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Mr Speaker
I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the King has signified his Royal Assent to the following Acts:
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Oral Answers to Questions
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Leo Docherty)
We are in discussions with the EU on the UK’s involvement in EU research programmes. We are doing this in good faith, and we hope that the discussions will be successful. We are determined to secure a fair deal for researchers, businesses and taxpayers.
Martyn Day
Owen Jackson, the director of policy at Cancer Research UK, has said that Pioneer, the Government’s proposed replacement for the EU’s science programme, does not “match up” to association to Horizon Europe. He has warned that if we do not rejoin, we
“will be at the margins, rather than at the centre, of these important opportunities”
to win funding. Now that the Windsor framework is in place, will the Minister update the House on recent meetings between the UK Government and the European Commissioner responsible for Horizon Europe?
Leo Docherty
We have always been at the centre of scientific innovation. I will not give the House a running commentary on the negotiations, but we do have optimism. We are confident that we will be able to secure that fair deal for researchers, businesses and taxpayers, with the kind of important research that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned.
James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
Britain’s outstanding contribution to Arctic and, indeed, Antarctic science has been greatly aided over the years by Horizon Europe. Can the Minister reassure me that our huge contribution to the High North will be replicated, and soon, and can he tell me when the negotiations will finally end?
Leo Docherty
I can assure my hon. Friend that the High North will be at the centre of all our scientific work, and I acknowledge and praise his important role in that region.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
Thousands of jobs in some of our key technological and scientific research institutions throughout the UK are now at risk. We are leaching talent and competitive advantage, and the Government have been dragging their heels. The Minister says that negotiations are ongoing. How long will those key institutions have to wait for an answer—days, months, or yet more years?
Leo Docherty
As I have said, I am not going to give a running commentary, but we are negotiating in good faith, we have optimism, and we are determined to secure a fair deal that recognises the researchers whom the hon. Gentleman has described. We are expectant that the negotiation will conclude in good order.
Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)
I am puzzled by the UK Government’s approach. There is cross-party unity in the House, and the Minister is missing an opportunity for a great deal of support. We all want to see our universities back in Horizon Europe, and we all want to see the thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of pounds guaranteed. Just a couple of weeks ago, Professor Iain Gillespie of the University of Dundee was in Brussels drawing attention to the £900 million that Scotland’s universities secured from the last funding programme. There is a willingness in Brussels, and there is a willingness in Scotland; when will the UK Government match that ambition?
Leo Docherty
We are willing, and we are negotiating in good faith. Scotland’s scientific future will, of course, be a part of that, which is another reminder of why Scotland is better, and will flourish, within the Union.
Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (James Cleverly)
Our strong bilateral relationship with Israel means that we can speak frankly with the Israelis, and whenever I do so I encourage them to ensure that security operations are carried out proportionately and in accordance with international law. I call on all parties to find opportunities to de-escalate tension. On 7 April, I condemned the indiscriminate rocket attacks directed at Israel, and I also condemned the horrific murder of Lucy, Maia and Rina Dee by a terrorist. My deepest condolences go to Rabbi Leo Dee and his family. The UK remains committed to a two-state solution, and we consistently engage with Israel and the leadership of the Palestinian Authority to support that goal.
Alex Davies-Jones
I share the sentiments of the Foreign Secretary, but last year was the deadliest year for violence in the west bank since 2005 and the cycle of violence continues. There are some trailblazing organisations working in the region using cutting-edge science and artificial intelligence technology to encourage peace and an end to the bloodshed. What recent conversations have Ministers or the Secretary of State had with their colleagues in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology about the value of those collaborative projects and their impact on a two-state solution?
James Cleverly
I thank the hon. Lady for the points she has put forward. I will endeavour to speak with the Secretary of State or Ministers in that Department. We will constantly explore opportunities to enhance peace and strive towards a sustainable two-state solution, whether through the most traditional people-to-people approach or through the use of AI. Whatever it takes, we are willing to consider it.
Tommy Sheppard
The Foreign Secretary mentioned the two-state solution. Now that it is the policy of the Israeli Government not to pursue a two-state solution, can he explain how the discussions on trade with Israel will be used to pursue that policy objective and to uphold human rights and international law in the occupied territories?
James Cleverly
The UK enjoys a trade relationship with Israel; indeed, we have a trade agreement with the Occupied Palestinian Territories as well. We will always put human rights and the pursuit of peace at the heart of our foreign policy when it comes to Israel and the OPTs. We will continue to hold our position on the desirability of a two-state solution and we will continue, in our interactions with the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority, to pursue that aim.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
Does the Foreign Secretary agree that the Abraham accords are a huge breakthrough in diplomatic dialogue in the region, that they are a force for good and that they are creating conversations between people who previously did not speak and join together around the same table? Is it not the case that the Palestinian leadership should recognise that the region is changing and that they need to get on board and work with their friends, allies and partners in the region to try to understand the differences of opinion across the region?
James Cleverly
My right hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point about the changing dynamic in the region. I am very pleased that the Abraham accords were signed. More than being just a single point in time, the accords have unlocked a series of dialogues between countries in the Arab world and Israel. They have also formalised relationships that perhaps would have been informal up until this point, and they are a fantastic stepping-stone towards wider regional security and that peaceful, sustainable two-state solution.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
Aside from the violent incidents that my right hon. Friend has referred to, does he agree that the fact that more than 1 million worshippers were able to visit the Temple Mount during Ramadan and that the month of April saw the great festivals of Easter, Passover and Ramadan being celebrated so freely throughout Israel marks Israel out as a remarkable example of religious freedom and tolerance in the middle east?
James Cleverly
On my visit to Israel, I saw people of all religions living their lives freely there, and that is to be commended. Through this rare period when the three great religions celebrate these significant events at the same time of the year—I think these festivals converge once every 33 years—I had extensive conversations with the Israeli leadership, the Palestinian leadership and leadership in the region. I am pleased that opportunities were taken to de-escalate and to support religious freedom. That will always be something that we champion in our relationships.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
Last week, the British Consulate General in Jerusalem, joined by other European missions, visited Jubbet ahd-Dhib school near Bethlehem, which along with 58 other schools in the west bank and Jerusalem is at risk of demolition, and implored the Israeli Government to
“reverse the demolition order and protect the right to education for all.”
Considering the possibility of violence occurring as a result of such demolitions and the impact of demolishing schools on children in the west bank and East Jerusalem, will the Secretary of State join the calls to demand that Israel reverse these demolition orders? Can he also tell me what steps he is taking to protect the viability of a two-state solution?
James Cleverly
As I said in answer to an earlier question, one of the advantages of the strong bilateral relationship that we have with Israel is that we are able to speak regularly about such sensitive issues. Israel knows the UK’s long-standing position on settlements, evictions and demolitions, which is clear: they are illegal under international law and they limit the chances of success of a two-state solution. We raise that directly with Israel, and Israel listens when we do.
Nicola Richards (West Bromwich East) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (James Cleverly)
uman rights issues in Iran remain at the heart of the UK’s strategy towards Iran. We raise violations at all appropriate opportunities, as well as via our embassy and directly with the Iranians here in London. In response to the regime’s most recent crackdown on protests, we have announced more than 70 new sanctions, and we continue to work with our partners to hold Iran accountable at the UN Human Rights Council and the General Assembly.
Nicola Richards
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is responsible for grotesque human rights abuses, with reports of 582 executions last year and chemical attacks against 90 girls’ schools in recent months. Vahid Beheshti is on his 69th day of hunger strike and was recently supported by 125 cross-party parliamentarians in his campaign to proscribe the IRGC. Does the Foreign Secretary acknowledge the sense of urgency that so many parliamentarians have about the IRGC’s proscription, which would improve and protect lives both in Iran and here in Britain?
James Cleverly
Mr Beheshti has met ministerial colleagues in both the Home Office and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. I worry about his health and would urge him to stop his hunger strike. We have responded to Iran’s completely unacceptable behaviour by sanctioning the IRGC in its entirety and certain of its leaders specifically. We will always take action that we believe to be in the best interests of the safety of British nationals at home and abroad, and of course we always keep options available and under review.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Professor Javaid Rehman, the UN special rapporteur, recently published his report on the human rights abuses in Iran. There are no surprises in it. We know that what is happening in Iran is atrocious, but we also know that the Iranian regime is doing pretty similar stuff right across the world, including here in the United Kingdom, where it is using the IRGC to bear down on people who condemn Iran in this country. Why will the Government not do what people on both sides of the Chamber want and proscribe the revolutionary guards? That is needed now.
James Cleverly
As I say, we do not discuss or speculate about future proscriptions. I remind the House that the IRGC is sanctioned in its entirety, as are certain individuals within its leadership. The FCDO of course works closely with the Home Office, which is the Department responsible for such decisions. Any decision of this nature will inevitably be cross-governmental. We always keep our options under review, and we will always take the action that we believe to be in the best interests of the safety of British nationals at home and abroad and in pursuit of our wider objective, which is to put pressure on Iran to improve its human rights record.
Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Leo Docherty)
We fully recognise the benefits of international educational opportunities, but we have decided that it is not in the UK’s interest to seek continuing participation in the Erasmus or Erasmus Plus programmes. Of course, we have our own scheme, the Turing scheme, which supports global access to education and had more than 41,000 participants in the last academic year.
Richard Thomson
There is a real willingness across the House and the European Union for the UK once again to participate in Erasmus and Erasmus Plus, so that answer is incredibly disappointing. If the Minister genuinely believes that we are better together, surely our academic and scientific communities would be even better together if we were back exactly where we belong: at the heart of those hugely beneficial European programmes.
Leo Docherty
Many students are, of course, still going to receive an education in Europe. The Erasmus programme was financially unbalanced on our side, and the advantage of the Turing scheme is that these opportunities are now global.
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (James Cleverly)
My written ministerial statement on 17 March noted that the UK and Mauritius are continuing negotiations on the exercise of sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory and the Chagos archipelago. I met Foreign Minister Ganoo on 1 March, when we discussed a range of issues, including of course the British Indian Ocean Territory.
Daniel Kawczynski
I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. At the invitation of the Foreign Office, some of us went to the British Indian Ocean Territory in 2019 and inspected the extraordinary naval and military installations on the islands. The Secretary of State will agree with me that the British Indian Ocean Territory is vital for our AUKUS agreement with America and Australia. Why are we negotiating with Mauritius—a third-party country 2,000 km away from the British Indian Ocean Territory? Why are we not putting at the forefront of this issue something that is essential for all British overseas territories, which is the right of self-determination? When will the Chagossians—the indigenous people of these islands—finally get their say?
James Cleverly
The UK is committed to the agreements made in 1965, and while there are no plans for a referendum, we do of course consult with the Chagossians, among whom there is a range of views. I assure my hon. Friend that the issues that he raised in his question remain at the heart of our thinking during the negotiations.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
I am sure that the Foreign Secretary accepts that the Chagos islanders were disgracefully treated in the 1970s by the British Government of the day, and that they were forcibly removed from the islands that they love so much. They have fought all these years to be able to go back. They have won international law recognition of their case, as the Mauritian Government won international law recognition for the relinking of the archipelago with Mauritius. As the Foreign Secretary correctly points out, it was agreed in 1965. Will he assure the House that the negotiations with Mauritius will go forward rapidly and in a positive frame of mind, and that he will welcome and endorse the international legal decision on the determination of where the islands should be in the future?
James Cleverly
I assure the right hon. Gentleman that we are pursuing the negotiations in good faith and with energy. We have held three rounds of negotiations to date, and we will meet again soon to continue the negotiations on the terms that we have discussed.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
In addition to respecting the right of self-determination of the Chagos islanders, will my right hon. Friend agree that the military importance of Diego Garcia means that the islands should remain under British sovereignty?
James Cleverly
My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. I can reassure him and the whole House that their importance to global security has been very much at the forefront of our minds throughout the negotiations and will remain so in whatever outcome the negotiations get to.
Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The Chagossians were indeed treated terribly by the British Government in the 1970s, but in the negotiations that are coming up, will the Foreign Secretary do everything in his power to ensure that we protect the marine protected area that we have set up? There are 220 coral species, 855 species of fish and 355 species of mollusc, and this food chain is vital to protect food sources for the whole of the eastern side of Africa. Will he make sure that that is preserved, whatever situation we end up with in terms of sovereignty?
James Cleverly
I assure the hon. Gentleman that, as one of the leading voices in 30 by 30, we pay close attention to marine environments and habitats around the British Indian Ocean Territory, and more broadly we raise regularly the protection of maritime and marine environments when we speak to small island nations and those other countries around the world that have an influence in the oceans.
Kate Osamor (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Mr Andrew Mitchell)
We are playing our part in ensuring timely treatment where the UK is a creditor, such as in Zambia and Ghana, and pushing for improvements to the G20 common framework and other debt relief processes.
Kate Osamor
In Somalia in 2020, a staggering 98.9% of Government revenue was spent on debt financing. Clearly, it is impossible for a state to tackle poverty in those circumstances, but the Government’s most recent international development strategy largely omits debt relief. While the Government are currently considering the International Development Committee’s report on debt relief, please will the Minister commit to prioritising this issue in the future?
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Lady is quite right to raise the issue of Somalia, which is one of only three countries, I think, that has not yet received its heavily indebted poor countries settlement. She will be pleased that Britain is in the lead on the climate-resistant debt clauses, which will mean that, when a disaster strikes or when there is a specific event, countries will be able to delay all capital and interest payments for two years, which will then be added to the back end of the loan. Therefore, Britain is in the forefront of addressing this very important problem, which is rising in Africa.
Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)
Last week, the Minister said:
“A time when crises are everywhere, but leadership is not. When we can save a bank in California in three days, but Zambia waits more than two years for debt relief.”
I agree. However, the Minister knows that 90% of international bonds owed by countries eligible for the common framework are governed by English law, so what leadership is he demonstrating to ensure vulture funds cannot block debt-restructuring processes by simply refusing to come to the table?
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Lady makes a very good point. I am flattered that she has read the speech I gave at Chatham House last Thursday. We are extremely concerned about the use of vulture funds, and Britain has been the lead country in trying to clamp down on them. I assure her that we will continue with that work.
Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (David Rutley)
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office officials continue to engage actively with our Arctic partners on the future operation of the Arctic Council. We look forward to working with the incoming Norwegian chairmanship of the Arctic Council from 11 May.
Philip Dunne
With the two-year Russian presidency of the Arctic Council coming to an end this month, as my hon. Friend has just said, and Norway taking over the presidency, what role can the UK play over the next two years in supporting the vital climate change research in the Arctic, which members of the sub-committee of the Environmental Audit Committee, under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray), witnessed at first hand in Svalbard before Easter?
David Rutley
We very much welcome the work of the sub-committee. The UK will continue to contribute expertise and research to the Arctic Council’s working groups under the incoming Norwegian chairmanship, including on climate change. We also continue to support UK-based Arctic researchers studying these key issues through funding from the Natural Environment Research Council, including partners in Canada, Greenland and elsewhere in the region.
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Mr Andrew Mitchell)
The refreshed integrated review places tackling climate change, environmental damage and biodiversity loss as our first thematic priority.
Anna McMorrin
It has been revealed that the role of the UK special representative for climate change has been scrapped, following the decision not to replace the departing climate envoy, Nick Bridge; that oil and gas licences are being granted in marine protected areas; and that Rosebank oilfield, which would single-handedly exceed the UK carbon budget, may be given the green light. That is not taking climate change seriously. Does the Secretary of State agree that this Government’s actions are destroying our international credibility as a climate champion?
Mr Mitchell
With the greatest respect, I think that the hon. Lady is slightly going over the top on this issue. We are making climate change a key part of all our bilateral relationships. We are building on the legacy of our COP multilaterally, and within the Foreign Office, we have more than 100 staff working full-time on climate change. She should also bear in mind that we were the first major economy to sign net zero emissions by 2050 into law, and that the UK has cuts its emissions faster than any other G7 country.
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
Last week, the Minister talked about climate as a driver of poverty and hunger. He knows that I agree. Sadly, however, his Government lack the ambition to drive forward a net zero transition and they give succour to climate deniers on their own Benches. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) is right that new coal and oil licences are being granted. The odour of hypocrisy hangs over us in Kinshasa and Pretoria and Beijing. Are those Tory internal divisions the reason that our climate leadership is frankly so lacking?
Mr Mitchell
I do not think there are any climate deniers on the Government Benches. I am extremely flattered that it seems that more than one person on the Opposition Front Bench has read my Chatham House speech from last week. I point out to the hon. Lady that the Government have made an unprecedented commitment to spend £11.6 billion by 2025-26. We are focusing an enormous amount of effort on our technical expertise and, although the international community has promised to double adaptation spending by 2025, Britain has promised to triple it.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (James Cleverly)
In December I made a speech in which I committed to a long-term
“effort to revive old friendships and build new ones”,
reaching beyond our traditional alliances, to ensure that we have sustainable, engaged relationships with countries that will make the weather in the forthcoming decades. I have travelled to a number of countries that fall into that category, as have my ministerial colleagues and friends.
Marco Longhi
Does the Secretary of State agree that we should have strong international relations with countries such as Brazil, which has non-aligned observer status, but is a country with huge wealth in food, energy and precious minerals and is therefore strategically important for a global UK on an increasingly volatile planet?
James Cleverly
I commend my hon. Friend on the work he has done in building not only trade links but a strong bilateral relationship between the UK and Brazil. I will be seeking to reinforce his efforts on my forthcoming trip to Brazil because, as he says, it is an important and influential country, which has huge natural resources and is the lungs of the world.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
One of the fastest ways we could transform our influence with non-aligned countries is to step up and help to lead the debate about the availability of green and development finance. One thing the Foreign Secretary could do this year is to make the case that if we are to give our multilateral institutions a bigger task, we must give them a bigger balance sheet as well. We could be using the money we get back from the European Investment Bank, all €3.5 billion of it, to help to lead the argument for a bigger World Bank. Is that an argument that the Foreign Secretary is prepared to lead now?
James Cleverly
We are, and my right hon. Friend the Development Minister is personally leading the conversation on behalf of the UK Government about international financial institutions’ being more active in that very field, to ensure that they look again at their risk appetite so that we can unlock the trillions of dollars of available finance to help countries to transition from hydrocarbon, high-emitting sources of energy to renewable sources. That is a conversation we have regularly, both bilaterally and multilaterally, and I am proud that the UK is one of the leading voices on that agenda.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (David Rutley)
As set out in our consular and crisis strategy 2022, we have an extensive programme of lessons learned from previous crises. We continue to improve our crisis response capability systems and structures.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Well, it clearly did not work, did it? The Select Committee report in 2020 showed how the FCDO was well behind other countries in getting people home when covid hit, and the Sudan crisis seems to show that those lessons have still not been learned. Although our defence forces were ready to move rapidly, the Foreign Office was still dragging its feet, once again ignoring those with leave to remain in the UK, who often have crucial roles in the NHS. When will the Minister get a grip of his Department?
David Rutley
The safety of all British nationals in Sudan remains our utmost priority. We on the Conservative side, and many across the House, will welcome the successful evacuation of more than 2,300 passengers.
Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Leo Docherty)
The UK values our relationships with both Armenia and Azerbaijan, and we work together on shared interests to advance regional stability, security and prosperity. There is no military solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. We continue to urge the parties to engage in substantive negotiations to secure a sustainable and peaceful settlement.
Giles Watling
I recently attended the wreath-laying ceremony at the Cenotaph commemorating the Armenian genocide 108 years ago. I was with His Excellency Varuzhan Nersesyan, the Armenian ambassador. With that in mind, can my hon. Friend tell me why the United Kingdom has not yet formally recognised the genocide, as many other countries have done?
Leo Docherty
Of course, it is a very sensitive subject, but the policy of the UK Government is that recognition of genocide is a matter for judicial decision rather than for Governments or non-judicial bodies. When an international legal body makes a judgment that the crime constitutes a genocide, that is a deciding factor in whether we use that term.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
In Nagorno-Karabakh, the humanitarian situation is deteriorating rapidly. More than a dozen non-governmental organisations, including Genocide Watch, have stated that the conditions are ripe for ethnic cleansing. That is a very concerning situation for the 120,000 Armenians who live there. What further pressure can the Government bring to bear to end the blockade of the Lachin corridor?
Leo Docherty
We take this extremely seriously. We have urged all parties to return to the negotiating table and to reopen the Lachin corridor. I have spoken directly to the Foreign Ministers of both nations about this. Of course, we are very pleased that we have provided £1 million of humanitarian assistance to the International Committee of the Red Cross following the 2020 conflict.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (James Cleverly)
The long-term viability of Sudan relies of course on a permanent end to the conflict. In addition to undertaking the longest, largest evacuation mission of any western nation—bringing more than 2,300 people out of Sudan—we continue to push for a permanent end to the conflict and a resumption of civilian rule, and we will continue to work with the countries in the region and beyond to pursue that. The Minister of State with responsibility for Africa, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), will make a fuller statement to the House later today.
Anne McLaughlin
Earlier today, I spoke to someone from the Sudanese community in Scotland, who are all desperately worried. She was one of the organisers of an event at the weekend raising money for the Sudan Doctors Union in the UK. They will use that money to funnel much-needed medical supplies directly to the doctors union in Sudan, where, amid the violence, an alarming 75% of hospitals are currently closed. She wanted me to ask this: what will the Government do, and when, to get food, water and medicine to Sudan, and how can we ensure that it actually gets to people given that supply chains from Khartoum have all but broken down?
James Cleverly
I commend, through the hon. Lady, the actions of her constituent. She makes an important point about the difficulties in getting humanitarian aid to people in the midst of conflict. That is why we have called—both directly with military leaders in Sudan and via organisations and neighbouring countries in the region—for a permanent cessation of violence. We will, of course, add to the humanitarian support that we already give Sudan, and we will do so in close co-ordination with organisations such as the United Nations World Food Programme and with other donations from around the world.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
Several constituents, mainly with military backgrounds, and I were concerned to hear of British citizens being beaten and robbed on the way to the airport to get out of Sudan. Being an ex-soldier, I would have thought that our military forces, who are superb, would be sent out to escort those citizens to the airport. Did that happen, or were British citizens told to get to the airport with no escort at all?
James Cleverly
The military practicalities of providing what would, to all intents and purposes, be an armed escort from multiple points around Khartoum and the surrounding areas to a single point of exit, proved insurmountable. That was true for our international partners as well as ourselves—no country in the world was able to provide that level of security arrangement. We kept under review the safety of the various routes from within Khartoum to Wadi Saeedna, and we advised on that accordingly. I have a huge amount of admiration for the military personnel who sustained the longest airhead of any western nation at Wadi Saeedna and are currently supporting British nationals and others in their evacuation through Port Sudan.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I welcome the BBC’s pop-up service for Sudan, acknowledging the huge importance of factually reporting and explaining events, but BBC Arabic radio, which already had millions of listeners in Sudan, was closed in January, so this announcement rows back on a bad mistake. BBC Persian radio was closed five weeks ago, even though 1.6 million Iranians relied on it for news of the women-led uprising, and now 382 journalists’ jobs are being cut in the BBC’s language services. Will the Foreign Secretary commission a rapid impact assessment of these cuts, which appear more capitulation to tyrants than providing a lifeline to the people who need it most?
James Cleverly
The BBC, including the World Service, despite being a recipient of direct Government funding, is autonomous. It makes its own decisions, and those closure decisions were made by the leadership of the BBC. I was uncomfortable with those. I negotiated a package whereby we were able to give the BBC World Service a degree of financial predictability, and in return, it was able to give me assurances that there will be no further closures for the life of this Parliament of any of those language services. We value what they do incredibly highly, and I am very pleased that the BBC’s Sudan service has been able to relocate and continue broadcasting to that war-torn country.
Sir James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
In congratulating the Foreign Secretary on the evacuation, could I ask him to look at the state of the airport? My understanding is that so many heavy vehicles were evacuated that there has been damage to the airport runway, which means it will not be suitable for the World Food Programme and others bringing in humanitarian aid. Could he see what the excellent British military could do to resolve that problem, if indeed those rumours on the ground are true?
James Cleverly
My hon. Friend makes an important point about the state of the runway. I do not pretend to be a military logistics expert, but my understanding is that the British military were doing repairs while they were using the runway to keep it serviceable. He is right that what is basically a military runway has taken an exceptionally high level of air traffic. My understanding—and I am willing to be corrected on this once we have an update later today—is that we have been able to hand back that airfield to the Sudanese armed forces in a usable state, having done repairs as the airfield has been used.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
I am hugely grateful to our armed forces and civil servants involved in the evacuation of Sudan. With the operation now ended, it is right to examine whether all the correct decisions were made. We know that the evacuation effort was initially stood down once diplomats were out, while other countries continued, and that national health service doctors resident in the UK were initially turned away. Can the Foreign Secretary confirm that every national health service doctor who asked to be evacuated was evacuated, regardless of whether they were British citizens or residents?
James Cleverly
The right hon. Gentleman, who I have a huge amount of respect for, is factually wrong in the points he made in his question. After the initial evacuation of our diplomatic staff—which is not only our moral duty but our legal duty, because they are our employees—we continued the planning for a wider evacuation operation for British nationals, their dependants and others. We planned for a whole range of eventualities, including if there was a ceasefire or if there was not a ceasefire, both through air and by land.
When the opportunity arose, we took full advantage of that opportunity to conduct the largest and longest airlift of evacuees, both British nationals and their dependants and other nations, of any western country. I am incredibly grateful to our civil servants across Government and the military for facilitating that. We maintain a presence at Port Sudan to facilitate the onward passage; we maintain a presence at the border regions, both in Ethiopia and in Egypt, to do so; and of course, we will continue to find opportunities to evacuate people where we can.
