Friend update the House with regard to consultations with the Chagossian people on the future of the British Indian Ocean Territory?
James Cleverly
My right hon. Friend Lord Goldsmith had a meeting with representatives of the Chagossian community. We will ensure that, as far as we can, we keep those lines of communication open.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
On 25 January, in the urgent question on whether the Government had assisted the Wagner Group in circumventing UK sanctions, I asked the Minister, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), how many exceptions and waivers to the rules there had been over the past two years. The Minister said that a letter would be sent to me. It is now 14 March, so will the Foreign Secretary ensure that that letter is sent to me?
James Cleverly
I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing that issue to my attention. I will find out why there has been such a protracted delay, and ensure that he gets a response in good time.
Sir Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)
Whether China is a threat, a challenge, an opportunity or all of the above, the UK’s response to it will surely be enhanced by better Chinese language skills. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that he is doing what he can with colleagues in Government to improve the UK’s capacity in that regard?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
In the integrated review published yesterday, we set out a comprehensive list of tools that we will be using to help us to continue to grow our Mandarin speakers, and more widely as well. I recommend that all Members of the House have a fulsome read of the integrated review in due course.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)
AerCap is the largest provider of commercial aircraft in the world and, after the imposition of sanctions, it required a number of leased aircraft in Russia to be returned. That has not happened; instead, those aircraft have been re-registered in Russia, and continue to fly and operate. I know that there is a court case on the issue of loss with the insurance industry, but do the Government consider that to be an example of sanctions evasion?
James Cleverly
It is very difficult for me to come to an assessment based just on the points made in the hon. Gentleman’s question. I am more than happy to look at the matter in more detail, if he will write to me about it or catch me privately. As I say, with regard to the legal action, he will understand that the Government cannot comment while that is ongoing.
Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
I recently visited the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and what I saw made a deep and lasting impression on me. Does the Minister agree with me and with former Israeli ambassador Ilan Baruch, whom I met yesterday, that the UK and others must stop giving Israel impunity for its illegal actions under international law and again become serious and active players for peace?
James Cleverly
I assure the hon. Lady that we want nothing more than peace in that region. I have visited the OPTs and have met representatives of the Palestinian Authority and Israelis. Of course, it is in everybody’s interest that we have peace in the region: it is in the interests both of Israelis and Palestinians and of the wider region. That will continue to be at the heart of UK foreign policy in the region.
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
I am grateful for the many pieces of correspondence I have had from the Foreign Office regarding the death of my constituent’s son abroad—the many parliamentary questions and binary interactions across this Chamber. Will the Foreign Secretary meet me to discuss the finer points that will allow my constituent closure in this case?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
The hon. Gentleman has been a great champion and advocate for his constituent, and officials have continued to keep him informed. I will be happy to meet with him to discuss the case more fully, if he wishes.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
British nationals Morad Tahbaz and Mehran Raoof still remain incarcerated in Iran. What is the Foreign Secretary going to do to bring them home?
James Cleverly
I assure the right hon. Lady that we continue to make every effort to support British dual nationals incarcerated in Iran. This remains an ongoing piece of work, and she will understand that it is not always possible, or in the best interests of the individuals, for us to go into details. However, I assure her that it remains a priority for the UK, and is one of the reasons why it is important that we maintain a bilateral diplomatic relationship with Iran.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
The Foreign Secretary will be well aware of the huge demonstrations in Israel opposing the Government’s plans to control the judiciary, which will undermine the rule of law—a situation described by the President of Israel yesterday as “very serious”. Does the Foreign Secretary share President Herzog’s concerns?
James Cleverly
Ultimately, of course, the Government of Israel need to understand that they have a responsibility to the people of Israel. We always suggest that, when there are protests, Governments listen to why those protests are happening, and of course, we want to see Israel abide by the rule of law.
Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)
The Russell Group has co-ordinated new research, highlighting the scale of the ongoing delays in the academic technology approval scheme, which is having a detrimental impact on students, research projects and universities. These delays have already led to businesses retracting funding and PhD applicants withdrawing from UK opportunities. What discussions has the Secretary of State had with his Cabinet colleagues about that, and will he meet me to discuss the Russell Group findings?
James Cleverly
We recognise that international students coming to UK universities is an incredibly important part of our economy. That is important for our soft power internationally, and it is one of those things where the knowledge that those students take back to their countries of origin helps those countries, too. We recognise how important it is, and I will continue to work with other Departments to ensure that our international offer to students remains top quality.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
The global crisis of malnutrition threatens the lives of 200 million people. Will the Development Minister look to support my early-day motion 951, which seeks to welcome the Bridgetown agenda, which will transform the mission, the model and the money in the global finance development architecture? Now is not the time for half measures.
Mr Mitchell
The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that Government Ministers do not normally sign early-day motions, but in respect of his point about Bridgetown, there is no more important agenda around internationally. We need to ensure that we turn billions into trillions, as the rich world has promised repeatedly at recent conferences of the parties, and the Bridgetown agenda is in very large part the way we do that.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
I was honoured to attend the UN Commission on the Status of Women last week, where I heard from the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts about its #SheSurfsFreedom survey, which highlighted the impact that online harassment, misogyny and abuse are having on girls around the world. Can I ask what actions the Minister intends to take to work with partners to ensure a free and equal digital future?
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Lady makes a very good point, and I will study the results of those events, if she will make them available to me. Then the Government will consider what, in addition to what we are doing already, we may be able to do.
HS2: Revised Timetable and Budget
(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the revised timetable and budget for completion of HS2.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Huw Merriman)
Although we notified the House first about Thursday’s announcement, I start by apologising for the timing of the written ministerial statement, which I accept was discourteous to Members and to you, Mr Speaker.
As part of the largest capital programme ever committed, the Transport Secretary last week confirmed more than £40 billion in transport investment over the next two financial years. This will enable the opening stage of HS2 to be delivered on schedule. By 2033, passengers and communities will benefit from high-speed rail services between new stations at Old Oak Common in London and Curzon Street in Birmingham, but the House will also be aware that we face significant economic headwinds. Record inflation caused by Putin’s illegal war and ongoing global supply chain issues have ramped up construction costs, making capital projects more difficult to deliver. It means we must make responsible decisions on which parts of our capital programme we can deliver within current budgets and timeframes.
While we remain committed fully to HS2, we will need to rephase the delivery options as part of the project due to inflationary pressures and the need to spread costs. Between Birmingham and Crewe, we expect to push back construction by two years, with an aim to deliver high-speed services as soon as possible after accounting for the delay in construction. We also remain committed to delivering HS2 services to Euston, but will take time to ensure an affordable and deliverable station design, which means delivering Euston alongside the high-speed infrastructure to Manchester. While HS2 Ltd and Network Rail continue work on developing HS2 east, we are also considering the most effective way to run HS2 trains to Leeds.
The Prime Minister promised to place trust and accountability at the heart of this Government. That means strengthening connectivity across the country while managing public finances effectively. It means never shirking the tough, but necessary decisions as we deliver on the people’s priorities to halve inflation, grow the economy and reduce debt.
Iain Stewart
I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. As Chair of the Select Committee, we feel that there was not enough detail on a number of areas in Thursday’s statement, so I would be grateful if my hon. Friend gave further detail.
First, my hon. Friend rightly references inflationary cost pressures in construction, which are affecting all sorts of projects up and down the country, but the written ministerial statement also referenced other “increased project costs”. What are they? Is he satisfied that HS2 Ltd has a grip on its finances? Secondly, the statement said that Old Oak Common to Birmingham will be finished “as soon as possible”. What does that mean? Is there a delay to the planned opening date?
Thirdly, what is the reason for the delay to the Euston to Old Oak Common section? Is it purely down to costs or are there other reasons for a redesign? A lot of construction work is happening at Euston now, so should the redesign not have been identified earlier? Finally, when can we expect to see further detail on HS2 east, the integrated rail plan and the Leeds route options? The industry and the public require—nay, demand—certainty on this. Can we be assured that this is the last delay to the project?
Huw Merriman
I thank my hon. Friend the Chair of the Transport Committee for his questions. I will provide some answers, but there will no doubt be further detail to discuss as we go through the session.
On my hon. Friend’s question about the increased project costs, they chiefly relate to the opening section of the line in phase 1, which is the part that is under construction at the moment. We are spending about £600 million a month on phase 1 construction, which is at its peak. He rightly talks about inflation; the Office for National Statistics shows that construction inflation is running at about 15%, which is why we have an issue with costs. He is right to say, however, that we need to bear down on costs. Yesterday, I met the chief executive of HS2 Ltd. I am delighted with the appointment of the chairman, Sir Jon Thompson, who has a background in finance. Certainly, it is within HS2’s requirements to ensure that, where we have inflationary pressures, it fills the gap by bearing down on costs.
My hon. Friend asked what finishing Old Oak Common to Curzon Street “as soon as possible” means. As I stated in my opening remarks, we expect that, by 2033, passengers and communities will benefit from high-speed rail services between those two stations. He asked about the reason for the Euston delay. Euston was always scheduled for delivery after the opening of phase 1, which is why we are prioritising Old Oak Common. We will not proceed with construction at Euston in the next two years, due to affordability and profiling issues, but we will use that time to work with partners to ensure an affordable and deliverable design.
My hon. Friend asks for detail on HS2 east, the integrated rail plan and the Leeds route study. I will be writing to him on the back of the integrated rail plan report this month and further information will be tabled in the six-monthly HS2 report, which is due in May. On the Leeds route strategy, it has been cleared by the Department and we expect it to be published soon.
My hon. Friend is right to say that the industry needs certainty, and I believe he asked whether we can be certain that this is the last change to the project. Although the pandemic and Putin’s illegal invasion of Russia were not anticipated, we expect these HS2 plans to be the plans that deliver it from London to Manchester.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
Eighteen months ago, the Government slashed Northern Powerhouse Rail, binned HS2 to Leeds and sold out the north of England. Here we are again: huge changes affecting billions in investment and jobs announced at 5 pm on Thursday—minutes before the House rose.
We now know why the Secretary of State was desperate to dodge scrutiny: I have a leaked document written by his most senior officials that blows apart his claims and lays bare the consequences of the decisions he has hidden from. His chief justification for the delays to HS2 was to “balance the nation’s books”, but his Department admits what he will not—that the delays themselves will increase costs. It admits that they will cost jobs and that construction firms could go bust; it cannot rule out slashing high-speed trains that serve Stoke, Macclesfield and Stafford altogether; and it suggests that HS2 could terminate on the outskirts of London until 2041.
Is it not time that the Minister came clean that this absurd plan will hit jobs, hurt growth and cost taxpayers even more? As his own officials ask,
“you have already changed the design once, which wasted money. What will be different this time?”
Even the Government have lost faith in this Government, and little wonder. Is there anything more emblematic of this failed Government than their flagship levelling-up project that makes it neither to the north nor to central London? Last year they crashed the economy, and once again they are asking the country to pay the price. Does this announcement not prove once and for all that the Conservatives cannot fix the problem because the Conservatives are the problem.
Huw Merriman
I thank the hon. Lady, but we obviously do not comment on leaked documents, certainly not documents that I have not been given. I say to the hon. Lady that it is an entirely responsible Government approach to balance the commitments we make—as I have stated, the transport commitments that have been set out to the House total £40 billion—and, indeed, to reflect on how the delivery of HS2 had been designed. It is also well within a responsible Government’s remit to consider the public spending pressures that there are right now, due to the help that this Government have given to those facing increased energy costs and the continued costs from the pandemic, and therefore the impact on the amount of borrowing. Over £100 billion is required each year, or it was last year, to service the overdraft, which is greater than the amount we spend on defence. It would be entirely irresponsible for any Government to look at all of its portfolio without those figures in mind.
However, I am very proud of what we are doing on delivering HS2. The construction of the Curzon Street station in Birmingham, which remains, as I have stated, is expected to create 36,000 new jobs. On the hon. Lady’s point about not levelling up across the country, the redevelopment of Piccadilly station in Manchester is expected to create 13,000 new homes. In London, the regeneration of Old Oak Common will contribute £15 billion over the next 30 years. Those are figures to be proud of, and we will deliver them.
I found it very helpful, at the end of last week, to discuss this with stakeholders from across the country—businesses, regional organisations, council leaders and Mayors on the route—who were all very supportive about what the Government are doing. They also have to run budgets—unlike the Opposition—so they understood the pressures that the country faces, and were absolutely delighted that this project will continue to be built.
Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)
For Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire, HS2 means a huge amount of pain for little to no gain. I am extremely concerned, as are many of the people I have heard from, that phase 2 will actually reduce capacity on some existing services. Will the Minister use this pause to look again at whether more of the investment should be spent on upgrading the existing network to ensure that we better connect places such as Stoke-on-Trent and Stafford?
Huw Merriman
To make it absolutely clear, we remain committed to the delivery of HS2 from London Euston up to Manchester. The extra time that can be afforded—that was a great conversation I had with the council leaders and Mayors—will be used to assess and improve the design, if necessary, but we will not be taken off the track of London Euston to Manchester. I look forward to more contributions from my hon. Friend, who knows I am committed to delivering transport in his area, and I do see HS2 as part of that solution.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
I almost feel sorry for the Minister—almost. Mr Speaker, you will know that the north of England has seen cut after cut not just to HS2, but to any real modernisation of its rail network, with HS2 to Leeds cancelled and Northern Powerhouse Rail cut to the bone. We on the SNP Benches have supported HS2 because we believe increased sustainable connectivity is to all our benefit. However, what we have now is a gold-plated commuter line of just over 100 miles for two cities in the south of this island, costing nearly £50 billion, while the rest of the country is expected to fight for scraps from the table.
Combined with the announcement of slashed funding for active travel, which leaves England, outside of Greater London, receiving less than £1 per person per year—30 times less than Scotland—that makes it clear that the Government regard transport funding outside the M25 as nothing more than a rounding error. Thankfully, we in Scotland have a Parliament and a Government investing in our rail network, investing in active travel and taking transport decarbonisation seriously, so can the Minister tell me in which decade high-speed rail will reach the Scottish border?
Huw Merriman
The Government are plainly not committed only to delivery between London and Birmingham, because the entire plan is predicated on a two-year rephasing of the parts going up towards Crewe from the midlands. Beyond that, up to Manchester, the indicative timeline does not change at all. The Bill Select Committee remains in place, as does its brief, so that commitment is there. It is not a commitment just to the south-east, and the hon. Member has certainly got that wrong. The £96 billion integrated rail plan is based solely on the midlands and the north, and that shows this Government’s desire to level up across the midlands and the north, as opposed to spending money in the south-east.
Active travel is not part of this urgent question, but £3 billion will be spent by this Government on active travel during this Parliament. There are levelling-up fund bids that go toward active travel. We are absolutely passionate and committed to the delivery of active travel, and that will continue, as will our delivery of HS2.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
So far, the Minister has rightly been talking about phase 1 and phase 2a, but not about phase 2b. My constituents and I are sick to death of waiting for the inevitable announcement that phase 2b is not happening. I have constituents who have been suffering for over a decade while preserved land kept aside has ruined their ability to sell their houses and forced them into compensation schemes. It is not going to happen—Mrs Miggins in the Dog and Duck knows it is not going to happen. So will the Minister stand at the Dispatch Box right now—not to talk to me about the integrated rail plan; I have been hearing that cobblers for three years—and tell me that my constituents will get their land released and stop having their lives blighted?
Huw Merriman
When the integrated rail plan was published, it made reference to a Leeds area study that needed to be published, which in itself would unlock money for a mass transit scheme for Leeds. We will shortly bring forward that route study, which will provide the answers on how HS2 trains can go up to Leeds. Until then, the safeguarding will remain in place. I am keen that we get those answers, so that we either find a solution to get HS2 trains up to Leeds—again, that will be down to the study and responses—or, if that is not possible, decisions will need to be made about land and property that is currently blighted. That will occur once the route study has been published and responded to.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
I have great respect for the Minister, but I feel sorry for him today, because he is having to defend the completely worthless words of previous Secretaries of State for Transport, and Ministers, over a decade. Let me explain to him what is really happening. The Government are showing, yet again, their complete disdain for the north of England: no trans-Pennine investment, after 13 years of this Government; cuts to phase 2b; and cuts to the rest of high-speed rail. This is not about the economy because, when one looks at Crossrail 1, the Oxford-Cambridge link and all the rest of the investment in the south-east, there are no cuts. We have seen the Treasury take control of transport, putting the money where it always likes to—into London, not the north of England—and we know where that will lead. It will lead to tax cuts that will benefit the south of England at the start of next year for the general election.
Huw Merriman
I have the greatest respect for the hon. Member, and I served alongside him on the Transport Committee, but I take issue with him on there being no investment going into the north. The integrated rail plan is £96 billion of investment going to the north and the midlands. The HS2 statement commits to the completion of Old Oak Common to Curzon Street because that is where the construction is being delivered. It talks about a rephasing of two years on the section that goes to Crewe, and on the line from Crewe to Manchester—phase 2b—there is no change to the indicative timeline at all. Once phase 2b is delivered, we will see the benefits of Northern Powerhouse Rail, which we are committed to as well. I could not speak to projects in the south-east that are anything like those I have mentioned over the last minute, because the bulk of the investment in rail is going to the north and the midlands, and that will continue to be the case.
Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
In the three years that I was the Minister responsible for HS2, almost a decade ago, I commissioned work to see whether we could deliver the project more quickly by opening Birmingham to Old Oak Common ahead of Euston. The result came back that around two thirds—certainly more than half—of passengers would be getting off at Old Oak Common anyway, to use the Elizabeth line to access places such as Heathrow airport and Canary Wharf. Does the Minister agree that Old Oak Common will, for the majority of people, be the London terminus that they use, even when Euston is open?
Huw Merriman
I am glad my right hon. Friend mentioned Old Oak Common, because following the Oakervee review, that was anticipated to be the station where services would commence from 2033. Despite what may have been said, it is interesting to look at what we are doing with Old Oak Common. It will be the best connected and largest new railway station ever built in the UK. It will have 14 platforms and be one of the busiest railway stations in the country, with access to central London and Heathrow via the Elizabeth line, and connections to Wales and the south-east. Importantly, it will also allow us to deliver trains to Manchester in one hour and 11 minutes, which is 54 minutes quicker than at present. That demonstrates that the whole country benefits from Old Oak Common.
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
We all look forward to seeing more detail about the note that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) spoke about, but the least surprising thing she said was that the Government already know that these delays do not save money; they cost money. The increase in the cost of HS2 from £32 billion when the Government took power in 2010 to at least £71 billion, and escalating all the time, is precisely because of the delays and incompetence that the Government have shown, and their lack of commitment to HS2 over 13 years. My constituents in Chesterfield want HS2 to come, and we are desperate for the eastern leg. Will the Government acknowledge that what they are announcing today is a further increase in the cost of the project, and the further undermining of a crucial infrastructure project that the whole of the north demands?
Huw Merriman
As well as investing in the future, which we are doing, we must cover ourselves for the present. That is why three of the Prime Minister’s five priorities are to halve inflation, grow the economy and reduce debt. The reality for a project such as HS2 is that we have had to rephase one of the elements by two years, and that the remainder will go ahead as we outlined previously. It is vital for any Government to take into account the current state of the economy, current spending requirements and the impact they have on inflation, and the cost of borrowing. I am proud to be part of a Government who take a balanced responsibility between investing in infrastructure for the future—and we absolutely are—and managing the day-to-day finances, which the Opposition are demonstrating they are not doing.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
Lichfield is north of Birmingham, but it is also in phase 1. Currently, around the cathedral city there are huge amounts of engineering works and massive road closures. My constituents and I would like to know whether this pause will apply to Lichfield—in which case, will they make good and reopen the roads—or will the work carry on as if there were no pause in other parts of the network?
Huw Merriman
I engaged with my hon. Friend yesterday on that point, and I salute him for the manner in which he represents his constituents’ interests. I recognise that this as a concern. As far as we are concerned, those parts of the HS2 network where construction is going on will be completed, and we will do that to the timescale I have talked about. I need to give my hon. Friend a little more clarity about what that will mean in terms of scaling, but as far as I am concerned, phase 1 will be completed and ready for us to deliver trains by 2033. I will talk to him further about this, and write to him as well.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
For well over a year from 2014 to 2015, I sat on the High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill Select Committee, which usually had seven sittings a week. As a northern MP, I was gutted when we were told that the extension to the north was being delayed—another betrayal of the north. I thought that at least businesses such as Booth Industries in Bolton South East, which builds train doors and is ready to be part of the supply, could benefit. When will the Government start taking action, invest in our economy and support our jobs, or will it be the same continuous mismanagement of the past 13 years of broken promises?
Huw Merriman
That does not stack up at all. Almost 30,000 people are employed by HS2—I met the 1,000th apprentice a few weeks ago, who was playing her part. Some 2,500 companies registered in the UK are delivering on HS2, and 60% of those are small or medium-sized enterprises. We are talking about a rephasing by two years of a stretch of the line to Crewe. There is currently no construction on that part of the line, and land possessions and dealing with business matters will continue. I ask the hon. Lady to put the investment into context.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
HS2 goes from the very bottom to the very top of my constituency, and I am extremely glad that the Minister has agreed to come to see my constituents soon—I wish he would confirm that. We have put in some proposals called phase 1-plus. Those are very important, and the delay should help to work through them.
On a personal note, many of my constituents are aware that work is continuing now, despite the announced delay. They are suffering from extreme stress, bullying and harassment, of the kind described by my right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke). Staff have taken possession of their homes against their will, without adequate or timely compensation, and of land that they do not need. One example is Mr John Evanson, aged 79. He was born on his farm, where he worked his entire life, but it has been taken away from him. He and his partner are now prisoners in their own home, surrounded by fencing and with as many as eight security guards, which is utterly intolerable. Will the Minister guarantee to look into that issue and sort it out?
Huw Merriman
I am always happy to meet my hon. Friend, and to discuss cases brought by my colleagues and Members across the House. It is essential that HS2 treats those whose land is being possessed or worked on nearby with compassion, and offers the right element of compensation. A lot of good work has been done by my predecessors on that front, but we know that there is more to do and I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that case. Indeed, I have offered to view some of those cases to get a better understanding.
Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)
Delaying HS2 will not reduce the environmental or financial costs already incurred, but it will reduce any value that the project ever claimed to have. Why not admit that this was a mistake, and scrap HS2 altogether?
Huw Merriman
I will take that as Liberal Democrat policy from now on. It is important that all parties have a shared policy. On the ecological benefits of HS2—I have viewed some of them—the area around Colne valley where the chalk is being tunnelled will created a new chalk habitat, and I have seen that for myself. There will be no net loss to biodiversity as the route goes up to Birmingham, and as it goes beyond there will be an ecology gain of 10%. In my view, HS2 is a force for good not just through decarbonisation and what that does for the environment, but in respect of ecology and the legacy it will leave.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
Instead of tinkering with the edges of HS2, would it not be better to admit that we cannot afford it as a country, that it has ruined livelihoods up and down the area where construction has commenced, and that it brings massive environmental destruction with it? Would it not be better to scrap it altogether? Does my hon. Friend agree that if he is to persist in building phase 1, among the cuts and budget reductions, not a penny will be taken from the mitigations put in place for residents who suffer real human misery under the construction of this project?
Huw Merriman
May I thank my hon. Friend? It was a pleasure to visit him and see some of the impacts in Buckinghamshire, which he so ably represents. I absolutely accept, as does HS2 Ltd, that right now HS2 is at the peak of construction—I referenced the amount being spent each month—which means the impact is probably at its greatest for residents. That will reduce as the line is delivered to Curzon Street, which it will be. We remain committed to delivery, but we are also committed to ensuring that we work with hon. Members, such as my hon. Friend, on mitigation measures. I am very happy to discuss with him further what more we can do to assist his constituents, but I have to be absolutely clear that we are delivering HS2 to Curzon Street in the time specified. It will continue to take place. I am very proud of that delivery and I want to thank everyone who is doing it.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
The consequences of this announcement for Old Oak Common include doubts about the capacity of the Elizabeth line; limited interchange between lines at the station, especially for disabled people; very limited access to the station site; and the postponement of development of HS2 land until after Euston opens. Will the Minister meet me and other MPs who are concerned about the indefinite delay to Euston opening to discuss the consequences for my constituents, which are game changing?
Huw Merriman
I try to make myself available to all colleagues across the House, and I would be very happy to meet the hon. Gentleman. To be clear, Old Oak Common is a massive regeneration opportunity that is being realised for west London. As I have stated, it will be one of the largest train stations delivered. It offers connectivity not just into London via the Elizabeth line, but to the west country and Wales via Great Western Railway. One amazing thing about Old Oak Common when I visited was that rather than lorry loads of spoil being taken away through the community, a conveyor has been built so we can use the existing freight line to take the spoil away. That is better not only for costs but for the environment, so I am very proud of the work being done at Old Oak Common. I would be very pleased to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss it further.
Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)
The Minister detailed the impact on various economies in England, but will he make an assessment with Cabinet colleagues of the potential impact of the new timing of the construction of HS2 between Birmingham and Crewe on the economy of north Wales?
Huw Merriman
More detail will be added when the six monthly report for HS2 comes before the House. We also have the enhancement pipeline, which we will look to publish in the months to come. That will detail the investments we can make off the back of HS2. My hon. Friend makes a very good point about the benefits that accrue from HS2: not just passenger trains on the existing network, but the ability to take freight off the existing line. I am very happy to take further representations from her. She is very passionate about projects for north Wales and we will continue to talk.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
Despite having been repeatedly promised that HS2 to Leeds would be built, the Government broke their word. At the time, they promised they would look at the most effective way to run HS2 trains to Leeds, but just now, in answer to the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke), the Minister speculated—if I heard him correctly—on what he would do about safeguarding land if it does not prove possible to do that. Can he clarify whether he is indicating to us that it may not prove possible even to honour the second promise and that it looks as if we will be disappointed again?
Huw Merriman
Perhaps I can clarify and try to assist, because I can see the obvious trap I am being invited to fall into. First of all, the Leeds route study has to be published, responses have to be returned, and then a decision has to be made on how and whether it is possible to get HS2 trains to Leeds. That has an impact on Leeds station, which is currently about 115% over capacity. There are also implications for the ability to invest in Leeds station. The whole basis I am trying to lead to is that we have to get the study out and the responses back, and then the decision can be made as to what occurs. That lends itself to what happens to properties that have come into possession. I hope that orderly process is now clear to the right hon. Gentleman.
Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)
I am grateful to the Minister for meeting me last week, but I have to say that I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke). The chance of the current line running up to Leeds is absolutely non-existent, yet those communities who are currently locked into the line of route are dealing with the wickedness and viciousness of HS2 Ltd, most recently including, as the Minister is aware, 38% rent increases. When will he end this cycle of misery and lift the safeguarding in my constituency?
Huw Merriman
I have the greatest sympathy for my hon. Friend’s constituents. They have been ably represented by him, because he has spoken to me on a number of occasions. I have already set out the steps that will be taken with regard to the decision on HS2 trains to Leeds. That will remain the case, but I am already looking into the case for his constituents. A 30% to 38% increase in rents seems like an incredibly high jump in one go. I need to find out the background to that, but he will be meeting me again, so I can give him the detail that he can then give back to his constituents. I will do everything I can to minimise the impact.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
I was 45 when the Tory-led Government gave HS2 the go ahead. Since then, as the Minister knows, it has been repeatedly chopped, changed and delayed. I will be 57 next week. How old will I be when it gets to Nottingham?
Huw Merriman
Mr Speaker, it is another trap I do not wish to walk into, beyond saying that with regard to the plans going eastward, which will allow for much faster services to London and Birmingham from Leicester and Nottingham, we will set out more detail both in the response I have to give to the Chairman of the Transport Committee on that aspect of HS2 east and in the parliamentary report. We announced that in the integrated rail plan, which did change matters. It is important that we now give better delivery, so we can indicate timescales and costs.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
My constituents never wanted HS2. As my hon. Friend the Minister knows, they have always said that costs would escalate out of control. Sadly, it seems too late to stop its construction in Aylesbury and Wendover, despite the huge damage being done to the beautiful Buckinghamshire countryside. Will the Minister take advantage of the pause he has announced to phase 2 to encourage those at HS2 Ltd and their contractors to devote a little bit more time to helping those impacted by phase 1, to improve mitigation and not constantly have the response “Computer says no.”?
Huw Merriman
My hon. Friend gives me the opportunity to confirm again that we remain on track for the delivery of HS2 between Old Oak Common and Curzon Street. We expect to see trains delivered by 2033. Again, there will be peak disruption for his constituents in Aylesbury, Wendover and the region. I will have a further conversation with the chief executive and the chairman of HS2 Ltd, and I will absolutely restate the importance of ensuring that, as we are at peak construction period, mitigations are in place. I recognise that there are some in constituencies in the home counties who, notwithstanding the mitigations we have made, think that more could be done. I am happy to represent those calls.
Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)
Despite our paying through the nose for HS2, not a single inch of track will be laid in Wales as part of the project. All the while, the UK Government still insist on classifying HS2 as an England and Wales project. Let us be clear: the Welsh Government will fail to receive around £5 billion in Barnett consequentials as a result of the project. With the extension up to Scotland already scrapped, is it not about time the Secretary of State admitted that the Government have turned HS2 into an England-only project?
Huw Merriman
As I hope I have outlined, I would be surprised if there was a single constituency, of the 650 represented in this House, that did not have its part to play in terms of business contribution or workforce. I believe it benefits the whole United Kingdom. On Barnett consequentials, the situation in Wales is that Network Rail is funded by the Department for Transport for England and Wales. In Scotland, Network Rail is funded by the Scottish Executive, which means that Barnett consequentials are paid, so the matters are completely separate.
Sir James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
If we, as a United Kingdom, cannot build high-speed rail from north to south, what good are we? I remember Lord Adonis coming to the Conservative party and asking for support for the project. Should we not demand greater co-operation from the Opposition Benches, to come together and deliver the project? If we cannot do it, are we doing a good job, as the Victorians did, of building the infrastructure that we need? After all, it is not rocket science, although Robert Stephenson would probably disagree.
Huw Merriman
My right hon. Friend certainly speaks for me. I want to talk up all those who work on this project. We are building HS2 because it allows us to better connect our cities. For those in parts of the country who feel that they have been underdeveloped, this is the opportunity to level up so that development and business expansion go further north, which is better for the country as a whole. He is right that, as a pioneer of our great railways, it is a tragedy that we do not have a high-speed rail line that connects our country as in European countries. That is why I am proud that we are delivering on HS2. There is a rephasing of a portion of the line, but the rest is to be built as planned. I will be proud to use it when it is open.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
It should not come as a surprise to the Minister that we northern MPs are very sceptical about the promises that he has made today. After all, we were promised high-speed trains from east to west, but all we are getting are high-speed trains from Liverpool to just beyond Manchester, and then trains chugging across the Pennines to Yorkshire. He promised HS2 in full, yet the Yorkshire leg will not happen and the leg to Crewe is delayed. What guarantees do we have that Manchester and Euston will be delivered on time, as he says? Why should we believe a word he says?
Huw Merriman
If there were no commitment to Manchester, the Bill Committee would have been disbanded, but it continues to go ahead for section 2b, and the indicative timescales remain exactly the same for the Crewe to Manchester piece. Its delivery is crucial to Northern Powerhouse Rail. That is why nothing has changed for 2b. I gently add, having been to see the engineering projects for the trans-Pennine route upgrade, that billions are being spent through the Pennines towards York to fully electrify that line, because that is where the bulk of our investment is geared—to the north and the midlands.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
Over the past 40 minutes, the Minister will have realised that one of the big issues is blight. What steps is he taking to ensure that those residents who remain blighted by the original HS2 routes, such as those in my towns of Long Eaton, Sandiacre and Stanton Gate, are fully compensated now that their properties are no longer required for the revised route?
Huw Merriman
The line of route remains the same. There is a two-year rephasing of the section up towards Crewe, but the line of route remains the same as when it was announced. My hon. Friend is right that many constituents have experienced issues as a result of the impact on HS2. The process in place with HS2 ends up in appeals in the Department for Transport. I look at those individual cases, as does the Secretary of State. In some cases, although those constituents may not be strictly entitled to the cost of moving, we have looked at them and decided that their health impacts necessitate a payment and assistance from the Department. I will continue to work with my hon. Friend and all hon. Members to help their constituents.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
Another day, another delay. Does the Minister understand the huge frustration of colleagues across the north of England, who have lived with countless Rail Ministers and iterations of the plan? It is beyond frustrating that the Treasury does not seem to appreciate the huge value that this infrastructure will deliver for the north of England. The Minister will know that I have a particular interest in the high-speed rail study between Sheffield and Leeds, which was announced back in 2021. To be clear, it is not a study; it is just about agreeing the terms of reference to do the subsequent piece of work needed. I ask the Minister again: when does he think that the work on the connectivity between Sheffield and Leeds will be completed?
Huw Merriman
The hon. Member has been persistent in asking those questions, and I have just signed off another written ministerial response to him on that. The answer remains that we intend to publish the options for Leeds soon. As I said at the beginning, that has been cleared by the Department and we will now work with colleagues to get that out there, so that we can get the responses quickly and then make the decisions to allow the options to be delivered.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
I welcome the trans-Pennine rail upgrade. I visited Marsden in my patch with Network Rail a couple of weeks ago. There are massive plans to redesign the stations at Marsden and Slaithwaite. However, Yorkshire needs more. We need Northern Powerhouse Rail delivered in full from Liverpool to Hull, via Bradford, and HS2 up to Yorkshire. I will try again on behalf of the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis): will the review plan of how to get HS2 trains from Sheffield to Leeds report back before the summer?