Mr Lammy
The Foreign Secretary did not answer my question, so let me try again. Last week, “Newsnight” reported that there were at least 24 National Health Service doctors who were British residents, but who were not yet on evacuation flights. Can the Foreign Secretary confirm that all 24, and any other NHS doctors who would be evacuated—the Africa Minister is helping the Foreign Secretary—were taken safely back to the UK, so that they can do their jobs in the creaking National Health Service that we now have?
James Cleverly
My right hon. Friend the Africa Minister has given me the most up-to-date figures on this. My understanding is that 22 of the 24 who were identified have been directly evacuated by us. It should be remembered that just as British nationals and others may well have made their own routes out of Sudan, they may well have done so. We keep in close co-ordination, both through the NHS and through direct conversation with us, to ensure that we provide as full a service as possible for those seeking evacuation.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (David Rutley)
The UK has no plans to ban imports from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. However, goods imported from the settlements are not entitled to preferential treatment under the UK-Israel trade and partnership agreement, and the UK also supports accurate labelling of settlement goods so as not to mislead the consumer. The UK’s position on settlements is clear: they are illegal under international law and present an obstacle to peace.
Mr Carmichael
I think it would be uncontroversial to say that we would not import goods from Crimea, so why it should be any different when we are dealing with the Occupied Palestinian Territories, I simply do not understand. Looking forward to any future trade agreement with Israel, can the Minister assure me that any such agreement would include a clear territoriality clause to specify that it applied only to the sovereign state of Israel, and not to any part of those territories occupied by her in 1967?
David Rutley
Only Israeli goods originating from the state of Israel will be covered by the new UK-Israel free trade agreement.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (James Cleverly)
Since the last set of oral questions, we have evacuated British nationals from Sudan, and we are pushing both multilaterally and bilaterally for a lasting peace settlement. I want to reassure the House that this does not detract from our ongoing support to Ukraine in its self-defence against the brutal invasion by Russia. I delivered a major speech on how the UK will engage with China, and I visited our Pacific partners and attended meetings of NATO and G7 foreign ministers. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Africa delivered a keynote speech on our international development policy, and other Ministers in the Department have visited allies across Europe, Africa, South and North America and the middle east, including key visits to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cameroon, Azerbaijan, Australia, Guatemala, the World Bank in Washington and The Hague.
Mr Dhesi
Under the new Israeli coalition Government, which contains far-right elements, violence against Palestinians has escalated, including Israeli forces attacking Muslim worshippers at the al-Aqsa mosque and attacks against Palestinian Christians at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We must condemn all forms of violence, including the devastating murder of three British Jewish citizens, but does the Secretary of State agree that the cycle of violence will not end and there will be no prospect of a lasting peace if the occupying forces are busy building more illegal settlements and trying to evict and oppress an entire people?
James Cleverly
I am not sure the hon. Gentleman was in his place during my earlier response, but our position on settlement demolitions is long-standing. We believe they are illegal under international law and undermine the best possible chances of a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution.
Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)
James Cleverly
We have sanctioned the IRGC in its entirety. We have also put in specific sanctions on the supply of those military drones to Russia, which have been utilised to attack civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. We will continue to keep our deterrent posture towards Iran under review. As my hon. Friend will know, it is not common practice to speculate on what further action we might take in response, but I take the point he is making very much on board.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
Scottish Government Minister Neil Gray MSP along with the agencies Scottish Development International and Highlands and Islands Enterprise have proved that direct foreign engagement works for Scotland by securing a £300-million manufacturing investment for subsea cables in the renewables industry, working with Sumitomo in Osaka. It is a game changer that has been welcomed across the highlands, so why does the Foreign Secretary seek to sabotage such vital economic activity by instructing UK diplomatic staff to hinder Scottish Government direct engagement?
James Cleverly
The competences of the Scottish Government and the reserved position of the UK Government are absolutely clear. I would say to the hon. Gentleman and the House that Scotland has an excellent advocate overseas—it is me.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Mr Andrew Mitchell)
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right; the situation is simply appalling. The head of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is expecting to be in the region within the next day or so. The essential fact that is required is a ceasefire. Without a ceasefire, the consequences— particularly the humanitarian consequences—are unconscionable.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
Mr Mitchell
Progress is being made on women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, with 37% of all those employed now women, which is a higher level than in Morocco, which was the outlier in all this. I can tell her that our excellent embassy team in Riyadh is running leadership and skills development programmes to help women, particularly those in the cyber sector and those who engage in sport.
Boris Johnson (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)
This summer’s Vilnius summit will be an important test of NATO’s willingness to fulfil its long-standing promises to Ukraine. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is now ludicrous to say that Ukraine’s NATO membership might be in some way provocative to Russia, since Putin has shown what he is willing to do when Ukraine is not a member of NATO and because Ukraine is not a member of NATO? Does he agree that it should therefore be the policy of the Government that Ukraine should be invited to make the necessary preparations to join as soon as possible under the rules, for the sake of clarity, stability and peace in Europe?
James Cleverly
Before I answer fully, I place on record the gratitude that I and others have for the leadership that my right hon. Friend showed at a vital point in time, ahead of the explicit, most recent escalation of aggression from Russia towards Ukraine. I know that Ukrainians hold him, as I do, in very high regard because of the decisions that were made.
NATO’s position on Ukraine is unambiguous—that the invitation has been put out for Ukraine to join NATO. I think it is incredibly important that that is not taken off the table. Of course, Russia’s aggression into Ukraine was the provocative action. Ukraine’s desire to join NATO was an entirely understandable defensive posture, because of that threat from the east.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
James Cleverly
I would have thought that Scottish Ministers were better served ensuring that the people of Scotland are supported, rather than seeing health outcomes head in the wrong direction and seeing tax rates head in the wrong direction. I can assure the hon. Member that every one of the diplomatic staff in the FCDO promotes Scottish interests overseas. I am very proud of the work that our officials do from Abercrombie House, which is part of our UK headquarters in Scotland. I can assure her that, when it comes to promoting Scotland’s interests overseas, we continue to do so at all times.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
Please could my right hon. Friend comment on how the Windsor framework will improve trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of mainland Britain, particularly Wales, and say whether the framework will also facilitate UK trade with Ireland and the rest of the EU?
James Cleverly
The Windsor framework makes sure that trade from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, these constituent parts of the United Kingdom, is improved, increased and unhindered. That will be massively to the benefit of people in Northern Ireland, and of course to those businesses and traders in Wales producing such fantastic products that the people of Northern Ireland will want, as indeed will people across the whole world.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
James Cleverly
The UK’s position on this is of long standing, and I have discussed it at the Dispatch Box today. We strive to create or to support the creation of a sustainable two-state solution so that the Palestinian people and the Israeli people have safe homes in which they can live, and that will remain the cornerstone of UK foreign policy in the region.
Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)
Can the Minister outline to what extent he thinks that Finland’s recent accession to NATO further unites Europe in the face of Russian aggression, and what lessons can be drawn from the process to facilitate the quick accession of other nations?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Leo Docherty)
Of course, our Finnish friends have a heroic legacy and heritage of military courage, and all our diplomatic efforts are now focused on the accession of our friends in Sweden.
Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
James Cleverly
It is tragic when we see the loss of life in the region. We always call for the swift and transparent investigation of any fatalities, and that is very much at the heart of our policy. I will ensure that I get more details on the case the hon. Member has raised. I was familiar with it at the time, but I will make sure I am back up to speed with that.
Theo Clarke (Stafford) (Con)
May I thank the UK Government and the Royal Air Force for evacuating so many people from Sudan, and ask the Foreign Secretary to continue to work with our allies to help evacuate civilians and, more importantly, to push for a long-term ceasefire?
Mr Mitchell
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Our top priority is to secure a permanent ceasefire. In respect of looking after British citizens who may still be there, we keep every option open and are 100% on that case.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Leo Docherty
I raised this issue with the Azerbaijanis themselves in Baku in February. It is a very important subject and we continue to advocate for all sides to come back to the negotiating table. I will be looking at circumstances first hand in Armenia very soon.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Further to the excellent question from my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Nicola Richards), Vahid Beheshti has now been on hunger strike for 69 days. He has had a meeting with the Foreign Office Minister for the area responsible, but he has not had a meeting with the Foreign Secretary, so may I urge my right hon. Friend—Vahid Beheshti is just across the road from the Foreign Office—to have a meeting with him on his route back to the Foreign Office? He will tell my right hon. Friend about the malign activities carried out by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in this country and about the threat to UK citizens.
James Cleverly
As I say, my heart goes out to Mr Beheshti. I urge him to bring his hunger strike to an end. We know very well the threats the IRGC poses to the people in Iran and the region and here in the UK. We work very closely with the Home Office on how best to protect ourselves and our friends in the region against that activity. I assure my hon. Friend that remains a top priority for us. I am glad my ministerial colleagues have had meetings with Mr Beheshti on this issue. As I say, any decisions about designation will be taken conscious of our absolute commitment to protect British people and British interests both overseas and in the UK.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
The conflict in Sudan is a humanitarian disaster not only for the 46 million Sudanese but for the east African region and the continent, with the expectation of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of refugees. What discussions has the Minister had with the African Union to promote African leadership, involvement and mediation and a successful resolution?
Mr Mitchell
I had a meeting with chairperson Mr Moussa Faki on Saturday morning and I can assure the hon. Member that everyone is focused on precisely the problem she has set out.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
Good progress has been made on the Truro review, which this Government have given a commitment to implement. Of the remaining work, crucial is recommendation 6 to ensure the freedom of religion or belief special envoy role is permanently constituted—and, Mr Speaker, if I should declare an interest at this moment, I do, although I am speaking of course of the role itself. A short Bill would effect this. Time is now of the essence. Would the Foreign Secretary kindly meet me quickly to progress that?
Mr Mitchell
The whole Government are deeply conscious of the brilliant work my hon. Friend does as an envoy; indeed, she occupies the office next door to mine inside the Foreign Office. We will answer her question as speedily as possible—I hope later today.
Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
I think the Foreign Secretary will agree that the voices of young people should be heard loudly in climate negotiations, so will he speak with Cabinet colleagues and set out a plan for how youth negotiators can form an integral part of this country’s delegation to COP28 later this year?
James Cleverly
I commend the hon. Gentleman for his action in this area, particularly in his new role, which I had the opportunity to congratulate him on at the time. He is right: the future of this planet is very much in the forefront of the minds of young people particularly. They seek to inherit it and their voices are incredibly important. I took the opportunity at COP26 and COP27 to meet young climate activists, and it is incredibly important that we find some way of both formally and informally having—
Mr Speaker
Order. I gently say to the Foreign Secretary that this is topical questions and we are meant to get through them. Colleagues really want to get a question in and I want to hear them. I call Richard Graham.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
Mr Speaker, thank you. The Philippines is the third largest English-speaking country in the world and a growing trade partner, and we will welcome President Marcos to the coronation later this week. However, the Philippines continues to suffer from maritime incursions by the People’s Republic of China and the arbitration award under the United Nations convention on the law of the sea, or UNCLOS, in 2016 has never been implemented because China, like the United States, does not recognise its arbitration awards.
Mr Speaker
Order. Mr Graham, I just said to the Foreign Secretary that these are topical questions and we need short answers and short questions. I need speed. If you do not want a colleague to get in, please pick which one.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I was in the Philippines just a few weeks ago discussing with the Philippines coastguard the realities of the coercive behaviour that Chinese militia ships are demonstrating in the western Philippine seas. We continue to work closely with them through our maritime security work to support their efforts.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
My constituent Dr Alaa Elmutaz Mohamed Mahmoud and her young son became trapped in Sudan during a holiday to visit family. Her colleagues at Nottingham University Hospital’s emergency department are desperately worried about her safety. She was advised to go to Khartoum to get a flight, but then fierce fighting closed the airport. She was then advised to travel 20 hours to Port Sudan. Now I understand that she is being told that any flights are for British passport holders only. What is the Minister doing to ensure that Alaa and her young son can be evacuated to safety and she can get back to work in Nottingham?
Mr Mitchell
I do not know her constituent’s current position and whether she is in Port Sudan, but this is probably an issue that is better dealt with outside the Chamber and I would be happy to see the hon. Member immediately.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
The World Bank has suggested that the minimum amount of money needed for post-war reconstruction of Ukraine is £411 billion. While it is for the Ukrainian Government and people to decide whose money will be used and on what terms, what is the Foreign Secretary doing to ensure that the United Kingdom is on the front foot in planning how to fund the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine?
James Cleverly
I thank my right hon. Friend for that point. I am proud that the UK will be hosting the Ukraine reconstruction conference in June. We are doing what the UK perhaps does best: bringing together influential voices and, more importantly, finance, and ensuring that they meet and talk. Underpinning all of that has got to be the belief that any investment in Ukraine will be protected. That is why it is very important that we make it clear that we will put that arm of protection around the Ukrainians for the foreseeable future.
James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)
Ahead of the Joint Ministerial Council next week, could the Foreign Secretary please outline what he is doing to support the overseas territories? Will he be rolling out the red carpet?
James Cleverly
Metaphorically speaking, yes. The overseas territories are part of the immediate family. All relevant Departments will have a nominated Minister with responsibility for the relationship of their Departments with the OTs. We are launching a new OTs strategy and of course I will make myself available for the forthcoming JMC.
Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)
I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Hazaras. Hazaras are one of the most persecuted groups in Afghanistan and, since the return of the Taliban, they have been regularly subjected to targeted violence, killings and discrimination, all based on their ethnic and religious identity. Does my right hon. Friend accept that that targeting is happening? If he does, will he please do something about it?
James Cleverly
I commend my hon. Friend’s work on this community. He is absolutely right that the Hazara community are being specifically targeted by the Taliban. Obviously, our ability to support people in Afghanistan at the moment is limited, but we keep them absolutely at the heart of our thinking with regard to preventing human rights abuses in Afghanistan.
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)
With reference to Nagorno-Karabakh, what steps has the Department taken to support the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan within its internationally recognised borders?
Leo Docherty
We continue to urge both sides to return to the negotiating table, and we recognise—I have told them this directly—how important both countries are as geostrategic allies.
UK Concussion Guidelines for Grassroots Sport
(1 year, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if she will make a statement on UK concussion guidelines for grassroots sport.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Stuart Andrew)
The UK concussion guidelines for grassroots sport mark an important step in making sport safer for millions of people. Taking part in sport has many benefits. It is great for people’s physical and mental health, and it brings friends and communities together. We want to protect that and encourage more people to enjoy being active and play a sport.
As I set out in my written ministerial statement published today, the vast majority of people participate in sport safely, but head injuries do occur. We want to reduce the risks associated with concussion and make sport even safer for everyone. Research has shown the importance of fast, effective, tailored treatment, and we are issuing this expert guidance to help people spot and treat head injuries. Our guidance is a tool for the thousands of people who enjoy sport at the grassroots level. Whether it is used in a local leisure centre during a swimming lesson or in the second innings of a village cricket match, this landmark guidance has the chance to make a real difference to people across the UK.
The guidance was developed by a world-leading panel of medical experts, and I am grateful to the whole expert group for giving so freely of their time while drafting the guidance. I pay tribute to the efforts of the group and to the valuable input of the Sport and Recreation Alliance, which has worked tirelessly to produce this excellent guidance. All that builds on the world-leading work conducted in Scotland by raising UK-wide awareness of the issue of concussion and making sport safer for all who take part. Fundamental to the guidance is an overriding simple message:
“If in doubt, sit them out.”
Finally, this guidance is an essential but first step. The Government remain committed to working with the industry to help to make sport safe and enjoyable for everybody, including on technological solutions and the prevention of concussion.
Sir Chris Bryant
Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you for granting this urgent question.
Sport is indeed good for us, but as we have seen from countless footballing legends and rugby league and union players, repeated sporting concussions and sub-concussive events can lead to depression, anxiety, suicide and early-onset dementia. I have seen tough men weep and heard from sporting stars with no memory of their victories and triumphs. I am therefore delighted that the Government have worked hard to produce these guidelines. I pay tribute to Professor James Calder and the team, to the Minister and to Dawn Astle, Alix Popham, Steve Thompson and Peter Robinson, who have campaigned for all this to happen.
However, I do have some concerns. These guidelines rightly say:
“If in doubt, sit them out.”
That is what to do after a brain injury on the pitch, but what are we going to do about preventing brain injuries in the first place? Should we not look at further limiting youngsters heading the ball in football and curtailing rugby training sessions that include tackling? Why is there no reference to multiple concussions? Surely a young person who suffers two or more concussions in a 12-month period must be referred to a specialist. Why is there no recommendation that medical approval be sought before a return to play? That is weaker than the Scottish guidance. How do the guidelines align with existing ones, such as in boxing and equestrianism?
What about elite sport? The sporting bodies have shown a shocking disregard for the health of their own professional players for far too many years. If they do not act, should we not legislate for a duty of brain injury care? How can we ensure we get reliable statistics on brain injury in sport when nearly one in five rugby league players say that they deliberately did not report a concussion last year lest they be not allowed to play?
How do we get schools to understand concussion and brain injury better? Would it not be better to say “brain injury” rather than “concussion” because that is what it actually is? How can we ensure far greater co-ordination of research into concussion in sport, for instance through saliva tests and new generations of mouthguards, and especially into concussion in women’s sport? Are we sure that we have enough rehabilitation services for those with more serious injuries?
Brain injury is a hidden epidemic. We cannot normally see it. Let us do everything we can to prevent brain injuries, spot them, understand them, treat them and give people back the best possible quality of life.
Stuart Andrew
First of all, I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on all his work in this area. He has been a passionate advocate and campaigner, and I welcome all the further work that he is doing with those across Government. He is right to mention many campaigners who have been working hard in this area.
Prevention is important, which is why the guidelines will go out through all sports’ national governing bodies. We want them to go out to schools, so that teachers and medical professionals all have them. The advice in the guidance has been led by senior medical experts—I am not a medical expert so I am relying on their advice. I note the hon. Gentleman’s point that it perhaps looks weaker than Scotland’s guidance, but the professor involved with the Scottish guidelines has been instrumental in these, and has learned a lot of lessons from their publication.
The hon. Gentleman has raised with me the terminology of “brain injury” or “concussion”. The reason “concussion has been used is that it is more broadly understood among the grassroots organisations. We are trying to reach millions of people through the guidelines. I assure him that they are just the first step, as I said in my opening comments. I will continue to raise this issue with all the national governing bodies—I had a summit with them just last week to talk about it. We will ensure that sport is held to account to look after all players who take part.
Mr Speaker
I call the acting Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee.
Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)
I welcome the introduction of the guidelines, and I would add the Love of the Game campaign to the list of institutions that the Minister paid tribute to. It has done a lot of work to raise the profile of this important issue.
I urge the Minister to combine the guidelines and raising awareness of the dangers of concussion with a continuous education campaign from the Government and others to say that sport is good for people, particularly young people. There is a dangerous tendency among some parents to stop their children taking up sport because they are worried about concussion. Of course, we should be careful and do our best to prevent concussion, but will the Minister assure me and the House that the Government will do all they can to continue to encourage as many boys and girls as possible to take up sport?
Stuart Andrew
I thank the acting Chair and the whole of the Select Committee for their input into this important area of work that we have announced today. I add my thanks to Love of the Game. He is right to raise continuous education. Sport and physical activity are incredibly important. We will release our sports strategy very soon, in which we will talk about how we want to raise activity levels among all age groups, particularly the young.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant), who raised many important issues. We want everyone to safely enjoy the benefits of participating in grassroots sport. We agree on the pressing need to address concussion and brain injuries, so we welcome the guidance and the implementation of the action plan on concussion. However, we want to ensure that it is as robust as possible, so I have further questions for the Minister. Is he confident that the guidance makes the risks of sustaining a concussion clear enough? As my hon. Friend asked, why is the guidance limited to what happens once someone is concussed, rather than giving better advice on how to prevent concussions in the first place?
How does the Minister plan to monitor the adoption of the new guidelines and their impact? In the light of the possible gaps and points of contention in the guidance, and with new research and evidence emerging, what is the capacity to amend the guidance on an ongoing basis? Is the Minister aware of the ongoing inquiry into concussion by the Parliament of Australia—a nation that knows a thing or two about sport? Will he look at the outcomes of that inquiry?
Finally, guidance on dealing with a concussion can be effective only if the services that it signposts to can be accessed. Given the crisis in the NHS overseen by this Government, is the Minister confident that the current care and rehabilitation provision for people with a concussion is adequate? I do not think that he quite answered my hon. Friend’s question. Let us get this right and keep grassroots sport safe.
Stuart Andrew
I thank the hon. Gentleman for welcoming the guidance. Prevention is important. It is up to each of the national governing bodies to draw up plans, and in every meeting I have with those bodies I will keep asking what they are doing in that area. We will ensure that we monitor the success of the guidance. Just last week, we were talking about how we will measure success and ensure the messaging is delivered effectively.
If research suggests that we need to amend the guidance, then we will amend it. We will keep up with the latest available medical research and take evidence from all over the world. Indeed, medical experts from around the world helped us to develop the guidance.
On the provision of health services, I know that my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department of Health and Social Care are taking the issue seriously, as part of a wider brain injury strategy, and I am sure they will make announcements in due course.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
Brain injury blights thousands of lives each year. The Minister is to be congratulated, as are his immediate predecessors, for taking the issue more seriously than it has been taken by Government for decades. Nevertheless, more needs to be done both on preventative measures of the kind that have been raised already and on aftercare. When concussion occurs, what happens 24 or 48 hours later, or later still, matters too. In developing the next stage of the strategy, will the Minister recognise that this is a matter of what happens before, during and after such an event?
Stuart Andrew
I know that my right hon. Friend is vice chair of the all-party parliamentary group on acquired brain injury and takes a keen interest in this area. I hope that the publication of the guidelines shows how seriously we are taking the issue. We want to ensure that the best possible information is available, and we will liaise constantly with the research groups that have been established, so that the guidelines will be updated if needs be.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I pay tribute to all those who have campaigned tirelessly on this issue, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant). In order for the guidelines to be embedded in grassroots sport, the issue needs to be taken seriously at elite level, as that has an enormous influence on what happens in grassroots sport. Will the Minister say whether he is satisfied with how the governing bodies of elite sports, such as rugby union, rugby league and football, are treating the issue? What are the Government doing to ensure that they take the guidelines on board?
Stuart Andrew
Obviously, the guidelines are a baseline that we would expect all the national governing bodies to use, but then to go even further. Many of them have professional medical support, but they should still take the issue very seriously because, as the hon. Gentleman rightly points out, they are role models for many organisations. In my meetings with each of them, I will ensure that I keep raising that point.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
Nothing will instil confidence in the important message of “If in doubt, sit them out” more than for grassroots players, particularly youngsters, to see elite-level players adhering to the strictest head injury protocols. Sadly, we have seen too many coaches, referees, on-pitch medics and game administrators turning a blind eye, cutting corners and ignoring the protocols. Will the Minister say a bit more about what he is going to do with the governing bodies at professional level to ensure that there is consistency throughout sports, from amateur and grassroots levels right to the very top?
Stuart Andrew
The very publication of the guidelines shows how seriously we are taking the issue. We felt that it was really important to get guidelines out to grassroots sports, given how many millions of people are taking part in them. My right hon. Friend is right that the elite levels of sports also need to lead the way. Good work is going on, but I accept that more needs to be done. I can assure him that I will take the messages from the House today to the governing bodies in my further meetings with them.
Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)
I welcome these changes, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) on the urgent question, but these changes relate to the grassroots. We know that elite rugby union players such as my constituent Ryan Jones, a former Lion, have early-onset dementia as a result of numerous subconcussions. Can the Minister update us on the work to develop technology that can help to mitigate concussions in sport—such as the player brain scan trials in rugby union clubs last summer —as promised in the concussion action plan?
Stuart Andrew
We have established a research group that is looking into the technology that is available, and any information that we receive from its members will help us to develop this important work further. The safety of everyone taking part in sport is a priority for the Government. National governing bodies are independent bodies, but, as I said a moment ago, I will certainly continue to put the pressure on.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
In the year that marks the 200th anniversary of a game that started in my constituency and is now played around the world, will the Minister welcome the input of the English rugby union authorities in setting the guidelines, and also their commitment to ensuring that improvements in the game’s protocols are implemented in time for the start of next season in September?
Stuart Andrew
It was a pleasure to join my hon. Friend in his constituency to celebrate this important year for rugby, and yes, I do welcome the work that has been done. I shall be interested to hear how it is developing when I have my next meeting with the Rugby Football Union.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
I am a gymnastics coach at a local club in Glasgow in whatever spare time I can manage. The message “If in doubt, sit them out” is very welcome—it is a good, strong message—but unfortunately there is still a lack of understanding among the public, parents, participants and coaches of the damage that concussion can cause. The Minister does not want to talk about brain injury, but may I gently suggest to him that there has to be a better link between the words “concussion” and “brain injury” if we are to take this issue more seriously?
Stuart Andrew
Let me first thank the hon. Lady for all the work that she does with the gymnastics club. As she says, it is important for the guidelines to be available to grassroots sport throughout the country, and it has been good to work with the devolved Administrations in producing them. Of course, further work is being done across Government to examine brain injuries, which will be linked to much of the work that we have already done on the guidelines. We wanted the guidelines to be as effective as possible, given that there is so much grassroots sport, and ensuring that the information gets out there and is widely understood will be a priority for the Department.
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
I, too, warmly welcome the guidelines, which are an important step forward. I also pay tribute to those at the Headway charity in my constituency, who do fantastic work in supporting people with acquired brain injuries. They are always at pains to explain to me how the impacts of concussion can vary because everyone is different, and the way in which the side effects can fluctuate: they can come and go. What more can be done, moving forward from the guidelines, to ensure that the right training is in place for coaches and match officials so that the identification of concussion, and action on it, always take place very swiftly?
Stuart Andrew
My hon. Friend is right, and that is the exact purpose of the guidelines: they are for coaches, referees and teachers. Our key priority will be ensuring that everyone has this information, so that everyone knows how to recognise the symptoms of concussion and how to deal with it. As my hon. Friend says, each person is different, so understanding how concussion should be treated to ensure a safe return to work and further sport is a priority.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
I recently visited the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability, which is in my constituency, with my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant). We heard about the shortage of beds for the rehabilitation of people who have had a brain injury, and about what is often too long a wait for the important early treatment, which is then a false economy. What assessment has the Minister made, along with Health Ministers, of the availability of rehabilitation beds and the need for more funding to meet the current requirement?
Stuart Andrew
The Department and I work closely with colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care. I understand the point that the hon. Lady is making. We are making this a priority in terms of safety in sport, and I will certainly raise the issue in my next meeting with that Department.
Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)
I welcome the work that is being done in Scotland and across the UK. I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a football referee with the Scottish FA. On that subject, how does the Minister envisage this guidance and any updates being disseminated to the match officials, referees and umpires who officiate at all age groups and all levels, and who are often the closest to incidents that happen on the field of play or the pitch?
Stuart Andrew
My hon. Friend is right to raise that issue. We are working incredibly hard on this. As I have said, we held a summit just last week with national governing bodies and all interested parties to ensure that this information gets out there. It is not just for one section of society; it is for everybody. We want everybody to understand and raise awareness of the issues that concussion can bring and, importantly, of how to treat it when it has been identified. We will continue to monitor the effectiveness of the distribution of that information, and if we need to look at another way of doing it, we will of course do so.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
This new guidance is a welcome step in helping to make sport safer, but grassroots sports often do not have doctors or medics on hand to help players who have suffered concussion, so what steps is the Minister taking to ensure that the correct level of training is there for coaches and others to identify and advise on concussion?
Stuart Andrew
That is precisely why we have published these guidelines. Professor Chris Whitty has said:
“These guidelines help players, referees, schools, parents and others balance the substantial health and social benefits and enjoyment from taking part in sport with minimising the rare but serious and potentially lifelong effects of concussion.”
We are providing easy-to-read guidance for all those people who are doing great work out there, so that they know exactly how to deal with the issue, should it occur.
James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)
I watch a lot of grassroots sport, particularly football and rugby, so I welcome the guidelines today. Does the Minister agree that, as risks vary between the sports, the sporting governing bodies are the best placed to regulate this, and also that as part of the review we need to look at the medical cover that is routinely available at these events?
Stuart Andrew
As I say, this is a baseline of guidance and my hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that each sport will have its own individual needs. That is why it is right that the independent national governing bodies should take this guidance and build on it for the safety of all those involved.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
I welcome the guidelines and compliment the Government on their thoughtful approach, including talking to the devolved Administrations, which is most welcome. There is, however, a bit of a problem. If there is a suspected case of concussion and some right-minded person calls NHS 111, there could be a very long delay before that call is answered. I understand that within the last 12 months, 3.6 million calls were abandoned. We have an issue here, so can the Minister assure me that there will be discussions with the Department of Health and Social Care about this particular aspect?
Stuart Andrew
Yes, absolutely. This is obviously an important area of work. The running of NHS 111 is not within my remit, but that close working relationship with colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care will be key to ensuring that the guidelines work effectively, so I will happily raise those issues.
Sudan
(1 year, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Mr Andrew Mitchell)
With your permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement to update the House on the ongoing situation in Sudan.
The situation on the ground remains extremely dangerous. The Sudanese armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces announced a further extension of the ceasefire on 30 April for an additional 72 hours until midnight local time tomorrow, 3 May. I pay tribute to the significant international efforts that brought that about. However, reports of fighting persist, with a large number of people continuing to flee Khartoum, and movement around the capital remains highly dangerous.
Since 24 April the UK has enabled the supported departure of over 2,300 people, including British nationals, dependants, Sudanese NHS medical staff and other eligible nationals. I pay tribute to our brave and remarkable military and civilian personnel who have delivered that effort.
UK operations at the Wadi Saeedna airbase ended on 30 April. Our efforts are now focused on Port Sudan and helping British nationals there who are seeking to leave Sudan. On 1 May the UK evacuated 144 people on flights from Port Sudan. In addition, we helped British nationals to leave on the US navy ship Brunswick on 30 April. I thank our American friends and countries across the region—in particular Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Cyprus—for their assistance.
HMS Lancaster is supporting evacuation efforts from Port Sudan, and Foreign Office staff who remain are helping British nationals to leave the country, signposting options for departure. British nationals in Port Sudan who require support should visit our team without delay.
However, ending the violence remains essential. The Prime Minister, ministerial colleagues and I continue to co-ordinate urgently with our international partners to support those efforts. I have just returned from Nairobi, where I had productive conversations with the President of Kenya; the chairperson of the African Union, Moussa Faki; and former Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, among others.
We must not allow ourselves to forget that the appalling violence in Sudan, wrought by two generals and their forces, is having a devastating impact on civilians across the country, with an increasing impact for Sudan’s neighbours. The most vulnerable people in Sudan are bearing the brunt of the conflict. Aid operations are now at a standstill, humanitarian supplies have been looted, and hospitals and relief workers have been targeted in attacks—at least five aid workers have been killed, including other health staff. The warring factions must desist from violence so that aid can reach those who desperately need it.
The UK will continue to stand with the United Nations, which is leading the international humanitarian response. I commend this statement to the House.
Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement.
It is welcome that so many Brits have been successfully evacuated. Let me put on the record Labour’s thanks to our dedicated armed services and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office personnel, who have worked around the clock to make that happen. However, we remain concerned for British residents who remain in the country. What assessment has the Minister made of the numbers of nationals and residents still in Sudan, and what steps is he taking to ensure that they can be evacuated safely and quickly?
It is right that, in the coming days and weeks, we look at how decisions have been made during the crisis and ensure that the right lessons are learned. We know that communications with British nationals have been patchy, that our evacuation started later than those of many of our allies, and that the Government were slow to support British residents. My constituent Dr Lina Badr and her children had to make their own way to the border. Can the Minister explain why the beginning of our evacuation was so much slower than those of our allies? Does he feel that it was wise to evacuate our officials before our nationals and residents? I note that the international development head was left behind, not the ambassador. Does the Minister feel that each of the lessons of Afghanistan has been learned?
So far, Ministers have spoken about this crisis largely with regard to Brits stuck in the country, and rightly so. However, we have heard little about UK support for the Sudanese people, whose dreams of a peaceful and democratic future are being shattered by the fighting. Will the Minister please say more about his commitment to support the people of Sudan should the fighting continue? How will the UK retain a meaningful presence in the country? What assessment has been made of aid programmes that have been affected by the security situation and subsequent evacuations of diplomatic personnel? Does the Minister acknowledge the impact of cuts made by his Government to the bilateral support that Sudan receives?
Even before the current crisis began, 15 million in Sudan were reliant on humanitarian assistance. Sadly, that figure will only increase. What conversations is the Minister having with partners to secure the safety of humanitarian workers and their premises and assets so that life-saving aid can continue?
António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, has warned that the power struggle is not only putting Sudan’s future at risk, but
“lighting a fuse that could detonate across borders, causing immense suffering for years”.
Yet official development assistance to the region is set to face further cuts this year, even as Sudanese nationals are fleeing across borders in their tens of thousands. Will the Minister please set out whether the Government plan to allocate additional humanitarian support to address the crisis this year? What assessment have the Government made of risk to the security of Port Sudan, given its crucial role in Sudan’s economy, in the humanitarian response and in providing an evacuation route?
Finally, as the Minister will know, the RSF’s military power is partly sustained through illicit cross-border trade, which has taken hundreds of millions out of Sudan’s formal economy and will continue to bankroll the violence. How will the Government seek to crack down on illicit trade? Does the Minister share my concern that the turn away from Africa in British foreign and development policy has vacated space that malign actors have sought to exploit?
It is right that the British Government’s first priority has been to secure the safety of as many UK nationals as possible, but we must not allow the world’s gaze to turn from Sudan once the airlifts have ended.
Mr Mitchell
I thank the shadow Development Minister very much for her comments at the beginning and recognise that she is asking questions that require an answer. I noted eight of them, but if I miss any I will certainly write to her.
The hon. Lady asked first about the efficacy of the evacuation. We were, along with the Americans, the first to pull our own diplomatic staff out of the country. We did so because the situation was extraordinarily dangerous. As I have mentioned before in the House, the embassy and the residences were caught between the two lines so it was an incredibly dangerous situation. The Prime Minister took the decision—at a Cobra meeting at 3.15 that Saturday morning, which I attended—that it was essential that we took our staff out, which is what we did. It was a difficult and complex operation, successfully conducted, but throughout all the planning we also planned to bring out our citizens, and that operation, I submit to the House, has been accomplished extremely successfully.
The hon. Lady asked me about communications with British citizens. She is right; it is extremely difficult. On one day when we were trying to communicate, there was only 2% internet availability. She asked about the speed of the evacuation. We had more citizens in the country to evacuate than the French and the Germans, who started evacuating their citizens before we did. A crisis centre was set up immediately in the Foreign Office, working across Government. I submit to the House that the evacuation has been extremely successful.
The hon. Lady asked whether lessons had been learned from Afghanistan. They most certainly have, but of course this situation was very different from Afghanistan. We did not control the ground. There was not a permissive environment—we did not have permission, as we had the permission of the Taliban in Afghanistan, to take people out. So the positions are not analogous.
The hon. Lady asked whether we would learn lessons from the evacuation. Of course we will look carefully at every decision that was made and make sure that everything possible is learned from it. She asked about the diplomatic presence. There is a diplomatic presence at the border with Egypt and at the border with Ethiopia. She will know that the excellent British ambassador to Khartoum is now in Addis Ababa.
The hon. Lady asked about the humanitarian spend. I should make it clear that we are able to exercise a bit of flexibility on humanitarian spend, as we always must. For example, I announced last Thursday that next year we will allocate £1,000 million to meet humanitarian difficulties and disasters. She quoted the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres. He is right in what he has said, and one of the encouraging things that we are seeing is that the African Union and the United Nations are working in perfect harmony, delivering precisely the same message that there has to be a ceasefire; that these generals have to lay down their arms and return their troops to barracks.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
I welcome the incredible evacuation effort to get so many out and also the effort from so many of our allied countries. I thank the Sudanese Government, who will have played a large role in helping us get people out. I thank ambassador Giles Lever, who has been the subject of a great deal of media attention and attacks in the past few days, but who over the weekend worked tirelessly to help with cases that I raised, particularly of British nationals who had been taken hostage.
I am concerned that the RSF’s actions are a categorical rejection of the peaceful transition towards democratic rule and away from military rule. What can we meaningfully use to get them back within the process, because I am struggling to see why, having taken this action and decided that they do not support peaceful transition, they would now come back into the fold and be interested in any sort of transition to democracy.
I am also concerned that, this morning, MPs across the House will have received into their inboxes a briefing from the RSF press office. This is not some shoddily pulled together briefing, but a highly professional and clearly well-financed operation. Will the Minister kindly advise us who he believes is funding this RSF press office, and can we please make representations to it to make sure that no British firms are involved? If our allies are involved, they must step back and not fund the RSF in this way.
Mr Mitchell
I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for her comments. I thank her particularly for the point that she made about our ambassador, who has worked ceaselessly throughout the crisis and with very great effect. In respect of her final point, I will look into the issue of malign public relations and report back to the House.
On the process for ceasefire and peace, I draw the hon. Lady’s attention to the statement made this morning by former Prime Minister Hamdok, which we strongly welcome. He made it clear that there will be a global emergency unless this situation is halted immediately. He demanded an immediate, monitorable and permanent ceasefire and said that we needed permanent, reliable and secure humanitarian corridors. He mentioned in particular the requirement for a recommencement of a political process, the transition to democracy and the inclusion of the voice of Sudanese civilians in all forums that aim at securing peace. The international community, the African Union, and the United Nations—everyone—should support the call by former Prime Minister Hamdok of Sudan on all four of those points, because they are essential if we are to stop this growing and dreadful crisis.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. I echo the thanks to the men and women of the armed forces and other staff involved in the evacuations of UK nationals, as well as to those of other countries who immediately stepped up to the plate to evacuate UK citizens along with their own nationals at the start of this escalation of the conflict.
This is developing into a full-blown humanitarian crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people being displaced. There are acute food, water and medicinal shortages and they are likely to get worse. Agencies on the ground that have humanitarian, peacebuilding and development programmes will need to pivot quickly, so what assistance are the UK Government giving to those individual agencies? Can the Minister give us some details? I did not hear a response to the shadow Minister about how many UK nationals are estimated to be still in Sudan. Can he give us that estimate, because I would imagine that the Government have one?
The Minister said that there were more UK citizens in Sudan than citizens from other nations. Does that not mean that the emphasis should have been on our being better prepared and better resourced to move more quickly than those other nations? As violence erupts in Darfur, what actions has he agreed with international partners to protect international civilians?
Finally, the Minister for Africa said on TV last night that there were no safe and legal routes for refugees from Sudan. The Foreign Secretary promised last week that detail would be coming forward shortly. Can the Minister give us that detail now and tell us when those safe and legal routes will be in place?
Mr Mitchell
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments, particularly his comments about the work of the armed forces, which, as he said, was absolutely outstanding. He asked about how we elevate our humanitarian response to this crisis. I have to tell him that more than 10 humanitarian workers have been murdered during the course of this conflict. I said in my statement that it was five humanitarian workers, but if we include the wider definition of humanitarian workers, the number is more than 10. For the humanitarian work to take place and for the corridors that Prime Minister Hamdok has called for to operate, there must be a ceasefire and therefore all our efforts are addressed to that. We are working closely with all the humanitarian agencies, through the United Nations, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development and the African Union, to secure that.
The hon. Gentleman asked me for an estimate of those who are left, but it is not possible to be precise about that. He will have seen the figures of those who have been evacuated by the Royal Air Force and those who have gone from Port Sudan by sea. However, there is no question that those in Khartoum, which is where the predominant number of people were, will have known about the evacuation and will have been able to go to the airport. We believe that it is inconceivable that people did not know about it, and we think most of them are out.
Finally, the hon. Gentleman asked me about safe and legal routes. When the Prime Minister made his comprehensive statement to the House about how we would stop the boats and the poor people coming across the busiest sea lane in the world, putting themselves into the hands of the modern-day equivalent of the slave trader, he set out a whole range of measures, including that in due course he would introduce safe and legal routes. That is the answer to that question.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Is there any evidence that the Wagner Group’s links with the Rapid Support Forces had anything to do with the uprising, bearing in mind that the attention of our Government and no doubt others has been taken away from Ukraine by this crisis? Does the Minister agree that, if we do not wish to see a flood of refugees coming into western Europe, such humanitarian aid as we give must be focused on the surrounding countries, nearer to where this crisis is playing out?
Mr Mitchell
My right hon. Friend is entirely right on his final point. I have nothing that I can say about the work of Russia and Wagner in Sudan, but I can assure him that our attention has not been taken off the Wagner Group at any point.
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
My constituent’s father is stuck in Sudan. He was refused at the airport after spending three days trying to get there, despite his wife and daughter, who have UK passports, getting on the flight. Another constituent’s wife is also trapped there —alone, scared and six months pregnant. Both were in the process of getting their UK citizenship sorted out before the conflict happened. Now they are running out of food and water and they are desperate, as fighting is beginning again. How can that heavily pregnant woman and elderly man make it out safely? Will the Minister commit to doing all that he can to help my constituents’ family members get to a place of safety and reunite their families?
Mr Mitchell
I think I am right in saying that the hon. Lady has raised that specific case with the Foreign Office. I will undertake to ensure that efforts are renewed. The answer to her underlying question is that an international ceasefire is essential.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
What actions are the UN and neighbouring states taking to make provision for the refugees? Is there an up-to-date statement on how big a problem we think that is, given the current state?
Mr Mitchell
If there is no ceasefire, the problem will be enormous. I can tell my right hon. Friend that the head of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, is in the region and is looking at precisely those issues. I will keep my right hon. Friend and the House informed of the answer to that question as it develops.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Earlier today, the shadow Foreign Secretary received a fairly unsatisfactory answer to his question about getting Sudanese doctors back to the UK. The Minister has just said that this situation is not like Afghanistan. However, in 2020 during the covid pandemic, there was great difficulty in getting pensioners back from the Punjab, many of whom had worked for decades in the UK, had family here and had indefinite leave to remain. Is not the crux of the problem the stubborn refusal of his Department to do anything for British residents with fully legal leave to remain? Is it not time to review that policy, to change it and to get people home?
Mr Mitchell
These questions rest predominantly with the Home Office rather than the Foreign Office. I think that the shadow Foreign Secretary got an outstanding answer from the Foreign Secretary earlier. I should make it clear that the Prime Minister took the decision that the NHS doctors would indeed be brought to Britain. Five eligible Sudanese NHS personnel were evacuated from Port Sudan to Larnaca, and 14 came out with the Royal Air Force from Wadi Saeedna and one by United States vessel from Port Sudan—that is 20. The other two left under their own steam. On the specific issue that was raised with the Foreign Secretary, I think I am able to satisfy the right hon. Gentleman that he has had a very good answer.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
I agree with my right hon. Friend that getting a ceasefire is vital. On behalf of the all-party parliamentary group on Sudan and South Sudan, I thank him for coming to the meeting last week—if any colleagues want to join the APPG, we would be grateful for their support. Thousands of people are already heading for the border. I met Save the Children, South Sudan last week. It is expecting hundreds of thousands of people to come into camps in eastern Chad and on the South Sudan-Sudan border. Can the UK work with the UN to encourage more humanitarian aid for those areas, which desperately need extra support?
Mr Mitchell
My right hon. Friend is entirely correct and highly informed in what she says. In the last few moments, the meeting of the African Union has finished in Addis Ababa. The meeting called for a comprehensive ceasefire, underlined the extraordinary humanitarian jeopardy that Sudan is now in, called for a properly co-ordinated political process to be immediately resumed, and underlined the profound humanitarian consequences that exist in Sudan today.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
I am sure that the whole House will join the right hon. Gentleman in expressing our thanks to the British forces, civil servants and others who worked so hard to get British nationals out. He is absolutely right that a ceasefire is the single most important step that we need to see happen. It has been reported in the last hour or two that the South Sudan Foreign Ministry says that the two sides have agreed in principle to a seven-day ceasefire starting on Thursday, and to sending people to talks. I do not know whether he can shed any light on that. Clearly, the repeated breaking of existing ceasefires does not give us huge confidence, but this might be a significant step. Does he know why the Government of South Sudan appear to be the body reporting it?
Mr Mitchell
The right hon. Gentleman, who knows a great deal about Sudan and these matters from his time in office, may be even more up to date than I am. I thought that I was pretty up to date in reporting the African Union meeting, which finished in the last few minutes. South Sudan is involved as one of the three parts of IGAD. It is heavily engaged. The President of South Sudan has been working hard to try to effect a ceasefire. That is what South Sudan is doing, and we very much welcome it. I hope that, in due course, the right hon. Gentleman will be proven correct on the additional seven days of ceasefire that he mentions, and that we can build on it to achieve what the African Union has called for in the last few minutes.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I endorse what my right hon. Friend the Minister has said. I supervised ceasefires and organised safe corridors, and there cannot be one without the other. Does he agree that we are incredibly lucky to have such a jewel in our crown as the sovereign base areas in Cyprus, which are strategically and tactically important for operating in the eastern Mediterranean and areas around there?
Mr Mitchell
My right hon. and gallant Friend is absolutely right about the strategic importance of RAF Akrotiri and the sovereign base areas in Cyprus, which I know all too well from my brief and long ago military service with the United Nations forces in Cyprus.
Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Last week, there were people desperate to return from Sudan who are working here for our NHS. They look after us in our hour of need, and yet in their hour of need, they were initially told that our Foreign Office would not evacuate them, thus losing precious hours in the race to escape. That is shameful and embarrassing. How could that have been allowed to happen? Will the Minister undertake to review the decision-making processes in the Foreign Office and, if necessary, in the Home Office, to ensure that in future such cases are flagged up promptly and offered full support?
Mr Mitchell
I am sure the whole House will welcome the decision the Prime Minister made that those people should be evacuated to the United Kingdom and that they are now safely here.
Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
I am aware of a number of Westminster residents who are still stuck in Sudan, scattered across the country, having not been able to get to Khartoum to secure passage on one of the flights out. Can my right hon. Friend advise on what further steps the Foreign Office can take to evacuate British nationals and UK work permit holders who are still stuck in Sudan and want to leave?
Mr Mitchell
As we speak, British officials are still operating in Port Sudan, helping British citizens to leave. It is very important that the full details of any citizens in Westminster whom my hon. Friend knows about are given to the Foreign Office, and we will give them all the advice we can.
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
Of course, the Minister is right: focus must remain on ending the horrific violence that continues to see the death of innocent men, women and children, and we must continue to play a leading role in securing international humanitarian aid in one of the poorest countries in the world. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar), many of the cases that I am dealing with involve the immediate family of constituents who hold a valid visa for entry to and residence in the UK and who normally reside in the UK but have not been allocated space on a UK evacuation flight. I have a great deal of respect for the Minister, but he has remained largely silent on that point. What arrangements are in place to allow the safe passage of those residents from Sudan back to the UK, including any agreements with surrounding countries for safe routes of travel back to the UK?
Mr Mitchell
We continue to support people at the border of Sudan with Egypt and also at the border of Sudan with Ethiopia. I have outlined to the House the steps we are taking through Port Sudan. I am not aware of any reason why people would not have been taken if, as the hon. Gentleman says, they were able to get an evacuation point and all their documents were in order, but if he would like to bring any such case to my attention, I will of course look into it straightaway.
James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)
I thank and pay tribute to the FCDO and the Ministry of Defence for their successful and expeditious non-combatant evacuation operation from Sudan. As any student of military history will know, no responsible Government can write a blank cheque for the evacuation of civilians from a high-threat environment, particularly somewhere as dangerous as Khartoum, sadly. Will the Minister confirm that a full threat assessment will be conducted before the decision is taken to put British forces back into Khartoum?
Mr Mitchell
There are no such plans, but I can assure my hon. Friend and the House that we are still alert to any help that may be required by British citizens in Sudan, and we will provide all possible support that we are physically able to provide.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
May I beg the Minister for help with two constituency cases? One is an 11-month-old boy whose father is a constituent of mine and whose mother is Sudanese. Understandably, they do not want to travel without being guaranteed that they will all get on that flight together, so they have not. Another is a two-year-old child whose mother is British and whose father is Sudanese. They all want to get visas so that they can travel together. Does he understand that separation is not an option for them and that, without the Home Office in particular applying some cool-headed common sense, which we have shown we can do with Ukraine, we risk failing these very small children who should be and are citizens of this country?
Mr Mitchell
I understand the hon. Lady’s eloquent plea. I have to say to her that we are restricted by the art of the possible. If those cases have not been brought to the attention of the Foreign Office, I hope that she will do that immediately, and we will do everything we can.
I want to re-emphasise to the House that what is required is a permanent ceasefire, going back to 11 April, and engagement with the political talks that were going on leading to a civilian transformation. I was struck in Nairobi at the weekend by the unanimity of purpose among former Prime Minister Hamdok; Amina Mohammed, the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations; Moussa Faki, the chairperson of the African Union Commission; and President Ruto. All of them are doing everything they can to address this humanitarian situation through a ceasefire. I also pay a big tribute to the Archbishop of Canterbury in the week of the coronation, who was in east Africa over the weekend playing his part in urging people to agree a ceasefire, give up their guns, go back to barracks and embrace the political process.
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for the statement. As he says, though, the situation on the ground remains extremely dangerous. I have been contacted by my constituent Dr Hanaa Yahya, who is understandably extremely concerned that her brother—a UK passport holder—and her elderly mother are still stuck in Sudan, her mother having been denied evacuation.
The British embassy’s advice has apparently been that my constituent’s mother, who has a Sudanese passport with a UK visa valid for 10 years, could leave with her brother as a dependant. However, despite that, she was refused evacuation, and as a care-giver, her brother has remained with their mother. My constituent is very worried, particularly as her mother has significant health problems, and she fears for the safety of both family members. Could my right hon. Friend the Minister look into this case urgently and advise on what can be done to support both my constituent in Cheadle and her family stranded in Sudan?
Mr Mitchell
I thank my hon. Friend for her comments. I know that she has passed details about these cases to my officials in the past hour, and we will of course look into them.
In terms of support, it may be helpful if I give the House some further details. As I said, the Foreign Office and Home Office officials are resident—there are five of them in Port Sudan. HMS Lancaster is alongside and supporting. There are 23 people helping those who get off the plane in Larnaca; we have three people assisting those who have come out through Port Sudan in Jeddah; and on the Sudanese-Egyptian border, where I said there was a presence, we have 10 officials, in addition to those we have on the Ethiopian-Sudanese border. As my hon. Friend will know, the British ambassador to Khartoum has relocated to Addis Ababa.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Afrah Adam Ahimir Essa, the wife of my constituent Abdeen Mohammed, was issued with her family reunion visa by the Home Office on 2 March, but she has not been able to leave Sudan. I fully understand the importance of a ceasefire, but what advice and assistance can the Minister offer my constituent and his wife at what must be an incredibly frightening time?
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Lady, I think, raised this case during oral questions earlier.