Huw Merriman
I fear that I am becoming a stuck record. I said that the document has cleared through the desk of the Department for Transport. The entire Government will hear the House loud and clear on its desire to see that published—I certainly do. On investment across the Pennines, like my hon. Friend, I have seen the extraordinary work that has been done, which will be transformative. We are fully geared to investing. I am happy to meet him to discuss that further.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
The Minister comes to the Chamber unable to detail HS2 advantages to either north or south Wales. Not a single inch of HS2 track will be laid in Wales, yet it is considered an England and Wales project. That denies Wales any investment in return. The £20 billion already spent on the biggest white elephant in the Tory circus should have resulted in a £1-billion investment in Wales’s gutted railways. Will the UK Government therefore guarantee that Wales will receive that £1 billion?
Huw Merriman
I represent the good people of east Sussex, where not a single mile of track is being laid either. HS2 investment will be spread across the UK. I have deliberately used the figure of 29,000 jobs, because those are jobs across the whole UK. Some 2,500 businesses are working on HS2, most of them small or medium-sized. There are vast impacts for those companies and for the economy. I reiterate that, on funding, the Department for Transport funds Network Rail for England and Wales. That is not the case for Scotland, which has its Barnett consequentials to fund Network Rail. That is the difference between Wales and Scotland.
Darren Henry (Broxtowe) (Con)
The integrated rail plan 2021 set out the Government’s intention for a new Network Rail station in Toton in my constituency. That station is vital for connectivity to the east midlands—the region with the lowest transport spend per head year on year. Will the Minister reaffirm the Government’s commitment to a Network Rail station at Toton, and the timescale for completion?
Huw Merriman
As the HS2 east proposals outlined in the integrated rail plan are fleshed out, we will provide more detail, both in response to the Chair of the Transport Committee and ongoing liaison with the Committee, and in the six-monthly report. We remain committed to delivering on the East Midlands Parkway plan, which will improve journey times for Leicester and Nottingham. That remains the same, but the details need to be fleshed out, and I will provide the House with that detail.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
The Minister has answered over and again that the projects will apply solely to England. The last time I checked, Manchester, Crewe and Birmingham were not in Wales. Can the Minister set out the economic benefits for Wales, where no track is being laid? He has given three answers about how Wales’s infrastructure for Network Rail is funded. The reality is that we have 11% of the track but 2% of the funding. The Tories are failing Wales and are investing nothing in Welsh rail infrastructure.
Huw Merriman
That is not the case at all. Investment in enhancements on the railway will apply to England and to Wales. The enhancements pipeline to be published in the months to come will address where we can invest with new track in England and in Wales, and I look forward to detailing that. I reiterate to the hon. Gentleman’s constituents and mine that there are UK-wide benefits from the delivery of HS2. Anybody in any constituency or any part of this House who says that they will get no economic benefits from levelling up the entirety of the UK—I am sorry, but they are not living in the UK.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
By the time phase 2b arrives in the north, if indeed it ever arrives in the north, it will have been nearly 30 years since the project was first signed off. Whether it be HS2, nuclear power, housing or whatever, there is not a single economic competitor who takes so long to deliver strategic infrastructure. If we are serious about economic growth, surely we have to do better.
Huw Merriman
I recognise the frustrations that delays to large infrastructure projects can cause. HS2 phase 2b, for example, is being looked at by a House of Commons Bill Committee; there will then be a House of Lords Bill Committee. There is also the ability to petition. For phase 1, there are many more miles of viaduct and tunnelling than when the programme was first envisaged. That is because of democracy, because of this place and because of the need to mitigate issues for constituents. Although I recognise the frustrations about the delivery of infrastructure projects, I say to my hon. Friend that that is a part of the democratic process, the planning process and the legal process that we have to abide by.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
As you well know, Mr Speaker, the Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II appreciated the importance of railways in nation building and approved the building of the Hejaz railway to connect Istanbul with the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, despite the perilous state of his empire at the time. In failing to deliver on even the most basic vision for HS2, the Government have revealed a preference for leaving Scotland and other parts of their realms poorly connected to the centre. How does the Minister expect my constituents in West Dunbartonshire to feel affinity to a British state that cannot even build a railway in its direction?
Huw Merriman
I reiterate the benefits of HS2 with regard to the United Kingdom as a whole. The hon. Gentleman will be interested in the options for the Golborne link; we will be writing back to the Transport Committee about those options. That, of course, will assist with our long-term vision to take HS2 trains all the way through the spine of the country, including to Scotland.
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)
Alongside its amendments to HS2, the Department for Transport also slashed active travel budgets last week. Can my hon. Friend confirm that the Department has a timetable for decarbonising our transport networks? Does he agree that cutting quick-to-deliver, cheap, healthy active travel budgets may not assist our drive to reduce NHS waiting lists and decarbonise?
Huw Merriman
My hon. Friend is an assiduous champion for the active travel sector, and I have worked with her over the years in that regard. We are still committed to spending £3 billion on active travel schemes over the course of this Parliament. There are £2 billion-worth of additional decarbonisation spends with regard to transport. Our commitment to active travel and to working with Active Travel England remains, and I very much look forward to working with her on how we roll the plans out.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
The cost of HS2 has already doubled because of poor management and costly delays. The Minister is claiming that this delay is about saving money: he keeps talking about managing the day-to-day finances. Can he confirm that it is his explicit intention to delay and to pile the cost on a future Government?
Huw Merriman
The rationale behind this is to balance the vast amounts we are spending on HS2 and other transport and infrastructure projects with the priority to grow the economy and reduce debt. I referred earlier to the sheer scale of our borrowing charges that we are having to utilise. It is absolutely right that we look at current spending and at how it can be reduced, while ensuring at the same time that we can still deliver to plan. I reiterate to the House that the only part that is changing in this regard is the rephasing by two years of the section towards Crewe. I feel that the balance between managing the day-to-day economy right now and investing in the future for our infrastructure charges is the right one.
Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)
It is clear from the contributions of Members across the House, and indeed from people across the country, that rail has played an important part at the heart of our history as a Union and will play an important part in future. The UK connectivity review highlighted the importance of the north Wales main line not only to the economy of north Wales, but to the interconnectedness of all parts of the Union. Will the Minister please confirm that HS2 is indeed an England and Wales project? Will he also confirm that work on a business case for the electrification of the north Wales main line is continuing and that the delivery plans for its electrification remain part of the Department’s plans?
Huw Merriman
We are looking to publish the enhancements pipeline in the months to come. It will detail the future projects off HS2, which will include bids from projects in Wales and in England, not least the one to which my hon. Friend refers. I also understand that there are champions for a project in south Wales; indeed, I have met hon. Members about it. All those projects will be considered as part of the enhancements pipeline. I reiterate that I see HS2 as a UK-wide project that will benefit the whole United Kingdom, and of course that includes Wales.
Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I am 61. [Hon. Members: “Misleading the House!”] I am not misleading the House. I cannot see, from what we have heard today, that there is any chance of any of these trains chugging into central London in my lifetime—and I am not intending to shuffle off this mortal coil very soon. [Interruption.] My political lifetime may be a different matter.
Lots of us in this Chamber like the Minister, although incidentally we think the Secretary of State should be the one to answer this important point. Notwithstanding everything the Minister says, however, my constituents in Wales are paying for this incompetence: £600 million is being spent every month, as he says, and they will not get any benefit whatsoever. If he will come to the Rhondda and explain to people at a public meeting why this is an England and Wales project and they are getting no funding, he can have my support. Otherwise, he can forget it.
Huw Merriman
How could I resist that kind and welcome invitation? When the hon. Gentleman is 71, he will be able to access a train from Old Oak Common to Birmingham. At the interchange station, which I have seen, he will then be able to take the train to central London. It is an extraordinary opportunity: he should go and visit.
I hear the same point from my constituents in East Sussex: they ask, “What’s the benefit for me? I don’t have any part of the line.” I continue to extol the virtues of a UK-wide project that will connect the whole UK, grow the UK’s economy and provide jobs and houses for the whole UK. All the UK will benefit from that, regardless of which parts the line of route goes through.
Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)
I am disappointed to hear of the further delays. Further to the Minister’s answers to the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) and to my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Darren Henry), the eastern leg of HS2 will massively improve journey times between east and west, for example by cutting the journey from Nottingham to Birmingham down to as little as 28 minutes. Can the Minister give me every reassurance that he will do everything he can to ensure that that leg of HS2 proceeds on schedule as is currently planned?
Huw Merriman
I can. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that there are great benefits for those around the city of Nottingham and around Derby with regard to the journey time to Birmingham, and indeed further down to London. That was announced as part of the integrated rail plan, and as I have told the House, we will have further details to set out in the parliamentary report that is due. I am very much looking forward to giving him that extra detail.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
The Minister baldly states that Euston was always to follow after Old Oak Common, but a previous promise was that on day one of their operation, high-speed trains would run from central London to Scotland. It is not going to be day one, it is not going to be day 100 and it is not looking like day 1,000 either, so when will HS2 trains run from central London to Scotland? Will the Minister confirm that north of Crewe, the journey time will be slower on high-speed trains than it is the now, on Avanti trains?
Huw Merriman
I think I have already made clear, in answer to an earlier question, that the decision that the first HS2 trains would run from Old Oak Common to Birmingham was made following the Oakervee review; but I do not accept some of the hon. Gentleman’s other points. As I have said before, there are long-term ambitions to connect HS2 trains further north than Manchester, but, as things stand, we are planning for Manchester.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
May I say, as the Member of Parliament representing the fabled Old Oak Common station, that this is a huge slap in the face for my NW10 residents? They will have to put up with even more years of living on a building site, with the carrot that was dangled before them in the form of the promised fast route to Euston now gone as it becomes the terminus. Given the already rammed tube trains in the area and the fabled Old Oak Common Crossrail station that is supposed to be coming, will the Minister not provide extra funds for TfL to lessen the pain and absorb the overcrowding?
Huw Merriman
We have been giving plenty of funds to TfL in recent years. All I can say to the hon. Lady is that she will be very proud that her constituency has the best-connected and largest new railway station ever built in the UK. I have been there to see it, and I want to thank all those who are working on it: what is being done there is extraordinary. This station will regenerate the hon. Lady’s constituency, and I am amazed that she is not welcoming it.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
At the same time as the cancellation of the HS2 route to Leeds, the route to Sheffield was cancelled, but we were told not to worry because plenty of other good things were going to happen. The electrification of the midland main line would be unpaused for the third time, and we would get the high-speed trains to Leeds, which we are now told we may know something about at some time in the future. All that has happened since then is the ending of the direct link between Sheffield and Manchester airport. May I return to the first of those promises, and ask the Minister to give a categorical commitment on when the midland main line electrification will be extended to Sheffield?
Huw Merriman
A statement was issued on Thursday. The urgent question relates to HS2, and I have given the commitments in respect of how that will be delivered. As I said earlier, the enhancements pipeline—the HS2 investments—will be forthcoming, and will be put before the House in the coming months. A vast number of projects are in that pipeline, and we will give careful consideration to which ones we will adopt.
Christina Rees (Neath) (Ind)
Will the Minister accept the cross-party recommendation of the Welsh Affairs Committee that HS2 should be reclassified as an England-only project, so that Wales can receive the £5 billion in Barnett consequentials which will allow the Welsh Labour Government to continue to expand public transport services, and people in Wales can receive the same benefits from HS2 as those in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland?
Huw Merriman
Let me reiterate the funding model relating to Network Rail and the way in which we have managed our railways. The funding for England and Wales is provided by the Department for Transport; it is not provided for Scotland, which receives Barnett consequentials so it can fund Network Rail itself. That is the difference between Scotland and Wales.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
As the longest-serving Labour Member of Parliament, may I say to the Minister that I opposed HS2 from the very beginning, in January 2012, because I thought it was a vanity project and would not benefit my constituents? I wanted investment in the north. HS2 is still, in my view, a vanity project. A hundred billion pounds! Think, Minister, what that could have done in the health service or in our armed forces.
This must be the most incompetent measure introduced by any Government in the last 100 years. Can we have a national day of mourning for it?
Huw Merriman
I recognise that there are differences of opinion. Let me clarify my earlier reference to the Liberal Democrats: I meant that I resent seeing what is said in party by-election literature while the party as a whole supports this project.
I respect the hon. Gentleman’s point, as I respect points made on both sides of the House. As I say, opinions differ, but mine is absolutely firm. I believe that this country—the entire United Kingdom—deserves a high-speed train line. I believe that there will be benefits to the economy and to levelling up, with homes and jobs becoming more accessible for the whole of the UK. Of course, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, and I look forward to joining the hon. Gentleman when those trains roll and we see the benefits overall.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)
HS2 is turning into the predictable generational financial black hole of which many warned at the outset. Scotland and Northern Ireland are protected because they receive full Barnett consequentials, but, as we heard earlier, Wales is given a 0% rating. As a result, our Department for Transport comparability factor currently starts at only 36.6%, which means considerably less money for the Welsh Government to spend on transport. Is not the reality that unless this issue is addressed in one way or another—by devolving the responsibility for funding Network Rail to Wales, if that is what it takes—Welsh transport infrastructure faces decades of further under-investment, and Welsh taxpayers are being thoroughly swindled?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I am not sure there was a question there.
Huw Merriman
I think I got the gist, Madam Deputy Speaker. The reality is that the control period will see more than £40 billion spent on renewals across England and Wales, but, as I said earlier, Scotland has to find that funding for itself, and that is where the Barnett consequentials come in. There are no plans in the foreseeable future to change the manner in which we fund the network in the way that the hon. Gentleman described.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
By its very nature, HS2 is a strategic project from which everyone in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland can gain some benefit. In 2010 it was expected to cost £33 billion, but that is now expected to soar to some £71 billion; meanwhile, there are reports of more delays and persistent congestion in areas such as Camden. Can the Minister reassure me that phase 1 is still on track to be completed by 2029, and that any further delays will be minor and will have no impact on the completion date?
Huw Merriman
As I said at the outset, the intention is to deliver the trains from Old Oak Common to Curzon Street Birmingham by 2033. There is a window between 2029 and 2033, and our commitment to delivering in that timeframe remains.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the situation involving Euston, and I am obviously aware of the disruption that has been caused. I was heartened by a conversation I had with the leader of Camden Borough Council, who talked about the opportunities that that timeframe would afford for us to work together to try to find better solutions that will benefit the whole community, and I am absolutely committed to doing just that. I say to anyone, across the community, who wants to improve the HS2 project, “Get behind this, support it, and help me to sell the merits of HS2.” I think it is a fantastic opportunity—and, if that was the last question, I want to thank everyone who is working on HS2. I have full confidence in them, and I am sure the House does as well.
BBC: Government Role in Impartiality
(1 year, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)Urgent Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport if she will make a statement on the Government’s role in upholding the impartiality of the BBC.
The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Julia Lopez)
The BBC is a world-class broadcaster, a creative engine and a cultural institution producing some of the best television and radio in the world. The impartiality of the BBC, as a publicly funded broadcaster, goes to the heart of the contract between the corporation and all the licence fee payers whom it serves. That is why the royal charter, which is the constitutional basis of the BBC—along with the underpinning framework agreement—enshrines the need for the BBC to be impartial in both its mission and its public purposes.
The BBC’s mission and public purposes, as set out in the charter, require it to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain, helping people to understand and engage with the world around them. The BBC’s first public purpose is to provide duly accurate and impartial news and information to help people to understand and engage with the world around them. It must also represent and serve the diverse communities of all the United Kingdom’s nations and regions. Both the charter and the framework agreement also explicitly guarantee the independence of the BBC. As such, the Government have no say in the BBC’s operational or editorial day-to-day decisions or staffing matters, including as they relate to the application of the requirement for impartiality.
The Government stand fully behind the requirements of the royal charter. We are clear that the BBC must truly reflect the nation and guard its impartiality in all of its output. The BBC’s director-general has repeatedly said that the corporation’s impartiality is a priority for him and must be protected. We welcome that the BBC accepted the findings and recommendations of the Serota review and is committed to reform through its 10-point impartiality and editorial standards action plan. It is Ofcom, established by the Government as the independent regulator of the BBC in 2017, that is responsible for holding broadcasters including the BBC to account on the impartiality of their news and current affairs coverage, against the broadcasting code under the Communications Act 2003.
In November last year, Ofcom published its annual review of the BBC. It found the BBC’s impartiality to be a key area of concern among audiences and one where they consistently rate BBC news less favourably for trust and accuracy. Ofcom stated that addressing audience perceptions on this matter is challenging, and the regulator recognises that this is a complex area. It will continue to monitor the performance of the BBC and has urged the BBC not to lose momentum in its efforts to address this issue. It remains a priority for the Government to ensure that Ofcom delivers an effective and proportionate regulatory framework that holds the BBC to account while maintaining its creative freedom and operational independence.
In May 2022, the Government launched the mid-term review. This is a new mechanism established by the current charter, focusing on the governance and regulatory arrangements for the BBC, given the reforms that were introduced when the charter was granted. One area of focus in the MTR is impartiality, and it will assess the efficacy of the governance mechanisms and Ofcom’s regulation in ensuring that the BBC meets the high standards that licence fee payers expect of it. It is also an important milestone in our road map for BBC reform, and work is well under way. The charter specifies that the review must take place between 2022 and 2024, and we will publish our findings and conclusions in due course.
The BBC is respected globally. It reaches hundreds of millions of people across the world every week. No other country in the world has anything quite like it. We have been clear that the BBC must place a firm emphasis on accuracy, impartiality and diversity of opinion. It can never be the BBC’s role to judge, or appear to judge, the diverse values of the people from across the country it serves. In the era of fake news, public service broadcasting and a free press have never been more important, and the BBC has been and should be a beacon that sets standards to which others can aspire.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Lucy Powell
This week’s whole sorry saga has raised serious questions about the Government’s role in upholding BBC impartiality. They have their fingerprints all over it. It is no wonder the Secretary of State has gone AWOL. First, it exposed how susceptible the BBC leadership is to Government pressure. After days of holding off, the BBC capitulated to a Tory cancel campaign, orchestrated by Ministers and Conservative Members with their friends in the press, and took Mr Lineker off air. These are the same voices, by the way, who claim to be the champions of free speech. What changed? Can the Minister tell us what contact she or any member of the Government had with any BBC executives or board members during this time? What does she think it looks like to the outside world when a much-loved sports presenter is taken off air for tweeting something that the Government do not like? It sounds more like Putin’s Russia to me.
Secondly, the Government have seriously damaged the BBC’s reputation by appointing a chair who is embroiled in the personal finances of the Prime Minister who gave him the job. No doubt the Minister will tell the House that that is under investigation, but it is an investigation that I instigated, not her. Her boss is the only person with any power to fire the BBC chair. Does she agree that he is now completely unable to carry out his role of providing confidence, credibility and independence? What is she doing to put this right?
Finally, the Government have pursued a deliberate strategy of undermining the BBC in order to keep it over a barrel to get themselves more favourable coverage. That was on full display overnight and I am sure it will be on full display here today. They threaten the licence fee, cut the BBC’s funding and undermine its credibility, all in pursuit of keeping their foot on the BBC’s throat. Will the Minister today finally call off the dogs behind her and stand up for the BBC’s independence from the Government?
Julia Lopez
I thank the hon. Lady for her spirited questions. I have watched her valiant attempts to kick this political football across the weekend and into this week. As Politico notes, we are now on Lineker day 8. She shouts about a political campaign to undermine the BBC that is akin to Putin’s Russia. She professes that she is the shield trying to protect the BBC from political interference, but all the while demanding that the PM gets more stuck in and telling the BBC that it is in the wrong. Forgive the bewildered licence fee payer for wondering why W1A and SW1A are still focusing on this individual case—one that the Government have consistently made clear is for the BBC to resolve internally, which we note it has now done.
As the hon. Lady knows full well from the Secretary of State’s reply to her correspondence over the weekend, our Department regularly engages with the BBC on a range of issues. At no time have any of us as Ministers sought to influence the BBC’s decision on this case in any way. The events of last week are rightly a matter for the corporation’s determination, and we as a Government do not seek to interfere. I have not added, and do not intend to add, my views on this specific case in response to this urgent question. In response to assertions yesterday that he bowed to political pressure from the Government, the BBC director-general, Tim Davie, said:
“That is a convenient narrative. It’s not true.”
The hon. Lady has sought to make the BBC chairman, Richard Sharp, the ultimate arbiter of such matters. In fact, the BBC charter is clear that it is the director- general, as editor-in-chief of the BBC, not the chairman of the board, who has final responsibility for individual decisions on the BBC’s editorial matters. On the issue of Mr Sharp, she will be aware that previous Governments have appointed people to senior positions in the BBC who have declared political activity. That is not prohibited under the rules. Once appointed, however, all board members are required to adhere to the code of conduct for public body board members. She will know that there are separate independent inquiries into Mr Sharp’s appointment process, and they must be left to conclude. When it comes to the timetable of that, the Government are also awaiting the outcome, and it is right for the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments and the investigator that it has appointed to determine the timetable for that process, not the Government.
The hon. Lady said that the Tory Government had long wanted to undermine the BBC. Not true. This is an organisation with a near-guaranteed licence fee income of £3.8 billion per annum until the next charter review in 2027. We back the BBC. We want it to survive as a thriving cultural, creative and democratic engine for many years to come. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office announced just this week that it is giving an extra £20 million to support the BBC World Service over two years, building on the additional support that we gave it for its Ukraine and Russia reporting operations.
The social compact that underpins the BBC’s funding arrangement depends fundamentally on the broadcaster maintaining the trust and confidence of viewers. The BBC’s currency in a world of misinformation and “shout the loudest” public discourse is truth, impartiality, accuracy and editorial integrity. It remains our priority as a Government to work with the regulator, Ofcom, to deliver an effective and proportionate framework that holds the BBC to account in its duties, including to impartiality. In May 2020 we launched the mid-term review, a key focus of which was impartiality, and we will assess Ofcom’s regulation in ensuring that the BBC meets the high standards that licence fee payers expect of it.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the acting Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee.
Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)
Last weekend was embarrassingly terrible for the BBC, and anyone who cares about the future of the BBC will want this furore to die down and to move on as fast as possible. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is the responsibility of the BBC management to produce a set of clear and enforceable guidelines on the behaviour of presenters, whether freelance or staff? Does she also agree that, in return, presenters whose reputations and bank balances are enhanced by regular appearances on popular BBC shows also owe a reciprocal responsibility to the BBC, which may include some self-restraint in what they say and do in public?
Julia Lopez
I thank my right hon. Friend for that important question. I agree that anybody who cares about the BBC will want this furore to die down so that it can focus on how to ensure that it operates to the terms that create confidence in the public. He asked about the BBC guidelines, and I agree that they are fundamentally important to how the BBC organises its staffing. One of the key recommendations of the Serota review was that the guidelines on how presenters operate are fundamental and should be applied no matter the seniority, profile or role of the employee. This is something that must be revisited by the BBC as an organisation in the light of this furore.
John Nicolson (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)
On Saturday, BBC bosses said that Gary Lineker would have to apologise before being allowed back on the air. Yesterday, the BBC director-general apologised to Gary Lineker, who will now go back on the air without compromising. What a mess. A humiliating retreat for BBC bosses.
Normally, the BBC chair would hit the airwaves to steady nerves but, of course, the chair is Richard Sharp, a Tory donor who facilitated an £800,000 loan to the Prime Minister who then appointed him. Mr Sharp appears to be in hiding. I know many Conservative Members loathe the BBC and public service broadcasting, but does the Minister agree that her Conservative colleagues have overplayed their hand by trying to influence BBC decision making? Moreover, does she agree that we need a new system for plum public service appointments, with no more party donors, either Tory or Labour, appointed in future?
Julia Lopez
I make it clear that Ministers have not sought to intervene or interfere in how this process has been handled by the BBC. I will not be commenting on the Lineker case specifically, because I want to maintain the independence of the BBC and the ability of the director-general to make decisions based on how he wishes to organise his institution.
On Mr Sharp, as I said to the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), the BBC charter makes it clear that the director-general, as editor-in-chief of the BBC—and not the chairman of the board—has final responsibility for issues such as the ones we saw over the weekend.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
Mindful that the Minister does not want to comment on self-indulgent, out-of-touch, insensitive, avaricious, smug, arrogant football pundits, and in mind, too, of the BBC’s important role as a national institution, made special by both its charter and the mode of its funding, will she affirm that impartiality is critical to the BBC’s continuing role? The BBC is respected throughout the world for its impartiality—the World Service springs to mind. When that impartiality is compromised by anyone in a privileged position, that flaw undermines the BBC we want to support.
Julia Lopez
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is the mode of the BBC’s funding that makes it different in how it must respond to such cases. Trust and impartiality are fundamental to the social compact that underpins the licence fee. If that trust and impartiality are seen to be broken by people in the organisation, it is for the organisation to take that into account and to take action accordingly.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
The Minister says Ministers are not getting involved, but the Leader of the House, reading from a prepared script at business questions last Thursday, said:
“Labour is borrowing from the Gary Lineker playbook… This country does not need goal-hangers; it needs centre-forwards.”—[Official Report, 9 March 2023; Vol. 729, c. 413.]
That perhaps shows her slight lack of understanding of football, but is not the key point that these guidelines were changed in 2020 specifically because Conservative Members were trying to nobble Gary Lineker? That is why it has been such a disaster this weekend.
Julia Lopez
The Leader of the House is entitled to comment on the nature of Mr Lineker’s comments but, as far as I am aware, she applied zero pressure on the BBC to take action in relation to his contract.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I hope the shadow Secretary of State will reflect on her comparison of this Government to the Putin regime, which is of course engaged in war crimes and the murder of men, women and children in Ukraine. That was beneath her.
I am perfectly content with the BBC’s funding model and output, but one element of Mr Lineker’s statement on Twitter is completely unacceptable. I grew up surrounded by people who had their lives turned on their head by the Nazi regime in Germany, so I hope the Minister will comment on Mr Lineker’s references to 1930s Germany. He can say what he likes about the Illegal Migration Bill, but he should have the decency to apologise for comparing any action of a democratically elected Government in this country to 1930s Germany. It was disgusting.
Julia Lopez
I thank my hon. Friend for setting out how he feels about the comments that were made. I very much appreciate the deep sensitivities of this matter. I also think it was distasteful to compare the Government’s actions, or otherwise, to the Putin regime. That is a disgraceful comparison to make and I think it is way off the mark.
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
The BBC’s decision to take Gary Lineker off the air for his criticism of the Government’s immoral, inhumane and unworkable Illegal Migration Bill justifiably angered both the public and the professional staff working for the corporation, many of whom are in my constituency. Sadly, confidence in BBC management was already at a real low following revelations about the circumstances of Richard Sharp’s appointment as chairman. This week, members of the National Union of Journalists across the BBC in England will be taking strike action in defence of our local radio services. Does the Minister agree that the issues with the BBC are much more fundamental than just how presenters use social media? Will she join me in calling on Richard Sharp to resign so that trust in BBC impartiality can be restored?
Julia Lopez
The hon. Lady talks of BBC staff in her constituency. They signed contracts and are aware of the standards to which they must adhere, because impartiality is so fundamental to the organisation, its future success and the trust in which the public hold it. As an organisation, the BBC strives to adhere to those principles, so I suspect there is a conversation happening between staff at every level as to whether consistent standards are being applied to the professional terms to which they all signed up.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
The way in which the BBC has reacted over the last week or so has been nothing short of appalling. Does the Minister agree that the BBC needs to set clear rules, rather than guidance, on what is expected from its presenters, particularly high-profile presenters—erring on the side of caution rather than encouraging political commentary —and that the BBC should not be pushed around by privileged and overpaid elites?
Julia Lopez
I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments. The Serota review was designed to do just that: to make sure there are very clear guidelines to which BBC employees sign up, and to make sure people undertake impartiality training when they take on roles within the BBC. The Serota review also talks about the importance of making sure those standards apply no matter a person’s seniority, profile or role. There are questions for the BBC to answer on the application of those standards in this case.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
The only disaster this weekend has been for the BBC, given the despicable way in which it handled the Gary Lineker affair and then caved in to this man and his friends who rallied around him. Does the Minister agree that the BBC has shown once again that, because of its inherent bias, it is impossible for it to be impartial? It is now time we no longer forced people to finance the BBC through the licence fee, especially when the BBC takes 1,000 people a week, 70% of them women, to court for refusing to pay this poll tax on propaganda.
Julia Lopez
The right hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the importance of impartiality to the trust in which licence fee payers hold the organisation, and its importance to the future of the licence fee, not least because fewer people are now paying the licence fee—we are concerned the public are losing support for the licence fee. Fundamentally, the way in which people consume television is changing very rapidly, and we need to make sure the BBC has a sustainable future.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
I support the right to free speech and the BBC’s public service broadcasting principles. I think we need a public service broadcaster, and I support a licence fee to pay for it, but full impartiality is required for a public service broadcaster to be trusted. Whatever people say about Gary Lineker’s comments, whether they are right or wrong, they cannot argue that his comments are not political, as yesterday’s debate showed. Does my hon. Friend agree the BBC needs to ensure that it has strict rules in place on impartiality, and that it applies those rules evenly? If a person works for the BBC, whether as an employee or as a contractor, they should have to follow the same rules.
Julia Lopez
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance of impartiality. The BBC already has a set of rules on that but, in the light of this incident, it is also looking at how social media is governed and making sure that the organisation is adhering to those principles and that the guidance is working as it should.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
Whatever review is undertaken now, Richard Sharp is currently the chair of the BBC. The specifications say that one of his responsibilities is the “delivery of impartiality” at the corporation. Does the Minister have any confidence that, in his current situation, Richard Sharp can properly undertake that role?
Julia Lopez
Richard Sharp was appointed in a transparent way. There are obviously concerns about—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. There is a bit too much shouting as soon as the Minister or others say anything. Can we just listen to the answers?
Julia Lopez
From my Department’s perspective, the appointment was undertaken to the letter. There have since been events that have come to light that we need to investigate, and those things are being investigated. On Mr Sharp’s ability to do the role, as I have mentioned, it is possible to hold political views and be appointed to that role. That has been the case over many years and across different flavours of Government. The question is whether that person carries out their role in an apolitical and impartial way, and I believe there is currently a BBC review as to whether those duties are being carried out in that way.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
Impartiality is public purpose No. 1 of the royal charter, which I helped to negotiate in 2016. Given that guidelines simply do not work, may I suggest the setting up of an independent adjudicating body for impartiality, alongside Ofcom, given that the BBC receives £5 billion a year, largely through the licence taxpayer, and that last year out of the 430,000 complaints made to the BBC only 325 were dealt with and only 14 fully upheld?
Julia Lopez
I thank my hon. Friend for not only his question, but the way in which he has engaged with me over the mid-term review. I know he has a number of ideas as to how the governance and regulations of the BBC need to be changed. I look forward to engaging with him further on the mid-term review. He is right that it is looking at the complaints system, but also at editorial standards and impartiality, and I hope that we can continue to engage on these matters.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
The BBC has some brilliant journalists and staff, who work hard to make it the world’s leading public service broadcaster, but the decision to remove Gary Lineker from the air at the weekend just demonstrates its fear of this Government; it bowed to their pressure. However, the real focus should be on the BBC chair, who is a Tory donor, arranged for a loan for the former Prime Minister and is a friend of the current Prime Minister. Surely he has eroded trust and confidence in the BBC. Could the Minister say whether she agrees and whether his position is tenable?
Julia Lopez
I believe I have already answered that question, but I reiterate that no pressure was applied on the BBC by Ministers and that having political links to a party does not preclude someone from taking on a role within the BBC—it is about how they dispense their obligations within that role.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
What role do the Government have in ensuring that the BBC delivers for the audiences it serves? Will the Minister join me please in pressing the BBC to look again at its shocking decision to close the 99-year-old choir, the BBC Singers?
Julia Lopez
On some of the musical operations the BBC currently funds, I know that this matter is causing a lot of alarm and concern. As my hon. Friend will appreciate, it is not for me to set out to the BBC how it should spend licence fee payers’ money, but it does have certain duties upon it to deliver cultural good. The matter of the BBC Singers is still open to staff consultation and I encourage staff who are concerned about these changes to fully engage with that consultation.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
I trust, or I hope, that I am seen to be fair-minded in this place. First, the Minister has said that she will not instruct Richard Sharp to go, but does she accept that his continuation, his lingering on, as chair does nothing for the reputation of the BBC, and that he should reflect on his position and consider accordingly? Secondly, although she claims that the process of his appointment was transparent, many of us in this place, including many Conservative Members, feel that it was very far from that indeed and should be looked into.
Julia Lopez
The process, from a DCMS perspective, was fully transparent. We followed the process to the letter and that process was subsequently approved in a hearing by the Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Things have subsequently come to light that are under investigation, and I am afraid that I cannot comment on that investigation.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
I understand that an independent expert has been appointed by the BBC to review social media guidance, particularly in relation to freelancers. Does the Minister agree that it is important that those who are paid vast sums by the taxpayer and are widely perceived to be BBC presenters do not avoid paying taxes and disregard impartiality guidelines by hiding behind freelancer status? Does she also agree that until that review is completed, somebody such as Gary Lineker must continue to follow the existing guidelines, which means refraining from politics? Monitoring of his social media account over the past 24 hours, as he retweets The New European and Alastair Campbell, would make interesting reading.