Mr Mitchell
It was a different case. Well, for the case the hon. Lady raised in oral questions, we met between oral questions and this statement to try to make sure that officials can take up the issues. If she sees me after this statement, I will make sure that this other case is taken up as well.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
I put on record my thanks to all those who helped so much with the humanitarian evacuation from Sudan, because they have obviously performed the best they could, although there are still issues to be resolved. I hear what the Minister says about a ceasefire, and obviously a ceasefire would be very welcome—the longer the ceasefire, the better—but a ceasefire is not peace, and it is not a permanent situation. Is the Minister confident that the intervention of the African Union and the UN will actually address all the underlying issues in Sudan that have brought about this polarised military conflict that has been so devastating for so many desperately poor people, and that we will hopefully see a long-term peace and a completely democratic and civilian Government?
Mr Mitchell
I thank the right hon. Gentleman, the former Leader of the Opposition, for what he has said. He is right that there has been a formidable operation: at 5 o’clock this morning, 2,187 people had been evacuated by the RAF from Wadi Saeedna and 154 from Port Sudan. That total of 2,341 people arrived in Larnaca, and 1,858 are confirmed as back in the UK.
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right in his comments about the importance of the permanence of a ceasefire to allow both humanitarian efforts and civilian politicians to operate, and I assure him that there is extraordinary unanimity of belief in this across IGAD, the Troika, the Quad, the African Union and the United Nations. I hope that that unanimity of purpose across the international system will prevail.
Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)
There have been many reports of rape and sexual violence during the conflict in Sudan. Can the Minister advise the House on what steps the Government are taking to enable proper support for survivors and evidence-gathering by specialists to make accountability possible?
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Lady is right to raise these appalling offences that are committed against women. Obviously we have only limited ability to move the dial at this particular point in Khartoum and Sudan, but I assure her that this Government will never accept a culture of impunity in offences perpetrated against women.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
The Rapid Support Forces in Sudan were formed out of the Janjaweed, the militia responsible for many of the atrocities in the 2003 Darfur genocide. As the RSF has many of the same leaders as the Janjaweed, there is a real risk of atrocity crimes, including sexual violence. Does the FCDO have an atrocity and genocide prevention strategy for Sudan, and what steps are being taken to monitor and prevent potential atrocity crimes?
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Lady is right to chart the nature of the RSF, which grew from the Janjaweed, which was active in Darfur. I first visited Darfur in 2006 and again in 2007. As she rightly said, that was a genocide, in the words of President Bush, perpetrated by the Janjaweed and other militias. All I can say is to reiterate the point that I made earlier: we will do everything we can to ensure that there is no impunity for these dreadful crimes.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I thank the Minister for his statement today and for responding to questions for almost 40 minutes.
Point of Order
(1 year, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker, given the concerning incident reported over the weekend of the abuse and harassment directed at my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), can I ask whether Mr Speaker has received an update on this specific case from Leicestershire police or any other police force? I am sure that the whole House will be concerned by the impact such incidents can have on people standing for office, especially women. Is there any updated guidance from the parliamentary security department for MPs and our staff who receive abuse? Does Mr Speaker have any suggestions for how we can pursue this further? MPs and, crucially, future MPs need to know that neither they nor their families need put up with serious harassment. They should be allowed to serve their constituents without being targeted in this way simply because somebody disagrees with them.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order and forward notice of it. She raises a very important issue indeed. As she knows, we do not normally speak about security matters on the Floor of the House, so please forgive me if I do not inform the House as to what activity Mr Speaker has been involved in with regard to this particular matter. I agree with her totally about the impact that this sort of activity—abuse and harassment—has on MPs, their staff, their families and those thinking of entering politics.
I encourage any Member who has been subject to the sort of appalling abuse and harassment to which the hon. Lady refers to report it to the Metropolitan police’s parliamentary liaison and investigation team, PLaIT. It will co-ordinate a police investigation in response. Members will also wish to be aware that the parliamentary security department provides general and bespoke security advice to MPs, liaising with PLaIT and local police forces. I advise any hon. or right hon. Members with concerns to contact PLaIT or the parliamentary security department in the first instance.
Finally, I know that those on the Treasury Bench will have heard the exchange, and I am sure that Ministers will now want to consider carefully whether there is any action they could appropriately take, such as the issuing of guidance to public services dealing with these issues. I thank the hon. Member again for raising this important issue, and I am sure that she and others will wish to pursue this particular matter, and that Mr Speaker will continue to keep this issue under his review.
National Minimum Wage
Tuesday 2nd May 2023
(1 year, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate National Minimum Wage Bill 2022-23 View all National Minimum Wage 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
Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the national minimum wage; and for connected purposes.
Before I begin, I want to place on record that for several years before entering Parliament I served as regional convenor for Unison North West. I also worked in local government for over three decades, and I remain a member of Unison, my trade union, to this day. I want to pay tribute to the fantastic work of my own Unison region in the north-west for organising frontline care workers as part of the Care Workers for Change campaign. Under the stewardship of Kevin Lucas, it has delivered pay rises for thousands of care workers, particularly across Greater Manchester and now the Liverpool city region, winning for working people in an unforgiving sector with often poor employment practices.
After being elected in December 2019, I put my name into the private Members’ Bills ballot for the first time, and I was really surprised to be drawn very near the top, especially given that it was the first time of entering. Little did I realise that the pandemic had other ideas, and after failed attempts and cancelled Friday sittings, my private Member’s Bill was timed out. Nevertheless, here we are today, such is my belief in the significance of the low-paid, their contribution to our economy and wider society, and in their skill and dedication to their professions. No examples of this shine any brighter than in the adult care sector.
This year has been the most difficult for our people, especially those who face the uncertainty and insecurity that low pay can bring. The economic crisis and the pandemic before it have brought front and centre the workers who keep our economy going. They are our shop assistants in supermarkets, our care workers, those working in transport and logistics, and all manner of people operating across different sectors of the labour market. This Bill would ensure that they have confidence, because that is so often what precarious workers lack—in this case, confidence that they are properly renumerated for their labour under the law.
My Bill does not seek to overhaul the law as it stands, but rather to place a greater emphasis on enforcement, which would be to the benefit of all workers. The national minimum wage stands as one of my party’s and the trade union movement’s finest achievements. It was pioneered by one of my heroes, Rodney Bickerstaffe, whom I was lucky enough to call a friend. Long before it was popular to do so, Rodney pioneered this incredible national minimum wage.
Before entering this place, I had acquired years of experience working in close contact with the care sector. I refer to social care as a Cinderella service—the forgotten service. Indeed, it will be four years in July since the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), boldly promised to fix the long-standing crisis in social care in his first 100 days in office, yet here we are two Prime Ministers later, and we are still waiting.
Among this fantastically underpaid, undervalued workforce exist home care and domiciliary care workers—unsung heroes every single one of them. In every hon. and right hon. Member’s constituency, in every region and nation of these islands, this very second, home care workers are tending to the needs of our people, providing elderly residents with the independence and dignity they deserve. They are the very people who during their shift, starting early and finishing late, help an elderly resident get out of their bed in the morning, bathe and dress them, provide breakfast and administer medication, as well as tidying the person’s home, before returning to their vehicle or public transport and travelling to their next appointment. Just as importantly, they are a point of contact for those who often face social isolation and loneliness. A brief chat or a catch-up can provide much-needed companionship.
In England alone, there are over 715,000 workers working in the home care sector. The vast majority of them are women, and a huge number are on zero-hours contracts. My Bill will ensure accountability for those workers, and provide a framework of safeguards and minimum standards to be overseen by our local councils as the commissioners of services. The scale of the issue cannot be downplayed. A pre-pandemic article published in January 2019 on homecare.co.uk found that over half of home care workers are paid less than the national minimum wage because employers are not properly paying for travel time between visits. That time spent travelling between visits is the crux of the issue here.
Over 50% of England’s local authorities do not state in their contracts that firms must pay employees for time travelling between visits according to a freedom of information request. Furthermore, a survey of home care workers revealed that 63% are only paid for the time spent in people’s homes. Ultimately, this means that for too many care workers hourly pay rates fall well short of the Government’s national living wage and take many under the threshold of the national minimum wage. The UK Homecare Association, which represents providers, estimates that staff spend a huge 19% of their working day travelling between homes; that is almost a fifth of their working day. And no mileage expenses come anywhere near covering the cost of any shortfall.
In a sector that is deeply troubled with issues around recruitment and retention, my Bill would represent a genuine opportunity for the Government to clamp down on malpractice. It is a profession with a calling, and while no disrespect is intended to workers in other sectors, the home care market should not be losing workers to Tesco, Amazon, Nando’s and the like—but it is doing so, as we speak. For 2021-22, the vacancy rate across the entire sector stood at 165,000, with a slightly higher vacancy rate in domiciliary over residential care. It was only last month that the Government announced a new fund over the next 12 months to aid international recruitment in the adult social care sector.
Things must change as part of a longer-term strategy and investment in adult social care. Those on the Government Benches will undoubtedly say that provisions for enforcement under His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs guidance already exist. In fact, if I remember rightly, they were broadly supportive of my original private Member’s Bill and assured me that the issues I raised would be addressed in their forthcoming employment Bill. I am unsure if Hansard can feasibly be expected to pick up on the use of light sarcasm in this place, but I for one am still very much looking forward to the Government bringing forward such an important Bill.
In all seriousness, the figures mentioned earlier demonstrate that the existing system is not adequate for our army of home care workers across this country. For commissioned domiciliary services, local councils can, if given the powers, be the body that delivers pay transparency and minimum and effective pay assurances with real enforcement in defence of workers. Some councils are already doing this to some degree, but others are not. The Government are very well versed in defining and redefining the roles and responsibilities of local government so why not provide a statutory footing for home care workers that avoids a patchy postcode lottery? My Bill will work for employee and employer.
In the spirit of co-operation, I commend this Bill to all Members no matter their party allegiance. Let us make a real, tangible difference here today to all workers, not least those on the frontline caring for those who need it most. It is after all, a small but significant change.
Rodney Bickerstaffe said of our roles in the labour movement:
“We do our bit and pass it on”.
The same goes, I am sure, for Members across this Chamber. In the same vein as Bick, I hope that I too can play my small part in speaking up on behalf of our low paid while I have a voice in this place.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Paula Barker, Kim Johnson, Rachel Hopkins, Navendu Mishra, Mike Amesbury, Samantha Dixon, Mr William Wragg, Bob Blackman, Wendy Chamberlain, Munira Wilson, Chris Stephens and Jim Shannon present the Bill.
Paula Barker accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 24 November, and to be printed (Bill 267).
Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill
Tuesday 2nd May 2023
(1 year, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 View all Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Commons Consideration of Lords Message as at 2 May 2023 - (2 May 2023)
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Financial privilege is not engaged by any of the items in the Lords message relating to the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill.
Clause 4
Civil claims
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
I beg to move,
That this House agrees with the Lords in their Amendments 10B, 10C and 10D; disagrees to their Amendment 10E, and do propose in lieu of their Amendment 10E Amendment (a) to the words restored to the Bill by Commons disagreement to Lords Amendment 10.
It is almost two years since the Bill was introduced to the House in defence of the fundamental principle that students and academics should be able to express their beliefs and debate controversial ideas without fear of repercussion. We return to the House to resolve the final element on which we seek agreement: the form that the statutory tort takes in the Bill. The tort is the measure that will allow people to bring civil proceedings where they believe that certain duties in the Bill have been breached to their detriment. Since I last brought the Bill before the House, the other place has accepted the inclusion of the tort in principle. That is a huge step forward and a significant victory for freedom of speech on campus.
In February, this House voted to reinstate the tort in full following its removal in the other place. In March, the other place accepted the need for the tort but sought compromise in the form of amendments identical to those tabled by the Government on Report. That is the wording of the clause that we are now considering.
I want to emphasise that this is a significant shift in the terms of the debate. We are considering no longer whether the right to go to court should be included but what form it takes. However, I recognise that colleagues still have some concerns, and I want to reassure them that the two Government amendments will mean that the tort retains its teeth and offers a concrete means of redress for those whose right to free speech has been unlawfully infringed.
Proposed new subsection (2) will make it clear in the Bill that “loss” is not limited to pecuniary loss. That means that academics will be able to go to court if they have suffered, for example, reputational damage or adverse consequences to the progression of their career. Subsections (3) and (4) mirror amendment 10E from the other place. New subsection (5) will ensure that, in circumstances where speed is essential, a complainant can apply for an injunction where there has been an alleged breach of the free speech duties.
I turn to proposed new subsection (2), which builds on amendments 10B, 10C and 10D as voted for by the other place. On 7 December in the other place, my counterpart Earl Howe stated on Report that loss is
“not limited to pecuniary loss and could include damage to reputation, for example.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 7 December 2022; Vol. 826, c. 195.]
Subsection (2) simply makes that clear in the Bill. The amendment therefore reflects the original policy intent. I hope that offers reassurance to the House and that hon. Members will support its inclusion in the Bill.
I turn to proposed new subsection (5), which builds on amendment 10E as voted for by the other place as now included in new subsections (3) and (4). Amendment 10E would require claimants to have exhausted the complaints schemes of the Office for Students or the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education before they can bring legal proceedings. Some hon. Members have expressed concern that that would prevent individuals from seeking an injunction where a breach of specified freedom of speech duties has already taken place and swift redress is sought. I share the view of many colleagues that access to the courts in those circumstances is crucial.
Subsection (5) will mean that a claimant who is applying only for an injunction will no longer have to exhaust the complaints schemes first. Those claimants will therefore have direct access to the courts. It is important to allow for that to avoid delays that may cause further harm to the claimant. If, for example, a student is expelled from their course because of a free-speech issue, it may take a long time to resolve their complaint, and damages would not be sufficient. The student would be seeking re-entry on to that course to continue their studies. In that scenario, subsection (5) will allow the student to seek an injunction from the courts as quickly as possible. I am sure the whole House agrees that that is sensible and justified.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Yes, it is an excellent change. The only question in my mind is why this rather obvious feature was not included at the beginning. Could the Minister look into that and—if not now, on another occasion—throw some light on it? It was an obvious flaw in the Bill.
Claire Coutinho
I thank my right hon. Friend. I think the fact that we have now included that in the Bill shows that we have worked with both sides to ensure that the Bill is as strong as possible. We have always had the academics, visiting speakers and students that it seeks to protect at the forefront of our mind.
I should reiterate that the provision concerns injunctions where there has already been a breach of the relevant duties. Where there is an anticipated breach of the duties, a claimant can apply for an injunction to prevent that—that has always been the case, since the requirement to exhaust the complaints scheme only applies in the case of an actual breach. It is important to note that we believe that this exception will apply only in a minority of cases, as most claimants will not seek, or have their case result in, an injunction. Nevertheless, we are sympathetic to complainants who find themselves in the difficult circumstances in which an injunction may be required. Further to this, we expect the OfS will take into account the implications of the amendment when drafting the complaints scheme rules.
I hope that the House will therefore accept amendments 10B, 10C and 10D from the other place, and agree with the Government’s proposed new subsections (2) to (5), which are consequential upon the amendments.
James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)
In recent weeks, we have seen a rather unedifying situation whereby Members from both sides of the House have been no-platformed by universities across the UK. In addition, Berkshire has several Facebook groups which purport to be in the public interest, but are actually used mainly by Labour activists to attack the Government. Comments made by Conservative councillors or those who disagree with the sites’ administrators are deleted, with some users even banned from the sites.
Cancel culture is odious, and I believe it exists because the Opposition do not want to hear the truth—they cannot face the truth. Will this Bill go any way towards dealing with cancel culture?
Claire Coutinho
I thank my hon. Friend, who has had his own experience of that in recent weeks. This Bill will not only strengthen the duty of our universities to ensure that they are protecting freedom of speech on campus, but create a new director of free speech, who will champion the cause, and strengthen the powers of the OfS to deal with those who breach that duty. I believe it will speak to my hon. Friend’s real concerns.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
The last time I was here debating this Bill, I told the Minister that it had spent more time in Parliament than any other Bill sponsored by the Department for Education since 2010. Indeed, as defenders of free speech, Members would be forgiven for thinking the Government would be determined to see the Bill on the statute book. Yet 721 days—almost two years, as you, a maths connoisseur, will appreciate, Mr Deputy Speaker—have passed since the Bill had its First Reading, and it could have been further prolonged by the prospect of legislative ping-pong with the other place.
Here we are again. This time, we have the Minister, whose remit now includes university campus activity, rowing back on the compromise reached in the Lords. I am sure that this has been pushed by the Common Sense Group. I consider myself to be a member of whatever common-sense group this place may offer, but I am unsure whether we should be here again two years on. We need not be here, but heavy-handed legislative responses to largely exaggerated social problems—I am not saying there are no problems—appear to be this Government’s general modus operandi.
Sir Julian Lewis
It is a very serious step for anyone, particularly a student with limited means, to go to court and seek an injunction. Surely the hon. Gentleman can see that no one will do this on a whim. They will do so only when their rights are being seriously infringed.
Matt Western
I have a huge amount of respect for the right hon. Gentleman, as he knows. Of course I would be concerned about the case of an individual student, but I fear more generally about the tort being a channel for more vexatious claims by well-funded individuals or organisations, and where that may take us. I will expand on that point.
Where issues arise, Ministers have shown no interest in dealing with the underlying causes. I fear that this is yet another example of Ministers leaning in and exploiting cultural divides, opting for punitive, confrontational tools such as the tort before us. I have repeatedly stated the plethora of options open to the Government: the Chicago principles, the Robert French report, Universities UK’s guidance, internal processes and the Manchester and King’s guidelines—all of which would do a better job at resolving issues whenever they arise.
Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman mentions the cost of going to court and that that will be prohibitive for students and academics, but surely the opposite is true. At the moment, the only provision that students and academics have in the case of their free speech being cancelled is judicial review, which costs tens of thousands of pounds. The whole point of introducing a tort in a county court, for example, is that it is relatively cheap and relatively affordable for anyone.
Matt Western
As the hon. Member will know, the tort has been left in the legislation. A compromise was reached in the other place, so that is in the Bill, as far as we know. Our point is that we do not believe that an injunction is at all necessary. Indeed, it will complicate the process for all involved. The Minister will know that I was trying to reach her last week. I was keen to discuss this issue, because I wanted to seek some sort of understanding about what was going on, but for some reason we were not able to speak. I hope that we can do that in future, because I think that will circumvent problems.
To be fair to the Minister, she is clearly aware that colleagues have strong views on the issues linked to the tort—she said as much in her “Dear colleague” letter last week. Perhaps it is worth reminding ourselves of some of those views. Lord Grabiner, an eminent jurist, said that the tort could be used by
“well-heeled trouble-makers for whom the costs issue would be of no concern at all.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 November 2022; Vol. 825, c. 709.]
That is the point I was making to the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis). Lord Molyan, a Conservative peer, stated:
“the Government do not know what they want to do about this”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 March 2023; Vol. 828, c. 1692.]
Universities UK, which represents 142 universities, stated:
“our position remains that the tort should not stand as part of the Bill.”
It feels that the original amendments amount to “sensible and acceptable compromise”. It was understood across the sector and in the other place that we had reached a point where the system was workable—they had reservations, but said they would accept the compromise. Given the Minister is clearly aware of those strong views, why has she not paid heed? In her letter, she encouraged us all to support the Government’s motion today, owing to
“limited legislative time to progress with further changes”.
It is pretty ironic for her to invoke the tight parliamentary timetable to push through her regressive motion, given the Bill has benefited from two parliamentary Sessions. We are here today, two years on, only because the Minister has reneged on the position accepted by Government Ministers in the Lords.
In her “Dear colleague” letter, the Minister claims that her motion provides the necessary reassurances on the issue, but she fails to mention that reassurances were already provided by Earl Howe. A satisfactory compromise —supported by Labour—was reached. Indeed, it might be deemed a model case in how to resolve competing interests, reminding us of the shared values we have in common:
“a commitment to freedom of speech and diversity of opinion.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 March 2023; Vol. 828, c. 1685.]
Those are the wise words of Lord Willetts. Yet with this motion, the Minister seems to be reopening Pandora’s box, prioritising tabloid headlines about a permanent crisis in freedom of speech on campus, over and above cross-party consensus and good legislation.
On the two planks of the Government amendment, the first specifies sustained loss as including non-pecuniary loss. The first concession the Minister has made to her Back-Bench rebels is to put in the Bill that “loss” extends to non-pecuniary loss, such as injury to feelings and reputational damage. I understand that was always assumed to be the case by the Government, but the Minister felt compelled to assuage the concerns of Back-Bench Members that such damage could be excluded by the courts.
If non-pecuniary damage is to be a loss recoverable under tort in freedom of speech claims, the question arises as to how the loss will be calculated. That has important consequences for the costs of litigation for universities and student unions. The Minister will no doubt say that that is a matter for the courts but, in the interest of clarity, I would welcome the Minister setting out her understanding of how damages might be awarded for non-pecuniary claims in freedom of speech cases.
For example, will the director for freedom of speech and academic freedom or the Government be setting cost guidelines for the courts to follow; or is it the Minister’s expectation that the courts will follow pre-existing costs guidelines, such as those used in discrimination cases? It is worth flagging that, if the courts were to follow such guidelines, the most egregious cases of non-pecuniary loss arising from a breach of a freedom of speech duty could cost a student union or university up to £56,200 per individual claim, in addition to any further litigation costs, which I am reliably informed range from £75,000 to £125,000.
Members of the House may want to consider, in the context of their local higher education providers, how such costs may detract from the student experience, given the financial pressures across the entire sector. Such monies would be better used to support hardship funding and welfare support, given the rocketing number of mental health cases they are seeing.
The second plank relates to the opt-out of the last resort mechanism for injunction-only claims. The amendment creates an exemption from the last resort mechanism put in place by the Lords for claims exclusively seeking an injunction. It is worth noting that the underlying purpose of the last resort mechanism was to prioritise university internal processes, the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education, the Office for Students Free Speech Complaints Scheme and the director for freedom of speech and academic freedom. The Government amendment potentially paves the way for that purpose to be inverted.
In effect, the amendment creates a perverse incentive for claimants to bypass the schemes created in the Bill in search of an injunction, including in anticipation of a breach. Was that unintended or intended? Regulatory investigations and internal processes rightly and understandably take time. When competing freedoms are at play, such care is to be expected. While the circumstances in which a court may grant an injunction could be narrow, for vexatious claimants with deep pockets, the amendment invites them to try their luck.
I note Lord Willetts sought to ensure the tort was “sensibly targeted” through his amendment, presumably to limit such vexatious claimants. Does the Minister believe her amendment opens the scope of the tort back up again? What justification does she have for doing that? Has the Minister met Lord Willets, a Conservative peer, to discuss this? I am sure he would welcome such a discussion. As for process, the Minister claims she is
“confident that this will not create a further burden on the courts”.
She plainly omits reference to the burden on institutions and student unions.
We all know that litigation is generally expensive and time consuming. It can soak up management bandwidth, detracting from the ability to focus on more important issues, most obviously the staff and student experience. Anything that risks an increase in the use of litigation in this context is therefore to be greatly cautioned against. In that vein, I urge the Minister to provide greater clarity on how her amendment will keep vexatious claimants at bay, will ensure the protection of institutional autonomy and regulatory processes, and will not expand the scope of the tort to the detriment of the student experience.
Miriam Cates
I admit to having a sense of déjà vu, because I think this is the third time I have made a speech defending the sharp end of the Bill—which is, of course, the provision allowing students, academics and visiting speakers who have had, or are about to have, their freedom of speech curtailed to bring a claim against a university in court. Most cases can, will and should be settled through the Office for Students’ complaints process, but that could take months. There will be circumstances in which quick recourse is needed, for example when a speaker’s event the next day is due to be cancelled.
The Lords have tried to remove the tort. They have tried to water it down with the requirement to exhaust the complaints procedure first. That is why I initially tabled an amendment for consideration today to ensure that students and academics could still apply to a court for injunctive relief if necessary. However, I am very glad that the Government have tabled their own similar amendment; I have withdrawn mine, and will of course be supporting the Government. I thank the Minister for her commitment to the Bill and its original policy aim, and to freedom of speech. It would have been easy for her to capitulate to their lordships on this matter, and it is to her credit that she has not only identified the damage that the Lords amendments would have done to the success of the legislation, but has actively engaged with academics, Back Benchers and ministerial colleagues to ensure that the Government defend their legislation.
Retaining the full use of the tort is vital to the success of the Bill. After all, the Bill’s aim is not to enable people to sue universities—no one wants that to be the mainstream course of action—but to deter universities from reneging on their free speech duties in the first place. Essentially, we want the Bill to have a deterrent effect to help universities to stand up to those who wish to cancel certain viewpoints by providing for clear boundaries and swift consequences if they fail in their duty to free speech. Facing a long Office for Students complaints process is no deterrent against cancelling an event due to take place tomorrow, but the potential for court action is. Creating a liability risk for universities that neglect their free speech duties is the most effective way to ensure that free speech is always factored, substantively, into decision making.
I am not a free speech absolutist, and of course there should be speech that is illegal, such as racist speech and speech inciting violence. Everyone should take responsibility for what they say, and I believe that anonymous speech is a largely detrimental development in today’s culture. However, the freedom to voice opinions and present evidence, however controversial those opinions and that evidence may be, is a foundation of democracy. Authoritarian regimes, not democracies, censor speech, and when mainstream, evidence-based views, such as the belief in the importance of biological sex or the belief that immigration should be limited—for which my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) was cancelled last week—are being shut down in our universities, we have a problem that needs to be addressed. Our brightest future minds, the young people in our universities, deserve to have an education that helps them to become robust, inquisitive, and appropriately sceptical of new ideas. They will become robust only if they have the opportunity to hear a whole spectrum of opinions and ideas and to learn that being offended is not an injury but an opportunity to learn and mature. We do our young people no favours by pretending that they need protecting from ideas and facts.