Julia Lopez
It is incredibly important that the BBC is left to conduct its social media review in a way that allows it to bring clarity, particularly on this question of freelancers versus people who are paid employees. As the highest paid employee, Mr Lineker will, understandably, be held to account for his views by the licence fee payer, and that is difficult to ignore as an issue relevant to whether the BBC is impartial.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
The BBC prepared a statement to be read out on “Question Time” last week in the event that the assault by Stanley Johnson on his wife was raised by one of the panellists. That statement said that Stanley Johnson had not commented but that a friend had said that the incident did take place
“but it was a one-off”.
The BBC had time to consider that statement; it was a pre-prepared statement put in front of the chair of the panel. What on earth was in their heads when they agreed that? Who benefited most from it—was it the Conservative party or those women who have suffered domestic violence?
Julia Lopez
Without knowing the full details of the statement—[Interruption.] I am afraid that I do not know the statement to which the hon. Gentleman refers. The only commentary I have seen on this matter was on whether Fiona Bruce had behaved professionally, which, from my reading of the situation, she had.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
On duties of impartiality, it is important that BBC presenters, who have such a wide audience, make statements that are correct. Whatever people’s views on Gary Lineker, he did, in a tweet last December, in effect praise a Hamas terrorist who had been involved in the murder of two Jewish pilgrims to a tomb. He did not apologise when that was pointed out and he still has not done so. The key point here is: they can say what they like, as long as they get it right, and if they are wrong, they should apologise.
Julia Lopez
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. I was not aware of that case, but some of these questions will, we hope, be resolved by the social media review that the BBC is undertaking. We hope they will give clarity about the rules to which its presenters must adhere.
Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)
The BBC chairman, Richard Sharp, donated £400,000 to the Conservatives and helped the former Prime Minister on an £800,000 loan. The BBC director-general, Tim Davie, is a former Conservative candidate, and the BBC board includes Robbie Gibb, a former aide to a Conservative Prime Minister. The BBC has allowed presenters such as Jeremy Clarkson to say that he wanted to shoot striking workers, Andrew Neil to be chairman of the Conservative magazine The Spectator and Alan Sugar to encourage people to vote for the Conservatives, but it has not allowed Gary Lineker to criticise inhumane Conservative policy. Is it not time for not only the resignations of the BBC chairman and director-general, but BBC reform, with the Government no longer appointing its leadership?
Julia Lopez
I simply repeat that, as the hon. Lady will be aware, previous Governments have appointed to senior positions in the BBC people who have declared political activity. That does not preclude a person taking a position; it is not prohibited under the rules. Once appointed, all board members are required to adhere to the code of conduct, and as far as I am aware, Mr Sharp has done so.
Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)
When working as a BBC journalist in the south-west, I was acutely aware of the rules on the use of social media and I saw swift action being taken by BBC management when others forgot their duty of impartiality. These rules are critically important for a broadcaster that relies on the licence fee, and they must be crystal clear for everyone. Does my hon. Friend agree that the BBC must now be given space to conduct its review of social media guidelines?
Julia Lopez
I agree that the BBC should be given space to carry out the review and to set out clear guidelines. The Serota review made it crystal clear that seniority, profile or role do not exempt anyone from having the rules applied to them, and I think that is something that needs to be teased out in this review.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
The behaviour of the Tories in the past week has been shameful and reprehensible. In fact, they remind me of the black-headed gulls harassing that puffin in David Attenborough’s “Wild Isles”, but it is just not working. Fifty per cent. of Britons have a positive view of Gary Lineker compared with 30% who do not, whereas only 25% of UK voters would vote for the Conservative party if there was an election tomorrow. I know the Minister will never become the host of “Match of the Day”—nor will any of her Back-Bench colleagues—but who does she think would win if Gary Lineker went head to head with her in an election tomorrow?
Julia Lopez
I think I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, but I am not entirely sure what his point was. I have no response beyond saying that there was no attempt to interfere politically with the way in which Gary Lineker’s case was handled.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
I worked for the BBC for seven years, both as a member of staff and as a freelancer. Impartiality was absolutely core to me professionally and personally. Nobody knew how I voted or what I thought politically. I accept that that was before the era of social media, but what that means is that impartiality is even more needed now because fake news is rife in our society. People do not just get their opinions from what they see on the news; they form their judgments and knowledge based on a wide variety of people and personalities. That means that this is a very significant issue. Having said all that, does my hon. Friend agree that ensuring and guaranteeing impartiality must be the responsibility of the broadcasters themselves, and that it is incumbent on BBC senior management now to resolve this case as quickly as they can and to make sure that BBC guidelines are fit for purpose and for the era in which we all live?
Julia Lopez
I thank my hon. Friend for his commentary, especially given his experience as a former BBC employee. His contributions in this regard are always valuable. He is absolutely right: impartiality is core to the purpose of the BBC and fundamental to the trust in which it is held; it underpins the social compact on which the licence fee rests. I am sure that that is fundamentally respected by the vast majority of BBC staff, many of whom will be asking why the rules that apply to them are not always applied consistently to everyone in the organisation.
Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
British broadcasting is the best in the world. Considering we are a relatively small country, we do phenomenally well in managing to sell our product to the rest of the world. Broadcasting is a mixed economy, and to me, having the BBC funded by licence fee payers, providing something for everybody because it is paid for by everybody, is absolutely essential to ensuring that we maintain that pre-eminence in the world.
Yes, trust is at the heart of it. I too used to work for the BBC. I worked quite closely with a former Conservative chairman of the BBC, Sir Christopher Bland. A very fine man, he would never have allowed this moment to arrive, because he would have known that if he had expressed any political opinions personally, it would have undermined the position of the BBC; and if he had failed to reveal something about his relationship to the Government when he was appointed by a Conservative Government, that would have undermined the BBC. I am absolutely sure that if Sir Christopher Bland had been in the situation that Richard Sharp is in today, he would have resigned by now, because he knew that the BBC was more important than him.
My real worry is that I understand that the Prime Minister has now said that he wants the review into Richard Sharp’s appointment, which the Minister has referred to several times today, to be kicked into the long grass. That is my understanding. Can the Minister tell us when the review will come to a conclusion? At the moment, Richard Sharp remaining at the BBC is bringing the whole of the BBC into disrepute.
Julia Lopez
I thank the hon. Gentleman for sharing his experience as a former BBC employee. He is absolutely right that in a world of fake news, trust is the BBC’s currency, and one that we should protect. As I mentioned, the FCDO has given additional funding for some of the BBC’s important operations around the world. He is also right to say that people should leave their political opinions at the door when they seek to engage. As far as I am aware, Mr Sharp has not sought to be a politically active person on the board, but as I said, having political opinions and involvement do not preclude an individual being appointed to the board. The hon. Gentleman talks about the Prime Minister trying to delay the process. That is not true. The process is not in the gift of the Prime Minister. We await the timetable as the hon. Gentleman does.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
The self-inflicted chaos of the last few days and the BBC’s apparent unwillingness to enforce its own impartiality rules have made it a laughing stock. It is clear that it is now overpaid sports presenters, rather than executives, who are truly calling the shots. Many of my constituents have long regarded the BBC licence fee as a regressive, decades-old and out-of-date tax. Is it not time that we had a grown-up conversation about its future?
Julia Lopez
My hon. Friend raises questions about the future of the licence fee. We will examine these questions in advance of the next charter, in 2027. As I mentioned, it is not just a question whether the licence fee still has support; it is a question whether it is sustainable, as the way we watch media changes fundamentally. We need to make sure the BBC can keep up and maintain the consent of those who watch its services.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
For several months, many Putney journalist residents have been contacting me about the erosion of the BBC’s impartiality by of the merger of BBC World News and BBC News, which is being soft-launched this month. It will be mainly a world news channel, cutting UK news and Government scrutiny by over 80 hours a week. Is this a commercial decision or a political one? Will the Minister say whether there has been indirect or direct pressure on the BBC to reduce its BBC UK news coverage?
Julia Lopez
The notion that the Government have instructed the BBC to reduce its news content is pretty wide of the mark. How the BBC organises its services is a matter for the BBC. What we care about is that services are delivered impartially and to a very high quality. As I say, it is not for us to determine.
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)
I have to say, I did not see the revolution starting with Gary Lineker and “Match of the Day”, but I am absolutely here for it. Major respect to Gary Lineker and those at the BBC who have stood up to what most of us, including the dogs on the street, can see is a grossly inhuman policy that shames us all. Does the Minister agree that it is rank hypocrisy to have a go at Gary Lineker when we have BBC broadcasters like Tam Cowan, who put out a reel of women injuring themselves on International Women’s Day, going unchecked? There is clearly no level playing field.
Julia Lopez
Whether there is a level playing field between different employees of the BBC is a matter for the BBC to determine.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The BBC is losing connection with the licence fee payer because the Government chose to compromise its independence with the appointment of Richard Sharp, but on the Minister’s watch they have also slashed the BBC World Service and halved BBC local radio, forcing staff out on strike tomorrow. In addition, over the weekend we saw a surreal situation and chaos over sport being taken off air just because someone dared to speak truth to power. What steps will she take to ensure that the public’s priorities are restored at the BBC and that freedom of speech is never dumbed down?
Julia Lopez
I have to challenge the hon. Lady: we have not slashed services at the BBC. The BBC has a guaranteed income over the next few years of £3.8 billion a year. She seems to be suggesting that we should have had a different financial settlement for the BBC at a time of tremendous financial pressure on households. We were not willing to do that.
Building Safety
(1 year, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Michael Gove)
With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to update the House on the progress the Government have made in securing commitments from developers to remediate properties with building safety defects. Last year, the major house builders signed a pledge to fix all the medium or high-rise buildings that they had built or refurbished that were unsafe. The developers also promised to reimburse the taxpayer for work already undertaken at Government expense.
This Parliament has always been clear that those with ultimate responsibility for those buildings should bear the cost of remediation. Innocent leaseholders, who are neither responsible for safety defects nor equipped with the resources to fix the problem, should not be on the hook. Those who are responsible must pay. We have worked with developers to draw up a contract that gives direct effect to the pledge that they made. I was and remain grateful to those developers who have been so keen to live up to those obligations, and I am particularly grateful to Stewart Baseley of the Home Builders Federation for his skilful work in supporting the commitments made.
We published the legal contract on 30 January this year, and I gave an initial cohort of developers six weeks to confirm that they accepted the list of buildings for which they take responsibility and then to sign the contract. That deadline expired yesterday. I can confirm that 39 developers have signed the contract. We have published a list of those developers on gov.uk and hard copies of the list have been shared with the Vote Office. By signing the contracts, those developers have committed to fixing at least 1,100 buildings. They will invest more than £2 billion in that work—money saved for the taxpayer and invested in giving leaseholders a brighter future. I thank those developers for their hard work and co-operation in helping us to right the wrongs of the past. They are making significant financial commitments and I am grateful to them.
Leaseholders who have been waiting for work to be done to make their building safe will quite rightly want that work to start without delay. I know that those responsible developers who have signed the contract understand that expectation and will be in touch with leaseholders to set out the programme of expected works as soon as possible. I take the opportunity once again to apologise to those leaseholders and others who have waited so long for this work to be done. While there is still much to do, I hope today shows that their campaigning and that of so many hon. Members has not been in vain. While the overwhelming majority of major developers have signed, some regrettably have not. Parliament has made clear what that means, and so have I. Those companies will be out of the house building business in England entirely unless and until they change their course. Next week I will publish key features of our new responsible actors scheme, a means of ensuring that only those committed to building safety will be allowed to build in future.
Those developers who have been invited to sign the remediation contract, but who have not agreed to live up to their responsibilities, will not be eligible to join the responsible actors scheme. They will not be able to commence new developments in England or receive building control approval for work already under way. The House should note that the companies invited to sign the remediation contract who have not yet lived up to their responsibilities are Abbey Developments, Avant, Ballymore, Dandara, Emerson Group (Jones Homes), Galliard Homes, Inland Homes, Lendlease, London Square, Rydon Homes and Telford Homes.
While my officials remain in discussions with several who are making progress towards signing, I am concerned that some companies do not appreciate the grave nature of the responsibility they bear. I hope the directors of those firms will now exercise the same level of responsibility as the leaders of the building industry. The reluctance so far of some companies to sign up only underlines the need for the responsible actors scheme. It will ensure that there are consequences for developers who wish to be, at the moment, neither answerable nor accountable.
I will take other steps to ensure that companies live up to their responsibilities. I will be writing to major investors in those firms to explain the commercial implications of their directors’ current decisions. I will write to local authorities and building inspectors to explain that those developers’ projects may not be started or signed off. I will notify public bodies to be prepared to reopen tender award processes or rerun competitions. House buyers will want to know what that means for them, and we will formally set out the risks involved in purchasing homes from companies that have chosen to ignore the prospect of prohibitions.
I accept that the course of action that I have set out today is a significant intervention in the market for any Government, but the magnitude of the crisis that we faced and the depth of the suffering for all those affected clearly justified a radical approach. To their credit, the leaders of the development industry have willingly accepted the need for action. The vast majority of developers, as we should all appreciate, have made undertakings to the British public to put right the wrongs of the past. I am glad we can now work together with leaders in the industry on making sure that we deliver more safe, affordable, decent homes for the country.
As those developers have rightly argued, we in Government will also do more to pursue freeholders who have yet to live up to their responsibilities and construction product manufacturers, who also bear heavy responsibility for unsafe buildings. I will have more to say on that in the days and weeks to come. For the many thousands of people whose lives have been blighted by the failure properly to address building safety in the past, today’s update brings us one more step closer to at last resolving the issue, and for that reason I commend the statement to the House.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. We want to see every developer sign the remediation contract and urgently move to fix the unsafe buildings and free leaseholders who have been trapped for too long. Throughout this process, we have supported steps to speed that up and provide support to leaseholders. In that spirit, I welcome the statement and I do not doubt the Secretary of State’s sincerity in dealing with this problem, nor the deeply held convictions on all sides of the House.
However, I fear that the collective will of this House to see that done is being damaged by what appears to be an increasingly dysfunctional approach from the Government. Last week the Secretary of State was on social media threatening major house builders with a nationwide ban if they failed to sign up to the contract within a matter of days. He is 100% right to say the developers should pay, but it undermines his case when his own Department had not even managed to send the contract to them.
That really matters, because until builders sign, leaseholder groups remain in limbo. They need more than tough talk; they need clarity and competence. For the 10 developers who signed the initial pledge but not the contract, which as the Secretary of State rightly says includes Galliard Homes, Ballymore and—shamefully, given its role in Grenfell—Rydon Homes, will he be using the powers at his disposal to designate the developers who cannot be granted planning permission? Crucially, can he tell us from when?
The Secretary of State is right to say this is a step forward, but there are many more steps to go. Leaseholders need not another deadline, but real action and hope on the horizon. Can he spell out exactly what this action will mean for developments that have already begun under those developers and that have already received planning consent? Will he be using the powers at his disposal to issue remediation orders to force them to fix their buildings in the meantime? Can he also tell us whether the 39 who have signed the contract will be obliged to fix all critical fire safety defects, as defined by the Building Safety Act 2022, and what will happen if they do not? There is a gap between the contract and the Act, and we need to make sure that the cost of that gap is not borne by leaseholders.
The contract, the Secretary of State says, will cover over 1,000 buildings. Given that his own Department has estimated that there are between 6,000 and 9,000 unsafe 11 to 18-metre buildings alone, it clearly only deals with a fraction of the problem. How does he plan to assist leaseholders in buildings with defects that are outside the scope of the contract in getting them remediated? Remediation remains painfully slow—something he knows and has rightly acknowledged—but the contract stipulates only that repairs and remediation must be carried out
“as soon as reasonably practicable”.
Again, I push him for hard timescales and deadlines.
On the issue of who is responsible, may I again ask the Secretary of State why British house builders are being asked to pay, while foreign developers and the companies that made the materials used in affected buildings are still not? That is a basic question of justice.
We should all be moving heaven and earth to right this wrong, yet the House of Lords Committee that scrutinised amendments to the Building Safety (Leaseholder Protections) (England) Regulations 2022 found that that instrument contained an unintentional drafting error that excluded parent and sister companies from being considered as associated with the landlord. That meant that landlords could avoid the £2 million net worth threshold above which they must not pass on to leaseholders costs for repairing historical defects. Despite that error as a result of a mistake at the Secretary of State’s Department, no compensation has been forthcoming for leaseholders who have had to pay remediation costs, and no plans are in place to alert those leaseholders to the possibility of applying to a tribunal to seek cost recovery. What is the Department doing to identify affected leaseholders and inform them that an appeal route to recover costs is available to them?
Finally, I say to the Secretary of State that there is, I think, cross-party agreement now that this is not the only issue for leaseholders. Leasehold is a feudal system that has no place in a modern society. It is time that we ended—abolished—the scandal of leasehold once and for all, and ended the misery for the far too many people who are trapped in that feudal system. Labour appreciates what he has done to move this desperate situation forward, but it remains in his gift to fix it once and for all, and we would fail in our duty if we did not take every opportunity to urge him to do so.
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the thoughtful and detailed way in which she has responded to the announcement, and for the support from her and colleagues across the House for the work that we have undertaken.
The hon. Lady asks about contracts and the speed with which they have been signed. Again, just to inform her and the House, we ensured that developers were given a copy of the contract on 30 January, when it was published. A final version was sent to developers with minor alterations on 21 February. The execution version of the contract depended on the developers themselves providing the Department with a list of affected buildings, so it was the work of developers, not of the Department, that led to the late signing of contracts, but I am grateful to all who have now signed.
The hon. Lady asks about the responsible actors scheme, when it will be implemented and the effect it will have. We will lay details of the responsible actors scheme next week. I want to allow some of the 11 who have not yet signed a little leeway to ensure that they live up to their responsibilities. The letters that I have written to the directors of the companies concerned will, I think, help to concentrate their minds to ensure that they have a chance to sign before we lay the responsible actors scheme details next week.
The hon. Lady asks if the powers in the 2022 Act will be used for those who will not have signed by that time. They absolutely will. She asks if we will fix all critical features. All life-critical features in medium and high-rise buildings will be addressed by developers. It is the case that with buildings under 11 metres, there are some fire safety issues, but we have to look at them case by case—some will be life-critical; some will not. Our cladding safety scheme, which addresses mid-rise buildings specifically—those between 11 and 18 metres—should, I hope, deal with the delay, which she rightly points out, in dealing with the fire safety issue for that crucial section of our housing sector.
The hon. Lady makes the point about foreign developers and the need to tackle them, and I quite agree with her. It is important that we use all the tools in our power, and we are exploring sanctions, criminal options and others. The one thing that I would say is that there is one jurisdiction—not a foreign jurisdiction but an adjacent one—where action has not been taken to deal with some of those responsible, and that, of course, is Wales. I ask her to work with me to ensure that the Welsh Labour Government take appropriate steps to deal with the situation in Wales. We stand ready to work with them and with all parties in that regard.
The hon. Lady also asks about the need to abolish the invidious and feudal system of leasehold. As someone who was born in Scotland—mercifully, a country free from that system—I can say only that this is one area where I hope that England at last catches up with one part of the United Kingdom that is, in that respect at least, more progressive.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I declare an interest in having a leasehold property—although I have no problems with it—and I also have minor shares in some building companies so that I can get at their boards when necessary.
I thank the Secretary of State for his continuing work. May I reinforce a question asked from the Labour Front Bench: how many buildings beyond the 1,100 still need a way forward? Can we agree that leaseholders and others want to know that their own homes are safe and saleable? We know that the task is to find the problems, fix them and pay for them.
I put it to the Secretary of State that the one group that seems to be left out of this is that of the insurance companies who covered the developers, the architects, the builders, the component suppliers and, for that matter, those who did building control. I believe that leaseholders’ potential claims need to be put together, and that we need to get the insurance companies round the table and say that the surplus money will come from them, or else they can have expensive litigation backed by a Government agency, which they will lose.
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the Father of the House, who has been indefatigable in his efforts on behalf of those affected by this crisis and of leaseholders more broadly. I should say, for his benefit and that of the House and the Opposition, that developers will be updating leaseholders on progress towards remediation quarterly on 31 January, 31 April, 31 July and 31 October each year—that will be public accountability.
I should also say for the benefit of my hon. Friend and the House that 96% of the most dangerous buildings—those with aluminium composite material cladding—have either completed or started remediation work. There are other high-rise buildings with other forms of unsafe cladding—1,208 such buildings. They are in the building safety fund. More than 350 of those buildings have now been addressed, and more than £1.7 billion of Government money has gone towards making those buildings safe. Progress, but not at the pace that either of us would have liked. His point about insurance companies is well made, and I will follow up subsequently.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. I have a couple of quick questions.
On the developers who have not signed, the Secretary of State is obviously talking about the situation in England. Does he intend to share that information with the devolved Administrations? Those companies may have interests in devolved areas.
What happens if a non-compliant building has defects that extend beyond fire performance matters? Further defects are often discovered only after the opening works have commenced and cladding has been removed—I am thinking particularly of acoustic and thermal non-compliance. Could the Secretary of State tell us which independent bodies will manage the work to identify such defects, and how will developers be held to account for them?
Finally, what is the Secretary of State’s plan when owners and/or developers of non-compliant buildings cannot be traced?
Michael Gove
We will certainly share information with the devolved Administrations. As I mentioned briefly, we want to work with the Welsh Government, and indeed with the Scottish Government, to ensure that everyone is in a safe building and that businesses that are not operating in accordance with their responsibilities cannot wriggle out of their responsibilities. I look forward to working with the new First Minister—whoever she is—in due course to achieve progress.
On non-compliant buildings, the hon. Gentleman is certainly right that, as we replace cladding, new faults are sometimes identified. Developers have a responsibility to deal with those if they were the original responsible actor. That brings me to his third question. Where it is not a developer who takes responsibility but a freeholder, our recovery strategy unit is working to identify all the freeholders responsible. It is only in the very last instance that leaseholders may be liable for costs, and even then, they are firmly capped under legislation that this House passed.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Given the shortage of capacity, what steps are the Government taking to encourage more businesses and people to come forward to provide good-quality building and construction work?
Michael Gove
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. We need to ensure that we have in the development sector, and indeed in the building safety sector, a range of companies and actors determined to do the right thing. Some of the changes that we are making—to the national planning policy framework, for example, and other steps that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will announce in due course—are designed to ensure that we have a diverse and energetic private sector market helping consumers and leaseholders.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. Clearly, any progress in this matter is welcome for the leaseholders who are still sat there, wondering when something is going to happen to their unsafe homes. The Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), is coming to the Select Committee next Monday. I apologise in advance that, for personal reasons, I cannot be there, but I am sure the scrutiny will be just as effective under the oversight of the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman).
A number of issues have been raised with the Select Committee. First, in terms of the agreement that developers are signing, it was said to us that the remediation standards developers will have to work to will not be as strict as those under the Building Safety Act. Can the Secretary of State confirm whether that is true? Secondly, the Committee spoke to product manufacturers the other week, who said that they had had no contact with the Department for the last 12 months. Is that true, and if so, when will that contact be renewed, so that they can be held to account?
Finally, the Minister says, “I’m going to look at this” every time I ask him. Kate Henderson of the National Housing Federation told the Committee on Monday that the cost of remediating these matters will be £6 billion for social housing providers. They have only had a tiny bit of money under the ACM cladding measures. Will the Secretary of State look at that again? Otherwise, there will be cutbacks to the house building programme that they all want to engage in.
Michael Gove
I thank the Chairman of the Select Committee for his questions. I note his apology for not being able to be there to cross examine my hon. Friend the Minister for local government and building safety next Monday. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) will do a brilliant job. They are the Morse and Lewis of—
Michael Gove
Well, quite. I know that they will show endeavour in asking the right questions.
On remediation standards, I do not believe it is the case that the developers are being held to any less high a standard than that which exists in the Building Safety Act, but I look forward to working with the hon. Gentleman and others to identify any gap between what the Act makes provision for and anything that developers have committed to do.
It is the case that I have not been in touch with the Construction Products Association as a corporate body for a while. We have been pursuing individual construction product companies, but of course, our actions have to take account of the actions of others who may be pursuing them for criminal activity and liability.
On the hon. Gentleman’s point about the National Housing Federation, I have been in conversations with the Chancellor of the Exchequer about what more we can do to support the social housing sector. How richly those conversations bear fruit, we will have to see.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
The Secretary of State is well aware of the situation with Cardinal Lofts. Today at 10 minutes past two, a formal prohibition notice was served, so any remaining constituents of mine in that building will be obliged to leave. One of the worst things is the lack of timescale for how long my constituents will be in limbo. They cannot plan their lives—their lives are on hold. Will the Secretary of State work with me to try to get that certainty as soon as possible and look into compensation that goes beyond covering temporary accommodation? The extent to which their lives has been affected is unacceptable. He will also know that Railpen was aware of these issues for two years before it decided to take any action at all.
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is right, and he has been a fantastic champion for the residents of Cardinal Lofts and other people affected by this. I think I am right in saying that Railpen is the ultimate owner of the freehold for this building. It is the pension fund for those who work in the rail sector. There are good trade unionists on the board of that pension fund to whom I appeal to show the same degree of energy in helping working people as my hon. Friend. While pension funds of course have fiduciary responsibilities and all the rest of it, it is vital that we do right by the residents of this building. I hope I will have the chance to visit Ipswich soon, to make good on that commitment.
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for his care in this matter, but I still have hundreds of constituents who are in financial limbo and mental turmoil because of safety problems that are not of their making. Frankly, West Ham is a building site at the moment. Stratford, West Ham, Plaistow and Canning Town all have major building contracts ongoing. If the developers are not on the “goodie” list of those who have signed the right bits of paper, what happens to that development and the oversight of it? I know that my constituents would want me to ask this: what will he be able to do for those who have not been fully covered by the remediation contract?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for standing up so well for her constituents, as she always does. Actions have to have consequences. The overwhelming majority of developers have done the right thing by signing this contract. It would be wrong for anyone who has wriggled out of their responsibilities to be allowed to continue to make a profit when others are shouldering these responsibilities. It is the case that if a company is not on, as she puts it, the goodie list, that will be it—development will have to pause, and we will make sure that their shareholders and investors pay the price for the irresponsibility of their directors.
On the broader point, if the hon. Lady, on behalf of her constituents, would like to get in touch with my Department and, in particular, our recovery strategy unit, there may well be developments or buildings in her constituency that are not covered by this where there are freeholders or other people responsible whom we need to track down. We look forward to working with her.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend on the progress he is making. Leaseholders are the most important people we have to look after. There will be people who have paid out huge sums of money to companies that are on the goodie list of those who signed this contract. They will want to know what happens to them. There will be people who have received estimates for huge amounts of money they are expected to pay. What happens to them? Most importantly, there are leaseholders who reside in buildings the developers of which we do not know and are not covered by this. Will my right hon. Friend set out the position for those people and give us a guarantee that, if we cannot trace the developers, the Government will step in and put this right for the people who live in these properties?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. One thing that I was aware of before doing this job but have become clearer on since is that there are actors in the property market operating in the UK who hide behind opaque corporate structures, operate offshore and set up special purpose vehicles in order to get building done and then disappear from their responsibilities afterwards. That is why we set up the recovery strategy unit, and it is no criticism of any of our predecessors, because we have not faced a situation quite like this before. The whole purpose of the recovery strategy unit is to identify the ultimate beneficial owner of the building who should take responsibility. Developers who are operating as responsible plcs have all signed this contract. That is great and a real step forward, but there is still more to do.
On the point about leaseholders, we have a system that we have legislated on—it is not perfect, but it is a big step forward—which means there is a cap on the individual liability of any leaseholder, and the taxpayer has committed significant sums. I think—and I suspect this is a view shared across the House—that the building safety crisis shines a light on sharp practice by a small minority of people in the broader property sector that we need to take several steps to deal with, including improved land transparency legislation and other steps that will ensure we do not have a butler economy in this country, whereby people operating in the property sector put profit ahead of people.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I need to reiterate that I can only call Members who arrived at the beginning of the statement. It is the responsibility of Members to make sure they get here in time to hear the Secretary of State’s statement from the beginning. I assure Members that I and the other Deputy Speakers are even-handed about this.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
I very much welcome this statement, but I want to ask the Secretary of State about people living in buildings under 11 metres. The Government were not prepared to extend full coverage to them but said they would look at those buildings on a case-by-case basis—a commitment that the Secretary of State repeated this afternoon. Could he tell us how that is going? How many of those buildings have had assistance? What criteria are he and his colleagues using in deciding where to offer help? Does it include, for example, cases where the developers or builders went bust years ago? Does it include buildings where the leaseholders still cannot sell their flats because mortgage companies will not lend on them, despite the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors advice?
Michael Gove
The right hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. In most cases, a building under 11 metres which might, for example, have cladding on it, or might have some of the materials that in other circumstances would be systemically unsafe, does not have safety risk. We need to look proportionately at each building, and that takes time. Thanks to the energetic efforts of the Minister for building safety, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire, we have reached agreement with a majority of lenders, which are now lending against properties, because through the engagement we have had with them, there is now a more proportionate way of deciding whether or not to lend against those buildings. As we have discussed in the past, however, let us look at individual cases, and if constituency cases and examples have come to light that the right hon. Gentleman feels are not captured by the steps we have taken so far, I look forward to working with him to address them.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and the progress he is making on this issue, but action is still needed to address what has become a two-tier system of building safety support for leaseholders. As has already been mentioned, leaseholders in Battersea who reside in buildings under 11 metres or in a development that has become an enfranchised building do not qualify for the support for which other leaseholders rightly qualify. They feel abandoned by this Government. If the Government are looking at this issue on a case-by-case basis, I would love to understand a bit more how it will work, because I want to ensure that those leaseholders are getting the support they need.
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady makes a very important point. In the legislation, there is a category of non-qualifying leaseholders: people who have more than one property. We wanted to attempt to draw the line in order to ensure that, for example, significant investors—people with significant means—were not benefiting from a scheme that was designed for every man and woman, as it were. However, I have some constituents who are in the same boat as the hon. Lady’s, and we are looking at the situation to try to make sure that we do not have people at the margins who are being treated unfairly. I cannot make any promises at this stage, but the hon. Lady raises an important point, and we are aware of it.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
I address the right hon. Gentleman as a fellow Scot, and I welcome the new spirit of accord that there will surely be between himself and the new First Minister, whoever she or he is. As I drive through the right hon. Gentleman’s home city of Aberdeen, I see the high-rise flats. I do not know what condition those flats are in, but it occurs to me that a similar dialogue between a Scottish local authority such as Aberdeen City Council and a suitable one south of the border could be very constructive when sorting these problems out. Will the Secretary of State undertake to encourage that sort of co-operation?
Michael Gove
Yes. The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point, and he is absolutely right: co-operation between councils, between the UK Government and local authorities in devolved areas, and between the UK Government and devolved Administrations is the way forward. We all deserve Governments who are working together to resolve this issue. He makes a very good point: in Aberdeen, as well as in Dundee, Glasgow, Edinburgh and some other areas, there are high-rise buildings that are in precisely this situation. It would be a pleasure to work with the Lib Dem coalition council in Aberdeen to try to make sure that that council can benefit from the experience of local authorities in England.
Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
During the Secretary of State’s statement on 30 January, I asked about the problem of excessive insurance charges being imposed on leaseholders. He recognised the problem, and promised
“additional Financial Conduct Authority and Government co-ordinated action”—[Official Report, 30 January 2023; Vol. 727, c. 55.]
to address it. Can the Secretary of State update us on progress? By the way, he has not yet replied to my letter to him on this subject, dated 13 January.
Michael Gove
I apologise to the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee for the discourtesy. I will have a word with my private office team; it is my fault that he has not received a reply.
I hope to update the House shortly on the progress we are making with the FCA and others on insurance costs. When I made the statement last time around, I explained the steps we are taking with managing agents and intermediaries, but the right hon. Gentleman is right—as is the Father of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley)—that there are broader issues in the insurance market that we need to address.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
It is important that we see which developers have actually commenced or completed works, not just signed up to the contract. My understanding is that only 11 of the non-ACM buildings in England have been remediated and signed off, so will the Secretary of State publish a full list of the works that are under way from different developers?
Secondly, the Secretary of State made a bit of a gibe at Wales, but the reality is that we need to work together across the UK on this issue. What is he doing about the pipeline of contractors and surveyors? A remediation project in my constituency had to be stopped recently because a contractor was having an issue separately in England. This issue does not require gibing between the two Governments: it requires working together.
Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman makes two very important points. On the first, we will work with those who have signed the contract to publish an update on the work that has been done, and as I mentioned, we will share quarterly updates with the House and with everyone affected in order to hold developers to account. Given the willing heart with which most have signed, I am very confident that we will see good progress.
On the point about the situation in Wales, again, I always enjoy working with Ministers in the Welsh Government to achieve our common ends across the United Kingdom. I absolutely take the hon. Gentleman’s point in good part.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
Looking at the finer details of the developer contract that some developers have signed—I think the Secretary of State said 39 had done so—I see that it does not cover all the fire defects laid out in the Building Safety Act. Why is that, and who is going to pay for that work?
Michael Gove
That point has been made by other hon. and right hon. Members. I do believe that developers are living up to their responsibilities to deal with life-critical safety defects in medium and high-rise buildings, but as we have discussed, some buildings fall outside those categories. We are working on bespoke solutions for those.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
As the Secretary of State knows, not only are developers frustrating leaseholder rights. In response to his last statement, I raised the case of Mandale House in my constituency; leaseholders in Daisy Spring Works have the same, or a similar, problem. The common factor is the managing agents, Y&Y Management, which also has freehold interests. That company is not simply denying leaseholders their rights: it is doing so on the basis of challenging the legality of the Secretary of State’s own legislation. Those leaseholders do not have the resources to challenge Y&Y’s lawyers, so I have shared the relevant information with the Secretary of State’s Department. Can he reassure me that he will use all of the resources at his disposal to tackle Y&Y and ensure its leaseholders get the rights under the Building Safety Act that he intended?
Michael Gove
Absolutely. I want to be really fair to the hon. Member: he is doing the right thing. He has highlighted an abuse and has contacted the Department in a co-operative and detailed fashion. The Minister for Building Safety, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire, has been looking closely at that case. There is more that we can do, and I thank the hon. Member on behalf of his constituents for being tenacious in trying to get a good deal for them.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I have a Galliard development in my constituency, and my constituents will be concerned that Galliard has not signed. They would like to hear from the Secretary of State what that means for them. They have life-critical safety defects in the building, which is shocking, because that building construction was paused as a consequence of the tragedy at Grenfell, yet Galliard went on to develop a building that has those defects. What does today’s statement from the Secretary of State mean for my constituents who are waiting to hear from Galliard about the state of their buildings?
Michael Gove
This is a sad note on which to come to the conclusion of the statement, because Galliard is one of the companies that has been the most recalcitrant throughout, and I sympathise with the hon. Gentleman’s constituents. Other companies have done the right thing and have done so with a willing heart, but Galliard has held out—it has briefed against the Department and all the rest of it. Unless Galliard signs, it will face consequences, and its business model will be fundamentally challenged by the legislation that we in this House have passed. Ultimately, with a company such as Galliard whose owners, directors and investors are determined not to play ball, the consequences will come for it. I want to be clear with the hon. Member and this House that Galliard will face condign consequences if it does not act.
AUKUS Defence Partnership
(1 year, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Defence Procurement (Alex Chalk)
With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish to make a statement about the AUKUS defence partnership. Yesterday, the Prime Minister, standing alongside the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Australia, announced that our three nations would be jointly developing a conventionally armed—I stress that—nuclear-powered submarine, the SSN-AUKUS, which will come into service in the late 2030s.
Before I provide the House with more details about this landmark announcement, it might be beneficial for colleagues if I provide a brief summary of how we got here. For more than 60 years, the UK and the US have successfully collaborated on the development of nuclear submarines. This unprecedented co-operation goes to the very core of our special relationship. Currently, with the support of the United States, we have a fleet of five Astute-class submarines, with a further two boats to be built. These world-class vessels are an essential component of our defence and security apparatus in a more contested world.
More recently, Australia has also recognised the need for a stealthier and more enduring underwater capability to deter threats to the peace and stability of the Indo-Pacific. That is why back in September 2021, my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), while Prime Minister, announced to the House a pivotal new defence partnership involving the United States, Australia and the UK, otherwise known as AUKUS. The partnership involves two pillars: first, the joint development of a nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarine capability for Australia; and secondly, the creation of a suite of complementary technologies, among them hypersonics and cyber. It is the first of those pillars that I wish to focus on today.
For the past 18 months, we have been working closely with our trilateral counterparts to understand Australia’s requirements, to make a detailed technical assessment and to set out the optimal pathway for delivering this unique platform. As the Prime Minister said last night, this scoping period has now concluded and a solution has been identified.
The SSN-AUKUS will be based on the design for the UK’s Astute-class submarine replacement, SSN(R), which has been under development for several years. SSN-AUKUS will build on these firm foundations by incorporating cutting-edge US submarine technology, including the propulsion plant, combat systems and conventional weapons, but this boat will not just be of benefit to the Royal Australian Navy. It is now clear to us that the SSN-AUKUS, which is an evolution of SSN(R), should now become the UK’s future platform as well, providing the future attack submarine requirement for the Royal Navy as well as the Royal Australian Navy.
As yesterday’s refreshed integrated review underlines, we are having to contend with an increasingly volatile and complex environment, with multiple adversaries seeking to undermine our rules-based international order. In response, the deepening of our defence partnership offers three distinct advantages. First, it bolsters our undersea capability. It will give us the ability to deter future threats in the underwater battlespace, to protect our nuclear deterrent and our vital sea lines of communication and to fulfil a range of military tasks, including anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare, land attack and intelligence gathering.
Secondly, AUKUS will bring a truly global and interoperable capability for our nations that is not just capable of operating in the Indo-Pacific, but strengthens our contribution to NATO in Europe. It will enable us to operate in the high north, where the impact of climate change is opening new military and commercial shipping access to the north Atlantic, and it will ensure that three like-minded nations with shared interests on the global stage can work together even more closely.
Thirdly, and finally, AUKUS helps us share the burden of research and development costs, not just giving us access to some of the most advanced technology on the planet, but allowing us to integrate our supply chains and provide greater resilience at a time of growing resource costs and inflationary pressures. It will also open up further opportunities for technology sharing and interoperability across the defence context.
The first SSN-AUKUS for the Royal Navy will be built in the United Kingdom and delivered in the late 2030s, taking full advantage of our many decades of experience in building nuclear-powered submarines. To support SSN-AUKUS, Australia has committed to making a proportionate financial investment in our submarine industrial base. SSN-AUKUS will support thousands of new jobs at Barrow-in-Furness and Derby and throughout the national supply chain. These are truly centres of excellence, and I am proud to say that they stand ready to support Australia in this endeavour. It is particularly good news that Rolls-Royce UK will be building the nuclear reactors for all of Australia’s submarines.
We intend for the first SSN-AUKUS to come into service with the Royal Australian Navy in the 2040s, and Australia will receive substantial support to develop and operate these nuclear-powered submarines. Submariners from the Royal Australian Navy have already begun to train with the Royal Navy to gain the relevant experience and, alongside the US, the Royal Navy intends to increase the number of submarine deployments to Australia from 2026, building on the successful visit to Australia by HMS Astute in 2021. The United States has also signalled her intention to provide Virginia-class attack submarines to the Royal Australian Navy, with Australia planning to acquire three. Taken together, this plan is consistent with Australian sovereignty and international obligations. It systematically and carefully builds Australia’s ability to safely and securely operate, maintain and sustain SSNs.
It goes without saying that compliance with non-proliferation requirements is paramount, and I reassure the House that throughout this process we will remain fully committed to setting the highest non-proliferation standards. We are undertaking every step in a way that reflects our long-standing leadership in global non-proliferation and our steadfast support for the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. We have been clear that we will pursue this endeavour in a way that sets a strong precedent for states seeking to develop a naval nuclear propulsion capability. We have consulted, and we will continue to consult regularly and transparently with the International Atomic Energy Agency with respect to the development of a suitable nuclear safeguards approach. The IAEA director general has expressed his satisfaction with our engagement.
This is a momentous journey for us all. For maritime nations such as the UK, as well as Australia and the US, maintaining a capability advantage over potential adversaries is essential. For the UK, AUKUS represents an historic opportunity for a deep, enduring and mutually beneficial partnership with two of our closest allies—a partnership that will strengthen the resilience of our nuclear submarine enterprise and will bring with it investment and high-skilled, high-wage jobs, as well as an even stronger and more capable Royal Navy submarine force. The United Kingdom will now begin embarking on delivering SSN-AUKUS, along with our allies. I look forward to keeping the House updated on how it progresses. I commend this statement to the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for the advance copy of his statement. This AUKUS defence partnership has our fullest Labour support. The multi-decade agreement deepens security and opportunity between our three countries. It strengthens strategic security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific. It promises not just jobs now, but jobs in the next generation and the one after that. It fulfils all our obligations under the non-proliferation treaty. I want to see Britain playing the biggest role possible in building these new submarines, with the first AUKUS boat launched as early as possible in Barrow.
Yesterday’s 2023 integrated review states
“£3 billion will be invested across the defence nuclear enterprise”.
How much of that total is going to Barrow and to Derby? The current funding of £85 million each for developing the new SSN(R) submarine runs out at the end of this month. As the Minister has mentioned, the AUKUS pathway report published by the Australian Government last night confirms that
“Australia will also make a proportionate financial investment in the UK and US industrial bases.”
When will this investment in Barrow and Derby begin? How will the combined UK-Australian investment in the SSN-AUKUS programme be managed?
This AUKUS agreement is profound. It is not about any nation buying weapons systems off one another, or the Government contracting with major companies for a new platform; it is about building the industrial capability of all three countries. It is a national enterprise for the UK on skills and workforce, on technology, on security of essential supply chains and components, on sharing highly secret technologies and on decommissioning and recycling out-of-service subs, so who will lead this drive? How will the necessary co-ordination and integration be done? We know, as the Minister said, that Australian personnel have begun serving with the Royal Navy, and that the UK will increase SSN visits to Australia ahead of what is called the submarine rotational force west being created in 2027. How often and for how long will a UK Astute be rotated to Australia?
The UK’s former National Security Adviser, Sir Stephen Lovegrove, has described the AUKUS pact as
“perhaps the most significant capability collaboration anywhere in the world in the past six decades”,
because it is about more than just subs. Pillar 2 of the AUKUS partnership, which the Minister mentioned, promises potential co-operation on hypersonics, cyber, artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Those are essential capabilities that can be delivered before the new AUKUS subs enter service.
Yesterday’s integrated review said little about pillar 2, so can the Minister overcome his reluctance and provide an update on it? What are its strategic objectives? What are its timelines? Which of the technologies has the highest priority? As the broad coalition of countries imposing sanctions on Russia has shown, some of our strongest and most reliable allies are in the Indo-Pacific. Could any other countries, beyond the three AUKUS nations, become involved in pillar 2 collaborations?
Finally, AUKUS is a national enterprise for the UK and a trinational endeavour with our closest security allies. Will the Minister commit today to report regularly on progress with AUKUS to Parliament and to the public?
Alex Chalk
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his remarks. He is absolutely right that this is an announcement of such moment that it will require cross-party and generational support. It is important to note precisely the scale of what is being proposed. As he rightly indicated, this is about not simply the sale of a weapons system, but the growth of a capability across continents and across generations. With scale comes opportunity: having that trinational approach builds the resilience of the supply chain and of the industrial capability, which benefits Australia, of course, and the United Kingdom.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about investment. I am pleased to note that, in the last financial year, £2 billion was invested into Barrow-in-Furness and Raynesway, as he will have seen, because I think he has had the opportunity to visit both recently. There will be further investment to come, partly as a result of what has been announced recently, and in the years to come, which echoes my point about it having to be sustained and continued. He is right, of course, to reference the fact that, in the document that accompanies the announcement, a copy of which I am sure he has seen, the Australians have indicated their agreement to make a proportionate investment in UK infrastructure.
The right hon. Gentleman is correct to ask about co-ordination, because this has to be co-ordinated. The way that happens is, first and foremost, to ensure that the Australian experts who need to develop that expertise, as they have candidly acknowledged, spend time in the UK—in Barrow and Raynesway. Indeed, this Thursday, I am looking forward to going to Barrow with the Premier of South Australia, where the first SSN-AUKUS for the Royal Australian Navy will be built.
The right hon. Gentleman raised the issue of AUKUS pillar 2. I have had the opportunity to speak to my opposite number here in the UK to discuss precisely that. There are a number of aspects to it, as he indicated, such as hypersonics, AI and underwater technologies, and further detail will be explored in due course. To his point about other countries, I can say that, unlike pillar 1, which is not open for engagement beyond the three nations, we will of course consider the interest that other nations have expressed in pillar 2.
As is well expressed in the fact sheet that accompanies the announcement, AUKUS—whether pillar 1 or pillar 2—is designed to show:
“our shared commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific and an international system that respects the rule of law, sovereignty, human rights, and the peaceful resolution of disputes free from coercion.”
That is what our nations stand for, and that is what AUKUS will deliver.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Chair of the Defence Committee.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
As somebody who is passionate about UK security and Britain’s place in the world, I could not hide my deep disappointment yesterday when the new integrated review spelled out a deteriorating global threat picture, but offered no new investment in our conventional forces. We are back here today, however, and I welcome this landmark announcement of ever greater collaboration between three trusted allies. Our political relationship with Washington experienced a bumpy patch post Brexit—I say that as a US-UK dual national—so it is good to see it back where it should be. Indeed, landing AUKUS, the Paris agreement and the Windsor framework shows that statecraft has returned to No. 10.
The procurement programme is for the long term and the first subs will not arrive for another couple of decades, yet the threat picture is deteriorating rapidly. If we are to commit to the Indo-Pacific tilt, does the Minister recognise the urgent need to increase the surface fleet, so that we can meet our responsibilities there?
Alex Chalk
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who is assiduous in his attention to the issue of the deterrent and the nuclear submarine capability in general. His point about the surface fleet is absolutely right. As a relatively new Minister coming into the Department, it has been encouraging to see the approach taken on Type 31—in other words, the choice of a platform that is deliverable, affordable and configurable to a mission. We have to move beyond a situation where exquisite and highly expensive capabilities are not necessarily operating on a particular mission to their full specification, so Type 31s can be reconfigured for anti-piracy missions, war-fighting missions or humanitarian missions. The British people want to see British warships and frigates acting in the national interest abroad in a sustainable and affordable way, and that is the approach we are taking.
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
I am not a huge advocate of nuclear submarines, but I recognise their dynamic advantages over air-independent propulsion, in terms of range, speed and duration. Moreover, as the SNP’s lead on defence, I spend my time engaged on the defence posture and resources that an independent Scotland will require to defend our national interests and those of our allies collectively, in a way that is consistent with Scotland’s defence and security priorities, so I will not lecture Australia or the United Kingdom on what is right for them. I encourage the Defence Procurement Minister to acknowledge the outstanding engineering prowess that supports attack submarines at Thales in Glasgow and MacTaggart Scott in Loanhead. Nevertheless, I wish everybody in Barrow-in-Furness every success with the work and I hope it generates great prosperity there.
I note the challenges in delivering Astute-class SSN in the UK, with boats one to three being delivered five years late and 53% over budget. What assurances has the UK given to the Australians that that contagion will not affect SSN-AUKUS? What about refit—will the UK be helping Australia with technology transfer and how to refit the boats? Presumably not, given that, due to the Ministry of Defence’s dithering and short-termism, HMS Vanguard required seven years to overhaul and refuel, rather than the planned two, with an attendant cost explosion.
Of the 21 submarines languishing at end of life—seven at Rosyth and a further 14 at Devonport in England—only seven have been defuelled. This scandal sees the previous HMS Vanguard, which went out of service in 1980 and has a 62-year-old hull, still sitting there waiting for the Government to put the money in to safely dispose of it. We have the industrial expertise in the United Kingdom to do that work, so why are the Government not funding their responsibilities? Has the UK cautioned the Australians that it is not enough simply to fund the build, commission and operation of these nuclear submarines, because states must also allocate the budget for disposal? Has the MOD had that conversation, and if so, how did it manage the hypocrisy of it all?
Alex Chalk
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his sunny observations, which were hugely appreciated. If I can begin at the end, I was disappointed to hear him asking questions about whether the Australians have been reminded about decommissioning, because it is in the very document that I would have thought he had read. This document, at page 41, talks about radioactive waste management and Australia’s plans to do precisely that, so I am pleased to have been able to deal with that.
On the issue the hon. Gentleman raised about the expertise in Scotland, let me join him, in the spirit of unity across the House, in commending the excellence in Scotland. I am delighted that it is the Ministry of Defence in a British Government that has ensured that those brilliant experts in Scotland have got the ships to work on. That simply would not happen in the event of independence, and he needs to be straight with the Scottish people about that.
On the second issue about refitting, let me say that one advantage of co-operating across the three nations is that we have not only the broader industrial capability to build these boats in the first place, but the capability to develop them over time. One thing he will well understand, as others in the House also recognise, is that it is not enough to think about the capability of the platform on day one; we have to consider how it will develop through the years. Our ability to do that and to ensure that it remains at the cutting edge is immeasurably enhanced by the fact that we are operating across the three nations.
On the hon. Gentleman’s point about dismantling, I hope I can reassure him. Swiftsure, one of the boats he referred to, is being dismantled as the demonstrator—that will be completed by 2026—and low-level radioactive waste has been removed already from Swiftsure, Resolution and Revenge. The matters are in hand, and they will continue at pace.
Simon Fell (Barrow and Furness) (Con)
May I put on record my thanks to my hon. and learned Friend, the Defence Secretary and the Prime Minister, and to their teams, for getting this bold and visionary deal over the line? AUKUS will provide resilience for our submarine programme, and capacity and capability between our three nations, and it will secure our allies in uncertain times, and deliver jobs and investment in Barrow. It will be a true win-win. Further, does my hon. and learned Friend agree that it is testament to the remarkable skills of the ship makers in Barrow that Australia chose a submarine designed by Barrovians for its future fleet? Will he join me in thanking and paying tribute to the hard work they do day in and day out, at the shipyard and in the wider submarine programme, to keep us and our allies safe?
Alex Chalk
I thank my hon. Friend for his heartfelt and powerful tribute to the people he represents, and he is absolutely right. This decision is a vote of confidence—not just a British Government vote of confidence, but an international vote of confidence—in the good and skilled people he represents. Let us be clear that this is a British design that will be enhanced principally by US but also by some Australian technology. It is an excellent example of where international scale allied with British know-how and British hard work can produce something genuinely world beating not just for this generation, but to ensure that future generations—our children and grandchildren—can enjoy the safety we have enjoyed.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I welcome this announcement. Last year, I visited Australia, and one thing that impressed me was that, for Australia, this is a national endeavour. With meetings at federal level and obviously with the state premier of South Australia, this is a joined-up national endeavour, including looking at skills not just for today, but for the future.
I noticed that, in the new refresh of the integrated review yesterday, it says:
“We have also: announced…Great British Nuclear, to progress a resilient pipeline of new nuclear projects”.
The fear I have is that we are not matching the endeavour of the Australians. Could the Minister explain how we will get that concentration on skills—not just today, but in future—especially with the Business Department shilly-shallying around the investment for Rolls-Royce in the small modular nuclear reactors?
Alex Chalk
May I welcome the right hon. Member’s approval, which is appreciated? He is right that it is a joined-up endeavour in Australia. It has to be, and the Australians well understand the enormous scale of what they are taking on. As he indicated, I look forward to welcoming the premier of South Australia in Barrow this Thursday. His point about skills is well made. We are clear, as are those at Raynesway in Derby, and in Barrow and Furness, that we need to grow the skills pipeline, but that has already begun. If we consider the £2 billion invested last year, yes, some of it went to new buildings and equipment, but it also went to ensuring that the capacity and college facilities to bring on those apprentices are in place. Someone who goes to Derby can be briefed now about precisely what is taking place. The excitement, enthusiasm and drive that is going into ensuring sufficient suitably qualified and expert personnel is reassuring and encouraging. The right hon. Gentleman is making the right point, and I am pleased to reassure him that that matter is not lost on those involved.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
I warmly welcome the announcement and the work that has gone into it. Can the Minister give the House any indication of the first phase of roll-out, and of how many submarines of the new type will be built? How many of those could be for the Royal Navy?
Alex Chalk
We know, come what may, that the first of these submarines will be built in Barrow, and we have already begun the procurement of long-lead items for that initial batch. Precise numbers will emerge in due course, and that will depend on all sorts of things, including how quickly the Australian industrial base matures and so on. I reassure my right hon. Friend that the first boat will be built here in the UK, and work is being done to ensure that the necessary components for future builds are already being procured.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
I welcome this development, as well as the announcement from the Prime Minister, an American Democrat President and an Australian Labour Prime Minister, showing unity between parties and across countries on this vital endeavour. However, I think the Minister is unreasonably complacent. It is not clear who is in charge, and lack of clarity leads to delay and disruption. If we look at the Polaris agreement—it was signed at Nassau in 1962, and HMS Resolution was laid down in 1964, launched in 1996, and commissioned in 1967. Who will be doing that? On the nuclear aspect, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) said, the report states that we will be looking to
“align delivery of the civil and defence nuclear enterprises”
and goes on to mention the development of
“small modular reactors in the UK through Rolls-Royce SMR;”.
Yet the Treasury is sabotaging that project. It is demanding endless inquiries and evaluations, and is now talking about having a competition with international competitors to try to undermine Rolls-Royce. We do not have that link-up between the civil and military enterprise, so when will somebody get a grip?
Alex Chalk
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his remarks, but I do not recognise the points he is making. As far as Rolls-Royce is concerned, the Government are absolutely behind that fantastic facility—
Alex Chalk
I have been there recently, and I am pleased to say that they are. Rolls-Royce recognises the importance of this programme. One thing that is clear about building nuclear powered submarines is that unless we keep the drum beat of “always-on” manufacture, it is easy for those skills to erode. I am delighted that this programme ensures that we will be building reactors now and in the future for generations to come. That means we will keep those expert personnel, ensure a pipeline of staff, and we will be experts for many years to come.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend on the work he has done with his Department, his team, and the Ministry of Defence as a whole. The changing geopolitical landscape, and the 360-degree view of NATO, make it vital that there is a silent capability in the Pacific, especially when we look at changes to the geopolitical energy demands coming from western South America. On pillar 2, and the development of weapons, if we are to expand to other nations to help with the development of highly complex weapons, on which I think the west would admit it is way behind the curve, has the Minister given any consideration as to how the UK and AUKUS members can work with PESCO nations which, as he will understand, are a closed shop and have made it difficult for a relationship to form? Will he give that issue some attention regarding how that relationship can be built moving forward?
Alex Chalk
I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend. I am also grateful to him for the part he played in progressing this matter when he was in the Department. He comes to this subject with enormous knowledge of the NATO context. I want to pick up on his first point, on capability, because we have not spoken a vast amount about it. The ability to be stealthy and undetected is not a capability enjoyed by conventionally powered submarines, and that is one reason why the United States and the United Kingdom no longer operate them. It is vital that submarines have the range, the lack of detectability, and the ability to be more stealthy and detect more in terms of intelligence and so on, so I take that point. On his second point about pillar 2, he is absolutely right and I will certainly undertake to consider the matter he raises. We had very warm and positive discussions with the Australians here in the UK about pillar 2. I think there is a shared recognition among the United States, the UK and Australia that we need to move quickly. There is no time to lose.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
On behalf of my party, the Liberal Democrats, I welcome the AUKUS defence partnership announcement. I endorse what the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) said about the stealth it will bring to our partnership. Like the Minister, the US President was at pains yesterday to stress that SSN-AUKUS will be nuclear powered but not nuclear armed. The Minister went further today and talked a little about compliance with international law on proliferation. The International Atomic Energy Agency is satisfied that Australia does not intend to pursue uranium enrichment. Given that since the announcement China alleges that AUKUS undermines the international non-proliferation system, will the Minister provide a little more assurance to the House and the British public that the initiative does indeed comply with the non-proliferation treaty?
Alex Chalk
I am happy to do so. The hon. Gentleman is right to say, of course, that this has nothing to do with nuclear weapons. I have made that crystal clear. The NPT is about the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, not nuclear propulsion systems. I am pleased to be able to indicate that the director general of the IAEA reported to IAEA member states that he believes the AUKUS partners are committed to ensuring the highest non-proliferation and that safeguard standards are met. He noted his satisfaction with the engagement and transparency shown by the three countries thus far. Australia, in joining the UK and the US, has joined not just the strongest possible culture of safety, but the strongest possible culture of adherence to the rule of law. Indeed, these systems are the very tools that we bring to the table to defend the rules-based order.
Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)
This is a very welcome agreement that helps to make the world just a little bit safer. I recently had the pleasure of visiting Faslane with the armed forces parliamentary scheme. I met some of our submariners, went aboard one of our nuclear submarines and saw a reactor built by Rolls-Royce in Derby, which will have been made by some of my constituents. The announcement is incredibly welcome news for Derby and Derbyshire. What assessment has the Department made of the economic boost it will bring to the east midlands?
Alex Chalk
I thank my hon. Friend for his excellent question. He is a great supporter of his constituents who produce these brilliant reactors. I am so pleased he went to Rosyth and met the submariners, because I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to them. It is a tough job, candidly. They do on our behalf, out of sight and sometimes out of mind, an enormously important job and I know the whole House will join me in paying tribute to them for what they deliver for the security of our nation. The additional investment—let us be clear that the nuclear reactors will supply all the Australian SSN-AUKUS submarines—will mean thousands more high-skilled, high-paid jobs here in the UK. To the point made just a few moments ago, they will be welded shut nuclear reactors. I am happy to be able to make that point. They will not need to be opened or tampered with in any way during the lifetime of the submarine.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
I was deeply disappointed with the funding announcement yesterday, which was woefully inadequate for our defence needs, but I fully support and welcome today’s announcement and the AUKUS partnership. May I ask the Minister a specific question? Page 56 of the “Integrated Review Refresh” rightly refers to supply chain risks, particularly in terms of the five priority technologies. To ensure that we, along with our partners, produce and develop the best possible assets that can outmatch our adversaries, at what point will we hear—we still have not heard—when we will publish a strategy on semiconductors and quantum technologies?
Alex Chalk
The hon. Gentleman is right that semiconductors and quantum technologies are significant. I am happy to write to him on that point.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
I welcome today’s announcement as further evidence that we and our allies are taking seriously the threat of Chinese aggression in the Pacific, and taking action to deal with it. Apart from the strategic security advantages, the announcement offers economic benefit to the United Kingdom. The Minister has indicated that the defence supply chain should benefit, and it is reported that Barrow shipyard, Rolls-Royce, Thales and more will be in line to benefit. Is the Minister in a position to indicate whether this announcement will lead to extra high-value jobs in engineering and defence in Northern Ireland?
Alex Chalk
It is overwhelmingly likely that this announcement will have a positive impact across the United Kingdom, including in Northern Ireland. Inevitably, precisely how it shakes down will become clear in the fullness of time, because we will need to see the extent to which the supply chains are met in the UK, the United States and Australia. There is the rub—the point of all this is that all three countries bring that element of resilience. Already, Australia has certain capabilities in pressure hull steel, valves, pumps and batteries; we have capabilities in nuclear reactions and so on; and the United States brings weapons systems and various other technologies to bear. That resilience in the supply chain is important to ensure not just that the current submarines can be fitted out and produced, but, vitally, that there is a pipeline in future, because it sends the strongest possible demand signal not just now but for generations to come.
Gareth Davies (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
My hon. and learned Friend will have noticed that China has been quick to condemn our historic AUKUS agreement as a “path of error”. It also still refuses to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Does he agree that that illustrates both the difficulty that we face in determining our relationship with Beijing and why AUKUS is so important for our security?
Alex Chalk
It is important to note that we are looking to have an interoperable presence with our allies in the Indo-Pacific as a whole. Although my hon. Friend is right and proper in identifying China, which the Prime Minister said presented an “epoch-defining systemic challenge”, it is also correct to say that the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States want to ensure that all of the Indo-Pacific remains free for those who believe in the international rules-based order and the rule of law. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that when it comes to China, we have grave concerns about human rights violations and other aggressive actions. That is why we want to ensure the capability to allow our values and what we stand for to be properly represented and upheld in that vital part of the world.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
Many in the world are concerned that this agreement undermines, if not breaches, the non-proliferation treaty. Will the Minister assure us that it will be constantly under review and will be reported to the NPT review conference when it comes along? Will he also explain the longer-term implications of this in stoking up a cold war with China? That is likely to increase defence expenditure by the UK, the US, Australia and China in future, leading to greater danger in the South China sea. What is his aspiration for a more peaceful relationship in the long term that will not cost such vast amounts of money for all the countries concerned?
Alex Chalk
May I reject in the strongest possible terms what the right hon. Gentleman says? I do find it troubling that he is so ready to take the side of any country that stands potentially in opposition to the United Kingdom.
Alex Chalk
The right hon. Gentleman is the self-same man, I am sorry to say, who in 2014 blamed NATO for Russian aggression. Now, again, he wants to take the side of others. This is the country, together with its allies, that believes in what he should believe in: the international rules-based order and the assertion of those rights in a contested world. We will continue to do that, and we will not be knocked off course by those who try to do our country down.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)
Diolch, Mr Deputy Speaker. Is it not the case that major defence announcements such as this one should not be considered in isolation? By far the biggest foreign policy challenge that we face is the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Western strategies are largely dependent on economic sanctions against Russia, but those sanctions have been blunted by the fact that Russia has been able to find other markets with which to trade. What assessment has the Minister made of whether the AUKUS security pact will help or hinder our strategies to bring Russia’s war to an end?
Alex Chalk
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: we have to ensure that our defence nuclear programme progresses in the way that I have indicated, but not to the exclusion of what we are properly doing on the continent of Europe. I am proud, and I think this whole House can be proud, that after the United States there is no nation on the planet that has done more than ours to provide military equipment to the Ukrainians: more than 100,000 artillery shells, 200 armoured fighting vehicles, night vision goggles, more than 10,000 anti-tank weapons, winter clothing and so on. We do all this and more because we believe that we need to send a message from this country that might is not always right and that our country can be counted on to stand up to bullies.
Mr Deputy Speaker
I thank the Minister for his statement and for responding to questions for almost three quarters of an hour.
Point of Order
(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. On Wednesday of last week, I initiated a debate in Westminster Hall on the subject of genomics and national security. In the course of that debate, the Minister responding—the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman), who has been notified of this point of order—stated that the Chinese genomics giant, BGI Group, had been responsible for several hacking attacks on Genomics England. The next day, on 9 March, a letter of correction was published in the Official Report at column 2MC:
“An error has been identified in my response to the debate.
The correct response should have been…‘There is no evidence of attempted hacking of Genomics England in 2014 from BGI.’”—[Official Report, 9 March 2023; Vol. 729, c. 2MC.]
First of all, that correction was brought to my attention yesterday by a journalist. At no stage did the Minister’s office contact me to make me aware of its intention to correct—or, perhaps more accurately, alter—the record in that way. Can you clarify for me, Mr Deputy Speaker, whether that conforms to the rules surrounding changes of that sort?
Secondly, is this not an abuse of the procedures for correcting the record? It is not a matter of detail, but a flat contradiction of what the Minister said. In Westminster Hall, the Minister was recounting an incident of which he had personal knowledge. There was nothing to correct. The only explanation that I can see is that the company in question, BGI, has got at the officials in the Minister’s Department and that they have buckled to the pressure.
It is, of course, for Ministers and officials to stand up to or buckle to pressure as they choose, but the Official Report belongs to Parliament. Mr Speaker has been robust in other areas in defending the rights of parliamentarians against outside pressures, especially those coming from China. What can you and he do, Mr Deputy Speaker, to bring the same protections to bear in respect of the Official Report?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for notice of his point of order—hence the more detailed response that I am about to give him.
There is a process in place to enable Ministers to correct the record. It requires the original words used by the Minister to remain in the published official record, but a link is added to the letter of correction subsequently provided, subject to the agreement of the Editor of the Official Report. The right hon. Member has put his views about the correction on the record; other readers of the Official Report will be able to draw their own conclusions from the Minister’s original comments and the subsequent correction.
However, the process also requires the Department to inform Members involved in any exchanges that lead to a correction. The Department should have done so in this case, rather than leaving the right hon. Member to hear about the correction from a journalist. I am sorry that that did not happen in this case, and I trust that Ministers will ensure that Members are properly informed in future.
I also note that the Procedure Committee is currently undertaking an inquiry into ministerial corrections. The right hon. Gentleman is welcome to make representations to that Committee about the operation of the process.
Planning (Quarries)
Tuesday 14th March 2023
(1 year, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Planning (Quarries) Bill 2022-23 View all Planning (Quarries) Bill 2022-23 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
A Ten Minute Rule Bill is a First Reading of a Private Members Bill, but with the sponsor permitted to make a ten minute speech outlining the reasons for the proposed legislation.
There is little chance of the Bill proceeding further unless there is unanimous consent for the Bill or the Government elects to support the Bill directly.
For more information see: Ten Minute Bills
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to introduce a presumption in planning decision-making against approving quarry development in close proximity to settlements; to require the risks of proposed quarrying sites to the environment and to public health to be assessed as part of the planning process; to provide that the decision on a planning application for quarry development may only be made by the Secretary of State; and for connected purposes.
Let me start by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western), who submitted a similar Bill in December 2021. In that Bill, he raised the difficulty that local people experience in resisting planning applications that are favourable to the planning authority and to big businesses that do not have a stake in the local area of concern. That is what I will focus on today.
The unique geography of Eastleigh is both a blessing and a curse, with the rivers Itchen and Hamble flanking the boundaries and with access to the southern tip of the constituency and the village of Hamble limited to a single arterial road, the B3397, called Hamble Lane. Since 2013 an area of green space, the old Hamble airfield—a former RAF airfield—has been allocated under Hampshire County Council’s mineral and waste plan as a potential quarry site for aggregate. Over the past year, local residents and I have been resisting a planning application by the company Cemex to open a quarry for the extraction of 1.7 million tonnes of gravel by dozens of heavy goods vehicles along that single arterial route.