The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western), spoke about the mental health crisis that some of our students face. I agree that there is a crisis in mental health among our young people, but the American psychologist Jonathan Haidt links that crisis in mental health with cancel culture and the over-protection of children in schools and universities from viewpoints and ideas that might hurt their feelings. His book confirms my belief that being exposed early on to viewpoints that we might disagree with and want to argue against helps us to become robust and makes us less likely to be injured and have hurt feelings when we come across views that are different from our own.
Those are the kinds of people that we want to be the future leaders of society, and the culture that starts in the universities always makes its way into mainstream culture. That is the point of our higher education institutions, so the Government are absolutely right to protect their policy aim of ensuring free speech in universities. That will be to the benefit of everybody in this House across the political divide and of future generations. It does not just protect one particular viewpoint; it protect everybody’s viewpoint.
Claire Coutinho
I thank the House for today’s debate, which demonstrates the full benefit of open discussion and free speech. I will touch briefly on some of the points raised. The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) said that he thought this was driven by the Common Sense Group’s views, but in fact it has been driven by the conversations we have had with academics who have been targeted for sharing their views on campus. They are the people at the forefront of our mind. In our last debate, I suggested that the hon. Gentleman might like to speak to some of them. I would be delighted to relate my conversations with them, but I think he should speak to them as well.
The hon. Gentleman talked about how we would assess costs, and he is right to say that that is a matter for the courts. That is well established. He also spoke about the cost to universities, but it is very simple: if universities would like not to have to spend money on redress, they should simply uphold freedom of speech. He mentioned Lord Willetts, and like everyone whom the Bill concerns, we have been talking to people right across the spectrum as we have moved through this process, and I am confident that people will see that we have come to a good place in our amendments. He also asked whether the money would be better spent on the staff and student experience, but I ask again: should not the staff and student experience of university be one in which they are exposed to different views and can speak freely and debate controversial ideas? Is that not fundamental? That is exactly what the Bill is trying to uphold.
The hon. Gentleman asked about examples of where we might want to use an injunction. An example of where we might want to see swift redress is if a student has been kicked off their course and they feel that their freedom of speech rights have been impinged on. We would want to deal with that quickly so that they can get back on their course and resume their learning swiftly. That been widely agreed on in our conversations as a reasonable example.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates). She is absolutely right about building young people’s resilience. Exposing them to different views is a key part of growing up, and it is something that we all use as we go into adult life.
We remain convinced that the right to go to court is crucial as a way of enforcing the new duties in the Bill and providing redress for those who have had their rights unlawfully restricted. I am thrilled that both Houses now accept that the tort should be part of the Bill. I believe that in accepting amendments 10B to 10D as agreed by the other place, together with the inclusion of the Government amendment we have discussed today, we will have reached the right position to ensure that freedom of speech and open debate remain central to university experience.
Question put and agreed to.
Backbench Business
Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh
(1 year, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of support for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
I thank right hon. and hon. Members from across the House—especially those on the all-party parliamentary group on Bangladesh—who supported the application for the debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting it.
In January, along with a number of MPs on the APPG, I visited Cox’s Bazar and witnessed the desperate plight of Rohingya refugees, particularly women and children. The visit convinced me of the need to keep this humanitarian disaster at the forefront of our hearts and minds, and to urge the UK Government to lead the international community in doing all we can to help. I thank all the non-governmental organisations, charities, human rights organisations and volunteers who work tirelessly on the ground to provide aid and assistance to some of the most desperate people on earth.
It is almost six years since hundreds of thousands fled Myanmar in 2017, when the Myanmar military, supported by militias, launched a brutal genocidal campaign that took thousands of lives. At least 700,000 escaped Rakhine state for Bangladesh. Now, 961,000 Rohingya refugees live in refugee camps—the largest in the world—in the Cox’s Bazar area. The vast majority are women and children.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office officially recognises that a state of emergency remains in place across Myanmar. There is conflict and significant violence across much of the country, involving airstrikes, artillery bombardments, landmines and armed clashes. It is not yet safe for Rohingya people to return.
The generosity of Bangladesh in taking in more than 1.5 million refugees cannot be overstated. The pressure of responding to a humanitarian crisis on such a scale in the way that Bangladesh has would be difficult even for the wealthiest countries in the world. Although its economy is growing fast, Bangladesh remains one of the poorest countries in the world and needs our continued support to share responsibility for such a large and rapidly created diaspora.
Conditions in the camps are not good. Some of the MPs who are here to support the debate today have visited them. The plight of the people there is devastating. I have lived and seen real poverty, and I have seen the impact of conflict—the many displaced people, the people with nothing—but I have never seen anything like the suffering of the women and children in the camps we visited. The trauma etched on some of their faces still haunts me.
Vulnerable people and children have spent years living in squalid conditions. There are severe restrictions on the kind of temporary shelters Rohingya refugees can live in. Refugees’ homes are not permitted sanitation, water or electricity, and there is little access to education and healthcare. They are surrounded by barbed wire fences and have no freedom of movement. Children born in the camps have never seen an existence beyond their makeshift tents.
We must use all our political clout to assist these destitute people with no means or obvious hope of building a new life or returning to their old ones. Bangladesh wants and needs to work with international donors and Rohingya people to develop long-term plans for hosting refugees in decent housing, with access to proper education and health services. Bangladesh cannot be expected to shoulder the bulk of the responsibility. Although I think that was understood by the UK Government and many others in the beginning, support is fading fast.
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing such an important debate to the House. He is making an excellent speech, in particular about the plight of the Rohingya in the Cox’s Bazar camps. Does he agree that it is beyond disappointing that less than 50% of the aid promised by the international community has yet to be received?
Mohammad Yasin
I thank my hon. Friend for making such an important point. That is what I am saying: aid from the international community has been cut by more than 50%. Aid from the UK has reduced by more than 82%. That is really affecting the people who are living in such difficult conditions. We must improve our aid and lead a campaign around the world to ensure more help for the people we have seen living in such poor conditions.
Sadly, the plight of the Rohingya and those living in the camps no longer gets the news coverage or the national or international attention that it deserves. As pressure grows, without an end in sight, there are signs of increasing discontent in the Bangladeshi host community over insecurity, economic costs and other negative effects of the refugee camps. In December, the UK led efforts to secure the first ever UN Security Council resolutions on the situation in Myanmar. UN Security Council resolution 2669 stresses the need to address the root causes of the crisis in Rakhine state and create the conditions necessary for the voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable return of Rohingya refugees.
But the situation in Myanmar has deteriorated since then and Amnesty International has documented widespread human rights violations, including war crimes and possible crimes against humanity as part of the military crackdown on the opposition across the country. The Myanmar military continues to arbitrarily arrest, torture and murder people with impunity two years after the coup. Since then, nearly 3,000 people have been killed and 1.5 million have been internally displaced. As hope of repatriation fades, so conditions in the refugee camps become more hopeless. A range of conflict mitigation approaches that involve citizens, the Bangladeshi state and the international community is urgently needed to alleviate inter-community tension and prevent further conflict.
On 5 March a huge fire tore through Cox’s Bazar, destroying around 2,000 shelters and leaving around 12,000 Rohingya refugees homeless. Rations have been cut and criminal gangs operate freely in the camps, particularly preying on women. Poor security measures allow the Rohingya insurgent group, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, and other criminal gangs to terrorise, extort and exploit refugees, leaving them vulnerable to sex and drug trafficking and radicalisation.
It has been reported by Human Rights Watch that safety has also deteriorated under the armed police battalion that took over security in the Rohingya camps in July 2020 due to increased police abuses and corruption. UK aid must be met with more efforts from Bangladeshi authorities to investigate these alleged abuses of power to ensure that refugees are protected.
The UK Government have done a great deal to support the Rohingya, providing £350 million in aid to Bangladesh since 2017. Understandably, the world has turned its eyes and efforts to do all it can to support Ukraine, but the scale of the humanitarian crisis for the Rohingya must not be overlooked. It cannot be either/or.
To 6 March 2023, the UK had provided £15 million to the Rohingya response during 2022-23, and a further £5.26 million to be distributed through the World Food Programme. However, I am sorry to say that, despite the need being even greater than before, it is estimated that the British Government have cut aid for 2022-23 to the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh by a staggering 82% since 2020. The majority of these refugees are children. We cannot give up on them. According to the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, 40% of children are suffering from stunted growth because of lack of nutrition. What is more, the World Food Programme announced that it was cutting the food provisions to all refugees in the camps by 17%. More cuts to basic human needs are expected if cuts in aid are not reversed.
The new UN appeal for funding for the current year—the 2023 Rohingya joint response plan— requires $876 million. Only 15% of that fund has been met. So far, the British Government have contributed $6.4 million to the plan. I urge the Government to review this when the spending plans for 2023-24 are confirmed.
Cutting the aid budget is short-sighted. The only way to prevent the diaspora and refugees seeking a place of sanctuary on our shores is to do all we can to stabilise their lives in their homes in host countries. Dire conditions are forcing refugees to risk dangerous boat journeys to escape. When host nations do not feel supported, hostility grows. A recent survey by the US Institute of Peace shows that 68% of Bangladeshi people think that the Rohingya should be sent back to Myanmar immediately.
The Government of Bangladesh will find it increasingly difficult to do the right thing politically without sustainable support from the international community. UK aid cuts are not only a humanitarian tragedy; they are undermining our ability to negotiate with Bangladesh to improve conditions for the Rohingya people in the camps.
Bangladeshi officials and Ministers say that theirs is a poor country. They are having to host a million refugees while richer countries do not pull their weight. Although Bangladesh can do more to improve conditions and security, there is the fundamental truth that the UK and the international community must step up their support.
Ultimately, the solution must be to create the conditions for the Rohingya to return home safely and securely, and with dignity. China, as one of the few countries with influence on the Myanmar junta, has been seeking to broker a repatriation process. This is important, but we should be cautious about both China and Myanmar’s motivations.
The British Government have taken the lead in the international response to the attempted coup, rightly targeting sanctions on sources of revenue, arms and equipment, but they are doing so too slowly. The British Government can and must do more to limit the ability of the military to commit human rights violations. It is good that the UK has agreed to join the Rohingya genocide determination case at the International Court of Justice, but while this process takes its course, I urge the Government to respond to calls for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss how the Burmese military are ignoring provisional orders to prevent ongoing genocide.
I hope that today’s debate shows how much support there is in the British Parliament for the Rohingya refugees and for Bangladesh. I hope that it injects a renewed energy to address the causes and possible solutions that will enable the Rohingya to return voluntarily and safely to Myanmar as soon as conditions allow. The only real hope of achieving that is for the British Government to work with their international partners and with the Government of Bangladesh to meet the scale of the humanitarian disaster by fully restoring UK aid to Rohingya refugees above previous peak levels.
Jane Hunt (Loughborough) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) on leading this important debate.
In March, I had the privilege of visiting Bangladesh. As well as meeting the honourable Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, and a number of businesses throughout the region, we visited the Rohingya refugee camp at Cox’s Bazar. It was a very moving visit and brought home the harsh realities of Myanmar’s relentless oppression, discrimination and victimisation of the Rohingya people, which has led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children.
At the same time, it was encouraging to see the level of support being provided to the Rohingya by the Bangladeshi Government, who have assigned a substantial amount of money and land to provide a safe, temporary home to those who have been made involuntarily stateless. It was also good to meet those involved in running the camp and providing the vital services on which the residents rely. This includes those working at a women’s health clinic who were offering ante-natal classes to pregnant women, as well as the people who were responsible for delivering water and energy and those providing education to resident children. These are tough jobs, but they are being done incredibly well in difficult circumstances. I was proud to see the “UK Aid” sign over the medical centre.
It is also important to mention that much of this work could not have been carried out without the significant contribution of the UK Government, having provided more than £340 million to the crisis since 2017. However, as the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs put it:
“Despite progress, the Rohingya remain in an extremely precarious situation. The root causes of their plight in Myanmar have not been addressed and their future is yet uncertain. Refugees have access to the basics, such as food and healthcare, but they are still extremely vulnerable, living in highly challenging circumstances, exposed to the monsoon elements and dependent on aid.”
This was clearly visible in the camp that we visited, where there was a deep fear of the incidents that had been occurring at night, as well as of the fires, mentioned earlier, that have ripped through the camp on a number of occasions. Shortly before we visited, one fire engulfed an estimated 2,000 wooden shelters—making around 12,000 refugees homeless—and at least 35 mosques and 21 learning centres. From January 2021 to December 2022, there have been 222 fire incidents in the Rohingya camps, including 60 cases of arson. It is clear that the camps, while crucial to providing emergency shelter to refugees, are not a permanent solution.
Alongside providing funding to Bangladesh to support those in camps such as the one at Cox’s Bazar, the UK Government must continue to utilise all their diplomatic firepower to bring an end to Myanmar’s horrific treatment of the Rohingya people and ease the burden on countries such as Bangladesh that are having to deal with the humanitarian fallout. I would welcome an update from the Minister on recent actions the Government have taken to achieve that.
Many of the children I met at Cox’s Bazar were young and small; they had clearly been born there and lived there their whole lives. That is no life. Those are innocent people who deserve to have a proper future. Please, let us do everything we can to give them one.
Finally, I take this opportunity, in the mother of all Parliaments, to thank the Government of Bangladesh—a country of only 52 years so far—for all that they have done to support the Rohingya, all the aid charities who work on site daily to help the residents, and the UK Government and other Governments for their aid. I also take the opportunity to impress upon those in charge in Myanmar that the world is watching. We ask them to stop the oppression of the Rohingya people and allow them to go home.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) on securing this important debate and thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing time for us to debate this issue. As he mentioned in his opening speech, in January this year we visited Cox’s Bazar and south-eastern parts of Bangladesh with the all-party parliamentary group on Bangladesh. I declare an interest, because the visit was funded by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the parliamentary group is one that I chair, along with the APPGs on Burma and on the rights of the Rohingya.
The Cox’s Bazar area is a beautiful part of the world, with miles of sandy beaches, and has a reputation internally as a tourist destination, but now it is synonymous with the vast refugee camps that are home to 1 million Rohingya refugees. The Rohingya people are the most persecuted in the world, having had their citizenship rights stripped from them in the early 1980s by the Burmese military.
Before the January visit with colleagues, I had visited the camps a number of times, meeting with refugees and speaking to local and international agencies. I can tell the House that this is and remains an urgent and pressing humanitarian crisis. I also had the opportunity to visit Rakhine State on two occasions: once with Refugees International a few years after I was first elected, and then in 2017, before the attacks on the Rohingya population led to the forcing out of 750,000 people, who had to flee to Bangladesh.
Five years on, the situation has got worse, not better. The Burmese military, having perpetrated genocide and attacks on the Rohingya population and forced them out of Bangladesh, went on to carry out a military coup and oust the democratically elected Government two years ago. The impunity granted to the Burmese military over the genocide is a clear reason why it calculated that it could get away with a military coup in Myanmar.
Imran Hussain
I thank my hon. Friend for all her continued efforts for the Rohingyas and for that region, and I think Members across the House will agree. Does she agree that in autumn 2017, many of us stood in this Chamber and pleaded with the Government to take action when we saw the beginning of the ethnic cleansing and genocide, only to be told by Ministers that they would not interfere because of the fragile democracy in that region? As she says, what have we achieved by doing that? The Government’s inaction has emboldened the military there.
Rushanara Ali
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out that, in the hope of securing a transition to democracy, the international community failed to see the dangers for minority groups in Burma. I think we can all recognise that that was a massive oversight, despite warnings from some of us in this House—not just in my party but in others—about the need to ease sanctions gradually rather than letting the Burmese military do as it pleased without any levers left for us to influence and curtal its behaviour. The reality is that it was not a full democracy: the Burmese military continued to control the police and the major security operations, and it used Aung San Suu Kyi as a human shield to defend its actions and the bloodshed and genocide that it committed. It is a great source of regret and disappointment that she then defended the military in the International Court of Justice case. That was completely unacceptable.
These are lessons that we all need to learn from rather than continuing in the same vein and allowing genocide to be perpetrated in other countries. In a number of countries—China in relation to the Uyghur Muslim population, for example—ethnic cleansing and human rights violations are increasingly being used by leaders as an acceptable policy tool. We have to do more to prevent ethnic cleansing and the persecution of minorities in a number of countries, and lessons need to be learned.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I celebrate my hon. Friend, who has campaigned and challenged on the Rohingya since the inception of this awful situation. Does she share my frustration that the Minister sat back when it came to declaring genocide and just waited for the international courts to do it? People are dying as a consequence of this situation.
Rushanara Ali
I am grateful for the support that I have had from colleagues across the board, particularly on the Labour side, on this important issue and on ensuring that our Government take action to support the cause for justice in the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. My hon. Friend is right that the UK, as the penholder in the UN Security Council in relation to Myanmar/Burma, has a unique and special responsibility.
We have had a failure of leadership by our Government. That is not a criticism of the relatively new Minister of State with responsibility for the Indo-Pacific, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan), who recently visited the camps in Cox’s Bazar. I know that she is conscious of the need to seek justice. One of the ways in which we can protect the Rohingya people who remain in Burma is to ensure that the International Court of Justice case led by Gambia is properly supported. That case against the Burmese military is protecting people in Burma from being persecuted. I hope that the Minister will be able to address the point about the need for proper support. The UK Government announced last year that they would support that case, but we need to see that in concrete terms, with the UK joining the Netherlands, Canada and the other countries that were first out to support it. We should be leading the charge.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
The hon. Member is making an informative and powerful speech. Does she agree that a number of major countries with huge clout should know better and should have done more and been stronger in their condemnation of the behaviour of the Myanmar regime? That has been disappointing.
Rushanara Ali
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who serves as a vice chair of the all-party group on Bangladesh and who is a powerful advocate for the Rohingya people, for working cross-party on this important issue. He is right that we could have done more and should do more, but we can rectify some of those mistakes by ensuring that we support the International Court of Justice case. I welcome the fact that the UK Government have agreed to support a referral to the International Criminal Court, but we need further clarity on what action will be taken to enable that to happen. I recognise the point made by the then Minister about the risk of the Chinese blocking a referral to the International Criminal Court, but we cannot use that as a justification for no action.
Despite the attacks on the Rohingya and other ethnic groups in Burma, the Rohingya are forgotten and face constant threats from the Burmese military in that country, along with other groups. We had a debate in Westminster Hall recently about the situation in Myanmar and the attacks and airstrikes by the Burmese military on their own people, which is causing the displacement of millions within the country and putting at risk their ability to survive because of the way in which the country has been devastated by the military coup and the actions of the Government there. Before, they were persecuting certain groups, in particular Rohingya refugees and other minorities. Now, the whole country is being persecuted by the Burmese military once again. They have seized control, and there seems to be no end in sight to their repression of the people of that country.
More than half the refugees in the camps in Cox’s Bazar are children. A generation of children growing up in refugee camps are being denied a decent education, denied opportunities to grow and develop their talents and abilities, and denied a future. That is not to say that the Bangladeshi authorities and Bangladeshi NGOs, working with international NGOs, have not made an enormous effort. In a context where many countries, including our own and other western countries, struggle to accommodate even a few thousand refugees, Bangladesh has accommodated 1 million refugees, and we commend it for that, but these areas need improvement with our support.
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) on securing this important debate. The International Development Committee has long been concerned about the situation for Rohingya refugees, in particular those in Cox’s Bazar refugee camp, which we visited some time ago. We saw how important UK aid funding was in supporting refugees there, in terms of both preventing extreme hunger and protecting women and girls from violence. Does the hon. Lady agree that it is crucial for the Government to rethink their 80% cut to aid funding for Rohingya refugees since 2019-20?
Rushanara Ali
I am really grateful to the hon. Lady, and I commend her for the work she does on the Committee and her commitment to this agenda, including her work on UN Women. Given that she is in the ruling party, I hope that even if Ministers do not pay attention to what we say, they might pay attention to her and her colleagues, who are making very important points with us. There is cross-party agreement on the need to support those who are struggling, not least because half of them are children and the majority are women.
This is a broader point, but if we are serious about addressing these issues and making sure that refugee crises around the world do not put people in a position where they have to risk their lives and find clandestine mechanisms to get to our shores at the hands of criminals and gangs who try to exploit them, we need to ensure that there is proper support in countries that are hosting the largest number of refugees. That is ultimately the only way in which we are going to be able to address these issues.
Therefore, it is in our self-interest to ensure that those who are in refugee camps in these countries get the appropriate support and protection that they need, so that they are not exploited, and also so that we do not need to use those resources in this country—resources that could go a long way. At the moment, the UK Government are spending £6 million of the overseas development aid budget per day on housing those who have got here, in order to keep them in shelter. If that continues because not enough action is being taken to address the source of the issues, the aid budget will diminish further, which cannot be right. We will have even less scope to help millions of people in other countries and get more value for our money in our aid efforts. These are interconnected issues, and I really hope that they are taken seriously, rather than politicised—which, sadly, has happened on the domestic front while people continue to suffer.
Returning to the way in which the Burmese military have acted, as I mentioned, we are seeing them continuing to act with impunity. That is why, in past debates, we have spoken out about the need for the UK Government to ensure that sanctions are placed on the Burmese military. I welcome some of those that have been introduced, but there is a lot more we can do to make sure the Burmese military do not continue to carry out airstrikes against their own people, because that is forcing more of their citizens to seek refuge elsewhere in other countries.
I pay tribute to our Government and aid agencies, as well as to the Government of Bangladesh and other authorities, for doing incredible work over the past five years to support those who need help—people who face a desperate situation, who have been traumatised and have lost family members. On top of all of that—on top of seeing members of their families brutally killed, women being raped and sons being killed in front of their fathers, which is what I was told on previous visits by men in the camps—they have since faced a global pandemic. They are in a country that is climate-vulnerable and susceptible to floods, and which has its own challenges with high levels of deprivation. For years and years we have seen people with no hope—no hope of being able to return to their homes and build a life with some sense of hope for the future.
That is why it is so disheartening that our Government have responded, not by ensuring that there is appropriate support on an ongoing basis, but by cutting the Rohingya refugee budget by more than 80%. I hope that the messages that have already been provided by colleagues across the House will be heeded, and that the Minister will do all she can to persuade her colleagues not to maintain that cut. According to Burma Campaign UK, what was £112 million in 2019-20 will be £20.26 million in the 2022-23 Budget. The interventions in the early years of the crisis were very welcome: they were significant interventions that saved lives, and of course, I commend the Government for what they did in those early years. All I ask is that Ministers do not continue with the cuts and that they look at restoring the support, for the reasons that have been made clear in the interventions and in the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford.
The need for aid and compassion is greater, not less. This is not about altruism; it is absolutely in our self-interest to act and make sure that we deal with the issues at source. The United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Burma, Tom Andrews, reported that 45% of Rohingya families are living on insufficient diets; half of the children are anaemic; four in 10 pregnant and breastfeeding women are anaemic; and four in 10 children have their growth stunted because of poor diets. Imagine what will happen when the budgets go down further. In a letter to United Nations member states in response to what could be a series of further cuts to World Food Programme food rations for the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, he said:
“These cuts will be devastating for a traumatised population that is already suffering from widespread malnutrition”.
As has already been said, when the cross-party delegation that I was a part of visited the camps in Cox’s Bazar in January 2023, people highlighted just how challenging the circumstances were. When I first visited the camps in 2018, a year after the exodus when all those 750,000 people fled to Cox’s Bazar, the men and women, but particularly the women were relieved, although the camps’ conditions were not good, to be in a place where they were not going to be killed. That is how they saw it. They were just relieved that they could sleep without being taken away and raped. They felt that they had found refuge, and they were incredibly grateful to have that. The problem is that years and years on, they cannot see any signs of hope, and it is a true sign of desperation when some of those people say that they would consider going back, even though going back is not an option and the dangers are even greater.
Given how the Rohingya are feeling and where they are in terms of a lack of hope— for reasons that we can understand—we cannot have a situation where we make matters worse by reducing food rations and putting them in a position where there is no hope, and where their survival is in danger. We heard from refugees about that despair and hopelessness, while the people responsible for genocide are still in power with no justice for the Rohingyas. They told us that they had no conception that five years on, they would still be living in refugee camps with little chance of safe return home.
Our lasting impression is that the plight of the Rohingya remains a stain on the conscience of the world. Every humanitarian, diplomatic and Government effort needs to be focused on securing justice for the Rohingya people. That must include safe return to their homes and the legal prosecution of those responsible for the genocide. Women in Cox’s Bazar told us that they wanted more autonomy within the camps. They raised concerns about their safety and that of girls, especially after dark, when the aid workers are absent and there is a lack of security and little light. Notwithstanding the heroic efforts of the aid agencies within Bangladesh, as well as the international agencies and the major NGOs, the Rohingya are living on the brink of what feels like a constant state of humanitarian crisis that will only get worse, not better, if we do not play our part. There is a massive and vital role for international aid, and budgets should be increased as soon as possible to avert disaster.
The situation is worsening, with around 350 people having died at sea trying to escape. That highlights the desperation of the situation. Hostility towards the Rohingya population is increasing in Bangladesh. There was a huge welcome in the beginning and people were helping all over the country, but years have gone by and they have their own pressures, and some of the hostilities are growing. The US Institute of Peace suggests that nearly 70% of Bangladeshi people say that the Rohingya should be sent back to Myanmar immediately, despite the obvious and apparent dangers. Even within the camps, children are denied access to education, and no permanent homes are to be constructed. Refugees are being denied proper sanitation, water and electricity.
There is also the ever-present danger of epidemics. The World Health Organisation reported in March 2023:
“Beyond COVID-19, persistent threats in Cox’s Bazar include diseases such as dengue, diphtheria, and cholera, as well as environmental health challenges like cyclones, floods, and landslides.”