What has struck me, and my constituents, is the stark inadequacy of the planning process surrounding quarries, along with the favourable advantage for companies versus the voices of local people, and the fact that planning responses are not suited to addressing the scale of the environmental and health horrors that such quarries can bring, particularly when built so close to schools, health centres and villages. Let me therefore set out in very simple terms what the Bill seeks to achieve, using the context of my constituency to explain why I believe that this change is needed.
First, I believe it is necessary to amend planning regulations to change the presumption in planning decision making to being against approving quarry development close to local amenities, schools and settlements. I was shocked to learn that the planning application tabled by Cemex had been lodged with a request for a quarry only 70 metres from residential properties and 100 metres from local secondary and primary schools. Furthermore, the village infrastructure in Hamble is already woefully overloaded and subject to a large amount of congestion outside normal rush-hour traffic.
During this whole sorry saga, the way in which Cemex has consulted the people of Hamble has been shameful. It has committed itself to the bare minimum of what is required during a planning consultation, and has provided highways responses based on outdated traffic data completed before the covid-19 pandemic. I consider that an industrial quarry such as this—which gives rise to various potential health concerns that I shall mention later—should not have been looked on favourably by a local authority, given that it is so close to existing settlements, GP surgeries and schools, as well as a small village. Health professionals, local businesses, schools and more than 2,000 local people have objected to the proposal, but have been dismissed and ignored, despite the valid concerns that all of them have raised, with poor responses to their factual findings and to their own measured consultation responses.
The second issue, which is even more concerning to me, is the lack of evidence and the lack of scrutiny on the part of the highways authority about the risks of the proposal. When the development is up and running, 144 lorries per day will be using an already crumbling arterial route that has suffered chronic under-investment while the building of housing and other developments has been allowed to continue unchecked. That is why I believe there is merit in my second proposal, which is to remove the decision-making power on quarry applications from local authorities and transfer them to the Secretary of State. Such a change would ensure that the consultation and scrutiny applied to such applications would be treated more seriously, and would involve proper community consultation.
The latest highways data on this application has not relied on physical road assessments since 2017, against the recommendations of Hampshire County Council, but the application has been allowed to continue with a highways authority response that fails to take that into account. Areas such as Warsash, Sarisbury, Hamble and Bursledon will be affected by the excess traffic. I also struggle to justify to residents that the decision maker on this application is the authority that allocated the site in its minerals and waste plan in the first place. This is why all future applications should be decided by the Secretary of State and planning inspector.
The third proposal of my Bill is, to me, the most important. It relates to the health and environmental impact of quarries close to settlements. My Bill would impose a requirement that the risks of proposed quarrying sites be assessed as part of the planning process. Aside from the risks to road safety and access to and from local schools for young people, this proposal will directly harm the many small businesses in Hamble that rely on tourism and local investment. I believe that the proposal represents a material risk to the health of the local population through possible contamination and water run-off into the River Hamble, but I am especially concerned about air quality and the scientific facts around airborne particles known as silica that are created by quarrying. Scientific evidence has proved that quarrying creates dust that pollutes the air around the areas of operation.
Air quality has long been talked about as an issue. Since 1956, Governments have openly been aware of, and legislated on, air pollution and addressed the shocking risks to human health at the time. Governments and politicians are actively talking about air pollution and the effects on human health. As the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington has pointed out, on air toxicity, the Environmental Working Group, a US-based body specialising in research and advocacy, has already stated that
“ none of the air quality standards for silica are adequate to protect people living or working near sand mining sites. The danger of airborne silica is especially acute for children…Silica air pollution has become a danger for residents near open sand mining and processing. Children, older adults, and others with existing disease are especially at risk.”
As a result, the group has concerns for any resident living within 1,500 metres of an excavation site, where air pollution can be 10 times higher than the recommended limit. This proposed site is 70 metres from existing settlements, and therefore much closer than those outlined by the group as being at risk.
I feel the need to point out that I am not against quarries in principle, and this Bill does not seek to ban or stop the development of quarries, which are much needed for building the homes that we need across the country. However, I feel that the planning system is now woefully out of date. My constituents in Hamble, and in the wider Hamble valley, feel like they are banging their heads against a brick wall. The Government have previously made a great case, with which I strongly agree, that local people should have a deciding say in the development of their local area. They have raised their concerns, and I believe that it therefore falls to the Secretary of State to make these consequential decisions on whether to permit the establishment of quarries in areas close to settlements.
I would like to close by thanking my constituents, particularly the Hamble Peninsular Residents Group and Hamble Parish Council, for organising meetings and responses to the consultation run by Hampshire County Council, and for the overwhelming campaign that those organisations have run. I would also like to thank my colleagues who are supporting the Bill today, and in particular the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington, who introduced this Bill a year ago. I am proud to promote this Bill and I hope that it will be one step further towards protecting the health and wellbeing of local residents up and down the country against ignorant planning systems that do not align with local democratic wishes or recognise the health risks as we understand them today.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
This is the opportunity for anybody who wishes to oppose the 10-minute rule motion to indicate that they wish to do so. I have had no notification of any opposition and I see none, so I shall pose the question.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Paul Holmes, Matt Western, Amanda Milling, Caroline Nokes, Mark Fletcher, Mrs Flick Drummond, Chris Clarkson, Sara Britcliffe and Stephen Hammond present the Bill.
Paul Holmes accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 24 March, and to be printed (Bill 268).
Backbench Business
Ukrainian Refugees: Homelessness
(1 year, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House calls upon His Majesty’s Government to support Ukrainian refugees living in the United Kingdom, to prevent homelessness amongst this group where possible and ensure it is brief, rare and non-recurrent where it cannot be avoided; and urges His Majesty’s Government to work with partner organisations and local authorities to ensure refugees facing and experiencing homelessness are supported during their time living in the UK.
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate on such an important and timely issue. As Members will no doubt be well aware, last month marked a year since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began. This has displaced millions of innocent people, completely turning their lives upside down. More than 8 million refugees have been recorded to date, making it the largest humanitarian crisis Europe has seen since the second world war.
Great Britain has a proud legacy of compassion and of supporting refugees fleeing war zones. I join Members on both sides of the House in warmly welcoming the Government’s ongoing response to the conflict in Ukraine. Since March 2022, we have welcomed 161,400 Ukrainian refugees to the UK. Further, the latest Home Office data shows that more than 23,500 Ukrainian visa extensions have been granted.
Last year, the Government acted with great urgency to introduce three revolutionary visa schemes, which aimed to provide support for individuals escaping the grave situation in Ukraine: the Ukraine family scheme; the Ukraine extension scheme; and Homes for Ukraine. Homes for Ukraine allowed our constituents to sponsor a Ukrainian national or family to come and live with them, provided they had suitable and appropriate accommodation to offer. Like others, I have been truly moved but unsurprised by the vast empathy and support shown by the general public across the United Kingdom in helping to welcome and house Ukrainians since Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine just over a year ago.
Together, these schemes have proved a lifeline for many Ukrainian refugees, helping them successfully to find safety and sanctuary after fleeing conflict. The scenes in Ukraine are extremely harrowing, with completely merciless attacks on residential areas and even hospitals. This is no place for a child or family to have to live, constantly fearful of their lives and those of loved ones. The welcome respite they receive when reaching the UK no doubt provides a glimmer of hope in their otherwise tragically upturned lives.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
I absolutely agree that this was the right, empathetic and correct thing to do in response to the appalling number of refugees fleeing the conflict in Ukraine. I draw the hon. Gentlemen’s attention to something I said when Homes for Ukraine was introduced by the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, just a few months after the evacuation of Afghanistan. I said that we should also be looking for homes for Afghans. I hope we might reflect on that in this debate.
Bob Blackman
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I am slightly constrained by the subject of the debate, as she knows. However, I take the issue of Afghan refugees very seriously indeed; some 11,000 are still in hotels in this country and without a proper place to live. I take the point, but Mr Deputy Speaker is looking at me as if to say, “Concentrate on Ukraine, not other refugees.”
I declare my interest as co-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for ending homelessness. My co-chair, the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), is in her place. We have held meetings with Ukrainian refugees, and it has become profusely clear to us that, far too often, the breakdown of the Government schemes is causing a new level of hardship for refugees. The Select Committee on Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, on which I have the honour of sitting, has also done work on this issue.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. He brings many debates to this Chamber and Westminster Hall, and I always support them—or by and large support them; there are one or two things on which we disagree.
Is the hon. Gentleman, like me and my Strangford constituents, amazed and sometimes overcome by people’s generosity? I think of two people, Donald and Jacqueline Fleming, who have worked in Ukraine for more than 30 years and who provided homes for Ukrainian people in Northern Ireland. Not only that, but the church groups in my constituency have also reached out with a generosity that never fails to amaze me. Whenever we see such generosity, goodness and kindness coming through, does the hon. Gentleman, like me, feel that this great nation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has many great people who offer so much to people when they need it most?
Bob Blackman
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. He shares many of the views I have on homelessness and how to assist people. As I have said, I think we are all greatly pleased that the people of the UK offer assistance to people fleeing violence, and we will always do so, as a caring nation. In particular, I applaud those who provide additional help that is way above and beyond the call of duty.
There are a number of grave concerns about the increasing reports of Ukrainian refugees experiencing a breakdown of living arrangements, facing gaps in support, and falling into homelessness or destitution during this cost of living crisis, which we all know is affecting so many of our constituents.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank my co-chair of the all-party group on ending homelessness for securing this important and timely debate. He mentioned the evidence session we held just last month. Homelessness is a particular issue in London because of the higher living cost here. He may be aware that the latest data show that 1,210 Ukrainian households have presented as homeless in London alone, and that that is such a big issue. I declare an interest, in that I am co-chair of the all-party group on London—I chair it with another hon. Member. Does he agree that the Government support on this issue needs to be more targeted, especially in areas where there are high living costs and more need?
Bob Blackman
I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, and I am coming on to some of the statistics, which affect not only London, but the whole UK. They emphasise how important this issue is and how important it is that the Government get a grip on the problem quickly.
A recent survey carried out with Ukrainian refugees found that they face a growing threat of homelessness or poverty: one in 10 of participants had been threatened with eviction at some point during their stay in the UK; and a further two thirds had little confidence in their ability to find private rented accommodation—we all know that that is difficult—whether that was due to high rents, the deposits required or other barriers, such as the need for rental guarantors.
As the hon. Lady said, the all-party group on ending homelessness held a meeting last month, where we looked at the evidence from those people directly affected. We had the privilege of hearing directly from three brave Ukrainian women who have all faced challenges in finding a safe home within the United Kingdom since the conflict began. The room was overflowing with Members, organisations and charities keen to listen to the heartfelt testimonies that the women bravely provided and to the offers of support that came from those organisations.
I want to provide a range of quotes from that evidence session. One woman courageously told us:
“I was forced to come to the UK with my 15-year-old son when the war in Ukraine began. We have been lucky with our amazing host family, and I have found a job that allows us to survive.
However, this is not a sustainable arrangement in the long term. We would now like to move out and rent a place of our own. But we cannot afford to because the cost of renting is so high...After I had paid the rent, me and my son would have nothing to eat.
It is still very difficult to find a place to rent because landlords insist on a guarantor, but my host family is not allowed to do this. The landlords asked me to pay six months’ rent up front which is impossible in my situation.”
That clearly demonstrates the problems faced by Ukrainian refugees navigating our housing market and the situation has certainly not been helped by the ongoing cost of living crisis we are all experiencing. A survey conducted among Ukrainian refugees showed that 60% of respondents had no savings at all. Among the 40% who did, nearly all reported not having more than 12 weeks’ worth of savings. How on earth, then, can we expect Ukrainian refugees fleeing war to provide a guarantor or pay six months’ rent up front? It is impossible to do.
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities recently published official statistics emphasising the scale of the problem. The figures showed that, between February 2022 and February 2023, a total of 4,630 Ukrainian households—not individuals, but households—received urgent homelessness assistance from their local authority in England. In my constituency, Harrow East, residents have welcomed 251 refugees via the Homes for Ukraine scheme, of whom 16 are currently homeless for various reasons. The figures get worse when we look at the whole of London, where, as the hon. Member for Vauxhall mentioned, 1,216 refugees have presented themselves as homeless so far.
I remind hon. Members that that is only a partial picture of the true scale of homelessness faced by this refugee community, as the statistics released by the Department are made up only from data that was voluntarily supplied by just under 69% of all English local authorities; 97 local authorities did not submit data for collection. We predict, therefore, that the total number of refugees seeking assistance is much higher. When she replies to the debate, will the Minister explain why the collection of this important data is not mandatory across English local authorities?
What the data does provide is some detailed analysis of those seeking assistance. I was saddened to learn that 69% of households receiving homelessness assistance have dependent children, who also face becoming homeless. Additionally, homelessness in this community seems to be growing, with an 8% increase in the number of households receiving assistance between January and February this year alone, and the figures only likely to worsen.
At the APPG meeting, it was abundantly clear that attendees felt that further action was necessary to ensure that refugees can access a safe and secure home, and above all avoid sleeping rough. There was general consensus on a number of recommendations of ways in which the design of funding and financial support could be improved to help to prevent homelessness among this vulnerable group.
The first is that, as the war continues to rage, financial support provided to hosts must be made more flexible, to ensure that no one falls through the gaps in assistance. For example, cases where sponsorships have been successful and developed into lodging arrangements are no longer in scope for funding. These successful living arrangements must be supported in the long term, and facilitated where possible, to prevent homelessness or destitution wherever we can. Nurturing these relationships prevents stress on local authorities, landlords and the refugees themselves.
Secondly, it is crucial that Ministers consider harmonising financial support across the schemes. Funding should be extended to those under the Ukraine family scheme, who do not currently receive any financial support and so must rely on their own very limited financial resources to get by. Further, the size of the family sponsored should be taken into account and reflected in the amount of financial support. As it stands, hosts sponsoring a family of two or a family of five receive the same financial support. Unsurprisingly, studies show more than twice as many Ukrainians under the family scheme at imminent risk of eviction than those under the Homes for Ukraine scheme.
At the APPG meeting, we heard from a refugee from Ukraine who is a British citizen. She told us:
“I have been struggling to support my mum through the Ukraine Family Scheme since she was forced to flee in March last year. Despite her age and dangerous heart condition, my 66-year-old mother has been sleeping in the kitchen of my flat for nearly a year because there are no affordable private rented properties in our area and the council have failed to house her.
I looked for accommodation for my mother to rent but I couldn’t find anything we can afford. A tiny room to rent in our area is a minimum of £450 a month but the Housing Benefit my mother qualifies for is around £260. How can a Ukrainian refugee like my mum ever afford this?”
That is a perfectly reasonable question.
Another common trend among Ukrainian refugees under each of the three schemes was the significant lack of practical support available to them, particularly with the wide range of difficulties they experience when trying to navigate the various support systems presented to them. Our system is complex, and people coming from a war-torn country find it hard to understand and navigate it.
For example, a Ukrainian refugee who spoke to the APPG told us that, after being forced to leave her home and career as a medical doctor, she came to the UK all by herself. On arrival in London, she was abruptly told by a sponsor that the landlord did not want any refugees in his property. After several months of unrest and instability, she has finally found stable housing, but said:
“Since I arrived in the UK, lots of information has been thrown at me and there has been very little support to help me find a home or a job. This has significantly affected my mental health, which has been hugely challenging to access support for. I think the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme should be improved by requiring Housing Officers to meet refugees to help solve issues with sponsors from early on. Councils should provide people with personal plans to prevent their homelessness ahead of time rather than when someone submits a homelessness application..”
I could not agree more. That sensible recommendation, coming from a Ukrainian refugee, speaks volumes, because she and others in similar circumstances should have been helped. Under my Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, local authorities have a duty of care to support people at risk of homelessness within 56 days—not solely when it is too late and they are already sleeping rough. The final improvement called for was that the Government should bring forward a new strategy for refugee integration and resettlement. While the Government’s swift action to introduce the visa scheme was warmly welcomed by all, there are concerns about the long-term viability of such schemes.
Many of us will remember that, in the initial break-out of the war, speculation suggested it would be over in a maximum of six months. The initial design of the sponsorship scheme was therefore short term, focused on six-month placements. The Government have since encouraged hosts to continue to sponsor the guests beyond six months, and the payment for hosts can now be extended beyond that period. However, many sponsorships are still breaking down, leaving Ukrainians with limited alternative choices for somewhere safe to stay.
In her reply to this debate, will the Minister commit to ensuring that the Government support Ukrainian refugees through these welcome schemes for as long as the war continues in Ukraine? The Government must also appoint a successor to my good friend Lord Harrington as Minister of State for refugees, to acknowledge the UK’s long-standing commitment to compassion and its history of supporting refugees. I know my hon. Friend the Minister has a very full set of responsibilities, but I take the view that we should appoint a dedicated Minister for refugees. Can she update the House on progress in securing a successor to Lord Harrington?
Following the impactful meeting of the APPG for ending homelessness, the hon. Member for Vauxhall and I wrote to the Minister to share our concerns and outline the aforementioned potential solutions. I am pleased to say that the letter was signed by 74 further parliamentarians from across the House and all political parties, demonstrating excellent cross-party support and a strong will to resolve the plight of Ukrainian refugees. I urge the Minister to recognise the breadth of support from Members across the House for the policy recommendations I have outlined. I look forward to receiving her response to that letter at her earliest convenience.
Before I conclude, I acknowledge that many of the challenges facing Ukrainian refugees are a symptom of the acute lack of affordable housing in this country. I am a proud member of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, and that issue has become increasingly prominent in both recent and long-term inquiries. Over the last year, private rent has increased by 11.8% on average outside London and 15.8% in London itself. Support for private renters has not kept up with the real cost of renting, leaving far too many struggling to cover their rent while the rising costs of energy, childcare and food put more pressure on family budgets.
For Ukrainians, that lack of affordable housing severely restricts their ability to move on from sponsorship or family arrangements and into their own settled housing. Plainly, for many, moving into privately rented accommodation is simply out of the question any time in the near future, which, as I am sure the whole House will agree, is a sad reality.
I thank the three very brave Ukrainian women who came to Parliament and spoke courageously at the January meeting of the all-party parliamentary group for ending homelessness. I will share the words of one of those women, who powerfully set out the reality facing her and too many others:
“Because homes are currently unaffordable in the UK, some of my friends have been forced to leave and return to dangerous places in Ukraine with their kids. But I’m from Kherson and our city is being bombed every day. I’m homeless in Ukraine and I’m soon to be homeless here.”
I thank the Minister and the Government for their support for the Ukrainian community thus far. I hope that she will she continue working constructively with the all-party group for ending homelessness so that we can ensure that homelessness among Ukrainian refugees living in Britain is prevented wherever possible and resolved quickly if it does tragically occur. I look forward to hearing no doubt short and insightful contributions from Front Benchers, and considerate comments from colleagues throughout the remainder of the debate.
Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)
I commend the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for securing the debate. I agree with a lot of the points that he made.
From the moment Vladimir Putin launched his assault on Ukraine on that terrible morning of 24 February, we knew that our obligation to the Ukrainian people would need to extend far beyond the battlefield—our resolve that Ukrainian forces should get the supplies and equipment that they needed to resist, in time to drive back the Russian onslaught, would have to be matched by a determination that no Ukrainian fleeing the fighting would be left out in the cold. Although we can take great pride in the considerable support that we have lent to Ukrainian forces in the field—the UK is now clearly established as the second largest donor of military aid to Ukraine—when it comes to supporting those who have fled the conflict, our record has been far more mixed.
Hon. Members have painted a grave picture of the situation now facing many of the families who arrived in the UK through the Ukraine sponsorship scheme. More than 2,500 are now owed homelessness prevention or relief duty, and many thousands more are living in situations that are, or are rapidly becoming, untenable. Indeed, my hon. Friends and I warned in September last year—as the initial six-month sponsorships were due to expire—that community sponsorship was only ever intended as a short-term response to an immediate crisis, and that the Government needed to take urgent action to prevent thousands of refugees from falling into homelessness. It is frankly shameful that the Government failed to heed those warnings earlier.
Crucially, I argued at that time that Ministers needed to do much more to help Ukrainians to secure homes of their own, including by allowing local authorities to act as guarantors for Ukrainians entering the private rented sector. More than 45% of respondents to a recent survey reported that they encountered significant difficulties in accessing rented accommodation, so I again urge the Minister to look at what more can be done to help Ukrainians to navigate an increasingly dysfunctional housing market. The motion in the name of the hon. Member for Harrow East rightly draws attention to the importance of close collaboration between central Government and local government, which has also been touched on by a number of Members.
On the anniversary of the establishment of the Homes for Ukraine scheme, it is worth reflecting on just how much responsibility local authorities have been left to shoulder, from finding school places for Ukrainian children to ensuring that elderly refugees’ healthcare needs are addressed. Now, they are increasingly acting as the backstop for those who have found themselves homeless. It is imperative that the Government commit to doing more to support local authorities that are helping refugees, beginning with providing greater clarity about how the £150 million homelessness reduction funding announced in December can be spent.
Finally, there is the issue of funding. Last month, the Local Government Association warned that the halving of funding for arrivals under the Homes for Ukraine scheme in 2023, and the ending of education funding this month, would present serious challenges to councils that are already exposed to high inflation and grappling with overstretched resources. Ensuring that funding for local authorities is under constant review and commensurate with the needs of their Ukrainian guests is essential if we are to honour the commitments that we have made to those who have come to the UK in search of safety. We must ensure, too, that hosts get the financial support they need at a time of record high food and energy prices, so that no one is forced to make homeless the guests they once warmly welcomed into their homes.
I agree with what the hon. Member for Harrow East said about Lord Harrington. The Minister should revisit this, and we should be having more Zooms and more information with regard to the Ukrainian people who are residents in this country.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) on leading the debate and the important and pertinent points he made. I want to talk first about the situation in Scotland and then the cost of living crisis and some of the other issues that he highlighted.
One year on from Putin’s illegal invasion, the message of the SNP to Ukrainian arrivals remains crystal clear: Scotland is their home for as long as they need it to be. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine last February, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has recorded over 8 million refugees from Ukraine across Europe. That is around 20% of the Ukrainian population. From the outset of the crisis, Scotland has been ready to help. As the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said at the time,
“Let us let people in and do the paperwork afterwards.”—[Scottish Parliament Official Report, 8 March 2022; c. 11.]
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman is right that we had the super sponsor scheme in Scotland, which everybody thought was a great initiative, but did it not fall foul of the point that the hon. Member for Harrow East made—namely, that we thought the problem was over when we got people to Scotland? We did not see it as a long-term exercise, and as a consequence, we have had almost 2,500 people living on cruise ships, which the British Red Cross rightly says is completely inappropriate for their needs. We are going to be dealing with these situations many times in the future. We must learn from the mistakes we have made this time and understand that, when the refugees arrive here, that is the beginning of the story, not the end.
Chris Stephens
I have great sympathy with that. One cruise ship is currently based in my constituency, at least until the end of the month, and I am going to touch on some of those issues. A lot of people thought that the situation would end quickly, and it has not. Governments across the board and all of us as elected Members should learn from things as they develop, so I thank the right hon. Gentleman for making that point.
The super sponsor scheme has been overwhelmingly popular, with local authorities, the third sector and local communities all working in partnership. As a result, the last 12 months have seen nearly 23,000 people from Ukraine arriving to safety in Scotland, with over 18,900 of those arriving through the super sponsor scheme. That represents around 20.4% of all UK arrivals. The Scottish Government are supporting the scheme with over £70 million allocated for the Ukrainian resettlement programme for 2023-24, to ensure that communities continue to receive help to rebuild lives.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the cruise ships—I have visited one to help people who became constituents. As I said in the Westminster Hall debate last week, and I would be interested to hear from the hon. Member for Harrow East on this, one big concern is that those people are waiting months—far too long, in my view—for their biometric residence permits. I hope the Minister will once again take that issue up with the Home Office, because I am still dealing with it weekly with Ukrainian refugees who cannot go on to employment. The hon. Member for Harrow East and other Members across the Chamber are indicating that that remains a problem, so I hope the Minister will take it up on behalf of us all.
Support is being provided, with the Department for Work and Pensions, the education department, the council and the health and social care partnership all helping people based on the cruise ship in Govan as best they can, but the focus needs to be on matching them with suitable long-term accommodation. In September, the Scottish Government introduced the Ukraine longer-term resettlement fund, with up to £50 million available to bring council and empty properties into use and increase housing supply. We need to have a discussion on housing policy across the board, but with a lot of homelessness among Ukrainian refugees and empty properties, something should be done.
Florence Eshalomi
The hon. Member is making a powerful speech on this issue. One issue highlighted in the evidence session where we heard from a number of women, as the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) mentioned, was housing, and especially the cost of housing in London. Can the Government learn anything from what the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) has outlined that the Scottish Government are doing in bringing empty properties back into use? My frustration is that we know there are many empty properties that a number of councils could bring back into use, but their funding has been cut drastically for the past 13 years.
Chris Stephens
I will come on to the UK Government’s support in that regard, but we should be encouraging local authorities and the Government to look at empty properties. Going past an estate agency in London, I thought I was looking at a premiership transfer fee, not a property price. That is a big problem in London. For those of us who are not London MPs and have to try to find accommodation here, it can be very difficult. The case that there is a specific issue in London has been well made in the debate.
I want to develop the point—made by the hon. Member for Harrow East—that the hostile environment has made it difficult for Ukrainian refugees to move into longer-term rented accommodation. The Immigration Act 2014 introduced a right to rent scheme that obliged landlords to carry out immigration checks on their prospective tenants, but that legislation was found to have a discriminatory impact, making landlords less likely to rent their properties to people from minority groups. As the hon. Member said, there are landlords who are refusing to take Ukrainian refugees. That is another issue that must be looked at.
Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to point out the issues with the right to rent scheme. There are some additional barriers for Ukrainians—we like to call them temporarily displaced people, because we are hoping they will go back after the war, but the issues of guarantors and deposits are really big ones to overcome. There is a whole range of issues that the Home Office and DLUHC need to look at in order to ensure those people can get into housing.
Chris Stephens
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, and again, I hope the Minister will answer those questions. The structure of the UK rental market places power in the hands of landlords, and it undermines any rights that tenants may be afforded under the law.
I turn to the cost of living crisis, which was another point well made by the hon. Member for Harrow East. The last year has placed unprecedented financial pressure on households, with the cost of living crisis playing havoc with people’s finances. Many hosts who opened their doors to Ukrainian arrivals last March could not have fully appreciated how bad the crisis would become, with inflation at 10.5% in December last year. From January, the UK Government support available to local councils was cut from £10,500 to £5,900 for each arrival. That seems to be a short-sighted decision. To develop further the point from the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, that decision was taken without any consultation with the devolved Administrations, and I hope the Minister will be able to respond on that.
Councils should receive proper funding to provide employment and language support for Ukrainians, which research has shown is crucial. As the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) said, the Local Government Association continues to warn of the growing number of Ukrainians presenting as homeless to councils, particularly the significant rise in those who have arrived under the Homes for Ukraine scheme. Data released in February shows that 4,295 Ukrainian households have presented themselves to councils as homeless, which is a 40% increase since November 2022.
The Government cannot simply pass the buck to local authorities. They must ensure sustained funding so that no one who has volunteered to take part in the scheme has to stop. Finally, the uplift in the thank-you payment from £350 to £500 was welcome. However, I hope that the Government will listen to the concerns of the British Red Cross, which says that the increase could come too late and will not always be enough. I look forward to hearing from other Members in this debate.
Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)
I begin by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for doing so much to secure this debate. He speaks with authority and conviction on these matters, and I know through my interactions with him that he cares deeply about the plight of those in need. His work on homelessness issues is testament to that, be it the regulation of temporary accommodation or his work with the all-party parliamentary group on ending homelessness.
There have been several notable contributions towards today’s debate. First, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), who is sadly no longer in her place, raised the plight of the Afghans who were escaping Taliban violence. I agree entirely that too many are being failed, including those who bravely served alongside our armed forces, as the hon. Member for Harrow East also said in his remarks. Too many are still in asylum hotels. This situation is completely unacceptable and must be addressed.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is a doughty champion for his constituents in this place—sadly he is not in his place at the minute—spoke about the generosity of local communities and faith groups. My hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), who also does incredible work on the APPG on ending homelessness, spoke about the need for more targeted living costs. My hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) spoke knowledgeably about the grave picture Ukrainian families now face in the UK, as well as the need for innovative solutions and the perilous positions of local authority funding. The hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) raised many significant points in his contribution, including biometric delays and landlords refusing to rent to refugees. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) also raised the important issue of the need for a proper guarantor scheme.
This debate has been well-timed, and following on from the Westminster Hall debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) at the start of this month, it marks the one-year anniversary of the Homes for Ukraine scheme. Indeed, as the shadow Minister for homelessness and rough sleeping, it is a huge privilege to be responding on behalf of His Majesty’s Opposition on a subject of such significance.
It is heartening to bear witness to the consensus across the Chamber about our moral obligation to the Ukrainian people and, in particular, the more than 165,000 households that have sought refuge in Britain. As I said in Westminster Hall a fortnight ago, the House is united in support for Ukraine and her people. The Opposition’s support for the Ukrainian war effort against Putin’s brutal aggression is unshakeable. We all have a duty to ensure that Ukraine emerges victorious.
On the word “obligations”, for me they are clear. We know our obligations in eastern Europe, and we know we have obligations at home, too, in support of the Ukrainian people. They are two sides of the same coin, and I firmly believe that neglecting our domestic obligations risks undermining us on the international stage. I do not doubt the sincerity of the Government’s intentions in respect of Ukrainian refugees—after all, the Homes for Ukraine scheme is the largest refugee scheme ever administered by this country and is testament to the British people’s generosity, with many thousands opening up their homes to welcome the most vulnerable, often women and children.
The Government are failing to deliver security and certainty for all Ukrainian households in Britain, however, and it should haunt them—especially the Department—that as of last month, more than 4,000 households were owed a homelessness prevention or relief duty. It should be a mark of shame that 2,985 of those 4,295 households have dependent children within them, and that 735 households are now in temporary accommodation. Most worryingly for the Minister, a majority of the total number of homeless Ukrainian households—2,595 to be precise—are or were previously on the Homes for Ukraine scheme that her Department administers. We must do better.
The Minister cannot rise to the Dispatch Box and claim in good faith that the Government were not forewarned by Opposition Members. At the onset of the war in early 2022, the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), asked the Secretary of State if he would put a safety net in place in case of future placement breakdowns. On 14 March 2022, precisely a year ago, she said in this Chamber:
“Surely we are not going to ask people who have fled bombs and bullets to lie homeless on the streets of Britain.”—[Official Report, 14 March 2022; Vol. 710, c. 622.]
No proper answer was forthcoming at the time from the Secretary of State, other than political posturing in response to some eminently sensible questioning.
Here we are today, a year on, and the Government are exposed. Most frustratingly, they are again defined by being inherently reactive. They fail time and again to get ahead of the curve before issues develop, even when they are repeatedly warned that problems could arise or are arising. In this instance, it is yet again local councils the length and breadth of the country that are picking up the mess of Tory short-termism.
In response to a question on placement breakdown a year ago today, the Secretary of State said that
“there may be occasions where relationships break down, and in those circumstances we will be mobilising the support not only of central Government and local government, but of civil society, to ensure that individuals who are here can move on.”—[Official Report, 14 March 2022; Vol. 710, c. 626.]
Naturally, therefore, my question for the Minister is: where is that mobilisation? I would be grateful if she advised the House of what the Department is doing to address the barriers Ukrainian families face in accessing private rented accommodation, and what is being done to assist local authority housing teams who are completely overwhelmed with not just refugees, but other local cohorts.
We must get this right and correct the wrongs with a sense of urgency. Surely the Government are not blind to this growing problem and are therefore not prepared to sit on their hands. For the sake of those who have fled the bombs and bullets of the Russian Federation, I ask the Minister to come back to this place with a credible plan to address homelessness among Ukrainian households—a plan that must involve greater resources for local authorities. If she does so, the Opposition will work with her in good faith, alongside stakeholders beyond this place, such as our key charities and the local councils that are doing their utmost on the frontline in support of our communities.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Felicity Buchan)
I thank the Backbench Business Committee and my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for calling this very important debate on the anniversary—the actual anniversary—of the Homes for Ukraine scheme.
I want to start by saying that the Homes for Ukraine scheme is truly remarkable, and I think we should feel incredibly proud of it as a country. It is thanks to the generosity of the British people that we have been able to welcome over 117,000 Ukrainians under the scheme. When we include the other two schemes, the Ukraine family scheme and Ukraine extension scheme, the total number of Ukrainians who have arrived safely in the UK is over 166,000. I also want to say that we continue to see arrivals under the Homes for Ukraine scheme at a rate of approximately 900 to 1,100 a week, using the last published data from the fourth quarter.
The plight of the people of Ukraine—those who have left the country and those who have remained to fight for Ukrainian sovereignty—has touched people across the UK since the war began just over a year ago. That is why so many people in all parts of Britain offered, at the drop of a hat, to open their homes as well as their hearts to a Ukrainian guest or family fleeing the barbaric war that Vladimir Putin has been inflicting on their homeland. Since they made it on to UK soil, the wellbeing, safety and treatment of those Ukrainians are things we have all been rightly invested in. The motion put forward today, exactly one year from when the Homes for Ukraine scheme was put in place, reflects just how strong the imperative is to support Ukraine and our Ukrainian guests in their new life on UK soil.
I feel very strongly about this personally, because not only am I the Minister for the Homes for Ukraine scheme, but my constituency is one of the centres of the Ukrainian community. Kensington houses the Ukrainian embassy, the Ukrainian social club, the wonderful St Mary’s Ukrainian School and the Ukrainian cultural institute. I have stood side by side with my Ukrainian community from before the invasion, and I will be spending Saturday with them and many other Ukrainians. If we look at the numbers in my constituency, we have 423 registered sponsors and 617 recently arrived Ukrainians, including 152 children.
Florence Eshalomi
I thank the Minister for the points she has highlighted, which demonstrate the generosity of people across our many constituencies who have opened their homes to welcome Ukrainian refugees. One of the things we heard at the evidence session is that, while the women and their children who have come over here are really happy to have been welcomed, a number of them are very much looking forward to going back home and settling back in, and the difficulties they are facing in the interim are making that much more difficult. Does the Minister agree that the Government must redouble their efforts to address the concerns that they and their host families are raising?
Felicity Buchan
I will go on to explain exactly what the Government are doing, but clearly the scheme is evolving. We have already changed it to increase the thank-you payments and to open it up to unaccompanied minors. We are always happy to take on board feedback and to refine it, but I will come on to explain exactly what the Government are doing.
We are doing so much in Ukraine, but we are also doing much here in the UK. This scheme, which is powered entirely by the generosity of the British public, has seen more than 117,000 people arrive in the UK since its launch a year ago. If we include the Ukraine family scheme, we have now helped to find more than 166,000 people a safe and secure home. Those numbers are enormous, and we should never desensitise ourselves to just how many people we have given a new home, helped to start a new life, and offered optimism for life after the conflict. Each of those 166,000 people is somebody removed from the immediate danger of that terrible conflict.
A number of Members have mentioned Government money, so let me explain exactly what the Government are doing. As a Government, we have been determined to reciprocate the generosity of the hosts who have come forward with offers of help. To that end, we have committed to provide £1.1 billion to councils through tariff funding and thank-you payments for arrivals in their area, to support guests and sponsors alike. I thank local authorities for the excellent job they have been doing. By way of recognising the hugely generous support of sponsors in the Homes for Ukraine scheme, we have upped the thank-you payments—the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) alluded to that. Those thank-you payments are now £500 a month, once guests have been in the country for over a year. The scheme has also been extended from 12 months to two years. Our No. 1 priority throughout has been to offer stable homes to Ukrainians seeking sanctuary on UK soil. I feel a tremendous sense of pride that we have offered Ukrainians a temporary home, and huge pride in the thousands of people in this country who have taken in a guest.
Chris Stephens
The British Red Cross had some criticisms about the qualifications for the thank-you payments. Will the Minister remind the House of the eligibility requirements to qualify for those thank-you payments, and say whether the Government are considering changing them?
Felicity Buchan
To be eligible for the thank-you payments, someone needs to be a sponsor under the Homes for Ukraine scheme. For the uptick in the thank-you payment, they need to be hosting a Ukrainian who has been in the country for more than 12 months, although they need not have been with that person for more than 12 months.
This debate is about homelessness, so I want to focus in on the numbers. There are cases where relationships between hosts and guests have broken down, but that is not unique to the United Kingdom; such issues exist in many countries across Europe. The Government have tried, wherever possible, to make sure that those who experience that kind of unavoidable scenario have been protected by a safety net. As Members will know, when a sponsorship can no longer continue, councils will support Ukrainians to find new accommodation. Our data shows that by 24 February this year, 2,910 Ukrainian households under the Homes for Ukraine scheme had been owed a homelessness duty by their local authority in England. That number is 4,630 for all Ukrainian arrivals. To put that in context, we have seen more than 166,000 Ukrainian arrivals, so that is a very small percentage. I would also like to clarify that a homelessness duty means a local authority has a duty to prevent or relieve homelessness, so in many cases local authorities will be preventing homelessness before it occurs. Indeed, 2,085 of the approximately 4,600 are recorded as having been prevented or relieved.
I want to come back to temporary accommodation. The latest number is 660 Ukrainian households in temporary accommodation. Again, we do not want Ukrainian households to be in temporary accommodation, but they are in accommodation and it is a small percentage of the overall number of arrivals.
Felicity Buchan
I will make one final point before giving way. Clearly, we want the numbers to be as low as possible. That is why we are also putting in place for 2023-24 a £150 million fund for which councils across the UK, including the devolved Administrations, will be eligible. That will be principally to relieve homelessness among the Ukrainian community. As local communities are best placed to understand the support they need, they will be able to use the £150 million fund to help all those at risk of homelessness.
Paula Barker
I thank the Minister for giving way; she is being very generous with her time. She spoke about local authorities having an obligation to find Ukrainians homes where there has been a breakdown. Does she agree that local authorities are under enormous pressure not only with the Homes for Ukraine scheme and with arrangements that break down, but from people from local communities who find themselves homeless? Can she tell us a little about what extra resources are being given to very cash-strapped councils that have seen cuts over the last decade or so?
Felicity Buchan
Yes, absolutely. We are making available the £1.1 billion in tariff payments that I alluded to, the £150 million fund specifically for homelessness, and—I am about to come to this—an additional £500 million local authority housing fund, which will provide capital funding directly to English councils in areas facing the most significant housing pressures due in part to recent Ukrainian arrivals. That fund alone is expected to provide up to 4,000 homes by 2024, the vast majority initially for Ukrainians, but approximately 400 to 500 for Afghan families too. Over time, those homes will be for the benefit of local communities, because they will become part of the local authority housing stock.
Florence Eshalomi
I thank the Minister for giving way. She is being very generous with her time this afternoon. Like many Members, I welcome the new £500 million local authority housing fund for new homes. I referred to my constituency and my local authority. In Lambeth, we have more than 30,000 people on the housing waiting list. The situation is the same not just in London but up and down the country, so 4,000 homes is a small drop in the ocean. Is there anything more the Minister can get the Government and the Department to do to accelerate house building, so we can get the affordable homes that many local authorities desperately need?
Felicity Buchan
The Government are also making available £654 million over the course of the next two years under the homelessness prevention grant. That follows an additional £50 million we made available this year, to run up to £366 million this year. Again, these are large sums of money. We recognise the pressure on housing, in particular in London but across the country. House building is a huge focus of ours. We are making resources available and giving local authorities two years of funding so that they can plan on that basis. Let me draw the hon. Member’s attention to the fact that over this three-year spending review we are making £2 billion available for the relief of rough sleeping and homelessness. Again, these are very large numbers. Although we saw an uptick in rough sleeping at the last count, rough-sleeping numbers are still 28% lower than pre-pandemic.
Let me draw the House’s attention to our comparative performance on rough sleeping. Every single person sleeping rough is one too many, but in England the rate is five per 100,000 people. That is lower only in two countries—Japan and South Korea. In the US, the rate is 70 per 100,000. There is no question but that one person sleeping rough is too many, but the UK record is comparatively a stronger one. I asked a data provider on homelessness whether there was a country that we should look at for best practice, and I was told that the only two countries with lower numbers are Japan and South Korea.
I am conscious that we have a second debate to move on to, and I want to reply to other Members, so I will talk briefly about Afghans. Resettling Afghans is an incredible focus of Government. I heard a Member mention that there were 11,000 Afghans in bridging accommodation. I want to put on record that the number is 8,350 at the moment, but the Government are incredibly focused on ensuring that we get Afghans into permanent accommodation; that is clearly right for the Afghan families. It has been slightly slower than one would have wanted, partly because many Afghan families are quite large and we just do not have many three, four or five-bedroom properties available. It is a huge focus of Government to locate those properties.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East asked why the data that he referred to was voluntary, not mandatory. I want to make it clear that the quarterly data on the statutory homelessness duty is mandatory. It is the monthly management information that is voluntary, but mandatory data is available on a quarterly basis. He also asked about support for jobs; as soon as a Ukrainian arrives in the country, no matter under which scheme, they are eligible for work, education and benefits. I have visited the jobcentre in my constituency, where they are very focused on offering the Ukrainian cohort work coach support and a dedicated enhanced support offer. That is important.
The SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West, talked about the Scottish fund of £50 million to renovate existing properties. Our £500 million fund for England allows local authorities to renovate, purchase and build new modular, so there is a lot of flexibility in there.
The hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) asked whether we could have more regular calls to answer questions that arise about the schemes. I am very happy to talk to him individually or as part of a larger group.
Several hon. Members mentioned the private rented sector, in which we are conscious that for some Ukrainians there have been barriers to access such as issues with credit history and the need for deposits or guarantees. According to the latest Office for National Statistics survey, 17% of Ukrainians are in the private rented sector. Our local authorities receive a tariff of £10,500—it was reduced to £5,900 for arrivals after 1 January—that can be used to help Ukrainians into the private rented sector by way of deposits. I am alive to the issues and alive to the fact that a lot of Ukrainians would like to have their own home, so I am working with local authorities and with the National Residential Landlords Association to focus on how we can overcome the barriers.
I am conscious that quite a few hon. Members wish to move on to the next debate, so I will wrap this one up even though it started only at four minutes past 4. May I finish by thanking every one of the sponsors across the country? They have stepped up in Ukraine’s hour of need with their offers of help, and their generosity has offered a lifeline to thousands of people fleeing the ordeal of war. The UK’s offer to the people of Ukraine is not static: it will continue to evolve, along with our wraparound support for those who have already relocated to the UK. On the anniversary of the Homes for Ukraine scheme, we should be rightly proud of it, proud of the sponsors and proud of our new Ukrainian guests. I say to them: thank you.
Bob Blackman
With the leave of the House, may I thank everyone who has contributed to this debate? I echo the Minister’s words of thanks for all those who have acted as hosts to Ukrainian refugees. Just imagine what it must be like for people to leave the country that is their home and their birth right, as bombs and shells land among them, and be forced to flee to a foreign country—it is truly horrific. I congratulate those who have done so.
My hon. Friend the Minister should be cognisant of this: the Government, the Opposition and all of us should be very proud of the schemes that have been set up, but the figures are going in the wrong direction. The threat of homelessness among Ukrainian refugees is growing. It is time we nipped it in the bud, because if we do not take proper action now it will become a major problem. I commend the motion to the House and look forward to further action from the Government accordingly.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House calls upon His Majesty’s Government to support Ukrainian refugees living in the United Kingdom, to prevent homelessness amongst this group where possible and ensure it is brief, rare and non-recurrent where it cannot be avoided; and urges His Majesty’s Government to work with partner organisations and local authorities to ensure refugees facing and experiencing homelessness are supported during their time living in the UK.
Russian Assets: Seizure
(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House calls on the Government to lay before Parliament proposals for the seizure of Russian state assets with the purpose of using such assets to provide support for Ukraine, including the rectifying and rebuilding of war damage brought about by the Russian invasion of that country, and to facilitate the prosecution of war crimes and atrocities; and further calls on the Government to provide progress reports on this policy to the House every six months.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
Before my hon. Friend disappears from the Chamber, may I say that this is a very timely debate? So much of it is connected to the last debate, which I congratulate him on securing, because it feeds into this one: it is all about what has happened to people.
Just before Christmas, I was privileged to visit Ukraine along with the hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins). It was an eye-opening trip and it was hugely relevant to today’s debate. It shed for me a more personal light on the desperate nature of what was happening to the Ukrainian people, which I was able to witness for myself. We were fortunate enough to go there under the auspices of Siobhan’s Trust, a charity based in Scotland and founded by a man called David Fox-Pitt. That allowed us to be close to the frontline, where the charity does its work. It feeds some 4,000 people a day on hot pizza, which they would never get normally and which bucks up their lives. However, most of them live in shelters and in terrible conditions.
All around we saw the devastation inflicted on the villages. Many mines had been scattered, leaving us unable to get off the paths, and in the villages lay dead bodies which, even by then, had not been collected because of the mines. These were people who had brought no harm to anyone—and, by the way, many of them were Russian speakers, which goes to show exactly how ghastly President Putin and his Administration really are. They have caused all these difficulties through the murderous nature of this terrible war brought on the heads of ordinary, normal Ukrainians; that is the state we are in.
Seeing all that devastation made me all the more certain that we must press on and do more to bring these criminals to justice, and make full reparation for the damage and destruction and loss of life that they have caused. I congratulate my own Government and, indeed, the whole House on coming together to do huge things in Ukraine with their support through arms and weapons and training, and I congratulate ordinary individuals outside the House on their generous contributions of money. The fact that we are united demonstrates a very strong sense of purpose to the rest of the world. However, there is more that we must do; we cannot sit back and say that we have done our bit. This is a progressive war and we will be tugged along with it, so it is time that we thought of getting ahead of some of these problems.
I believe that we are being visited today by three Ukrainian MPs: Mr Dmytro Natalukha, whom I met in Kyiv, Ms Maria Mezentseva, and Ms Olena Khomenko. I think they are somewhere in the Public Gallery, although I have not managed to see them yet.
Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)
I join the right hon. Gentleman in welcoming the Ukrainian MPs who are with us today. A letter has been sent by 45 Ukrainian MPs to our Prime Minister urging him to do precisely what we want, which is not to freeze assets but to seize them. Given that support from the Ukrainian Parliament, does he not agree that there is now an urgent need for the Government to be bold and to act?
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
I do agree with the right hon. Lady. We have a lot of Russian assets that are currently frozen, while Ukraine is screaming out for money and support to help all those devastated areas. We can bring the two together, and that is what today’s debate is all about.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
I am sure the right hon. Member is also aware of allegations that a number of the people sanctioned have moved their money around into trusts to give to their children in order to avoid having their assets taken. Does he agree that the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill should be strengthened to require sanctioned individuals to disclose assets that were owned six months prior to their designation? That would prevent oligarchs such as Roman Abramovich from moving assets around and evading the sanctions.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
I entirely agree. I was going to raise that point at the end of my speech, but never mind: this is a shared debate.
I fully back that proposal, which is one of the recommendations that we have to make so that the Government can jump ahead of this. Too often we have been slow and, in the six months that have elapsed, in some of those cases, people have shifted their money around into all sorts of areas. One particular individual—I was going to name him, but I will not do so now—has managed to buy flats through a Cyprus company. His name is not registered, but they own it and the money is lodged there. This sort of stuff is going on and we need to shut it down.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for raising such an important issue. Of course, the largest amount of Russian frozen assets are those of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. Yesterday, the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns), said that, if we do not have the right law in place to use those frozen Central Bank assets to pay for Ukraine’s reconstruction, we should change the law and test it in the courts. I agree with her; does my right hon. Friend?
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
My right hon. Friend is jumping ahead of me, so I will allow that point to stand for a minute.
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant), whose ten-minute rule Bill was on exactly this subject. There was a lot of logic and sense in that Bill, and we should use it as a baseline for quite a lot of the stuff that needs to happen. As he pointed out when he made his speech on the Bill, in the last year, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights recorded 18,358 civilian casualties. He went on to say that 7,031 people had been killed, that 11,327 had been injured, including 177 girls and 221 young boys, that some 12 million people had left Ukraine and 7 million had been displaced internally. When I was there, I saw many people who had had to move to Lviv internally because their homes were no longer habitable, and they were living in terrible conditions.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
I want to make a bit of progress, just in case my right hon. Friend is about to tell me what I have got here in my speech. Forgive me if I just get ahead of it, because everyone else will probably do the same.
Let us have look at the costs of the war, which are really what this is all about. Ukraine’s death toll is 60,000 and it is rising every day. The cost of reconstruction is now estimated to be between $750 billion and $1 trillion and rising, and these might be conservative estimates because the damage is still not fully accounted for. Since the beginning of the invasion, the UK has provided £2.3 billion in military assistance and another £220 million in humanitarian aid. The UK has frozen billions of pounds in Russian assets under sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine. The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation has reported that £18 billion of assets owned by individuals and entities associated with the regime have been frozen since the beginning of the war, but some estimates suggest that more than £40 billion could yet be frozen and this is the point we want to get to.
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
I, too, have just got back from Ukraine. I was there a couple of weeks ago and saw the immense devastation across the country, specifically in those areas that were Russian held. Importantly, this Government looked at plans to repurpose assets last July but they still have not done it. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is now imperative for the Government to look at repurposing those state assets in order to start rebuilding and restructuring the country and offering that important aid?
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady.
I want to talk about what Russian state assets are frozen and what could be frozen. It is important to note that, in Congress right now, they are already discussing this—I spoke to someone there just 24 hours ago—and in Canada, they are seriously talking about it. European Parliaments are also discussing the matter. This is a moment for us to give a lead on this and help to shape the nature of it, as we have a conference coming up shortly and I wonder whether that might be the place to lead on this matter.
According to the Bank of Russia’s own 2021 annual report, £26 billion of Russian state reserves are in the United Kingdom and, on a wider level, western Governments have now frozen some $350 billion of Russian central bank reserves in response to the invasion. There is yet more that they could do. The combined value of frozen UK properties belonging to Russian oligarchs is at least £2 billion. Funds frozen under the UK sanctions regime are passive, and that is the problem. Those funds would enable us to finance the rebuilding of Ukraine and to show Russian dirty money the door. This is the key: we send the message and we help with reparations. Several countries, including Canada, as I said earlier, and the EU are already on to this process and I urge our Government to help to give a lead on this.
Dame Margaret Hodge
May I draw the right hon. Gentleman’s attention to the fact that the Canadians have gone even further? My understanding is that they have already started taking action by pursuing the forfeiture of US$26 million from Roman Abramovich’s holding in Granite Capital Holdings Ltd. If Canada can do it, surely we can, too.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
I agree with the right hon. Lady. If countries do this individually, it will allow terrible regimes to dodge their money around from one financial centre to another, as some will not have done it. This has to be done in one go by all the developed world’s major centres, otherwise it will end up with disputes and problems. I applaud Canada for starting, but we need the City of London, New York, Zurich and all the other major centres to be serious about making sure this cannot happen and these assets will always be seized.
I can tell the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan), that we understand the underlying problem, but my point is that the issues are not insuperable.
Vicky Ford
My right hon. Friend is making an excellent point, but I draw his attention to another source of funds. There are increasing stories that the Wagner Group may be using gold stolen from Sudan’s gold mines to fund part of its atrocious activities in Ukraine. The Wagner Group is obviously guilty of atrocities not only in Sudan but elsewhere in the Sahel and Africa. There are stories today that the Italian Defence Minister is directly linking the Wagner Group to the increase of small boat migrants in Europe. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as well as taking action on Russian assets, we should urgently proscribe the Wagner Group as a terrorist organisation?
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
Yes, of course. It is a disgusting organisation led by a disgusting individual carrying out disgusting atrocities in Russia. It is also using slave labour in some of these mines. Of course the Wagner Group must be proscribed, as should the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other such organisations. We should be at the forefront of this, not lagging behind.
The Government’s general belief is that seizing these central bank reserves would violate Russia’s sovereign immunity and would therefore be a breach of international law. If we think about it, Putin has redefined international crime and is now hiding behind international law. It is time for us to come together to make the modifications. That is the key.
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for securing this important debate. Does he agree that there may be something to learn from the Iraq war? Iraqi assets under Saddam Hussein’s rule were used— there was a formal legal process under which people could apply for those assets to rebuild infrastructure that had been damaged in Kuwait and elsewhere. I wonder whether the Government, when they answer the debate today, would say whether they are considering a similar process—a formal legal process under which Russian assets could be used to finance construction work in Ukraine.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
I would happily welcome that. It is a very good idea.
Ultimately, the war Putin initiated on Ukraine must now be punished in a variety of ways. It is unwarranted aggression against another country, and it therefore changes how international law should be applied. We should readjust and redefine international law to the new reality that Putin’s invasion has brought about. The old order is now broken, and we need to redefine it to make sure that the lesson for any other oligarch, future leader or demagogue is that they can never again hide behind these rules.
Although international law is always evolving, we need to recognise the exceptional nature of Russia’s aggression and conduct in Ukraine, as that is critical to what we do next. Russia’s aggression and invasion are breaches of the most fundamental principles of international law and order. Russia is aware of this breach but has not stopped its conduct, and it continues to threaten international security and peace. That unprecedented conduct creates a need for all Governments in the west to amend their laws together to deter other states. These amendments should use specific and limited criteria to preserve sovereign immunity in all cases. It is possible to do both without hiding behind the idea that sovereign immunity is an absolute that cannot be breached. Putin has breached it, and in future that should be the rule.
The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill could and should be strengthened to enable the seizure of undisclosed assets—that is the key. We already have a vehicle. It is wholly possible to make that difference, and to make it quite quickly. I say to my right hon. Friend the Minister that I hope she will give that serious consideration, as it is really important.
As we know, sanctions evasion is already an offence. Embedding a new “disclosure or lose it” principle would go a long way to ensuring that sanctioned oligarchs are no longer able to conceal their dirty money here with impunity. That would help us to clean up what became a bad reputation for the City of London, whereby much of that ill-gotten money was hiding here, in one of the leading nations of the free world, and we did little or nothing to stop that.
Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I get a bit frustrated when I keep hearing the Government talking about how many people we are sanctioning. There is no point in sanctioning people unless we enforce those sanctions. I find it difficult to comprehend that so far we have fined only two firms in this country. I am sure that there are many more sanctions busters in the UK than have thus far been revealed. It is important that that is not allowed to proceed with impunity, is it not?
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
Of course, I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman on that. Interestingly, if we manage to criminalise the failure to disclose sanctioned assets, we are halfway there on his point, because they cannot then escape. If we prove that sanctions evasion is taking place, this can be the basis for asset recovery in due course; we would then have a reason why we should be doing this, not just because of the criminal purpose, but for the fact that we would actually be able to gain funds.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech. Is he as worried as I am about this new trick that the Treasury is performing called “general licences”? There are now whole categories of spending where the Treasury is basically issuing carte blanche to oligarchs to spend what they like and, worse, it is refusing to reveal that framework to us here in this House.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman; this is beginning to sound like one of those “golden visas”. It was golden in description, but dirty and leaden in reality, and I think this is where we are again. We are going to find us all in agreement—
Bob Seely
Is the problem we have not shown, for example, in Abramovich’s allegedly shifting about £7 billion of assets out of the country the day before? What he did was perfectly legal, because I believe this was shifted to the United Arab Emirates or somewhere else in the middle east and his lawyers knew about it. In the United States, there is now talk about going after the law firms and the accountancy firms that help the oligarchs and that have helped these individuals to move their money around just before they have been sanctioned or to find ways around sanctions. Does my right hon. Friend agree that one way here is to go after these middlemen and women? We have not done that, but the problem is that what these people are doing is not necessarily illegal —they are shifting the money before it can be sanctioned, and money is a movable asset, unlike a house in Belgrave Square.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
I agree. These individuals, Abramovich and others, may want this to be done, but somebody has to do it for them, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right to follow the chain down, because we have to capture all the individuals down the chain, not just the one at the top. That is the key, because without those, this does not happen. He rightly says that, to avoid the sanctions, three weeks before the war began Abramovich was busy restructuring radically his assets. I believe that my hon. Friend is right to say that between £4 billion and £7 billion was squirreled away as a result, and we were not able to do anything about it. But we should have been ahead of the game on that one.
Dame Margaret Hodge
The right hon. Gentleman is making an excellent contribution. I want to say one thing: I do not think the Government are using their current powers as effectively as they could on this issue. Under section 11 of the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018, the powers can be used against somebody “associated with” the person sanctioned. If that is the case and I have read the legislation right, does he agree that the Government could have stopped Abramovich giving all this to his young children and could have sanctioned them because they were associated with Abramovich himself?
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
I am beginning to feel that I am making a collective speech, because the right hon. Lady’s point is down here in my notes. It is better made by her than me, but I fully agree with her as a result.
We could have got ahead of this—that is the point, as the example of Abramovich shows. Many others have drifted off, so the right hon. Lady is absolutely right: we needed to be quicker and more determined. Now, we have to sustain our determination to flush all this out while we have the opportunity. I always sense a little resistance. When we call it out, the Government say, “Ooh, we don’t know. We’ve got lots on our plate and we are doing lots of things,” but this is the time to act.
Siobhain McDonagh
The right hon. Gentleman was kind enough to participate in my Adjournment debate in Westminster Hall the other day. This is not just about oligarchs; it is about companies that are sanctions busting. I am aware of a Belarusian company that imports goods through Russia in order to undermine and take customers from a business in my constituency. Does he agree that, whether it is an oligarch or a business, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation and the Foreign Office should be adaptable and able to react to rogue actors, who will do everything possible to avoid the sanctions regime?
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
I must say, the hon. Lady’s debate was fascinating. She demonstrated that by our failure to follow this course, a UK company is essentially sanctioned because it is unable to get payment. The measures bounce back at us and honest, decent companies find themselves trapped by the failure to square the circle of the process and get everyone all along the chain. It was a brilliant debate, and I congratulate her on raising the subject on behalf of her constituents.
The Government should introduce new legislation to allow the seizure of already-frozen assets that are linked to criminality. The Russian Government have a huge amount of money of course, but many oligarchs are guilty of benefiting financially from war crimes and atrocities in Ukraine, so we should activate new legislation. Under such a mechanism, an enforcement authority such as the National Crime Agency could bring proceedings in a UK court to have property belonging to a sanctioned person involved in a gross violation of international human rights law or international humanitarian law confiscated without compensation, so that the frozen property can be used to fund reparations. That is the key.
Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)
That is a really important point. As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Ukraine, I know that Ukrainian parliamentarians, including those from the Rada who are in the Gallery, are desperate to repair and reconstruct their country. The air raid early warning system in Ukraine is broken—only 12% of the country is covered. They need reparations to be able to wage war and to reconstruct their country.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
The hon. Gentleman is right, and I obviously completely agree.
If we did this, we could have tougher sanctions. A recent example involved Eugene Tenenbaum, a close associate of Roman Abramovich—I am told that “Abram-oh-vich” is the correct pronunciation—and former Chelsea football club director, who was given permission by the Treasury to sell his Surrey mansion for £16 million a month after the Government designated him for UK sanctions and froze all his assets. How did that happen? Why did that happen? Who is not talking to someone else to tell them what they are doing? We are letting stuff slip through because we are not being serious about implementing measures properly.
I could give plenty of other examples. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the boss of the Wagner Group, is deeply involved in another current row about aircraft leased by western companies to Russia that were seized after sanctions were imposed. The Russians are refusing to pay reparations or hand the aircraft back. Huge amounts of money are available to these people. I have a list, but will not go through all the names, because I realise that many others want to speak.
Putin’s brutal invasion has now entered its second year. The Government must amplify their efforts. They have done a great deal, and I congratulate them on much of it, but much more is needed. The Government need to get right down into this issue and make sure that we have a plan for reparation and rebuilding of Ukraine. Let us start with the dirty money—that is the key. We may yet have to give more money, and so may America, but let us start where the bill lands first: with those who are responsible for this brutal invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainians are a peaceful and decent people whose lives have been turned upside down. Families have been destroyed or have had to flee, and many young men and women are now having to go to the frontline for the first time as soldiers and put their lives on the line, standing for the freedom of their country. We must seize those assets wherever appropriate and ensure that Russia is held to account. As I said earlier, there is much to say “Well done” to the Government for, but there is also much more that needs to be done.
I will leave hon. Members with this simple thought: as we come together across the House, let us also try to work out how we can bring all the other western Governments together in this action. To do it by ourselves will, I recognise, be a slight problem, but if we could get the US Congress, the Canadian Parliament and the European Union to engage on this, then we would have something that would frighten the Russians completely and give us the tools to finish this particular job.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)
As hon. Members have recognised, we are honoured to have been joined by colleagues from the Ukrainian Rada who are in the Gallery this afternoon. We welcome you; we salute you and the courage of your country in your fight for democracy.
I must just gently say to hon. Members that the winding-up speeches will start at 6.30 pm.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
I welcome the speech by the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), which I thought was excellent. I will supply three further thoughts and set the context for the scale of the task of Ukrainian reconstruction. I am glad the Government have offered to host the June conference for reconstruction finance, following on from a member of conferences in Lugano.
It is worth setting out for the House the sheer scale of the finance we need to mobilise, which is why the right hon. Gentleman is correct to say that we must start by seizing Russian assets now. Frankly, we will need to provide an enormous amount of money to our Ukrainian colleagues. Ukrainian GDP has been hit by about 45%; the World Bank thinks its budget deficit this year will be something like $38 billion. As many who have been there know, Ukraine has very high inflation and therefore very high interest rates; perhaps one third of businesses have stopped operations, 14 million people have left their homes, 6 million have gone abroad, there has been huge educational disruption for the next generation of Ukrainians and about half the energy infrastructure has been knocked out.
This has been a moment where the Bretton Woods institutions have really stepped up. Between the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, something like $27 billion has been supplied this year. Those Bretton Woods institutions offer us one of the most efficient and effective routes for providing what could be, on current estimates, a $750 billion bill to rebuild the great country of Ukraine. As chair of the parliamentary network on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, I am delighted that we have just launched the Ukraine chapter of the network. I am also delighted that at our global parliamentary forum, at the beginning of the spring meetings in Washington in April, we will have a special session focused on reconstruction finance for Ukraine.
However, $750 billion is a big number. Capitalising those kinds of loans could take $150 billion-worth of equity. That is why seizing, let us say, $300 billion of Russian bank reserves frozen abroad will be incredibly important in helping to supply that money.
Alex Sobel
With the reconstruction conference taking place in London on 21 and 22 June, does my right hon. Friend not think it is important for us to involve the IMF and World Bank in that conference and ensure that we have a rounded package for Ukraine, rather than working in silos or isolation?
Liam Byrne
It is crucial that we do that, and the spring meetings in Washington should provide a springboard, but the most efficient way of surging the necessary money into Ukraine is through the Bretton Woods institutions that we set up in 1944 to finance post-war reconstruction. We did it before—let us try it again.
My second point, having set the stage and set out some of the numbers, follows on from the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green. We now have to identify the legal strategy for turning this idea into a reality. All of us in this House are frustrated that the Government—and, indeed, Governments around the world—are, we feel, dragging their feet when it comes to putting in place the necessary laws to move from freezing to seizing. There are probably three components that we need to shift into place: there needs to be action at the United Nations; there needs to be action to set up the tribunal to prosecute Russia for the crime of aggression; and then we need to implement the ten-minute rule Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant), which would create the legal framework for action.
Liam Byrne
I will say a word about each of those things after I have given way to the hon. Gentleman.
Bob Seely
Does the right hon. Gentleman have a preferred option? Although it will be legally possible to seize Russian state assets—that has arguably been done before, so there is precedent—is he concerned about the seizure of private assets? I am tempted to say that those are legal. They are seized assets from a dirty period of Russian history, so I think one could say that they are not illegal, but how legal they are is another matter. If we are seizing oligarchs’ assets, how can we do so legally without setting a more tricky precedent?
Liam Byrne
I will come to that now. There are three things that we will need to do. It is not just about private wealth; it is about public wealth—the assets of the Russian central bank. We know that $300 billion was held abroad. We know where about $30 billion of it is, and that money has been frozen. To seize that money, we will need to do a couple of things.
First, we will need to bring the world together at the United Nations to pass a resolution that revokes the doctrine of immunity for central banks when there has been a clear violation of the United Nations charter. I am under no illusions; we will not get 100%, but by getting a significant number of nations to sign up to that resolution, we begin to change the parameters of international law. That means that domestic law, when we move it, will be in a much safer legal space. Indeed, many international lawyers would say that seizing those assets is a legitimate countermeasure, but if there is a UN resolution, we have begun to change the concept of what is protected by immunity—such as central bank assets—and what is not.
Secondly, we then have to ensure that we do not fall foul of the European convention on human rights, particularly the first protocol, which enshrines the right to the enjoyment of assets. We have to ensure that there is no way that the Russian Government can be considered a victim. The safest way we can do that is to move quickly, as President Zelensky has proposed, to begin prosecuting Russia for the crime of aggression. If we have a UN resolution that has begun to revoke the concept of immunity in the case of aggression, and a tribunal that is prosecuting Russia for the crime of aggression, we will have begun to change fundamentally the context of international law.
Bob Seely
I know that the right hon. Gentleman is about the most expert person here when it comes to the workings of the international financial institutions and so on. Does he expect or think that we will be able to seize oligarch assets as part of that process? If so, do we have any idea how we will proceed down that route, or are we looking only at Russian state assets? At some point, all the oligarchs close to Putin will get their billions back.
Liam Byrne
I think that we can use the same tactics to seize private and public assets, but I am conscious that we have to change the context and parameters of international law first. That is how we maximise the safety of domestic legislation, which has to be the third step. We in this House are lucky that my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda has set out precisely how to do that in his ten-minute rule Bill.
Crucially, we need to ensure that the State Immunity Act 1978, which gives immunity to central banks, is revoked or at least conditioned in a way that allow laws to be presented here so that we in Parliament can order the seizure, forfeiture and repurposing of assets.
My final point is a little more short term, meaning now. If we are to maximise the assets that we seize and repurpose for the reconstruction of Ukraine, we have to get serious about sanctions enforcement. Right now, frankly, we are not. There will be a lot more money available if we stop the nonsense that is going on in the dark at the moment. The truth is that sanctions enforcement in this country today is the proverbial riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
As the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green said, we have been told that as of October 2022, £18.4 billion-worth of Russian assets have been frozen in this country. We then learned from the scandal exposed by openDemocracy that the Treasury has been issuing licences like confetti, even to warlords such as Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group—in his case, to fly English lawyers to St Petersburg to prosecute an English journalist in an English court in order to silence him because he was writing the stories that triggered the sanctions against Prigozhin in the first place. What a nonsense!