There is evidence of criminal gangs preying on vulnerable people. A report published by the London School of Economics in February stated:
“All the 34 extremely congested camps in…Cox’s Bazaar…have become hubs of organised crime of Rohingya militant groups like the ARSA”—
the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army—
“and other criminal gangs. These groups control everything from drug trafficking to extortion”.
There is also an increased danger of fires. In March this year, a terrible fire ripped through camp 11 in Cox’s Bazar, leaving 12,000 people homeless for a second time. So we need to recognise that the situation is not sustainable, and we have to be active partners and provide the resources needed to make sure the situation does not get worse.
There is much that still needs to be done. Repatriation of Rohingya people is currently impossible, as has been stated. The British Government should make it clear to international partners that there can be no forced repatriation of Rohingya people back to Myanmar. The Rohingya can only return when their citizenship rights are reinstated, and when their full human rights are respected and protected. The UK Government, who have of course slashed these budgets, need to make sure that that support is reinstated. Aid cuts to the Rohingya refugees need to be reversed. The cut in humanitarian aid is now working as a push factor, forcing more people to risk their lives to find a better life, and dying, as I have pointed out. The 50% cut in the UK aid budget to Burma since the coup needs to be reversed if we are not to see a further deterioration in people’s conditions within that country.
As I have said, we welcome the British Government support in principle for a referral to the International Criminal Court and their support for the International Court of Justice referral, and I hope we will get more information from the Minister on what that will mean. It is clear from the continuous reporting that these measures are not being implemented and the Burmese military is still getting away with genocide. So we urge the British Government to support any other justice initiatives taking place, including universal jurisdiction cases, and to reconsider British laws in relation to making universal jurisdiction cases possible in this country.
We must increase the aviation fuel sanctions on Burma, because the military is increasingly using its air power to target civilians across the country. The British Government should speed up sanctioning, and cut off all sources of revenue and arms to the military. This includes sanctioning Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise and the natural gas industry. The British Government should also increase pressure on India and Pakistan to stop supplying arms and equipment to the Burmese military.
We need to improve in practical ways the support we provide so that conditions are not deteriorating further for the people in Cox’s Bazar. We need to make sure that the Bangladesh Government have the support and encouragement so desperately needed to ensure that education and training are provided to half a million children in that country. We need to allow for proper utilities to be provided, including clean water, electricity, lighting, and drains and sewage, or the situation will just continue to get worse. Action and support are required to make sure that criminal gangs do not prey on the most vulnerable people in the world, which is what is happening at the moment.
I am grateful to the Minister for the visit she made recently, and I hope she will recognise the strength of feeling in this House. Over 100 MPs and peers have supported the campaigns we have run over the years for support in the camps for the most persecuted refugee population in the world. It is not a competition, and we need to support refugees wherever they are—notably, of course, with what is happening in Sudan and Ukraine—but we need to make sure that support is not diverted away from one group to another, because that is not right and it is not going to serve our national interests either.
My plea to the Minister is that I hope she will find the resources needed urgently to stabilise the situation in the camps. I am grateful to colleagues across the House for their support for our campaigns. Ministers have changed regularly, but I believe that it is because of the campaigns from colleagues across the House and in both houses that we have managed to get the referrals and the support for the referrals on the international justice side. I hope the Minister will recognise the strength of feeling about the need to restore the aid budget for those who need it in the camps.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali), a key voice on all Bangladesh issues, particularly this one.
Since being elected to this place I have had the opportunity to visit Bangladesh three times, which is quite a lot really. I initially went to Bangladesh because I have quite a large number of British Bengali constituents; I met a few people then and made a few connections and ended up going twice more—the only times I have been to Asia are when I have been to Bangladesh.
I have been to the Rohingya refugee camp three times as well. When going somewhere a number of times there is a danger that the power of the experience might diminish, but it has not. Every time I visit the Rohingya refugee camp I leave with the same feeling and sensation, and I believe that that will continue to be the case if I visit again.
I have been to lots of different parts of the camp, including Bhasan Char, the island, where I took part in a quick game of football. There are some ways in which the accommodation there is better than that of the main camp; I understand others have concerns about it, but there are some opportunities for livelihoods there, which is not the case in the main part of the camp.
I remember a lot of the conversations I had at the Rohingya refugee camp, and I remember the look in the eyes of a couple of the refugees I met and the slight terror in their eyes when I spoke to them about their experiences. That will probably be what sticks with me the most, particularly from the visit I made to the camp in January when I went with the all-party group on Bangladesh. I will never forget some of those conversations. They really are the most genuine refugees it is possible to meet: the experiences they have gone through; the horror they have experienced; a lot of the women there have been repeatedly raped, and have lost fathers, sons or husbands in the most brutal of ways; chased, driven from their homes purely for their ethnicity, their religion, for who they are—hated for what they are; driven from their homes for what they are.
Sadly, it continues to be the case that huge numbers of people of Muslim faith across the world continue to experience this persecution, and that should never be forgotten. No one religion is immune from dipping its toes in evil; we have seen that in Myanmar, and we must never forget that.
I went to the camp in January with colleagues including the hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin). I forgot to thank him at the start of the debate for his successful application, which I was happy to support behind the scenes—I am a Parliamentary Private Secretary so I could not officially do so, but I like to think that I was a steadying force of support behind the scenes. Four of us went on the trip in January and I was the only Conservative Member of Parliament, but the politics have been stripped out of this issue: it is about our humanity, and I feel very passionate about working closely together. Actually, it is good that, on a Tuesday when a lot of people have other things on their mind, there is a decent turnout and it is a cross-party turnout for the debate. That should be taken into account. I am really pleased how many people have turned up for the debate and how many speakers we will have and interventions will be made.
From what we could see, a lot of good things were happening at the schools that we went to. Burmese was being taught to the children there. The children seemed happy. But my concern is about when they get a bit older because of the inability to have a livelihood, or to have any future at all. That is when a lot of the problems start. Many teenagers and people in their 20s and 30s are completely directionless with nothing to do and can be victim to gangs: that is a significant concern we had when we left the camp. The situation they face is unique because they have effectively become stateless. That puts them in a more vulnerable position than almost any other group of refugees in the world. I do not want to start comparing different types—a refugee is a refugee—but they are particularly vulnerable; they are stateless. It is true that, when they first found safety in Bangladesh, a lot of them were just thankful to be free from persecution. However, one year became two years, three years, four years and five years, and they look to the future and see no hope.
When it comes to aid, the UK has made a generous contribution. The Government have to make really difficult decisions in the wake of the pandemic, where hundreds of billions of pounds were spent, so I am not just going to say that it was a mistake to cut the international aid budget from 0.7% to 0.5%—I was one of the people who completely understood why the Government did that—but there is a question: within the 0.5% we are spending on international aid, could we channel more to the Rohingya camp to support them because the demands have only gone up? The population of the camp has increased, so, if anything, the amount of money that we should be providing should be going up, not down.
We have played a leading role through the UN and the UN resolutions. It has been disappointing that many other countries have not played a bigger role in condemning the Myanmar regime. There is a question about what role India and Pakistan are playing in condemning the Myanmar regime. Are they comfortable with the role that they have played? Do they think that they have done enough? I think it needs to be an international response.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I apologise for intervening. My hon. Friend is talking about countries that could do more. Is not the reality that a big, important country is deliberately undermining any efforts made on the Rohingya, and that is China? It is about its relationship with Burma, its support for Burma, weapons and everything else. It is doing this all over the world. Surely when the Government think about our relationship with China, they need to consider what China is doing in other countries and not just among the Uyghur Muslims.
Tom Hunt
I thank my right hon. Friend very much for his intervention. He never has to apologise for intervening on me; it is always a great privilege to be intervened on by such a distinguished colleague. On this, he is completely right, as he is on many other issues. China is playing a sinister role in the Rohingya crisis, and it is concerning to think that economic ties with China may be getting in the way of some countries seeing the issue for what it is: a moral crisis where a clear rogue state is inflicting misery now on upwards of 1 million people. That is an important point to make.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Further to what my very good friend, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), said on China, may I remind the House that once you define a crisis as genocide, articles 1 and 2 of the genocide convention say that every signatory should take action to sort it out and that includes military force? We are signatory to that convention. This is a clear case of genocide, so we have to do all that we can to sort it out.
Tom Hunt
I thank my right hon. Friend for intervening. I have sympathy with what he said. When the crisis began, it grabbed the attention of our country and our media, but I have to say I am surprised how little about the Rohingya crisis has been written about in our national media over the past year or so and how little coverage there has been. Of course, our hearts go out to Ukrainian refugees, and we have to do what we can to support them and any other country, but the situation of the Rohingya is without precedent in many senses. They are so vulnerable—the majority are young people and women—and we have to get attention back on what is happening there because there appears to be no end to the misery. I can see no pathway in the medium term for the situation realistically to get any better—it is probably going to get worse.
I will talk briefly about the Bangladesh Government. As I said, I have been to Bangladesh three times since I was elected. It is important that we recognise the situation that Bangladesh is in. It is one of the fastest growing economies and has, I believe, a very bright future, but it is still a developing country and—I have seen it in Bangladesh—certain areas still have significant levels of deprivation. The Government there have a huge challenge when it comes to tackling inequality in their own country; I have seen some of that poverty across Bangladesh through visits with colleagues. So it is unfair to ask them to shoulder this burden alone. They have given a huge amount of financial support.
I would echo the comments of the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow. I am concerned about the sentiment among the Bangladeshi population and how it may subtly change over time. To be honest, I noticed that a little in my visit in February 2022 and in my most recent visit; I have noticed a subtle change. That is my concern because they cannot shoulder the burden alone. As just one example, in the area to which the Rohingya refugees initially fled, a couple of people were killed by elephants and a huge amount of work was done to divert the elephants. A huge amount of work has been going on. Returning to the point about international aid, I have occasionally been sceptical about international aid. Whether it is 0.7% or 0.5%, I believe there is scope for us to recognise the uniqueness of the Rohingya situation and the pressures and to make a further contribution. That is very important.
I make a point now about the short to medium term: when does this end? What is the pathway to it ending? At what point do we say, “Enough is enough. Something has to be done”? When I asked some refugees at the camp what they wanted, they just said that they wanted to go home. That is all they want. They want to go home safely. But is that a realistic prospect in the next year, two years or three years? At what point do we say, “Enough is enough. The wait has gone on too long. There is no realistic prospect of things getting any better”? They cannot safely go back to their homes, so at that point we will begin to have to start thinking about the possibility of resettlement.
I understand why Bangladesh is wary of any conversation about the majority of those at the camp staying. I have touched on the reasons why it would be unfair for Bangladesh to shoulder the burden alone. We might have to enter the conversation about a resettlement programme, but the question is: at what point are we going to do that? In many respects, that would be a great shame because one of the places I went when I visited the Rohingya camp in January was the Rohingya cultural centre, where we learnt about Rohingya culture. If it were the case that they could not return home, the concern would be that that culture would be destroyed and lost and we would be giving in to this barbaric regime. The end goal we want is for the Rohingya to go home and for that culture to be preserved and enriched. That is what we need to strive for, but if we cannot deliver that, at what point do we say, “Enough is enough”?
The camp is growing in size each year, the suffering continues and people are looking to the future with no hope. There is no way for them to have a livelihood or build a future. There needs to be some kind of conversation about when we should start turning to different options if we cannot get what we all want, which is for them to safely return home.
This debate has been necessary because many Members across the House have been to the camp and have been moved and forever changed by our experience. We want this debate to help raise the profile of the issue and to put it further up the Government’s agenda, so we can do more to support some of the most desperate people in the world, and be part of an international effort to ensure that those behind it pay for the misery that they have inflicted on almost 1 million people, who have been persecuted because of who they are. So we need to do more. We need to support the Bangladeshi Government in every way we can to end this.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
It is a huge honour to follow the hon. Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt), whose passion and knowledge of this topic came out well. I am hugely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) for securing this timely debate, and to the Backbench Business Committee for granting it, because it gives us the opportunity to speak today and draw attention to this sadly forgotten crisis.
It has been nearly six years since the Rohingya people fled violence and persecution in Myanmar to seek sanctuary in Bangladesh. We must be clear that the root cause of the crisis rests squarely with the Myanmar military, which has never recognised the Rohingya as citizens of Myanmar and has fought a brutal campaign against them. We commend the Bangladeshi Government and their people for opening their borders and allowing the Rohingya into the country. However, the past six years have not been easy for around 1 million Rohingya refugees who live in camps in Cox’s Bazar.
The situation only seems to get worse. The Rohingya refugees are still living precarious lives in flimsy, overcrowded shelters, because they are banned from using permanent construction materials and from installing water, sanitation and electricity infrastructure. Children do not have access to full formal education, and most Rohingya are prevented from earning a living. The dire situation has been compounded by devastating floods and fires in the camp, which have destroyed thousands of shelters and brought additional trauma to already vulnerable inhabitants.
As the crisis has become protracted, the camps have not provided safe havens. Instead, the Rohingya face violence and intimidation from neighbouring communities and increasing militant activity, as armed groups seek to dominate the camps. That is no way for anyone to live.
Since 2017, the international community has stepped in to support the Government of Bangladesh to host the refugees and to provide basic services. I am grateful that the UK has provided more than £350 million in funding since the start of the crisis. But, as happens all too often, the plight of the Rohingya fell out of the news bulletins and off our TV screens, and so did our support. Russia’s war in Ukraine has both diverted our attention and driven up food and fuel prices around the world, causing needs to rise just when budgets are being spread ever more thinly. In March, the World Food Programme announced, unbelievably, its first ration cuts for Rohingya refugees, going from $12 to $10 dollars per person per month. That was a crushing blow to the nearly 1 million people who rely on that vital lifeline.
Those cuts might not be the end of the misery. The World Food Programme has warned that, if sufficient funds cannot be found, it will have to make further cuts. The consequences of such cuts could be felt for many years to come. Malnutrition in the Rohingya communities in the camps is already causing grave concern. Increases in malnutrition today will inevitably drive up the need for assistance tomorrow. Children under five, adolescent girls and pregnant and breastfeeding women are most at risk. Complications from malnutrition and stunting in children will cause developmental delay, jeopardising those children’s life chances.
The additional £5.26 million in funding for the Rohingya response, announced by the Minister in March, is welcome, but it is not enough. Reducing our support also reduces our diplomatic influence with the Government of Bangladesh, and therefore our ability to call for the human rights of the Rohingya to be respected and upheld. To support intercommunal relations, the UK must work with its partners to ensure that the humanitarian response in Cox’s Bazar addresses the needs of both Rohingya refugees and host communities living in the vicinity.
As we move towards the general election in Bangladesh in January 2024, it is crucial that the Rohingya crisis does not become a political football in the campaign. In our report, “Humanitarian crises monitoring: the Rohingya”, the International Development Committee raised fears that the Government of Bangladesh would relocate Rohingya refugees to Bhasan Char, a silt island in the bay of Bengal. Unfortunately, those fears have been realised, and around 28,000 refugees are now living on that island. How can those refugees exercise their right to freedom of movement when they are located on a remote island?
Increasing numbers of Rohingya are setting out on perilous journeys in small boats to countries in the region, such as Malaysia and Indonesia, and we can imagine the consequences of some of those missions. The Committee raised concerns about that development in 2021, but the situation continues to deteriorate. More Rohingya died at sea in 2022 than in any other year since the crisis began in 2017. We all know how important it is to stop those perilous journeys, and the solutions lie at the source.
The hostile security situation in Myanmar means that a safe and dignified return for the Rohingya is currently unthinkable. Since the military took over in a coup in February 2021, the situation has only deteriorated. The Myanmar military and security forces have arrested thousands of activists and carried out attacks on ethnic groups across the country. We must shine a spotlight on those atrocities and ensure that the perpetrators are held to account for them. I welcome the UK’s announcement that it will join the Rohingya genocide case at the International Court of Justice. That is the right thing to do and an important step in securing justice for the Rohingya. The UK is the penholder on Myanmar at the UN Security Council.
Today, I am not asking for more funding, although I will take it, even though I am not asking for it. I am asking for political leadership. I welcome the resolution that the UK brought forward to stress the need to address the root causes of the crisis in Rakhine state and to create the conditions necessary for the voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable return of Rohingya refugees. However, building on the point so eloquently made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali), the UK must do more to bring together key actors to work towards de-escalation. Also, it cannot be so nervous about China and Russia vetoing any action as to be rendered useless.
The International Development Committee’s report on preventing future mass atrocities around the world called on the UK Government to
“introduce a cross-departmental strategy for preventing and responding to mass atrocities globally, both within and outside of conflicts.”
I urge the Government to reconsider their negative response to that key recommendation. They need a clear strategy to respond to the heinous violence taking place in Myanmar to ensure that refugee populations can safely return home. To be honest, nothing else will work.
Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) on securing this incredibly important debate, and thank everybody who worked hard to support his application.
At the outset, I declare an interest: I have been to Bangladesh twice, supported by the Zi Foundation, a charity set up by my constituent, Zillur Hussain. The Zi Foundation supports charitable endeavours here in the UK and back in Bangladesh, where Mr Hussain is from. When I was in Bangladesh, I saw some of the relief efforts the foundation has set up in Sylhet province. We met business leaders and Sheikh Hasina, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, and we visited Cox’s Bazar refugee camp on two separate occasions. Last time I went to Cox’s Bazar, aid agency workers showed us the sanitation and healthcare facilities and some of the new accommodation that has been set up since the recent fires. All that had been provided through aid, much of it from the UK.
Of course, I was very pleased to see this money being spent in such an incredibly useful way, but one experience stayed with me. A gentleman showed me and the other parliamentarians with whom I had gone there—many of them are in the Chamber—around his modest shelter. He showed us the place that he called home, which he shared with his family. He was proud of what he had. However, we also saw children running around. As the father of a three-year-old and an eight-year-old, I can tell the House that seeing children living in that camp, and the awareness that that is all they have ever known, changes you: it has a lasting impact.
That man who showed me around his home was very proud, but the difference between him and me was that I got to go home; I got to leave. He could not go home, because he was no longer welcome there. He had been forcibly expelled from the place that he called home, and was now living in a refugee camp.
I met people who had seen their daughters, their mothers, their sisters raped; people who had seen their brothers, their fathers, their sons murdered. It changes a person to hear that directly. I am not the sort of person who is usually shocked by anything, but I know that when I describe hearing those stories, I also speak on behalf of many of the Members, across parties, who were with me. One of them was my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt). The first time we visited the camp, we had a longer meeting with a group of refugee and camp leaders. As we sat with them, they told us stories that will stay with me for the rest of my life.
I now want to make three points. The first is that this is not a new issue, the second is about aid, and the third is about Bangladesh.
Sadly, what is happening is not new. It has been going on since the second world war, and I think that the British Government have a unique role in trying to resolve this crisis. In fact, I think we have a moral duty to do what we can to support the Rohingya. During world war two, the Rohingya Muslim population of Rakhine province supported the British, whereas some of the other populations there supported the Japanese. The Rohingya fought bravely, with the British, through the jungles of Burma. I think they had the understanding that they would have a Muslim state of their own, but in the end that did not happen; Burma gained independence.
This has been going on since 1947. We are a power in the world, and we have a moral duty to support these people who once supported us on the battlefield. As I have said, this is not new: there has been significant violence, and there have been flare-ups and persecutions of the Rohingya population in 1978, 1991, 2015, 2016 and 2017. Operation Dragon King, instigated by the Myanmar—then Burmese—Government, was a mission to expel those whom they called foreigners, namely the Rohingya. This has been going on for all that time. It was estimated in a 2017 report produced by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that 43,000 people had been murdered, and a 2018 report from Harvard University said that 24,000 had been murdered and 18,000 women and girls had been raped. It has been going on for decades; it is not a new issue.
Of course, the UK Government have been very generous with aid. Ours is one of the leading countries in supporting the Rohingya with aid, and that has to be recognised. On an international basis, however, I hope the Minister recognises that, as a country that has a unique and leading role to play as a member of the Security Council and a country that owes so much to the Rohingya people themselves, we should step up and secure citizen rights for the Rohingya and then a safe, dignified and voluntary repatriation to their home. I want to see a situation in which the man I met is able, like me, to go home, with his family, and I urge the Government to use all their diplomatic power to that end.
Imran Hussain
The hon. Member is making an excellent, passionate speech. I do not often say that about him in this Chamber, but I will on this occasion. The spirit today is very clear: we are taking a cross-party approach, as is right and proper, and that is when this House is at its best.
Talking about safe routes, I have one of the largest Rohingya populations in my constituency, and many of them have family who are eligible to come to this country through legal routes. I have been pressing the Government on this for three years now, but tragically, due to the red tape requirements such as TB tests, those Rohingya communities cannot come out of the Cox’s Bazar camps and join their families here. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the very least we can do is to allow those who are legally eligible to come to this country to be reunited with their families?
Paul Bristow
The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point, and the Minister will have heard exactly what he has said. There is an all-party parliamentary group on Bangladesh, led by the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) with my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich as a vice-chair, and I would urge him and others to come together with me to talk about this and see what pressure we can bring to bear to resolve some of these issues.
What I am keen to stress is that this cannot be left on the “too difficult to do” pile. This cannot be a situation that goes on and on and on. If any country is going to lead the international effort to resolve this problem and to allow that dignified safe and voluntary return, it is the UK, and I would hope that that message has been heard loud and clear. There are challenges. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) made an incredibly powerful point about China, and we should not be afraid to call such things out.
The second point I want to talk about is aid. The UK Government have provided about £350 million to support 449,000 people through the World Food Programme, and when we were in that refugee camp, we saw where that money was going. It was going on food, shelter, healthcare, water and sanitation. This aid is changing lives. It is providing the basics—actually, to be fair, more than the basics. I saw some of the voluntary aid workers there, and what they were providing was very impressive. The way they were managing to supply that vulnerable population was very impressive, and I left with a sense of admiration for the volunteers and the professionals who are dedicating their lives to saving lives among some of the world’s most vulnerable populations. I give my admiration and my thanks to them.
I support the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow in saying that our international development budget should be spent on what it is supposed to be spent on, which is international development. It needs to be targeted at places such as those we all saw when we went to Cox’s Bazar, because if we do not tackle these problems at source, they will come back and hit us later on. I think there is a firm recognition of that, and I hope we will see that made incredibly clear in the Minister’s remarks today. We have done a lot, but there is certainly a lot more to do.
Finally, I want to talk a little bit about the response from the Government of Bangladesh. Bangladesh is not a rich country, but it is a country with a big heart and enormous potential. Its economy is growing incredibly quickly, but it is absolutely clear that it does not have the resources to support a refugee population such as this for any considerable period of time. The willingness of Bangladesh to work with the international community, and with the UK, should be commended. What it has done is incredibly impressive and perhaps not recognised enough by the international community.
I am going to see the honourable Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, when she comes to Cambridgeshire, my county, in a few days’ time on bank holiday Monday. She is coming to the Cambridge central mosque and then to a children’s hospital that I think one of her relatives has something to do with. I am looking forward to seeing her, and I will make the point again that I made to her when I was in Bangladesh, which will be to say a big thank you on behalf of the UK Government. That is the first thing we should say when we talk about this issue: a big thank you for what Bangladesh has done. I am not blind to the challenges that Bangladesh faces, including—perhaps—the beginning of some resentment from the local population about the support for the Rohingya population, but we should all remember the fact that it has provided so much when it is not a rich country.
I looked out of the window when we were on the plane travelling to Cox’s Bazar and I was struck by the beauty of the area, with its rolling beaches. The area is prime for development, and there is a growing tourism industry in that part of Bangladesh. The most important thing is for Bangladesh to have a big heart and to support its neighbour and the fellow Muslims on its border, and of course that is what the Bangladesh Government have done, but that area could enrich Bangladesh and make it a much more successful country. Having welcomed these very vulnerable people in, Bangladesh cannot use its tourism industry right now—we sometimes forget that impact on the country. Again, we have to start from the premise that what Bangladesh has done is incredibly impressive and we in the international community should all be grateful for it.
Let me end my remarks by reiterating that Britain has a unique role and a unique duty when it comes to the Rohingya. This cannot be left on the “too difficult to deal with” pile. The UK has been leading international aid efforts, and we should all be very proud of that. A lot has been done, but there is a lot more to do.
Mrs Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) on securing this important debate. I refer the House to my declaration of interests. In March, I had the pleasure of visiting Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh. I was blown away by the unbelievable resilience of the Rohingya people living there. Over 1 million refugees live in Cox’s Bazar, with more than 900,000 of those having fled persecution in Myanmar.
I was a nurse for 25 years, and I worked in public health all my working life before being elected to Parliament. The conditions that vulnerable refugees in Bangladesh face are some of the worst I have witnessed. Living conditions in Cox’s Bazar are extremely poor, with overcrowding, inadequate sanitation and limited access to clean water meaning that infectious disease spreads very easily. Chronic malnutrition is also a major concern: 40% of children suffer from stunted growth, 45% of Rohingya families have insufficient diets, and 41% of pregnant and breastfeeding women are anaemic and just do not have access to the health services they need.
Many refugees have experienced trauma, including violence, displacement, grief and loss, all of which can lead to significant mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. I am a lay manager at my local NHS trust in Birmingham and I know the difficulties that many people face with their mental health here in the UK. We can only imagine how difficult it must be for people who have been forced away from their homes and families and seen indescribable violence along the way.
Tahir Ali (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab)
What my hon. Friend is saying about what she saw at Cox’s Bazar is heartrending. As the hon. Members for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) and for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) said, this has been going on for six years. We cannot allow it to continue for another six years. The international community must bring an end to it, with Great Britain playing a leading role.