As I began to dig into this, much worse was revealed. In the last Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation report, it was revealed that the Treasury is no longer issuing licences to individuals one by one to authorise specific expenditure; it is now issuing general licences that authorise an entire category of spending. In fact, 33 general licences were issued last year, so I naturally asked what the value of those general licences totalled. I was told on 15 February in a parliamentary answer:
“The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) does not disclose data from specific licences it has granted under UK sanctions regimes.”
When the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury came to the House on 25 January, we asked him whether, if he cannot tell us what the total value of the licences is, he could at least tell us what the licences were issued for. He said he could not tell us that because
“there is a delegated framework”
and that these decisions
“are routinely taken by senior civil servants.”—[Official Report, 25 January 2023; Vol. 726, c. 1014.]
I then asked what this delegated framework was and whether we in this House might have a look at it. I first tried a parliamentary question. The answer came back on 8 February:
“There are currently no plans to publish the delegation framework.”
I then had to try a freedom of information request, and I have it here in my hand. It came back to me on 9 March, and it says:
“we can confirm that HM Treasury does hold information within the scope of your request.
The information we have identified…we believe may engage the exemption provided for by section 35(1)(a)—formulation or development of Government policy.”
We now have a situation where Ministers are saying that it is the civil servants’ job, and the civil servants are saying that it is advice to Ministers. For that reason, we cannot get to what this delegated framework looks like.
I then asked whether they could at least tell us how many people we have busted for sanctions evasion. The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation confessed that there were 147 reports of a breach last year, but when I asked the Minister for Security how many criminal investigations had resulted from that, he said that he could not answer
“For reasons of operational security”.
I went back to the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation report to double-check, and of 147 reports of a breach, there have been a grand total of two monetary fines, both to fintech companies.
So there we have it: £18 billion frozen and licences issued like confetti in a secret regime that Ministers say is down to civil servants and civil servants say is actually advice to Ministers. Despite this flagrant abuse—and we know the scale of it, because the Financial Times told us that $250 million has been laundered by the Wagner Group—we have just two fines that total £86,000. Well, £86,000 in fines is not going to do much to help us rebuild Ukraine. I ask the Minister on the Front Bench to explain to us how she is going to do an awful lot better than that.
Sanctions enforcement in this country stinks to high heaven, and what concerns me most is the culture of secrecy around it. Many of us in this House have been around long enough to know that such a culture is never a recipe for good public policy. We in this House have to be realistic about the scale of finance that is needed; maximise the use of our Bretton Woods institutions; and move internationally and domestically, together with our allies, to change the parameters of international law and maximise the safety and security of domestic legislation that we pass here. But let us move now to send a clear signal from the UK—the home of the rule of law—that this is not going to be a safe haven for sanctions evasion. We are going to send that clear message by getting tough, and getting tough now.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)
If we are going to get everybody in, we are going to have to have a self-denying ordinance of about six minutes.
Sir John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
I start by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), who raises very important issues. The truth is that we probably will not be able to implement what we are discussing until the Russian invasion is defeated, but it is absolutely right that we start to plan now for when—I hope and pray—that happens. It is also a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), who raises matters that are of great concern right across the House. He does a service by doing so.
In December 2018, I visited the city of Mariupol. At that time, it was under blockade from the sea due to Russian enforcement preventing sea traffic arriving into the Sea of Azov. Nevertheless, it was a thriving port city. It is estimated that 90% of that city was either damaged or razed to the ground in the course of the sustained bombardment by Russian forces. Across Ukraine, an estimated 144,000 houses have been destroyed, and that number is increasing every day that we speak.
As has been pointed out, the estimated cost of reconstruction in Ukraine last year was around $750 billion. That figure is probably going to reach $1 trillion, and possibly rise even further. That is for reconstruction; on top of that, we have the question of compensation for those who have lost loved ones, the loss of economic infrastructure and jobs, and the damage to education and health. Those are huge sums, and it is only right that those responsible—the Russian state—should be made to pay.
Work has been done on this question, and I pay tribute to the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy and, in particular, Dr Azeem Ibrahim, who in conjunction with other international experts has been developing a plan for how we should go about seeking reparations from the Russian state. There are some legal precedents. Two have been identified, the first being the 1946 Paris agreement on reparation, which provided for the seizure of German public and private property in the aftermath of the second world war. As my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) mentioned, a more recent precedent was the establishment of the Kuwait compensation fund under the UN compensation commission, which used the proceeds of the Iraqi oil industry to pay out compensation totalling something like $52 billion to 1.5 million claimants.
That was established with the agreement of the UN Security Council, and unless there is a change to the composition of the Security Council, it seems unlikely that it is going to agree in this case. However, we need to fashion international multilateral agreements, and as has already been demonstrated, there is a substantial majority in the United Nations General Assembly that would support not only condemnation of Russia for its aggression, but the payment of compensation in due course.
Legal processes are under way. The International Criminal Court is investigating war crimes and the individuals responsible, but as we know, the ICC is prevented from bringing prosecutions in absentia, and Heads of State enjoy immunity. We need a mechanism that will hold to account those ultimately responsible for this aggression: the Heads of the Government of the Russian Federation. For that reason, I am pleased that the UK Government are now working with others on the establishment of a special tribunal to bring a prosecution for the crime of aggression, and I join others in paying tribute to our friends, in particular Maria Mezentseva of the Rada, who have been touring around to persuade different supportive countries of the case for bringing a prosecution.
As has been pointed out, the funds available for the payment of reparation in the first instance belong to the Russian state; the estimated frozen funds of the Russian central bank total something like $300 billion. On top of that, the Russian state enjoys oil revenues, and it is possible to consider whether some kind of levy could be placed on that. There are then the assets of institutions associated with the Russian state, such as Gazprom, Rosneft and Rosatom, but things will need to go beyond that, and the debate so far has rightly focused on whether we can address those assets held by private individuals and oligarchs.
Alex Sobel
The right hon. Gentleman is just coming on to the point I was going to make. There is some contention about assets held by private individuals and about their getting caught up in a very long legal process, but that is not the case with state assets and the assets of state-owned companies that he has just talked about, which we can address now. He talked earlier about reconstruction, but we do not need to wait until the war is finished. Many liberated areas need reconstruction now, and many other projects need to be financed. That work needs to happen now, not after the war has finished.
Sir John Whittingdale
I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I think the legal process for seizing the assets of Russian state institutions will be complicated, but it is certainly more feasible than addressing those of private individuals. That is not to say that we do not need to move to do so, but it will be legally much more complex.
Many of the oligarchs hold immense wealth and assets in western countries, and they do so at the behest of the Russian Government. No oligarch is able to hold enormous sums of wealth and maintain their position in Russia, unless it is with the agreement of the Russian Government. A number of them are known as wallets, which means they are simply taking care of the wealth of Mr Putin and others at the senior levels of the Russian Government. It is right that we should address that, but we have to accept that this country has a proud history of respect for property rights and the rule of law, and we have also seen the extent to which lawyers will pursue cases on behalf of those individuals. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) mentioned strategic lawsuits against public participation, and we have already seen examples of that.
I do not in any way underestimate the complexity. This will be an unprecedented legal measure, but it is necessary because, as has already been said, the devastation wreaked in Ukraine has to be put right, and it is only proper that that should be done by those responsible, who are the Russian Government. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green that that will need international agreement. It cannot be done by us alone, but it is right that we start to look now at seeking that multilateral agreement among all the countries where these assets are held and to prepare for the day when we can start to make Russia pay for what it has done.
Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)
Billions of sanctioned Russian assets lie dormant. There is at least £26 billion of Russian bank reserves frozen in the UK. It is blood money that Putin has secured on the backs of the bodies of his own people, the people of Grozny and the people of Ukraine. For years, Putin was preparing for sanctions. He expected what we, along with our allies, have done, but there are many countries facilitating the evasion of sanctions.
Putin has been given ample time to back down—over a year, in fact—and he has chosen not to do so. This may not be a state of total war for Russia, but it is for Ukraine and its people. In reality, we must accept the truth that Putin will not back down, because doing so would be the end of his rule in Moscow. Simply, Ukraine must win, which is why this debate is important.
The Government have billions of pounds-worth of Russian assets at their disposal, which could be used to support Ukraine now. It is pointless to keep them frozen and perhaps use them to help to rebuild Ukraine in a few months or years, or perhaps even longer, if Ukraine no longer exists. The priority must be to help Ukraine now, not in a hypothetical future. There are reports that China is considering backing Russia with lethal aid, which would further prolong the conflict and make it even more difficult for the brave Ukrainians.
Since the start of the invasion, the UK has provided more than £2 billion in military assistance, which has made a huge difference, particularly at the beginning of the war. If £26 billion of Russian assets were repurposed for military and humanitarian assistance, that would make an even greater difference. The next set of assets are the private, undisclosed ones; it is likely that Russian oligarchs own billions of pounds-worth of hidden and undeclared assets here in the UK.
The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill, if amended correctly, will help authorities to track down those assets. A policy of “disclose it or lose it” would make oligarchs think again about using our country to hide their dirty money. For that to work, however, the Bill needs to be strengthened, because it is too easy for oligarchs to evade sanctions. Many had weeks to prepare and hide their assets, and authorities were already on the back foot due to the years, or even decades, that oligarchs had had to do as they please.
The Bill is long overdue and I urge the Government to seize the opportunity to get it right. It is not acceptable to leave loopholes in sanctions that have already been used to sue British journalists. The United States Congress has granted the Department of Justice the ability to transfer certain seized assets to Ukraine, and it successfully did so last month. Our Government need to do the same.
We all want and need to see Ukraine win this war, because it is fighting for our shared values. Freedom and democracy must win, and it is our duty to do our lot to help. That is why I support the motion before the House today. Let us seize Russian assets here to help Ukraine win.
After hearing the contribution of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), I simply say that it is about time that the Government got their act together. In local government, when powers are delegated, the framework is also delegated and people are held to account. If what is needed is not being delivered, the Government need to change something so that it is delivered. Are we in control? Who is running this country? We are certainly not doing our bit on this issue. We want to, but we are not achieving it, so the Government must get their act together—and soon.
Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)
This war must see Ukraine and its people emerge victorious—there are no plausible alternatives—but there is still a gap as to how to pay for Ukraine’s reconstruction in the short term and once the war is won. There is no doubt that the west will do its part when it comes to it, but a question of fairness, or the lack thereof, remains. It cannot be right for the burden of reconstruction to fall solely on the shoulders of western taxpayers, especially as estimates for it are astronomically high. As has been said, the suggestions on the ground in Ukraine are that it will cost around $750 billion, and that figure will only continue to grow as Russian armed forces and mercenaries continue their indiscriminate destruction.
The aggressor in this case—the Russian Federation—its political and military leadership, and, yes, its people must pay the price. They must pay the price for disregarding, and in fact smashing, the rules and norms of the post-1945 world order that had guaranteed the peace in Europe for so long. What Russia started by invading Georgia in 2008, it continued in Crimea, Donbas and then wider Ukraine, so there must be no more free passes for Russia to invade, brutalise and plunder. To appease Putin would only encourage him to greater brutality.
Our current freezing sanctions are robust, wide-ranging and necessary, but in the light of Russia’s barbarism, they do not go far enough. There remains some debate as to the quantity of assets frozen here in the UK—assets of the Russian state and of individuals, and we have had a discussion about that this evening—but regardless of the specific value of those frozen assets in the UK, it is clear that frozen assets worldwide could form the lion’s share of future support to Ukraine, including for the vital reconstruction of people’s homes and national infrastructure.
Seizure, however, requires both political courage and will, and that has been exhibited by our Canadian allies. I advise my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) that the Canadians are doing more than talking about it; they are acting on it. In June last year, lawmakers in Ottawa empowered the relevant Canadian Ministers to approach their Attorney General to apply to the courts to forfeit assets—assets that had already been frozen—for the benefit of Ukraine. The legislation builds in important safeguards to protect rights to property, including that any person who appears to have an interest in the frozen assets may be heard by the court. None the less, seizures are now under way specifically in relation to an estimated $26 million held by Granite Capital Holdings, a company owned by the sanctioned oligarch Roman Abramovich. Discussions are, I understand, ongoing about how the proceeds should be used and distributed in Ukraine, be that directly through the Ukrainian state or by select non-governmental organisations, but the fact of seizure is now a legal reality in a friendly nation with a legal system similar to our own.
Conversations I have had with lawmakers in other allied nations, such as the US, indicate that they are also considering how to make seizures legally viable and feasible in their own jurisdictions, and media reports suggest that this is also the case in capitals across the EU, such as Tallinn. We should be doing likewise here in the UK as well. Not to do so, I believe, risks our finding ourselves in the morally dubious political situation of handing back frozen assets to Russia and to sanctioned individuals, or it could lead to individual national deals with sanctioned people that could put us out of lockstep with our allies.
One of the many lessons of the last year since the renewed invasion is how important it is to present a relentlessly united front to Russia. On the day that we were privileged to welcome President Zelensky here for his outstanding address, the Prime Minister made positive and welcome comments about the necessity of asset seizures, as I note did the Leader of the Opposition. Now is the time to follow that up with firm action. As of today, I am confident in predicting that such action would have the overwhelming support of this House, and I think we have seen the cross-party support here today. Where there is political will, there is always a way, as our fellow Canadian parliamentarians have demonstrated. I strongly welcome this debate, and I urge the Government to set out a practical and effective plan for frozen Russian assets to be seized and repurposed to Ukraine’s benefit.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
I want to speak briefly very much in support of the ten-minute rule Bill of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant). It seems perfectly obvious to me that the money is there for winning the war. Money has been given in weapons, tanks and other methods, but we also need to invest strongly in building the peace, rebuilding Ukraine and making sure that people who have absolutely no blame in this conflict are not left living their lives in ruins.
On 10 December 2022, President Zelensky said:
“Bakhmut, Soledar, Maryinka, Kreminna. For a long time, there is no living place left on the land of these areas that have not been damaged by shells and fire”.
Investment must be put into rebuilding all of the cities in Ukraine that have been damaged—the bridges, the infrastructure and the things that make life possible. A significant investment is also required in demining and the removal of ordnance, without which none of the construction can safely go ahead. That will be a significant task that the Government must invest in. I am conscious that occasionally somewhere in Glasgow we unearth a world war two bomb, so given the intensity of shelling that has happened in Ukraine, there has to be significant investment in demining to allow things to go ahead.
This is logical when we recognise that so much of this money is right here; it is in bank accounts in this country. In some cases, assets have been frozen, but we must find a way of reclaiming that money, which does not belong to the oligarchs in the first place. This is money they have plundered and do not deserve, and it must be returned to the Ukrainian people to allow them to rebuild.
As I have said many times in this place, the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill requires strengthening. There are more things it could do to tackle many aspects of money laundering that allow that money to flow through the United Kingdom. Transparency International UK has mentioned several areas where it could be tightened. It could prevent UK companies from being used to provide a veneer of legitimacy for money launderers by ensuring transparency over shareholders, members and partners. That is still not the case in the Bill. It could improve the Companies House register of accuracy by enabling Companies House to verify and publish shareholder information. It could catch rogue operators by providing Companies House with powers to check the documentation of “know your customer” checks carried out by third-party agents. Many of those third-party agents are where the problem lies with verification. There must also be a credible deterrent to money laundering. We must resource agencies that have to do the important work of checking and interrogation to ensure that economic crimes do not continue to go unpunished, and to have a far more effective system to prevent the UK from being seen as the location for economic crime that it has sadly become.
I want to talk a little about Scottish limited partnerships, which have long been used to give many of these companies a veneer of respectability. They have been implicated in economic crime through the Panama papers, and many other scandals over the years, and they are still being used, not for the purposes for which they were originally set up 100 years ago, but for hiding wealth. The Ferret news agency in Scotland has found that, of the 631 SLPs created last year, only three were formed by residents of Scotland. That should set off an alarm bell. It says to me that they are not being used by people in Scotland for the purposes for which they were historically needed. Eighty per cent. of those SLPs were formed in just three addresses in central Edinburgh. These are not real companies carrying out real work; it is happening in plain sight.
The Ferret found that 38 firms registered with MYCO Works, one of the Edinburgh companies, name Matthew Bradley in their accounts. He was sanctioned by the United Nations after a fraud investigation into SLPs. He has links to Serhiy Kurchenko, a Ukrainian billionaire who fled to Russia after it was alleged that he failed to pay tax. He was sanctioned by the UK in 2020 and the UK Government alleged at that time that he
“facilitated the supply of oil from Russia companies to their Crimea-based subsidiaries in the first year of the Russian occupied Crimea, enabling the Russian companies to bypass EU sanctions.”
In April this year, the EU sanctioned Kurchenko for aiding Russia’s attacks on Ukraine and, in 2017, after he fled Ukraine, prosecutors moved to seize his company’s assets as part of the
“criminal group organised by Serhiy Kurchenko.”
Bradley was named as the ultimate beneficial owner of UMH Group, which was in the company’s structure documents. So a web of firms is being set up under SLPs by those means through the UK, which the UK Government could be doing a hell of a lot more to clamp down on. They are allowing that sanctions busting and veneer of respectability, and it is exploiting the people of Russia as well as the people of Ukraine. I urge the Government to take the issue much more seriously and to amend the Bill to shut down all those loopholes.
Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
It is a great delight to take part in this debate. I feel as if I spend more time than I ever thought I would with the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) these days, and I have friends who are bit disturbed by it. But he probably has friends who are a bit disturbed by it as well. The important point is that, if the Russian ambassador, or for that matter the Ukrainian ambassador, were to look at this debate, they might think that there are not that many people in this Chamber, but that is not because of a lack of resolution by the whole membership of this House, which is determined to ensure that we will do everything in our power—we will make sure that the Government of this country and the whole of this country will do everything in their power—to ensure that Putin does not win this illegal, criminal war that he is engaged in and has been engaged, to my mind, since 2014, not just since last year.
I am going to talk about three things: sanctions, seizing assets and who pays. On sanctions, it is often said by Ministers—I am going to be nice to Ministers because I like this Minister, and because I want them to do something and sometimes being rude about them does not work—that we are doing more sanctioning than we have ever done before. I just gently say that that is not true. We had a more comprehensive sanctions regime over Iran—not at the moment, but formerly—than we presently do over Russia. So we have to consider further sanctioning, which has to happen. It is true we did not sanction any individuals in relation to Iran and we are doing more individuals in relation to Russia, but it is the whole Russian economy that we need to debilitate so it cannot win the war.
The Minister knows that I worry we are not sanctioning enough individuals. Sometimes it feels as if the Government feel that job is done. It is not. As several hon. Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), have said, there is an issue about sanctions busting. I am certain, although I do not have proof, that sanctions busting is going on in the UK every single day of every week and has been ever since we started this process. For a start, we gave plenty of warning. People have referred to Roman Abramovich. I recall the then Prime Minister saying at Prime Minister’s questions that he had been sanctioned, but it turned out that he had not. That was a pretty good signal that he was about to be sanctioned. A couple of weeks later, because of stuff I was able to reveal about what the Home Office had been saying about Abramovich for several years, he was then sanctioned. By that time, however, yet more money had been siphoned off to another part of the world. It is true that the proceeds of the £2.3 billion sale of Chelsea football club, which happened in May last year, will eventually go Ukraine, but it has taken a very long time to put that in place. I know Mr Penrose is engaged in that and is eager to make that happen as fast as possible—incidentally, it will dwarf the contribution the UK has already made— but that contribution was not forced on Abramovich by law. In the end, he decided to agree to it. So that does not really quite count.
Treasury licences have been referred to. They are giving carte blanche to many individuals to circumvent the sanctions regime. There are undoubtedly enablers in the City of London, the same enablers we have known for years, who have enabled the dirty money to swirl around in the UK economy. There are the lawyers, the very posh law firms with very thick carpets and very thick marble walls that are doubtless refurbished every two years on the back of money that was stolen from the Russian people by people who should have been sanctioned. There are estate agents, banks and countless individuals who, without any thought to the morality of the situation, are still happy to enable sanctions busting. My worry is that there is hardly anybody in Government tracking down whether that is happening or not. Has anybody turned up to any estate agent office in Mayfair and said, “Are you checking whether any of these individuals you are buying and selling from are sanctioned individuals?” Has anybody done any investigations? I very much doubt it.
Liam Byrne
As ever, my hon. Friend is making a brilliant speech. I was shocked to hear that suspicious activity reports are not triggering enforcement actions for sanctions busting either. Is that not an argument for broadening the suspicious activity report regime, so that it does include people like estate agents? Surely, we should be using that as evidence to trigger prosecutions.
Sir Chris Bryant
Absolutely. I do not know whether my right hon. Friend has ever tried to open a bank account in the last few years, but it is almost impossible for a British Member of Parliament. I suspect it is much easier for a Russian oligarch to do so than it would be for anybody else. I really hope the Minister will take away the view of the whole House that we have to get serious about cracking down on sanctions busting in the UK.
I like a Magnum when I go to the cinema. It still upsets me that Unilever thinks that Magnums are essential in Russia, which is why it is still doing business there. Unilever should be pulling out completely from Russia. The Russians should forgo their Magnums—or is it Magna? I do not know what the plural is. For that matter, Infosys should not be operating in Russia, either.
I worry that some of our allied countries are providing a very safe haven for sanctions busting, including the United Arab Emirates. In the last year, it has become a complete paradise for dirty Russian oligarch money. If countries such as the UAE want to remain allies with us, they need to think very carefully. They may say, “Oh, but it’s only money. We are only doing what you did for years.” I hope that we in the UK are now learning the lesson of what happens when we give out golden visas to people just because they have lots of money, and do not ask any questions. It ends up biting you on the backside.
On seizing assets, I am sick and tired of the pearl-clutchers. People say, “Oh, I know. It’s really, really important. We really have to do something, but you know, Mr Bryant, you don’t understand. It’s terribly, terribly hard.” I am sorry, but where there is a will, there is a way. People want to wave sovereign immunity around all over the place, but what about the sovereign immunity of Ukraine? That was guaranteed by Putin personally, and the UK and other countries when we all signed up to the Budapest accord. Several years later, it turned out that we did not mean it quite as categorically as we stated on that piece of paper. There must surely come a time when sovereign immunity has to be waived because otherwise there is complete impunity when one country invades another. In the end, that is simply inviting countries to invade other countries.
I understand that the seizure of oligarchs’ assets is not easy. Prigozhin’s mother has just managed to win an appeal, as I understand it. But it would be much easier if there were an amendment to the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill, as several Members have mentioned already in this debate, to make it an offence for a sanctioned individual not to reveal all their assets. That would certainly make it easier for us to do that.
On state assets, I do not believe that sovereign immunity can be absolute. It is preposterous that we are sitting here, watching Canada and wondering how it will go there. When was it ever the British attitude to watch what is happening across the other side of the ocean? As my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, said, it would be much easier for us to take legal action if, first, we had a United Nations resolution and, secondly, we set up a special war crimes tribunal to consider the matter of a war of aggression. Unfortunately, although the British delegation at the Nuremberg war trials said that a war of aggression was the ultimate war crime, that has not thus far been so determined. It would certainly assist us if we were able to get that. It would also assist us if we were to amend the State Immunity Act 1978.
I come to the fundamental point: everyone knows that Ukraine will have to be reconstructed. Cathedrals; schools; libraries; hospitals; people’s homes; hundreds and hundreds of apartment buildings have been completely destroyed; roads turned into craters; bridges destroyed—sometimes by the Ukrainians to prevent the Russians further invading; electricity pylons. The whole system is completely in need of reconstruction.
In the end, there are only three options for who will pay for that. The people of Ukraine cannot afford it, and it is immoral to say that they should pay. There are Ukraine’s allies, or rather their taxpayers around the world. I am absolutely certain that, as individuals, many people in the UK—including in my constituency—will want to make a personal contribution. The British taxpayer has already made contributions through the British Government. But in the end, we are talking about $1 trillion-worth of reconstruction costs already. To be honest, the £23 billion-worth of Russian state assets sitting in British banks at the moment will only touch the sides. However, if we add the €350 billion-worth sitting in European banks, along with the amounts in Canada, Australia, the USA and all the other countries in the world, we might just be able to make a dent.
Anybody from Ukraine who is watching this debate will know that we all stand four-square behind them. We want to do so not only in our words, but in our deeds. I beg, I implore the Government: you do not have to use my Bill. My Bill is completely irrelevant; it is just a way of teasing you along to do the right thing. I know you want to do the right thing—I mean the Government, not you, Mr Deputy Speaker, although you probably want to do the right thing as well. Whenever the Government are prepared to table the legislation, we all stand ready to vote it through as swiftly as we can.
Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to wind up for the SNP in this very constructive debate. We support the motion. I commend the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for moving it; I can hardly do anything but support it, because I called for the same thing from this spot on 26 April last year and reiterated that call on 25 May and 22 September.
The SNP has long been pushing for a Marshall fund to aid the reconstruction of Ukraine. We have also been pushing for greater financial transparency within the UK’s financial sector. That is a good thing in and of itself, but the crisis in Ukraine has brought an urgency to the need to deal with the UK’s long-standing problem of dirty money. We want to see action, so I hope the Minister is taking good note of the constructive pressure she is feeling today. We want to see more, better, faster and broader action than we have seen to date.
I appreciate that it is difficult. I am a financial services lawyer—if we go back far enough—so I know that we are dealing with some of the slippiest, best advised and best resourced people in the world, who are very able to exploit loopholes wherever they exist, but there is a unanimity here and there is a will. I implore the Minister to do better than we have seen to date.
The London laundromat has been a long-standing problem for national security. My predecessor in this role was Stephen Gethins, who is well known to many colleagues as the former Member for North East Fife and who is now a professor of international relations at the University of St Andrews. He has put it very well:
“For years we have turned a blind eye to Putin’s dirty money, propaganda and influence in our democracy. Those who called out the corruption were badged as anti-Russian when it was the Russians who were Putin’s first victims. It is a shame that many are only paying attention to his crimes after such grave events. I hope that real action will be taken. After years of inaction we owe the people of Ukraine and Putin’s other victims at least that.”
As we have heard in the many excellent speeches this afternoon, the scale of reconstruction required in Ukraine is vast. Estimates vary from €600 billion to upwards of €1 trillion, but who can calculate it while the conflict is ongoing? It is going to be a major financial exercise in reconstruction, but the wider moral principle is surely that it should be Russian dirty money that pays. If Russian dirty money is good enough to be sequestrated, it is good enough to be requisitioned for reconstruction.
This has been a constructive debate. Let me give some examples of how other states are dealing with the issue. Estonia’s Government have declared a blueprint for the legal seizure of frozen Russian assets. The Frozen Assets Repurposing Bill is working its way through the Canadian Parliament. There is a Swiss law on asset recovery. Today, the European Parliament is debating precisely how to tackle the issue. I associate myself with other hon. Members’ comments that we need an internationally co-ordinated effort, because any loopholes that are allowed to exist will be exploited. I particularly commend the actions of the Italian state: the Guardia di Finanza has made strong strides in seizing assets.
There is a wider lesson for us all. I very much appreciate the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) about properly resourcing the new financial transparency regime that is working its way through this House. The Guardia di Finanza proves that if there is a strong and properly resourced domestic enforcement mechanism, we will see better results; I strongly believe that the Government could take that on board. Likewise, the Dutch Parliament has already created a trust fund that will be funded by assets in due course, and is working out how it can legally seize them. There is a huge willingness to see the Government do more and do better.
Let me end with a couple of, I hope, constructive points. First, we want to see a wider coalition: we have already seen a coalition in support of Ukraine, but we also need to see a coalition in support of these legal measures. I should be grateful for an assurance from the Minister that the overseas territories will be very much part of the UK’s new regime in this regard, because we are seeing pretty significant evidence that they are being exploited through these loopholes. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I am glad to hear some support from the Conservative Benches.
My second point raises what is, perhaps, a broader issue. A number of the UK’s allies are actively engaged in assisting the Russian state and the oligarchs themselves to get around these systems, and they will be the source of the loopholes that will be exploited. Surely the UK is in a diplomatic position to put considerable pressure on those allies.
Having made those two points, and having referred to the unanimity we have seen today, I add my own salutations to our Ukrainian colleagues. There is a coalition of the willing in this House, and I hope the Government can rise to the opportunity that it presents.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for his role in securing the debate, and I thank Members on both sides of the House for their expert and powerful contributions. I refer not least to the expertise and campaigning of Members on our own side, including my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant)—whose Bill I welcome—my right hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) and for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), and my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer).
Let me also welcome our friends from the Rada of Ukraine. We are delighted that they are here with us today, and I hope they have observed that while there is much political division across the House on many other issues, one issue on which the House and indeed the country are absolutely united is the need for us to stand four-square behind Ukraine and ensure that Putin loses this war. Indeed, there has been a great deal of unity on the matters discussed today. I, like others, saw with my own eyes the damage to infrastructure outside Kyiv last September—here I draw attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I saw the bridges that had been destroyed, and the devastation of residential buildings and key economic infrastructure. It was absolutely shocking, and it is clear that a huge amount needs to be done.
We in the Opposition have been consistent in our support for the Government in relation to expansion of the UK’s sanctions regime, and we have worked constructively with the Government and with Committees to ensure that it is as strong as possible. That said, we have serious concerns about the pace at which the Government continue to act, the glaring gaps in designations and enforcement, and the apparent reluctance on repurposing frozen Russian state assets. We have heard very clearly about the huge economic needs. The Kyiv School of Economics, working in conjunction with the National Bank of Ukraine, estimates that as of December the damage to residential and non-residential infrastructure amounted to $137.8 billion, while the vice-president of the World Bank suggested that the total reconstruction cost would be between $525 billion and $630 billion. In this year alone, Ukraine’s national budget has a $38 billion gap.
Moreover, before reconstruction can begin it will be necessary to clear the huge number of mines and unexploded ordnance that have been scattered across much of the country, including agricultural land. The other day I spoke to a representative of the HALO Trust, who told me that it would take more than a month for every day of fighting in Ukraine to clear the ground of unexploded ordnance and munitions. That means that if the war stopped today, it would take more than 30 years and billions of dollars to make many areas safe for habitation and economic activity to begin again.
We welcome what the Government have said about the reconstruction conference, and we will work across the House to ensure that it is a success. We also fully support the establishment of a legal process to provide for the seizure of Russian state assets and their repurposing to support the recovery and long-term reconstruction of Ukraine. As we have heard, at least £26 billion worth of Russian bank reserves are currently frozen In the UK. Imagine the good that that money could do if it were reappropriated for reconstruction.
We—indeed, many Members on both sides of the House —have been pressing the Government on this matter for the last year. I have been through a list of Government responses. In July last year, they told us that they were
“considering all options on assets that have been seized and whether they can contribute towards the reconstruction of Ukraine.”
In October, they told us that they were
“considering all options on the seizure of Russian-linked assets”.
In December, they told us that they were
“looking at legally robust mechanisms to seize assets to fund reconstruction.”
In February they signed the UK-Ukraine declaration of unity, which included the phrase
“We will pursue all lawful routes to ensure that Russian assets are made available in support of Ukraine’s reconstruction, in line with international law.”
We heard today in oral questions that the House should be assured that the Government were taking this seriously. I very much like the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan), but the fact is that there has been no commensurate plan, no announcement and no clear action taken to move this forward over the last year. I hope that she can give us some reassurance today that there will be movement on this issue. She has heard the views of the House. As we have heard, the EU, the USA, Canada and other states are all moving in the right direction, so why aren’t we?
We have heard many different suggestions today, but I was confused to hear the Foreign Secretary say that there was no precedent for seizing assets. Of course, there is the precedent of the first Gulf war in Iraq, as the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) said earlier. The UN Compensation Commission was established and took in $52.4 billion-worth of Iraqi oil revenues, after 1.5 million claims from Kuwait, to pay for reconstruction and reparations in relation to Kuwait. There is much legal advice out there about the potential to have temporary counter-measures, which would perhaps deal with some of the legal objections. There is a lot of scholarly thought out there about that. There is also the question of whether we could temporarily manage assets to provide resources for reconstruction. We also support the establishment of a special tribunal on the crime of aggression, and that could lead to further institutions and processes to allow for the seizure and repurposing of assets.
The UN General Assembly has already voted on this, adopting a resolution during the emergency special session on Ukraine in November 2022 that called for Russia to pay reparations for its action against Ukraine. We have heard what many countries are doing, including the United States. The US Administration presented six proposals in April last year that would allow for
“the forfeiture of property linked to Russian kleptocracy, allow the government to use the proceeds to support Ukraine, and further strengthen related law enforcement tools”.
We have heard about what the European Union is doing, with the directive on asset recovery and confiscation and the suggestion to add the violation of EU sanctions to the list of EU-wide crimes. We have heard about the debate going on in the European Parliament today. We have also heard much about Canada, whose Budget Implementation Act—Bill C-19—contained numerous provisions. Part 5 of that Act made amendments to the Special Economic Measures Act, the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act—the Magnitsky law there—and the Seized Property Management Act. So the United States, the European Union, Canada and others are moving forward, yet this Government have yet to set out a clear plan here.
It has also been pointed out today that our regime is failing and fraying in other ways. I have mentioned the UK-Ukraine declaration of unity, which states:
“We will also ensure, consistent with our legal systems, that Russia has no access to the assets we have frozen or immobilised until it ends, once and for all, its violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
But, given the very real concerns about the granting of licences that my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill has raised on a number of occasions, I want to ask the Minister whether that is still the case. If we are issuing general licences, with minimal ministerial oversight, that can allow assets to be quietly siphoned off with virtually no transparency on why they are being granted, is that consistent with the statement that the UK Government signed up to?
I have asked a series of questions on these issues as well, but scant information has been provided in response. What did become clear was that the FCDO appears to be playing no role in this. I shall quote the answer to one of the questions I had an answer to. It stated:
“While the FCDO works closely with other departments across government on sanctions, under sanctions regulations, the FCDO has no formal role in the issue of licences by the UK Government for (A) Russia and (B) Belarus. The FCDO does not maintain a central record of contacts from other departments on those issues.”
That is quite extraordinary. This is a serious issue that the Government need to look at urgently. Where is the oversight? Where is the enforcement? We would introduce proper ministerial oversight of issuing these licences and a joined-up approach across Government to ensure that every Department was working in lockstep on these issues to prevent those who seek to skirt our sanctions regime from doing so.
The question of enforcement has been raised a number of times. Across the UK’s full sanctions regime, which covers thousands of individuals and relates to countries including Iran, Belarus and Syria, only eight fines have been issued in the last four years, according to the publicly available figures from the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation. Despite the fact that 1,471 Russian individuals and 169 entities are subject to UK sanctions under the Russia regime, no monetary penalties have been issued against any individual or company for sanctions breaches under that regime since the start of the war in Ukraine. Indeed, since 24 February 2022, only two monetary penalties have been issued for breaches, neither of which was under the Russia regime.
We must contrast that with the United States, which has issued 17 penalties since the start of the war, with a value exceeding $43 million. Four of those penalties were specifically linked to the regime relating to Ukraine, with a value of over $25 million. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda said, people will clearly be abusing the regimes. How is it that the United States is finding people and we are not?
There are clearly areas on which we agree with the Government—we all want to see the most robust regime, and we stand united with them in support of Ukraine—but we must seize, not just freeze, these assets, we must close the loopholes in our regime, and we must ensure the tightest enforcement against all those who would seek to aid and abet Putin’s illegal and barbarous war in Ukraine.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for securing this important debate. I am grateful to him and other hon. Members for the points they have raised, which I will do my best to address this evening. As ever, I will make sure that we write to Members if I am not able to pick up any specific points.
As we move into the second year of Putin’s illegal and brutal war, I am grateful for the ongoing unity shown by hon. Members on both sides of the House and for the shared determination to support President Zelensky and all Ukrainians until they prevail. It is an honour to have some of our Ukrainian friends in the Gallery today.
Before addressing the seizure of Russian assets, I underline the magnitude of the UK’s response to Putin’s invasion. Although I hear the challenge of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) on the quantum of sanctions to date, I will set out what we have done so far. The UK alone has sanctioned more than 1,500 individuals and entities with a net worth of $145 billion, and we have frozen more than £18 billion-worth of Russian assets—assets that Putin now cannot use to fund his war machine. We have also introduced an unprecedented number of trade measures, which have led to a 99% reduction in imports of goods from Russia and a 77% reduction in exports of UK goods to Russia. All those measures have been determined to restrict Putin’s ability to fund and sustain his illegal war. The measures represent the most severe sanctions ever imposed on Russia. The package of sanctions to date includes asset freezes on 23 major Russian banks, with global assets worth $960 billion—that is 80% of Russia’s banking sector—the prohibition of Sberbank from clearing and the removal of 10 banks from SWIFT.
I remind the House that we have sanctioned the Wagner Group in its entirety, and its leader, Prigozhin. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) will know that, although I cannot comment on whether an organisation is or is not under consideration for proscription, her comments have been noted.
Liam Byrne
The Financial Times has revealed that the Wagner Group has channelled $250 million into its organisation through sanctions evasion. Is that not evidence that the sanctions implemented against the Wagner Group are not working? What information can the Minister supply to persuade the House that the enforcement regime is actually effective?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
I will come back to that in a moment.
The right hon. Gentleman also set out, with his usual articulateness, a very clear pathway through which the UN and the international community might work together to seize Russian state assets. I hope I can reassure him that we will continue to work at the UN with all like-minded countries to address the asset seizure challenge.
The latest package of internationally co-ordinated sanctions and trade sanctions was introduced to mark the anniversary of the invasion on 24 February, and it includes export bans on every known item Russia has used on the battlefield. This combined package of sanctions has been carefully constructed with our allies to cripple Putin’s supply chains, to limit his ability to finance his war and to target those who are propping up his regime. It serves as a stark reminder to Russia and any other would-be hostile actors of the cost of flagrantly assaulting the democracy, sovereignty and territorial integrity of another nation.
As Members have highlighted in the debate, the reconstruction of Ukraine is absolutely at the top of the international agenda, while we continue to support Ukraine to defend its country. In September, the World Bank estimated a cost of $349 billion to rebuild Ukraine—a figure that has been rising every day since. Indeed, colleagues have highlighted recent assessments with figures of about $750 billion. Those are monumental sums to consider in respect of the reparations that will be needed.
The UK Government will continue to take a leading role in determining how to assist in this long-term reconstruction challenge. In June, we will be co-hosting the 2023 Ukraine recovery conference in London, alongside the Ukrainian Government. Together, we will mobilise public and private funds to ensure that Ukraine gets the reconstruction investment it needs.
We also remain committed to continuing our direct support for Ukraine. To date, we have helped more than 13 million Ukrainians affected by the war, providing them with £220 million of vital humanitarian assistance, delivered through the United Nations, the Red Cross and other non-governmental organisations. We will continue to work alongside our Ukrainian friends in support of their military defence for as long as they need us to do so.
The key issue of seizing Russian assets to fund Ukrainian reconstruction is one that the Government are extremely focused on, and we are in close discussions with friends and allies. The Government remain clear that Russia must be made to pay for the harm it has caused in its illegal war in Ukraine, in line with international law. The Prime Minister made that clear in the London declaration he signed with President Zelensky during his recent visit to the UK and in the G7 leaders’ statement on 24 February. We have been 100% clear: Putin must pay. We are working in the FCDO, in consultation with other Whitehall Departments and our G7 partners, to review all lawful options to make frozen Russian assets available for rebuilding Ukraine.
Sir Chris Bryant
We have a motion before us on the Order Paper, and I hope that the Government will not oppose it and that we will not have a Division at the end of the debate. The Government will therefore be agreeing the following:
“That this House calls on the Government to lay before Parliament proposals for the seizure of Russian state assets with the purpose of using such assets to provide support for Ukraine”.
So it is a legitimate question to ask: when will the Government be introducing the proposals that they are calling on themselves to introduce?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. If I may, I will continue with my speech before I run out of time. I hope to give him some assurance on his question.
We are continuing to engage with think-tanks, lawyers and Members of the House, and those they are working with, to ensure that we test every available option in detail. I reiterate that I am genuinely grateful to all colleagues for their interventions and proposals to help us work on these challenges, and we are meeting them regularly.
I want to be clear that the Government believe that we should develop the power for frozen assets to be used to rebuild Ukraine, to ensure that we can achieve that practically and lawfully. Given that Ukraine is fighting for its future and the principles of the UN charter and international law, it would be an own goal for Ukraine’s allies to risk being seen to act inconsistently with domestic and international law in their approach to seizing Russian assets.
Mr Djanogly
Is there not also a concern that if we do not act with our allies to move ahead on this principle, and we all start doing our own deals on releasing assets, that would be very damaging for the wall of sanctions? Indeed, the Ukrainians have said that they would be very much against individual deals.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
I thank my hon. Friend for setting out one of the important issues that we are making sure we work on as effectively as possible. We are working very closely with our allies on the handling of seized Russian assets, and we will continue to do so. Let us be clear: our international partners face the same challenge. No country has yet found a legally tested solution. The right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) highlighted that Canada is testing the first seizure proposals and we are watching closely. I reassure the House that as progress is made by individual international partners, we will be right alongside them in considering how the UK can find solutions here too. Of course, as has been set out by colleagues, many proposals need UN leadership, and we will keep on driving that coalition.
In the meantime, we have made it clear that, consistent with our legal systems, Russia will have no access to the assets we have frozen or immobilised until it ends, once and for all, its violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Russia will not get a single euro, dollar or pound back until that is realised.
Colleagues have raised questions about the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill. It will sit alongside the National Security Bill, the Online Safety Bill and the forthcoming economic crime and fraud strategy. It will bear down on criminals who abuse our open economy by reforming Companies House to prevent abuses of limited partnerships; there will also be reforms to target more effectively information sharing to tackle money laundering. The right hon. Member for Barking is right about the effectiveness of section 11 of the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018, and it is used regularly.
I know that right hon. and hon. Members will be disappointed that I cannot speak more fully about sanctions enforcement and OFSI, as these are matters for His Majesty’s Treasury, but I know they will continue to raise their concerns directly and I have heard them today.
Stephen Doughty
I have to press the Minister on this point. Will she and the Treasury together publish a list of the people who have been granted licences and exemptions under the sanctions regime, how many enforcement actions have been taken, and what those actions have delivered in terms of monetary value?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
I will take note of that request and make sure that Treasury officials get back to the hon. Gentleman.
I draw the House’s attention to the economic deterrence initiative, which was set out yesterday in the integrated review refresh. Funded with £50 million over two years, it will improve our sanctions implementation and enforcement. That will ensure that we can maximise the impact of all our sanctions, including by cracking down on sanctions evasion.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) highlighted the oil price cap, which was brought in at the start of the year at $60. We know it is already having an effect, but the Price Cap Coalition is committed to reviewing shortly whether it is both diminishing Russian revenues and supporting energy market stability as effectively as it can.
The package of sanctions we have co-ordinated with our allies has inflicted a severe cost on Putin for his aggressive ambition and serves as a warning to all would-be aggressors. During President Zelensky’s recent visit to the UK, he and the Prime Minister made it clear that Ukraine and the UK remain the closest of friends. They committed to uphold Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, to defeat Russia’s illegal and unprovoked invasion, and to pursue all lawful routes to ensure that Russian assets are made available to support Ukraine’s reconstruction, and that is what we will do.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
I am grateful to all who took part in the debate. What we have shown here, including to all our Ukrainian friends, is the unity across the House on this issue, and that we will remain united until the invasion is over and Ukraine has received the money it needs.
A summary of what Members have said today, for my right hon. Friend the Minister, is this: we have to do more. We have to do more to implement existing sanctions, and then we have to do more to start the process of enabling ourselves to seize those assets—first Government assets, then private assets—and work in concert with our friends.
I end with a simple message to our friends in Ukraine and those who are here today—it is a huge privilege for us to have them here. We will stay with them until this is over. It will be over when the reparations have been paid, when Ukraine is rebuilt and restructured, and when the Ukrainians have their freedom again. Slava Ukraini, heroyam slava!
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House calls on the Government to lay before Parliament proposals for the seizure of Russian state assets with the purpose of using such assets to provide support for Ukraine, including the rectifying and rebuilding of war damage brought about by the Russian invasion of that country, and to facilitate the prosecution of war crimes and atrocities; and further calls on the Government to provide progress reports on this policy to the House every six months.
Petitions
(1 year, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)
I rise to present a petition on behalf of residents of my constituency, covering Harborne, Quinton, Edgbaston and Bartley Green, to urge that greater action be taken to address the cost of living crisis. Thirty-five people have signed the petition, and I give special thanks to Elaine Hook, Alison Thompson, and Peter and Pat Leadbeater, for the brilliant work they have done to support people struggling locally.
The petitioners
“request the House of Commons to urge the Government to take urgent action that will see:
1. An extension of the windfall tax to cover the costs of capping energy rates to stop bills going up this winter.
2. Insulate homes to help families save money on their energy bills now and in the long-term.
3. Support homeowners to protect their homes by bringing interest rates down on mortgages.
4. Protect those who pay rent to ensure a sudden spike in rent prices does not lead to an increase in homelessness.”
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of Birmingham, Edgbaston, including Harborne, Quinton and Bartley Green.
Declares that the cost of living has reached crisis point, with the consequence being an increase in homelessness and fellow constituents being left to go cold and hungry.
The petitioners therefore request the House of Commons to urge the Government to take urgent action that will see:
1. An extension of the windfall tax to cover the costs of capping energy rates to stop bills going up this winter.
2. Insulate homes to help families save money on their energy bills now and in the long-term.
3. Support homeowners to protect their homes by bringing interest rates down on mortgages.
4. Protect those who pay rent to ensure a sudden spike in rent prices does not lead to an increase in homelessness.
And the petitioners remain etc.]
[P002806]
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
I rise to present a petition alongside a corresponding online petition, signed by more than 38,000 people, demanding action on wealth taxes. It is totally wrong that the wealthy get away with paying lower tax rates on their wealth than everybody else has to pay on the wages they earn from going out to work day in, day out. Scrapping that tax advantage could easily fund a proper pay rise for nurses, teachers and the other key workers who the Government were calling heroes not too long ago.
The petitioners therefore request
“that the House of Commons urge the Government to scrap this tax advantage for the wealthy and to instead tax wealth fairly therefore allowing for pay rises for public sector workers through the reallocation of funds.”
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of the United Kingdom,
Declares a fair tax system would ensure that those with the broadest shoulders pay the most; further declares that income from wealth is taxed at lower rates than regular income; further notes that simply equalising Capital Gains Tax rates with income tax rates would raise £17 billion per year that could easily fund an inflation-matching pay rise for the nurses, teachers, ambulance drivers and all public sector workers.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to scrap this tax advantage for the wealthy and to instead tax wealth fairly therefore allowing for pay rises for public sector workers through the reallocation of funds.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P002813]
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
I rise to present a petition calling for cost of living support for leukaemia patients. I thank Leukaemia Care for highlighting how the significant financial challenges that leukaemia patients already face following diagnosis have been exacerbated by the cost of living crisis. That is something patients face on top of the physical and emotional toll of the disease. I therefore urge the Government to consider carefully the demands of the petitioners.
The petitioners therefore request
“that the House of Commons urge the Government to take into account the concerns of the petitioners and take immediate action to ensure that all leukaemia patients are provided with: a national hospital travel fund, a continued level of support provided by the Energy Price Guarantee until after April 2023 and wider additional financial support such as discounts/tariffs on bills.”
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of the United Kingdom,
Declares that more needs to be done to support leukaemia patients with the rising cost of living; further that patients have access to hospital travel nationwide so as to end the unfair postcode lottery of support; further that the current level of support with energy prices stays put, especially for leukaemia patients as they suffer a serious financial impact after diagnosis which is currently being exacerbated by the cost of living crisis; and further that wider support is made available in light of this disproportionate impact on leukaemia patients.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to take into account the concerns of the petitioners and take immediate action to ensure that all leukaemia patients are provided with: a national hospital travel fund, a continued level of support provided by the Energy Price Guarantee until after April 2023 and wider additional financial support such as discounts/tariffs on bills.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P002814]
Proscribed Psychedelic Drugs
(1 year, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
This is the first occasion that the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) and I have had to debate an element of his new portfolio in public, a subject to which I have devoted much of my time over the past five years. I want to put him at his ease. I of all people know he has one of the toughest jobs in Government—I suspect his willingness to go out and bat for the Government on the most difficult of wickets is one reason he was chosen for these responsibilities—and I do not want to draw him on to ground where he has to defend the indefensible. Instead, I will use most of this brief debate to make the case as best I can for his positive intervention in a narrow but profoundly important and potentially positive part of his responsibilities.
I do not want or expect an answer this evening; these matters demand careful consideration. There will shortly be an application to the Backbench Business Committee, supported by more than a score of colleagues from across the House, for time for a fuller consideration. I hope by the time that debate is secured we can enjoy the news that this Minister is taking the available opportunities of his very tough policy inheritance.
Since the United States—directed by the FBI of Harry Anslinger under J. Edgar Hoover—corralled the world into agreeing a 1961 UN convention on comprehensive narcotic prohibition, global drug policy has a decent claim to being the greatest public policy failure since 1945. The casualties and costs, certainly, are cumulatively much greater than those of any conflict of the period.
In the future, historians will look back on the policy in stunned wonderment that the US, having had a decade and a half of prohibition of alcohol in its own country, thought it sensible, less than 30 years later, to press the rest of the world to prohibit everything but alcohol and tobacco, and expect a different outcome. This time, the scale was truly epic, affecting the entire world and everything that humans had come to use to make themselves feel better, driven by the same moral certainty that underpinned the temperance movement decades earlier. The scale of the cost and the toll of the casualties should have been entirely predictable. So great have been the investment in that policy around the world, the moral high ground of the political class, and the blood price paid by state security forces around the world, that it seems that only retired leaders engage properly in this first-order debate, and, based on their experience, now challenge the assumptions upon which they governed.
Today’s leaders face the particular problem of explaining to their electorates why the certainties on which self-evidently failing policies are based are in fact a mirage. The black-and-white simplicities that lend themselves to ease of political communication do not exist. They must also begin to put in place an alternative and more effective answer to reduce the harm done to humanity by narcotics than the simplicity of blanket prohibition. That will be complex and difficult, and will require communication skills and moral courage of an exceptional order. That global reordering will be for the future. The sooner we get there, the sooner the carnage can stop and the cost and benefits of our policy can be measured properly with a degree of disinterested academic rigour so absent over the past half century.
What policymakers can do immediately is to address the most obvious and damaging consequences of prohibition: access to medicine being lost and denied. Forgone medical treatment is just one element of the cost of blanket narcotic prohibition, but it is very great once we understand the treatments that we have denied ourselves amid the moral panic underpinning prohibition. For no class of drugs is that urgent repair more needed than for the psychedelics.
First, the opportunity for a major step change in mental health treatment is real. We are not talking here about simply improving the treatment of symptoms of mental ill health. We have the opportunity, with the psychedelic class of compounds, to make a step change in mental health treatment and, with a proper regard for the actual risks involved, drive access to medicines while facilitating the collection of data for their efficacy in the real world.
As Ministers around the world are now becoming aware, psychedelics, including psilocybin, are being investigated and found to have promising application as facilitators of psychotherapy for the treatment of the most debilitating and devastating mental health conditions suffered by people around the world. Unlike the treatment options that are currently available to patients, psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy does not foster dependence. It treats the underlying causes of mental ill health rather than simply covering the symptoms through emotional blunting, unlike selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors—antidepressants—on which patients can come to rely for decades, and to which they currently have no real alternative.
My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) is properly concerned about freeing people from the overuse and dependence on those treatments. When I sought his support for my application to the Backbench Business Committee, he cautioned me to stay my enthusiasm until we had solved that problem as the first priority. But that misses the point that assisted psychotherapy can give patients back their lives, allowing them to escape antidepressants in the first place by helping them to form and enjoy satisfying relationships with other people; to return to and thrive at work or study; to contribute fully to society; or even better, to help them to confront their fear of death and cope with end of life. It really is revolutionary and has the potential to dramatically improve the lives of millions of our fellow citizens. We must do both.
Addressing the missed opportunity of treatment over half a century will help address the miserable dependence of too many on SSRIs. It would be untenable for the Government to keep barriers to cancer research, for example. That should also be the case for psychedelics given their promise for mental health.
Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this important debate. Does he have any estimate of the number of people living with treatment-resistant depression in the UK and what the cost could be to the economy of not rescheduling psilocybin as he proposes?
Crispin Blunt
The cost is enormous if one considers that there are 1.2 million people suffering with depression and the number of those people who go on to commit suicide who could be treated. Approximately one third of armed servicemen who have come back from active service in Afghanistan and Iraq are beyond treatment for the trauma they have sustained. Of all people, to whom does the state owe a debt? The cost of this issue is enormous.
How did we get into this position? There was 20 years of documented medical research prior to the scientific blackout that followed the stringent terms of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. How did this awareness of the therapeutic potential of psychedelics not weigh in the balance to avoid the situation we are in today, where they are so tightly controlled that even researchers at world-class UK universities struggle to access them for research purposes? It is an unhappy accident of history that Government regulation of controlled drugs in the 1970s has impacted the public in ways that were completely unforeseen.
These extremely safe drugs are in the most stringently controlled class and schedule, based not on any historical or contemporary assessment of their toxicity or dangers, but simply because there were no submissions made to British or American regulators of medical products containing psilocybin before the instatement of the UN single convention through the UK’s Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. They were therefore assumed to be worthless for medicine. The historical use of cocaine and heroin in medicine prior to 1971 accounts for why those drugs, with far higher dangers and awful potential for abuse, reside in a lower schedule than the much more benign psilocybin and its fellow psychedelics.
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we are in danger of taking psilocybin into the same arena as medical cannabis, where the medical profession blames politicians and politicians blame the medical profession, and rather than all looking for obstacles, we should be looking for constructive solutions?
Crispin Blunt
I have learned so much with the hon. Gentleman over the last five years, as well as with the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols), who has joined this debate with personal testimony and the most enormous strength; I know that she has had conversations with the Minister, and I thank him for making time for these conversations and for learning.
It is the Minister to whom, inevitably, we now look for positive leadership in this space. That is why I do not want to push him this evening. I could have spoken for five minutes and then left him swinging on the hook, where we could beat him all around the Chamber trying to defend the indefensible of how we got into this position, but I do not want to do that. I want this debate to be a positive contribution, to lay out the challenge of why we are having to respond in this way and to give the Minister the room for manoeuvre to come forward with positive answers about all the opportunities of this policy.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The hon. Gentleman and I may have some differences of opinion on this. The Minister responsible in the previous Administration was the person who enabled my constituent, young Sophia Gibson, to get medicinal cannabis, which helped to stop the fits that that wee girl had. Today, her and her family have a better standard of life. While I understand that steps sometimes have to be taken, I would caution that we do not move forward until we are absolutely sure that there will be no side effects. In Sophia’s case, it worked, but it will not work in every case.
Crispin Blunt
I listened with care to the hon. Gentleman and thank him for attending this debate and for championing the cause of his constituent. It is part of a piece. Behind the consideration of psychedelics sits consideration of cannabis as a medicine and, indeed, a wellness treatment. There is a huge economic as well as a health opportunity. They are not completely unrelated. His points are well made, but we do not want to get ourselves into a place where we have so much anxiety about risk where risk does not really exist in reality that we create blocks to progress.
This is where we need to come back to the historical context that led to the irrationality of the position we are in, which of course was the thalidomide crisis. That crisis led to the tightening of a number of regulations concerning the testing of investigational drugs. The commendable intent of those regulations was to ensure that drugs came to the market safe and effective. Double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trials became the gold standard for testing emerging medicines, but because psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is ultimately a form of psychotherapy, rather than a drug treatment in the traditional sense, strict adherence to those standards proved close to impossible to meet. The story of psychedelics is thus one of an extremely promising treatment modality that was lost in discussion over how to understand and evaluate therapeutic treatment effectiveness.
The primitive design of psychedelic trials in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as a lack of flexibility in how regulators evaluated more traditional pharmaceutical interventions, ultimately led to psychedelic-assisted therapies falling below the cut-off for approval as market-authorised medicines. Those drugs were completely novel to researchers and regulators. They troubled the distinction between biological psychiatry, with its pharmacological interventions, and the psychological arm of psychiatry and its psychotherapies. Given the novelty of the way in which these treatments work and the virtual impossibility of designing placebo controls for psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, it is no wonder that the trials of those drugs did not meet the standards of regulators remaining faithful to the standards used to test pharmaceutical interventions on their own. These treatments are fundamentally forms of psychotherapy, and need to be tested as such.
A flexible and intelligent capacity to measure the efficacy of a drug that facilitated psychotherapy was simply not yet present in the culture of the regulators of the time. With the stigma surrounding those drugs fuelling the tabloid appetite for excitable exaggeration, misinformation abounded about these mysterious, mind-altering substances. They appeared to belong to indigenous communities in remote jungles—surely there was nothing to learn there. I think that, in the decades since, we have learned a great deal about learning from experiences elsewhere in the world. In reality, death and injury rates, both physical and psychological, from unadulterated psychedelics are extremely low. Teams of researchers from the United States, the UK, the EU and Australia have consistently found psychedelics to be of the lowest possible harm potential of all the controlled drugs to both user and society. Those studies considered the physiological toxicity of these drugs, as well as other risks.
However, these drugs are best administered within supportive psychotherapeutic environments; doing so reduces the risks yet further. The medical research shows that, when administered in such settings, psychedelics are associated with very positive psychotherapeutic outcomes. For example, research by Robin Carhart-Harris and others in 2016 showed a significant decrease in depressive symptoms for up to six months—that in a cohort already suffering from treatment-resistant depression. Research by Ross and others in 2016 showed significant decreases in anxiety and depression, and research by Johnson and others in 2014 showed that 80% of the cohort were abstinent from smoking following treatment with psilocybin. Mental health harm is estimated to cost the UK economy more than £110 billion a year annually, a staggering 5% of our gross domestic product. Smoking alone costs the economy £14.7 billion per year, £2.5 billion of which falls to the national health service. Even if psychedelics were to play a small role in improving outcomes in those areas, the impact would be huge, given the impact of those areas on society and the economy.
The safety of these drugs has been firmly demonstrated, too. Phase 3 trials are now under way, meaning that their safety is well enough established in healthy and clinical populations that regulators are allowing research into their effectiveness in clinical treatment. Psilocybin and the other psychedelics have been well enough established as safe—that is all but unquestioned within the scientific and medical literature—and when administered under the supervision of trained professionals in suitably controlled environments, we move from a risk range of “minimal” to one of “very significant benefit”. The method of achieving the maximum benefit for patients and its extent is yet to be established, but there is every indication that it will be remarkable compared with psychotherapy unassisted by pharmacology or today’s pharmacological assistance of antidepressants, from which a depressing number of patients—please excuse the pun, Mr Deputy Speaker—now need withdrawal services, something that my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes is campaigning to address.
Research methods have matured since prohibition, so the best and easiest way to obtain information on how effective psychedelic-assisted psychotherapies will be in the real world is to establish research and access to prescribing physicians and researchers, but we are already falling behind. The potential has been identified across the world. To our embarrassment as a nation committed to science, entrepreneurship and sustaining one of the world’s great financial sectors, not only has $7 billion been raised on the markets of North America to invest in this emerging bioscience technology—as compared with very little raised here—but our scientists, having largely owned this knowledge within the United Kingdom, are now following that investment.
The market for psychedelic substances is projected to grow from $2 billion in 2020 to $10.7 billion by 2027. Facilitating the investigation of these drugs in that way would have allowed the United Kingdom to become the leading country in the study of the therapeutic potential of the psychedelic class of drugs and simultaneously facilitate access for patients. Hopefully, it is not too late, but unless this science is noisily supported and championed in the UK, it will be too late for the United Kingdom to make its proper contribution in this area.
The use of psilocybin and other psychedelics in psychiatry is of even greater medical and scientific importance than simply their commercial promise, yet the Government still want to evaluate the evidence regarding safety, scheduling and classification. To add insult to injury, it seems that they will only do so following a successful application for a medical formulation containing psilocybin to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
In practice, there appear to be three routes to the rescheduling of a substance within the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001, of which it seems the Home Office remains wedded to one: rescheduling being triggered following a market authorisation by the MHRA. The more evidence-based route—a self-commissioned review by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs—is effectively ruled out because of the AMCD’s lack of funding and capacity. The simple third route is for the Minister in the Home Office to take the initiative and commission such a review of evidence with a view to rescheduling by the ACMD.
The Minister, had I given him time, would no doubt have referred to his commissioning of the ACMD to investigate barriers to researching substances controlled under schedule 1, and especially psilocybin, which I welcome. Forgive me for offering him time to reflect further before responding to more colleagues than just me. In July 2017, the then Home Secretary commissioned a review of the barriers to research caused by drugs designated as schedule 1, only for the long-term recommendations of the ACMD to be rejected. The current review has already been ongoing since 2020. Is this delay without cost?
Members of Parliament from across the House have provided to me and others, including the Home Office, a proposal for the Minister to safely resolve the issue based on evidence and in a short space of time. Indeed, when cannabis-based products for medicinal use were rescheduled in 2018, it took a mere 12 weeks. When the evidence and need are so overwhelming, just as they were for cannabis-based products for medicinal use, for what reason can the Government wait to take decisive action? The letter of the laws that govern use in medicine and science of these controlled substances is designed to be flexible and permissive. As I understand it, nearly two years ago, when the then Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), endorsed advice from his policy unit to get this done, the Home Office dived for the weeds of process around an application for a medicine before contemplating changing scheduling or classification.
I have asked the Home Office on three occasions by written parliamentary question whether it has in its possession any evidence that supports the current scheduling of psilocybin. I am wholly certain the answer is none. The MHRA, the Food and Drugs Administration, the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration and the UK science and research community all know there is not that evidence. Every day that we do not act to support and enable the efforts of UK researchers, we hinder the progress of science and put what were our globally renowned research institutions at a growing disadvantage.
Perhaps most scandalously of all, this delay in the science now will be delay in the medicine deployed and the therapeutics established on the basis of those medicines. Some 1.2 million people with depression in the UK will continue to provide the grim reaper with 18 suicides a day. Our untreatable soldiers, traumatised from their active service in Iraq and Afghanistan, will continue to self-medicate with alcohol and other unsupervised drugs to the misery of themselves and their families. Addiction will be treated less effectively. Anxiety will not be addressed as it could be. That pain, and the scale of the economic cost to our country, demanded “Action This Day” a long time ago.
All that I have heard reinforces my hope that the Minister will break the logjam, which would be in direct accord with the Government’s 10-year drugs plan that aims to put evidence at the heart of drug policy. Behind the issue of psychedelics—practically and intellectually the easiest part of the drug policy thicket—sits the possibility of a legal cannabis and hemp industry, with huge economic and environmental positives to secure. The chance to seize that low-hanging fruit and reap the rewards presents itself to the Minister, the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister has begun the machinery of government changes that should enable many departmental Ministers, as yet unrepresented in the councils and committees that in effect control our nation’s drug policy, to make a reality of that opportunity. If we make a reality of policy based on evidence, we can finally start to right the wrongs of 60 years of policy failure. The Minister has a historic opportunity to radically improve the lives of millions of his fellow citizens while helping the United Kingdom to be a world leader in medical research. Current drug policy has produced far more victims than successes; he can begin to reverse that.
The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
In the short time that I have available, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) for securing the debate and for the thoughtful, knowledgeable and carefully considered manner in which he delivered his speech. I also recognise the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols), who is in her place. I know that she has a deep personal interest in the topic, about which we had a detailed meeting a few days ago, so I am delighted to see her in the Chamber.
Of course, the Department of Health and Social Care leads on questions concerning the availability of medicines and prescribing, because medicines are licensed and regulated by the MHRA. The Home Office, however, is responsible for controlled drugs legislation and our controlled drugs licensing regime to support research and clinical trials in the UK, which is why I am responding rather than a Health Minister.
I am keen to encourage research into the use of drugs in the UK as far as we can. We have an internationally well-regarded research sector in universities and, of course, in commercial pharmaceutical companies. It can be a great source of national competitive advantage to make their research projects as straightforward as possible.
Drugs scheduled in schedule 1 can be used for research purposes, but with a licence. As I discussed with the hon. Member for Warrington North a few days ago, I know that some people feel that the process to obtain such a licence can be onerous, particularly for universities and NHS trusts. Clearly, for drugs scheduled in schedule 2 and higher, those restrictions do not apply in the same way. I am very aware of the point about research.
I am also aware that, to consider whether there are medical benefits that would support the rescheduling of drugs from schedule 1 to schedule 2 or higher, which might enable them to be prescribed to patients for medical purposes, there needs to be a research base. I accept that there is an element of chicken and egg or Catch-22 about the situation, because we need to do the research before there is an evidence base to justify the rescheduling that might be merited.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate said, I received part 1 of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs’ advice on reducing barriers to research with controlled drugs, which focused on synthetic cannabinoids. In December last year, so just a few weeks ago, I formally commissioned it to conduct part 2 of its review, which is designed and intended to consider, and will consider, research with schedule 1 drugs more widely. That of course includes LSD and MDMA. In my letter to the ACMD commissioning that work, I specifically highlighted psilocybin. It would be open to the Government, depending on the ACMD’s advice, to change the research rules to say that all schedule 1 drugs might be capable of being used for research purposes without the onerous requirements that currently apply, in the same way as happens with schedule 2 drugs and higher, or some variation of that. There is obviously quite a lot of policy detail that one would have to consider, but were that move to be made, it would clearly address the barriers to research that my hon. Friend highlighted. Were those barriers to research to be removed, the evidence base could then be developed, which might provide a basis for the MHRA to make a case that such a drug should be moved to schedule 2 or higher, and that would facilitate doctors prescribing these drugs to the patients who need them.
My hon. Friend very kindly said that he would not press me too hard, given that I am relatively new in this position. I think the comments I have made do suggest that there is a path forward. I do strongly support making it as easy as possible for UK institutions—universities, hospitals and private companies—to conduct research using not just psilocybin, but all drugs, and there is clearly a commercial as well as an academic benefit. I am looking forward to receiving the ACMD advice as soon as possible, and I can certainly assure my hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Warrington North and others that, when that is received, it will receive my prompt and positive attention.
Chris Philp
I think you are indicating that we are almost out of time, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I am sure my hon. Friend and I can speak briefly afterwards, and on that point, I will rest.
Question put and agreed to.