Mrs Hamilton
I absolutely support what my hon. Friend says. This has to come to an end.
When I went to Bangladesh, it was an absolute honour to go to those camps. Sometimes, it does not matter what you read; you have to see it and experience it. When I went there I saw the conditions that people were living in. The hon. Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) talked about the small house that a number of us went into. The gentleman was quite proud, because that was all he had to call his home. But then you think about what they do not have and the fact that they were worried about it becoming dark because it then becomes lawless. It was uplifting to see that he was proud, but it was really sad to see what they have gone through, what they are experiencing and what was about to happen, even on the night we left the camp. It really opened my eyes.
Governments have to get together and support the Bangladeshi Government to get this travesty ended. As with any conflict, the impact has hit women and girls disproportionately hard. UN Women has said that most women and girls in the camps in Cox’s Bazar are either survivors of, or witnesses to, gender-based violence. Fires in the camps, which were highlighted earlier, are a significant problem, with the most recent, in March this year, destroying health facilities, waterworks, women’s centres, learning centres and mosques. Those things are important to these people.
It is now over five years since the Rohingya crisis began. While I am glad to see the Government’s recent announcement of a funding package to help over 400,000 people through the World Food Programme, it is still concerning that UK aid to this crisis has fallen by 82% since 2020. It is imperative that UK Government support continues and focuses on the serious public health issues and chronic malnutrition in the camps. In the midst of the Government’s rhetoric and unworkable gimmicks on migration, it is also important that we remember how much value refugees bring to the UK. I was overwhelmed by the willingness of the Government of Bangladesh to support the refugees and not to give up on the Rohingya, but they cannot do it alone. I hope both sides of this House can work together to improve the safety, security and health of all the Rohingya people living in the largest refugee settlement in the world.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
I thank every Member, without exception, across the House who has spoken during the debate, for their authoritative, impassioned and moving speeches, many if not most of which were well informed by personal visits. Madam Deputy Speaker, I thank you for calling me, but in the light of such a high-quality debate, I feel that all I can do is echo the profound concerns that have been expressed for the Rohingya, but I do want to do so because I want to put it on record that I share them.
Few, if any, communities around the world have suffered such severe, grave, continuous and prolonged persecution as the Rohingya. They have been targeted both by the Myanmar military and by extremists from the Rakhine ethnic group and by other proponents of religious intolerance and extremist Buddhist nationalism within Myanmar.
The Rohingya people have been the victims of a sustained and appalling campaign of hate speech, discrimination, violence and, since 2016-17, a campaign that resulted in atrocity crimes, which the US Administration and other international experts have recognised as genocide. The Rohingya are targeted because of their ethnicity and their predominantly Muslim faith.
Since August 2017, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya people have fled Myanmar into neighbouring Bangladesh. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, at the end of March this year there were nearly 961,000 refugees in Bangladesh, almost all of whom are settled in refugee camps in the Cox’s Bazar area of Bangladesh, forming the world’s largest refugee settlement. More than a million Rohingya people have fled Myanmar in successive waves of displacement since the 1990s. The UNHCR said in an emergency appeal that
“most walked for days through jungles or mountains, or braved dangerous sea voyages across the Bay of Bengal. They arrived exhausted, hungry and sick—in need of international protection and humanitarian assistance.”
Since the coup in Myanmar on 1 February 2021, the human rights and humanitarian crisis inside the country has only worsened. The very military that perpetrated the atrocities against the Rohingya are now inflicting similar atrocities against other ethnic groups, particularly the predominantly Christian Chin, Kachin and Karenni, as well as the Karen population, which has a significant Christian population. Indeed, I recently met a teacher from the Karen population who told me how, in order to give the children any education at all, they could not use any of the schools; they had to teach them in the forests and in the trenches to avoid the airstrikes.
This military regime are brutally suppressing civil society, independent media and pro-democracy activists. It is such a sad change from the country of Myanmar that I travelled across just a few years ago, where I met young people who were so hopeful about the future of their country. The conditions for the safe and voluntary return of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar, therefore, are almost certainly not there at present. Indeed, as the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said as recently as March this year, the small Rohingya community that remains in Myanmar
“continues to face widespread and systematic discrimination in every area of life”—
and that—
“the necessary conditions for voluntary, safe and dignified returns of refugees to Rakhine State simply do not exist.”
Yet Bangladesh, which has provided sanctuary for the Rohingya for many years, cannot be expected to shoulder this responsibility alone, as indeed we have heard tonight. Bangladesh is preparing a pilot scheme for repatriation, which Human Rights Watch has called for a halt to because
“lives and liberty may be at grave risk.”
Conditions in the camps in Bangladesh are dire, leading to thousands of Rohingya refugees risking their lives in precarious boat journeys across the sea to south-east Asia, particularly Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, in search of a better life. Traffickers who facilitate these dangerous sea crossings are giving Rohingya refugees false promises and false hope and placing them in grave danger yet again.
The Rohingya people are trapped. They are stateless, unable to return home to Myanmar, unwelcome in other countries in the region, and in a desperate situation in Bangladesh. The solutions to this appalling humanitarian crisis are twofold: in the immediate term, increased aid to the refugees in Bangladesh to improve their conditions and security, and to assist the Bangladeshi authorities in supporting the refugees; and in the long-term, pressure on the military regime to stop their campaign of crimes against humanity and war crimes, action to hold the military accountable for their crimes, and pressure on the democracy movement to ensure that, in any future democratic transition in Myanmar—when it happens—the Rohingya people’s right to citizenship and basic human rights, including the right to freedom of religion or belief, are respected, protected and upheld.
In closing, I welcome the Government’s provision of £350 million in aid to Rohingya refugees since 2017 and of £15 million in 2022-23 alone, but there is a need to do more. Will Ministers commit to reviewing the needs of the Rohingya refugees and ensuring an increase in aid this year and in the years ahead? Will they commit to working with like-minded countries to ensure that no Rohingyas are repatriated to Myanmar against their will? Will it be a priority for this Government to do everything possible to protect the Rohingyas’ dignity, their rights and the better future that they deserve and that they have, for far too long, been so tragically denied?
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to be called in this hugely important debate on support for the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. I thank the hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) for securing this debate and the hon. Members for Loughborough (Jane Hunt), for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali), for Ipswich (Tom Hunt), for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), for Birmingham, Erdington (Mrs Hamilton) and for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) for their contributions to it.
In particular, I single out the contribution by the hon. Member for Rotherham, the Chair of the International Development Committee, highlighting the stark reality of what is happening to a group of people who are widely recognised as being the most persecuted minority in the world. When the United Kingdom Government slash their foreign aid budget overnight, she also highlighted just what happens when people are left without hope.
As we have heard many times in this debate, the Rohingya people are not in Bangladesh because they want to be. They are there, suffering some of the worst living conditions on the planet, because they are fleeing what the United Nations has described as an “ongoing genocide” at the hands of the Myanmar military. They are there because the dire humanitarian conditions, the squalor, the constant risk of fire and the incredible overcrowding of those camps are still better than that from which they are fleeing.
Right now, those refugee camps are also safer than what the Rohingya would face had they to return. The threat of displacement, gender-based sexual violence and murder is every bit as real now as it was in 2017, when up to 1 million fled to the relative safety of Bangladesh. I remember five years ago that the journalist and documentary filmmaker Simon Reeve, who visited one of the camps, said it was,
“like nothing I have seen anywhere on Planet Earth. This speaks of a Biblical exodus of an entire people terrorised into fleeing.”
As colleagues from both sides of the House have testified all too often this evening, he was sadly correct.
What we witnessed in 2017 was the deliberate attempt at religious and ethnic cleansing on behalf of the Myanmar military. It had been building for 60-odd years, as the Bamar-dominated military launched successive efforts to Burmanise the country. They began with excluding ethnic minorities from the political process, limiting social and economic development among ethnic minority groups and curtailing their cultural and religious freedoms. Burmanisation says that the only true Myanmar citizen is someone who is both Burman and Buddhist.
That is what is behind the build-up over the decades and the appalling treatment we have seen, because the Rohingya people are non-Bamar and, of course, they are Muslim. Sadly, that mindset has not changed one iota, as we can see by the continued persecution of the Rohingya by the Burmese military. In 2019, the United Nations described sexual-based gender violence as “a hallmark” of the Burmese military’s operations in the country.
That is why, no matter how much they may want to escape the hell of the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, any Rohingya daring to return to Myanmar right now would be in the gravest danger. Anyone remotely suggesting a forced return over the border is advocating for sending refugees back to Myanmar at a time of increased military activity, authoritarianism, violence and ethnic persecution. That would be an act devoid of any humanity and indeed of any common sense. I agree wholeheartedly with colleagues, and indeed those at Human Rights Watch, who have said that voluntary safe and dignified return is not possible while the military is carrying out massacres around the country. The Rohingya will be able to return only when rights-respecting rule is re-established. Unfortunately, that seems a long way off.
I join colleagues in paying tribute to what the Bangladeshis have done since 2017 in opening their doors and borders to the Rohingya people fleeing that genocide. They have provided an invaluable and crucial lifeline, and I shudder to think what would have happened had they not done so. Of course, we also recognise the pressure that the Bangladeshi Government are under. Theirs is one of the poorest nations in the world, facing its own serious economic problems, widespread poverty and, as we have heard, the climate crisis. Having to deal with a mass influx of 1 million impoverished refugees fleeing genocide adds to that crisis. As the hon. Member for Bedford said, it is little wonder that there is an increasing host fatigue when there appears to be no end in sight as the world turns its attention elsewhere.
That said, we are extremely concerned about the Bangladeshi Government’s joint response plan for this humanitarian crisis. It hints strongly at repatriation efforts, which, at the moment, are voluntary. How long that continues to be a voluntary arrangement remains to be seen. Let us be clear and unequivocal: no one can return to Myanmar until all ethnic minorities are safe from the threat of persecution. Right now, that is a long way off. As the hon. Members for Bethnal Green and Bow and for Congleton said, Bangladesh needs to be supported in what it is doing for its own people and for the Rohingya. That is why it beggars belief that with all the economic challenges currently facing Bangladesh, the UK Government decided to slash overseas aid to that country by 62%.
Just how could the Government think it appropriate, justified or humane to pull two thirds of that funding from a poor nation that is caught up in alleviating a humanitarian disaster on its doorstep by providing shelter to 1 million people fleeing genocide? Did no one around the Cabinet table suggest that cutting foreign aid to Bangladesh—one of the poorest countries in the world, as we have heard—was, in these circumstances, a terrible idea that would only hasten further humanitarian crisis? Was no impact assessment done on what would happen to Bangladesh, and on the knock-on effect for the Rohingya refugees, if that money was taken out? Did no one ask what would happen to that strategic partnership, and what it would mean for the 360,000 girls who relied on it for education or the 12 million infants who benefited from nutritional support? Did no one ever stop to ask about the knock-on effect that taking away that amount of money would have on the 1 million impoverished refugees?
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington was right to say that the UK and the wider international community cannot allow the Rohingya refugees to be forced back into the hands of an oppressive state military whose hallmark is human rights abuses, sexual violence, torture and killings. We cannot allow that to happen because we simply did not support the host nation and allowed it to do all the heavy lifting and pick up the cost. That is why the UK must, at the very least, restore the original ODA funding to Bangladesh. As the hon. Member for Bedford said, not to do so would be short-sighted at best. We and the international community have to deliver, because this is not a Rohingya problem or a Bangladeshi problem but a global problem. We all have a responsibility for putting it right.
Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) for securing this important debate and for his excellent contribution. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) in the shadow FCDO team for her work on Myanmar and my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) for her tireless work to keep the plight of the Rohingya on the agenda through her work on the all-party parliamentary groups on Bangladesh and the rights of the Rohingya.
It is nearly six years since that fateful morning in the early hours of 25 August 2017 when violence broke out in Rakhine state, Myanmar. The military, supported by militias, launched a murderous campaign that took thousands of lives. Villages were set ablaze, entire families were killed, and women and girls suffered atrocities, including rape. According to eyewitnesses, from August to September, the Naf river, which empties into the bay of Bengal, literally ran red with blood. Roughly 24,000 were killed in that period—an unimaginable number. Some 700,000 fled Rakhine state for Bangladesh, the majority of whom travelled by foot, walking through jungle and rough terrain, or by boat, taking the perilous journey across the bay of Bengal. Today, 1 million refugees still reside in Bangladesh. It is a humbling reminder of the horror that leads someone to flee their home.
In the last two years, what little attention has been paid to Myanmar has focused on the military’s coup and attempts to crush civilian resistance. Military attacks on the civilian population are up nearly 400%. Over 600 villages have been torched by the junta’s troops. A staggering 17.6 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance. However, the suffering of the Rohingya began decades ago, as we have heard from many Members, and continues to this day outside Rakhine state and in south-eastern Bangladesh. As António Guterres has said, the Rohingya are
“one of, if not the, most discriminated people in the world”.
Whether in Rakhine state or Cox’s Bazar, the Rohingya people are currently without a future. It is important that we confront that reality today.
I used the word “humbling” a little earlier in this speech, and I think it is appropriate, as, having spoken in several debates on this matter over recent years, I am saddened that we are still talking about it and that our hopes for the Rohingya people look, if anything, further away. In 2020, I spoke for the Opposition in a debate on this matter and said
“It is a tragedy that…the international community is still having to provide them”—
the Rohingya—
“with immediate life-saving humanitarian support. That is the situation that we need to take a long, hard look at, to learn from mistakes and rectify them so that we are not here next year and the year after having the same debate.”—[Official Report, 3 November 2020; Vol. 683, c. 55WH.]
And yet, following the coup in February 2021, the prospect of a durable political solution that allows Rohingya refugees and forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals to return safely and voluntarily to their homes looks more distant than ever.
I commend much of the work that the Government are doing to sanction the abhorrent military regime in Myanmar and support the ICJ case to bring the perpetrators of atrocities to justice, although there is certainly more that they can do, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green raised the other week—for example, on banning aviation fuel, and the role of maritime insurance companies based here in Britain in the shipping of aviation fuel to Myanmar’s military. However, in the meantime, some 1 million Rohingya refugees are languishing in south-eastern Bangladesh with no meaningful prospect of a future, and we cannot ignore that either.
The hon. Members for Loughborough (Jane Hunt), for Ipswich (Tom Hunt), for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) and for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), my hon. Friends the Members for Bethnal Green and Bow and for Birmingham, Erdington (Mrs Hamilton), and the Chair of the International Development Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), all made excellent contributions, and some spoke of the conditions in the camps at Cox’s Bazar, which we know are poor. Hundreds of thousands of refugees are living in settlements only a few kilometres wide, in tents and huts made of bamboo and thin plastic sheeting. We can only imagine what it is like living in those conditions during the monsoon and cyclone seasons, when hailstorms, wind, rain and lightning hammer down on these homes.
In March this year, we were served a powerful reminder of the conditions in these camps when we saw images of a towering fire tearing through these huts. That inferno impacted around 15,000 refugees, destroying something like 2,800 shelters and key infrastructure networks including schools, medical clinics and service points. It also displaced 50,000 people. That is only one of some estimated 222 fire incidents between January 2021 and December 2022. According to a Bangladesh Ministry of Defence report, those fires included 60 cases of arson. For the many families living in those camps, it must seem as if wherever they go, they are not safe.
I recognise that the Government responded to the March incident with £1 million pledged through the UNHCR for pressure cookers, to replace the use of liquefied petroleum gas, but does the Minister recognise that restrictions on the materials used to construct the huts and the fact that barbed fencing restricts movement increase the risk of tragedies as well? The camp’s residents are reportedly not allowed to build permanent structures. Bricks are banned—only bamboo and tarpaulin may be used—leaving them at the mercy of the elements. Has the Minister raised this issue with her counterparts in Bangladesh?
Meanwhile, basic human needs in those camps are going unmet. Food assistance to the refugees, who have been left reliant on humanitarian aid, is dwindling: we have already heard that the World Food Programme says that it needs £103 million just to avoid further ration cuts in a community where malnutrition is already rife. In February, for the first time in five years, the World Food Programme had to cut food rations to refugees by 17% across the board due to a lack of funding. In response, the UK has offered £4 million for this year. According to the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in Burma, Tom Andrews, 45% of all Rohingya families in the camps are living with insufficient diets; some 51% of Rohingya children and 41% of pregnant and breastfeeding women are anaemic; and 40% of children are suffering from stunted growth because of a lack of nutrition. As we have heard from Members across the House, half of the people living in those camps are children. This is a tragedy unfolding in real time, day by day for these people, yet we are cutting our support to the bone.
This year’s commitments represent an 82% decrease on 2020. Asked about this issue recently, the Minister said that
“we do not look at the issue of restoring the money, we look at the issue of need.”—[Official Report, 19 April 2023; Vol. 731, c. 134WH.]
So I ask whether she can publish what possible assessment could conclude that need has declined by 82%. I know she will say that fiscal constraints—the result of her party’s dire economic record—mean that we have to keep ODA at 0.5%, but what she does not acknowledge is that within those constraints there are clear political choices to be made, including the blank cheque that the Minister has signed off to the Home Secretary for asylum hotels and the half a billion pounds going to British International Investment over this year and last.
In his speech at Chatham House last week, aptly titled “Can rhetoric match reality?” the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), stated that food insecurity would be one of his priorities. Can the Minister explain how these cuts to food assistance to the Rohingya assist that? Likewise, can she explain how the Rohingya crisis remains one of the Government’s top priorities, as the Europe Minister claimed in October?
Of course, the Rohingya need not only food, but a future. As such, I welcome the focus on skills outlined in the 2023 joint response plan: education and development of livelihood skills are essential among the young and deprived populations that are living in these camps. It was therefore disappointing to see the UK permanent representative speak at the conference on the joint response plan in support of those provisions, yet announce not a single penny of support. This is becoming an increasing habit, so will the Minister revisit this issue and set out what support the United Kingdom is providing to the response plan this year?
The urgency of the crisis in Cox’s Bazar is starkly demonstrated by the number of Rohingya who are now attempting dangerous sea crossings. The numbers trying to get to Malaysia or Indonesia increased fivefold last year to more than 3,500, at the cost of hundreds of lives. It is again a reminder of why our humanitarian and development work is essential to tackling the causes of displacement and irregular migration, and why it is essential that we do not leave Bangladesh to shoulder the burden alone. Most countries would struggle to manage an influx of 1 million refugees—it certainly puts our own country’s struggle with just a fraction of those numbers into perspective. To do so in a country where GDP per capita is only $2,500 is remarkable, so we have to pay thanks to the Government of Bangladesh for what they are doing—I note that the high commissioner is here, listening to this debate. They are stepping up and taking a share of responsibility that we would not expect of such a relatively poor country; it is doing so brilliantly in terms of development.
We remain hopeful that, one day, the Rohingya can return to Myanmar. We recognise that that is where the ultimate solution of this crisis lies, but we must also confront the reality that that prospect has gotten further away, not closer, in recent years. Fading international attention to the crisis in Bangladesh is making matters worse. As such, does the Minister agree that we must learn lessons about our assistance to refugees displaced for many years, including prioritising local engagement from the outset, shifting from emergency assistance over time, and tipping the scales from short-term humanitarian work to development for longer-term needs? Can she say whether assessments have been made as to where investment now can generate greater returns or reduce need in the long run?
Moreover, can the Minister speak to the need for conflict and atrocity prevention in the first place? Atrocities do not happen overnight, as we have heard from Members across the House—they are years in the making—yet it was notable that the Minister of State did not mention conflict and atrocity prevention in his speech at Chatham House last week. What lessons have the Government learned about atrocity prevention, and will they be looking to take up the International Development Committee’s recommendations laid out in its important recent report on atrocity prevention?
Finally, can the Minister say something on how the Government will help to support the women and girls who continue to bear the brunt of this crisis, including the many bearing the physical and psychological scars of sexual violence? It is imperative that Britain plays its full part in the response to the Rohingya crisis to secure the decent future that they deserve. As international attention dwindles, the Government must reflect on their role and ask what will become of those million refugees—stateless, fenced in, increasingly hungry and at the mercy of people traffickers. That question is not just for Bangladesh, but for all of us who desire a humane solution to one of the world’s most harrowing crises.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) for securing this debate. I pay tribute to his work as vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Bangladesh. I am also grateful for the passionate, informed contributions from so many hon. and right hon. Members today. I will do my best to respond to the points raised, although some, particularly those from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill), are ones that the Minister for Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), will need to answer in more detail. I will make sure that his officials pick up the questions from Hansard as quickly as possible.
This subject absolutely needs to be spoken about, and doing so here today will have an important impact. We should never forget how much the voices of Parliament are heard, listened to and respected not only within our own borders, but across the world. I thank all colleagues for taking the time to spend this evening here sharing their expertise.
The Rohingya, one of the largest stateless populations in the world, have endured, as colleagues have said, decades of systematic marginalisation, discrimination and persecution. During my visit to Cox’s Bazar refugee camps in Bangladesh in March, I saw first-hand the difficulties the Rohingya face and the immense challenges confronting the humanitarian response. My visit afforded me the opportunity to meet NGOs delivering food aid, education and healthcare alongside a number of Government officials working to find solutions both short and longer term.
I had the opportunity to meet groups of Rohingya mothers who described fleeing the brutal violence of the Myanmar military. They told me about their fears for their children’s future. I met them alongside new mums whose children will only know Cox’s Bazar for now and teenage girls empowered to teach new skills throughout their generation of young women. They were an impressive group of young women who gave me hope that they are neither going to give up nor give way to the depression that could otherwise come. They are a really empowering group.
There are close to 1 million Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh, the majority of whom, as we have heard from colleagues, fled Myanmar and the military-led ethnic cleansing of their people in 2017. I say this when I am talking to people in my constituency to help get our heads around the size of these camps, but Newcastle upon Tyne metro area, which is my nearest big city, is about 800,000 people over a very large area. The million people in those camps are in a very cramped area. That is an enormous number of people, and it is important to stop and think about what that looks like. Each of us, whether MPs in a city or who have a nearby city, should just contemplate for a moment what we are talking about when we try to understand the challenges that we face in trying to help tackle this situation.
As many colleagues have said—it is lovely to have the high commissioner here with us for the debate—we all genuinely want to thank and commend the Bangladeshi Government and all those who live in and around Cox’s Bazar for their generosity in hosting the Rohingya for more than five years in these huge camps. We continue to be steadfast in our support to the Rohingya population and the Government of Bangladesh. It was an honour for me to spend an hour with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina discussing not only the generosity, but the resilient and patient care that the Bangladeshi Government provide the Rohingya refugees. We will continue to support that response until conditions are right for the safe, voluntary and dignified return of the Rohingya to their homeland.
The UK has provided £350 million to the response in Bangladesh since 2017. That funding has paid for life-saving food, water, sanitation, healthcare and shelter, and it also supports protection work for those vulnerable women and girls. We continue to be a major global donor to the UN’s humanitarian agencies and the Central Emergency Response Fund, providing £160 million this year supporting it in responding to this crisis. The UK Government’s portfolio of support makes us overall the second largest bilateral humanitarian donor to the Rohingya response since 2017. To maintain the much-needed delivery, we are ensuring our aid is used strategically and deploying our combined development, humanitarian and diplomatic expertise on the response. With humanitarian need across the world increasing all the time, global funding is under unprecedented strain and this, sadly, is unlikely to change in the short term.
Rushanara Ali
I am grateful for the visit the Minister has done, because she has been able to see the need herself at first hand. The International Organisation for Migration provides Rohingya refugees with materials and services to build and repair their shelters. In the absence of this support, close to half a million refugees will be exposed to the adverse effects of flooding, monsoon and cyclone, as well as of landslides and fire; this country has these occurrences regularly. That will leave them without safe shelter, so the cuts will have a direct effect on the good work that has been done by the Government of Bangladesh and agencies. How can she possibly not address that issue? These agencies are telling us that there is a major issue with this funding cut.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
The hon. Lady continues to raise—with deep eloquence, experience and expertise—some of the many challenges we face. That is why I will continue to work with donors, both traditional and other, to both raise more international funding and ensure that, as many colleagues have said, this is not a forgotten situation. We need to ensure that the NGOs delivering food, energy and multiple aid for healthcare, education and safety, day in and day out, for those living in these camps can be resourced for the medium term. So we are going to continue working very closely with other donors and partners to help move towards a response that is less reliant only on humanitarian aid and thinking about more resilience for the future. There is a number of areas there that I would be very happy to pick up with colleagues offline.
Sarah Champion
I really appreciate the Minister, because I know she genuinely understands this. This is a spoiler alert to the Chamber, but the International Development Committee will shortly be publishing a report on long-term refugees. When we think about the Palestinian refugees, we are talking about nearly 75 years. As the hon. Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) said, everybody wants to be at home and everybody wants to go home. So rather than dealing with the consequences of usually politically unstable and fragile states, what are the Government going to do to try to make sure that people can go home? That is the lasting solution that everybody wants, not keeping on paying taxpayers’ money to deal with the problem. They want to go home.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
I think we all look forward to reading the hon. Lady’s report, which will, as ever, be insightful and full of opportunities for all of us to consider what some of those long-term solutions might be. As we work on responses that work towards future resilience, we will also be exploring alternative funding options and promoting the positive role that development finance can play in the wider context, because of course the self -sufficiency of the Rohingya is vital to create a sustainable response to this crisis. Access to substantial livelihood opportunities would contribute towards that and help enormously to mitigate the worsening security situation in the camps. This was an area of discussion I had with all those I met on my March visit, including the Prime Minister. We will continue to advocate for progress in those areas with the Government of Bangladesh, but these actions alone will not of course bring an end to the crisis. So we must continue to use all the levers we have to improve conditions in Myanmar, exactly as the hon. Lady says, because people want to go home.
The Myanmar military of course continues its brutal attack on its population, and many of the attacks bear the same hallmarks of atrocities committed against the Rohingya in 2016 and 2017. We now see 17 million people in need across the country, and more than five years on from the crisis, the regime is yet to be held fully accountable. Of course, accountability is crucial to ending that cycle of violence and the misery faced by the Rohingya people. That is why, last August, we announced our intention to intervene in the ICC case brought by the Gambia regarding Myanmar’s obligations under the genocide convention. It is a case we have supported since its inception, and one that I know colleagues will be pleased to hear we are working closely on with other intervening states to ensure a co-ordinated approach.
We also support the securing of criminal accountability and attempts to bring these issues before the International Criminal Court. Within the international sphere, the UK uses our penholder role in the UN Security Council to keep the spotlight on the crisis. Between 2017 and 2021 we have convened the Security Council 19 times to discuss the situation in Myanmar. Last year we passed resolution 2669 on Myanmar, holding the regime to account for its atrocities and urging an end to all violence. This resolution was the first of its kind in over 74 years. We will continue to use our role at the UNSC and in other international spaces to press for justice and accountability and to ensure the crisis is not forgotten. Domestically, we will continue to use our sanctions regime to maintain pressure on the Myanmar armed forces.
Tom Hunt
I really do see all that the Government have done and I really do think it is right to focus on the Rohingya going home safely; however, a colleague mentioned a child spending five years growing up there and knowing nothing else but that camp, but what happens when that becomes eight or nine years? Does my right hon. Friend agree that there may come a point where we have to think about something that ends this horror but that may not, sadly, involve them going home safely?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
My hon. Friend raises an issue that we are cognisant of, but in the shorter term we are seeing whether the international community can work together to make going home a possibility, so we are continuing to use our sanctions in co-ordination with the US, Canada, the EU and Australia, among some of our key international partners. We have so far sanctioned 20 individuals and 29 entities, and as sanctions Minister I will be continuing to work on further sanctions that we might be able to deliver to target the junta’s access to revenue, arms and equipment. Just a few weeks ago we sanctioned four individuals and two entities selling arms and aviation fuel to the Myanmar military; we will continue to find ways to reduce its ability to deliver its appalling violence to its citizens.
Sarah Champion
I am grateful for those sanctions on the junta, but is the right hon. Lady also aware of the influence of both China and Russia in Myanmar, and is she doing more to get them around the table to try to come up with a solution?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
The hon. Lady will be aware that we do not discuss future sanctions, but we raise these issues regularly in our role as the penholder and in international forums where we meet other countries—perhaps not Russia at the moment, as it is not participating in any international discussions, but more widely other countries including neighbours of Myanmar.
I shall conclude by saying that the Rohingya people have shown the most extraordinary courage and resilience in the face of incredible hardship that no one should have to suffer. I am genuinely in awe of the spirit they continue to display day by day as they struggle in the camps, with an unbroken spirit, hoping and believing that a better life lies ahead. The UK is committed to continued support for the Rohingya in Bangladesh alongside the 600,000 who remain in Myanmar.
Rushanara Ali
I have two points to make. First, the right hon. Lady mentioned that she is working with international partners: can she say a bit more about when her Government will convene a meeting of the UNSC to discuss how the Burmese military are ignoring the provisional measures ordered to prevent the ongoing genocide?
Closer to home, the right hon. Lady mentioned sanctions, and I welcome the sanctions already introduced. She could look at a step related to aviation fuel raised in a recent Westminster Hall debate. Some UK insurance companies are insuring vessels that provide aviation fuel, and the Burmese military are then using the aviation to attack their own people. Some of our companies are literally complicit in providing the fuel and fuelling the airstrikes; will the right hon. Lady look at that, to build on the sanctions introduced already?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
As the hon. Lady and others who work closely with us on this will know, we welcome all evidence, and the sanctions team will always be pleased to look at it and discuss these issues. We do not ever discuss in anticipation where we might impose sanctions, as that might reduce their effectiveness, but I would be pleased to sit down with the hon. Lady or her sources to continue working on where we can use our sanctions powers, with our international partners, to have an impactful effect on reducing the junta’s ability to deliver violence against its own people.
Humanitarian aid will of course continue to play a large role in the short term. As colleagues highlighted, we can see no immediate solution to the crisis, but ultimately the solution is a political one of refugees being able to have a safe return to Myanmar or to find resettlement in other countries. I note that a number of colleagues raised constituency family asks, and I will ensure that those are picked up in due course, with relevant parts of Government working together on them.
We will continue to advocate for better conditions for the Rohingyas in Bangladesh in the short term, and for them to have the important opportunity to work and develop skills and greater self-sufficiency. We will also continue to use all available tools across our international networks to help improve conditions in Rakhine state so that the Rohingya people have a chance to return home voluntarily, safely and with documented rights, which, as colleagues have expressed so eloquently, is the outcome that these refugees hope for.
I hope that colleagues know how important this part of my portfolio is to me. I often say jokingly that I have dozens of countries in my portfolio, and I obviously have no favourites, but, if I am allowed to have areas on which I intend to—and do—spend a lot of my time, I will continue to use all the tools in the FCDO armoury to make progress so that every young woman and child in Cox’s Bazar knows that we are fighting alongside them. I promised the young women I met who called me mama that I would do all that I could, and I thank all colleagues for helping us to do that.
Mohammad Yasin
I thank all 15 colleagues from both sides of the House for their contributions and interventions, which made this such an important debate. Once again, I thank the Bangladesh Government for their generosity and all the NGOs for their tireless work to help people living in such poor conditions.
It is clear that Members on both sides of the House are united on how we must continue to keep the plight of the Rohingya at the forefront of our minds. We all care deeply about the humanitarian crisis, and as parliamentarians we will work together to ensure that we do all we can to improve their lives and ensure that they are not forgotten.
We all agree that Bangladesh, as the host of the largest refugee camp in the world, must be supported. It is not easy, but we must follow our words with actions, and actions cost money. The needs of the Rohingya refugees are greater than ever before. Now is not the time to cut aid. I hope that the debate has made the case for increasing UK aid here and elsewhere to the most desperate people around the world.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the matter of support for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
Business without Debate
Wythenshawe and Sale Town Centres: Regeneration
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
I am grateful to have secured this Adjournment debate on Wythenshawe and Sale town centres. Town centres are the heart and soul of our communities. They are places where people come together to shop, to eat, to drink and to socialise. They are centres of trade and business. They provide jobs, skills and opportunities. They are the backbone of local economies. Over time, they have experienced periods of boom and bust. Each has its own unique history and identity, and I am sure that they are sources of local pride for every MP in the Chamber. But, sadly, over recent years they have faced many challenges including under-investment, changing retail and leisure demands, covid-19 and, now, the cost of living crisis.
I would like to use this Adjournment debate as an opportunity to pay tribute to the two town centres in my constituency—Wythenshawe and Sale—and highlight their important economic and social roles. I will also highlight the challenges and opportunities that they face and ask the Government what plans they have to support them. Too often, we hear this Government pay lip service to levelling up, the woes of left-behind people and places, and the importance of economic growth. Tonight, I want to talk about the reality of levelling up, and what levelling up actually means, or should mean, to places like Wythenshawe and Sale, and to people like me who grew up and live in a so-called left-behind town.
I am a lucky MP. I get to represent the constituency that includes not only the town where I grew up and still live, but two brilliant town centres: Wythenshawe and Sale. Both have the benefit of Greater Manchester’s Metrolink, which connects them to the rest of the conurbation.
Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. In Stockport, we have been campaigning for a long time for an extension of the Metrolink tram system into our town centre to increase footfall and trade in the town centre. I raised the matter with the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), who assured me that he would study the plans with care, but I never heard back from him. Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the biggest issues facing northern towns is the lack of ambition and investment from this Conservative Government?
Mike Kane
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He should be proud of his work in Stockport to regenerate the town. There is nothing quite like “Foodie Friday”, which attracts independent retailers and thousands of people, but we know that the cream on the cake for Stockport would be extending the Metrolink to the town centre. I fully back his campaign, even if the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) has not got back to him yet.
Wythenshawe, designed by the visionary architect Barry Parker, with the support of Ernest and Shena Simon, once led the way as a suburban utopia. In 1930, their garden city vision saw tens of thousands of families from Manchester’s inner-city slums moved to well-built, spacious neighbourhoods and green surroundings. That saw Wythenshawe transformed from a handful of small villages at the turn of the 20th century to a settlement of 100,000 people by the 1960s. In December last year, I hosted the “Who Built Wythenshawe?” exhibition with Professor Michael Wood, a famous former resident, and the Town and Country Planning Association here in Westminster, showcasing Wythenshawe’s garden city heritage.
The current site of Wythenshawe town centre, or the Civic, as it is known locally, started life as a shopping centre in 1963, with Wythenshawe Forum—one of Manchester’s largest buildings at the time—and a swimming pool, theatre and public hall added later. I would visit the Civic most weekends growing up, shopping at the market, visiting the Forum theatre and, yes, having many of my first dates there as well. Today, it still attracts over 5 million visitors a year and sits at the heart of a community of over 100,000 people. Like many towns, Wythenshawe faces some challenges, with increased costs for businesses and changing retail and leisure demands, but with the right investment it has so much potential.
Sale, a former market town that grew on the back of the Bridgewater canal, which brought coal to fire the industrial revolution, has also experienced challenging times, but it has an exciting future. It was recently voted the fourth best town in England to live in. It has strong transport links and housing stock and great schools, including the one at which I had the pleasure of teaching for the best part of a decade. Recent regeneration by Trafford Council is seeing independent businesses return to the town centre, but more investment could take the transformation to the next level, attracting more businesses and creating jobs.
In the Summer of 2022, recognising the need to rejuvenate these town centres, Manchester City Council and Trafford Council, under the leadership of my friend the former Member for Stretford and Urmston, submitted bids to the levelling-up fund. The plan to redevelop Wythenshawe town centre offered a once-in-a-generation chance to transform the Civic with a new public square, food hall, community cinema and 1,500 low-carbon homes.
Manchester City Council bought out the lease on the shopping centre to help control, steer and accelerate that investment. It put its money where its mouth is. The plans for Sale town centre included a wholesale transformation of the public realm and highways, to improve active travel for all and support the regeneration of Stanley Square. I pay tribute to Altered Space for the private sector investment that has so fundamentally altered the precinct in Sale and brought about so much regeneration.
To ensure that the plans were fit for purpose and had the support of the local community, Trafford Council funded the refresh of the Sale public realm strategy, which set out and delivered a costed plan to inform the bid. The transformational potential of the plans and the golden opportunity for regeneration that they provide must not be underestimated, especially in a constituency where 41.3% of neighbourhoods rank in the highest category of deprivation. The plans were serious about levelling up.
Andrew Western (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: not only was I the leader of Trafford Council when the bids were submitted, as my hon. Friend said, but I have the great honour—at least until Thursday—of representing Sale town centre on Trafford Council.
My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point about the diligence and care that were put into both levelling-up bids, which is replicated in bids up and down the country. Does he agree that that time, energy and endeavour did, in many cases, go to waste, as a result of a brutal bidding process that pitted town centres and local authorities against each other? Does he agree that such a system should not be used again, and should instead be replaced by a system in which funding allocations are made on the basis of need?
Mike Kane
I will miss my hon. Friend as one of my councillors after Thursday, but I welcome him to these Benches. Under his extraordinary leadership, Trafford went from strength to strength. He took control away from the Conservative party in Trafford and started to build a sense of place. The plans for Stretford in the civic quarter, what we have done in Altrincham and what we hope to bring to Sale were the direct result of his leadership. I am grateful.
Both bids underwent a rigorous drafting process and extensive consultation, with strong local support. Careful consideration of the plans, which strongly reflect local need, could deliver so much more than shiny new buildings and superficial facelifts. They would attract new business, creating new jobs. Disappointingly, despite two strong bids and high hopes from local leaders, the Government did not match our ambition for Wythenshawe and Sale town centres. Both bids were rejected.
Tonight, I would like to hear from the Minister directly why the bids were rejected. I am not going anywhere. I will raise this at every opportunity, from now until kingdom come, to make sure that we make progress in the town centres in my constituency, of which I am extraordinarily proud. Why were the bids left out of a fund to support economic recovery and growth in the poorest parts of Britain? Why did the same fund that rejected the bids award £19 million to the Prime Minister’s own wealthy constituency? My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western) is right; some sort of “Hunger Games” of bidding seems to have taken place.
The truth is that the fund, just like the Government, is not serious. Around 70% of levelling-up funding has been pledged to constituencies in England that have a Conservative MP. How does that happen? Analysis shows that Tory-held seats received around £19 more per head than those in similarly deprived non-Conservative constituencies. We already knew that the Government were not serious about it—they have a track record. The Government have been in power for 13 years, and the levelling-up agenda has not cut the mustard with the British public.
A recent report by the Institute for Public Policy Research says that the north is being held back by “vast inequalities” and “systematic underinvestment” in research and development, social infrastructure and transport. What have this Government done to correct that? What have they done on R&D investment? Some 46% of R&D investment—vital for business innovation, jobs and skills—still goes to London, the east and south-east, despite those areas representing around only a fifth of the population.
What have this Government done to boost transport and connectivity in the north, in order to improve the vibrancy of our towns? HS2, which would have come to the borough of Trafford, has been put on ice. It would have reduced journey times from Manchester airport, in my constituency, to London Euston from two hours and 24 minutes, as they are currently, to 59 minutes. HS2 from Old Oak Common to Birmingham has now been shelved. The paucity of ambition to connect up this country is palpable. On Northern Powerhouse Rail, we cannot get TransPennine and other routes into Manchester airport. Some 20% to 30% of services to Manchester airport, one of the biggest economic drivers in the region, are regularly cut.
And it gets worse. What have this Government done to support local councils to deliver the frontline services that our communities rely on to function efficiently? Following the 2008 financial crash, rather than support the most vulnerable, there were politically motivated cuts. Manchester City Council, ranked the sixth most deprived local authority in England, has had to make £428 million of savings, while Trafford Council has had to take more than £260 million from its budget. We have seen the devastating reality of those cruel cuts.
As disappointed as I was by the Government’s decision to reject the two perfectly solid bids for levelling-up funding, which denied Wythenshawe and Sale town centres £40 million of investment, sadly I was not surprised. While this Government may not be serious about levelling up, local leaders are. Despite the lack of funding from Government, I am pleased to say that plans for both town centres will go ahead.
Manchester’s Labour council is delivering for Wythenshawe with new homes, cultural and leisure spaces, job opportunities, green infrastructure investment and better walking and cycling links. Likewise, Labour-run Trafford Council is pressing ahead with its transformation of Sale town centre, with solid backing from the private sector. The transformation around Stanley Square has been truly incredible, creating a modern and vibrant district that is home to new independent retailers, cafés, restaurants and bars. Both councils have my full support and I pledge to continue to do all I can, as the Member of Parliament for Wythenshawe and Sale East, to deliver investment and economic opportunities for our towns and our people.
Labour is serious about levelling up. We care about our town centres and we understand what communities need, because we are those communities. Despite all the funding cuts and lack of support from the Government, and the crushing blows that were delivered when we did not receive our levelling-up funds, we are already delivering. Will the Minister tell me what the Government will pledge to deliver for Wythenshawe, Sale and other towns like them across Britain? Are the Government finally ready to get serious about levelling up?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Dehenna Davison)
I sincerely thank the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) for securing this important debate and for speaking so powerfully on behalf of his constituents and his constituency. I know he has been, and remains, a tireless champion of the people and businesses of Greater Manchester more broadly, as has been exemplified by his service as a local councillor and portfolio holder, in a past life, and by his time as a Member of Parliament in this place.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the points he raised. One particular sentence stuck with me: he said that town centres are the heart and soul of our communities. On that point, I could not agree more. I saw that in my own constituency this weekend, at the Bishop Auckland street-food market. I definitely need to visit Stockport on Foodie Friday, as that sounds right up my street.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for highlighting some of the persistent economic and social challenges facing his Wythenshawe and Sale East constituency, and the deep-rooted disparities between communities, with parts of Wythenshawe that are highly disadvantaged starkly contrasting with areas in Sale that are much more prosperous. That is born out in the data in the indices of multiple deprivation, which ranks the constituency as the 53rd most deprived in England, with unemployment more than double the English average.
It is fair to say that communities in the hon. Member’s constituency stand to benefit the most from the Government’s levelling-up agenda and our ambition to close the regional disparities in health, education and attainment that are holding communities back. We have made some real strides in that endeavour in recent years.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned unsuccessful bids, and I will say something about that shortly, but I think it worth noting that Trafford Borough Council was successful in the most recent round of the levelling-up fund. It is set to receive more than £80 million for regeneration of the Partington sports village, with new changing rooms and a new BMX track at the park in Cross Lane. That will mean a big improvement in the health and leisure offer for local residents, encouraging more people to take part in sporting and leisure activities. It is complemented by the £85,000 grant from our levelling up parks fund for Southwick Road Park in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. I know that several committed local residents have long been calling for that investment.
The hon. Gentleman spoke about his council’s unsuccessful applications to the levelling-up fund, specifically the regeneration bids for Wythenshawe and Sale town centres. I fully appreciate that everyone involved in preparing and submitting those bids will have been deeply disappointed by the result. We certainly do not underestimate the time, care, attention and, indeed, heart that council officers and members put into the work. I shall say more about that shortly as well, but I know the hon. Gentleman was one of the strongest backers for those bids as well.
It must be said that the response to round 2 of the fund was overwhelming. More than 500 bids were received from all over the UK, totalling over £8 billion, but we had £3.1 billion to allocate, which meant that, unfortunately, some difficult decisions had to be made. It is also worth noting that although this is the—in capital letters— LUF, it is not the only—small “l”, small “u”—levelling-up funding that the Government have provided. It would not be appropriate for me to comment on the specific applications, but I know that officials in my Department have now given detailed feedback on unsuccessful bids, and I shall be happy to sit down with the hon. Gentleman to discuss that further following the debate.
As for how the applications were judged, we have published an account of this and are entirely transparent about it, but I will run through it once more for the benefit of the House. As in the first round, our funding was targeted at the areas most in need according to the index of priority places. The index takes account of the need to address issues such as under-regeneration, low productivity and poor connectivity, and each bid was assessed by the officials from the Department against the published assessment criteria. Our officials then came up with a shortlist based on the highest scores. To ensure that we had a fair spread of bids across the UK, Ministers then made funding decisions based on the assessment score, but also taking into account factors such as geographic spread and past investments. However, an area’s relative need is baked into the process as well. In this round, 66% of investments went to category 1 places.
The second round of funding is going predominantly to areas in Great Britain that have not received funding before, in order to ensure that investment reaches as many places as possible across rounds 1 and 2. However—I must highlight this point—there will be a third round, and we should not lose sight of that. We will give further details in due course, and I will of course make sure that the hon. Gentleman is informed. We want to support as many areas as possible with this truly transformative funding.
As I have said, however, the levelling-up fund is not the only means of levelling up investment in Greater Manchester by my Department. The hon. Gentleman will know that in his neighbouring constituency, Stretford town centre has benefited from £17.6 million from our future high streets fund—real investment to transform Stretford Mall and the surrounding town centre, with spaces for open-air markets and a host of new cultural events that will indeed be genuinely transformative. Local people will benefit from the new high-quality and affordable housing in the town centre, increasing pride in the place and fostering a sense of community.
Greater Manchester more broadly has benefited greatly from some game-changing pots of money from central Government in recent years, in support of our shared levelling-up ambitions. As the hon. Gentleman will know, the combined authority was awarded £54.2 million from our Getting Building fund to deliver seven major capital work projects across the city region, including 7 acres of landscaped public park near Piccadilly Station, the new Manchester innovation activities hub, and a vocational training centre dedicated to the rapid upskilling, reskilling and retraining of local residents. Moreover, £150,000 from the Department’s community ownership fund has been awarded to Healthy Me Healthy Communities, a social enterprise group in Gorton. That will secure a community facility for the charity to tackle food poverty, helping those who are struggling to find jobs to gain new skills, as well as giving budget advice and support to those on low incomes.
Despite the investments that we have made, I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s principal point that, more broadly, we need to reform the way that we support our people and places by moving away from the model of councils bidding into loads of separate pots of money and all the form-filling and hoop-jumping that goes with that. That point was very well made by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western).
Andrew Western
On that point, could the Minister tell us exactly how much money was spent by local authorities on pulling these bids together?
Dehenna Davison
That information is held by the authorities, but I will certainly write to the hon. Gentleman with some further information following this debate.
We want to move away from those bidding pots to pursue a more sustainable, longer-term solution—in other words, one single settlement not a million miles away from the ones enjoyed by Scotland and Wales—to allow authorities such as Greater Manchester to really push the boundaries of levelling up in education, skills and innovation and to pursue on their own terms projects such as the regeneration of Wythenshawe and Sale, working hand in hand with local businesses and communities. Since first getting involved in politics, I have said that local people know best what is right for them, rather than us sitting here in Westminster and Whitehall, so we really are putting our money where our mouth is on this, through our radical devolution agenda.
The hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East will know that we took a big step towards that goal earlier this year when we agreed a trailblazer devolution deal worth billions of pounds with Greater Manchester. It hands unprecedented powers, money and control to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority so that it can realise its ambition of creating a fully connected London-style transport system by the end of this decade as well as delivering the UK’s first integrated technical education system. On the transport point, putting power into local hands means giving Andy Burnham more control over things such as the Metro, so it will definitely be worth badgering Andy about the extension of the Metrolink. I am happy to sit down and discuss this with the hon. Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra), and I can only apologise that the former Prime Minister did not get back to him. I will certainly meet him to discuss this a bit more formally.
On transport, I am also incredibly pleased about the £84 million package from central Government to Greater Manchester to increase the reliability of trains through Greater Manchester in the Manchester recovery taskforce. We still have a way to go to get those trains up to scratch but central Government working hand in hand with local government through the GMCA are absolutely doing the right things. For the Government’s part, we have made no secret of our ambition to see more areas benefiting from these enhanced freedoms and flexibilities through devolution, and we hope to kick off talks on these D for Devolution arrangements with other Mayors very soon.
I have given a bit of a flavour of what the future holds for Greater Manchester and for the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East’s constituency: more freedoms and more funding to pursue locally led regeneration. In the here and now, I hope that he can rest assured that my Department and I are committed to working with him and with Members all across the House, on both sides, to get more levelling up projects off the ground, whether through the third round of our levelling up fund, through working with the combined authority, as in this case, or through using any of the tools at our disposal to bring real economic benefits to the businesses and communities we represent. This really is our shared ambition and it is what we will deliver in the weeks and months ahead. I am looking forward to working with the hon. Gentleman on this.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Flags (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Regulations 2023
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Steve Baker)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Flags (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Regulations.
I am most grateful to you, Ms Nokes, and to all members of the Committee for being here today. The draft regulations seek to align flag flying days in Northern Ireland with the rest of the UK, as agreed in the New Decade, New Approach agreement. Following the sad passing of Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II last year, a number of changes have been made to flag flying days in the UK.
The updated list of designated days for 2023 was published by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on 9 February and states that all dates related to Her late Majesty the Queen are removed and several new entries relating to His Majesty the King are added, including the coronation day. A new flag flying day will also be added for the birthday of the Queen Consort, and the date of the Prince of Wales’s birthday will be amended.
The Flags Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2000 provided that on certain designated days the Union flag, and in certain circumstances other flags, must be flown on Government buildings. For the purposes of the regulations, a Northern Ireland Government building is a building wholly or mainly occupied by members of the Northern Ireland civil service. The 2000 regulations also set out a number of so-called specified buildings at which the Union flag must be flown on the designated days in question. Those buildings were chosen as they are the headquarters of the Northern Ireland Government Departments. In 2002, the provisions of the regulations were extended to court buildings in Northern Ireland.
In January 2020, New Decade, New Approach saw the restoration of devolved government in Northern Ireland after an almost three-year impasse. That agreement contained a UK commitment to update
“the Flags Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2000 to bring the list of designated flag flying days from Northern Ireland government buildings and court-houses into line with the DCMS designated days, meaning the same designated days will be observed in Northern Ireland as in the rest of the UK.”
The draft regulations will align flag flying in Northern Ireland with the 2023 DCMS guidance and the policy followed across the rest of the UK. Prior to publishing the list of designated days, DCMS consulted a range of stakeholders, and the updated designated days reflect the wishes of the palace.
The Government’s approach to flag flying in Northern Ireland through the flags regulations has consistently sought to reflect Northern Ireland’s clear constitutional status as an integral part of the United Kingdom, as well as the reality of the different political aspirations and sensitivities across society in Northern Ireland.
The Flags (Northern Ireland) Order 2000 also requires that consideration be given by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to the Belfast/Good Friday agreement when making or amending flags regulations. I can confirm that the Secretary of State is satisfied that the draft regulations have regard to that agreement and treat flags and emblems in a manner that is respectful of Northern Ireland’s particular circumstances.
Our approach to flag flying in Northern Ireland through the flags regulations has consistently sought to reflect Northern Ireland’s clear constitutional status as part of the United Kingdom, as well as the reality of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement and the different political ambitions within society in Northern Ireland. The draft regulations align flag flying in Northern Ireland with the rest of the UK while ensuring that the Government continue to meet their commitments in New Decade, New Approach.
Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Nokes. I thank the Minister for bringing the regulations forward and I shall keep my remarks short.
This statutory instrument is pursuant to the accession to the throne of King Charles III and makes provisions for the flying of the Union flag over Government buildings in Northern Ireland on key days in his life and that of the Queen Consort. The sad passing of Queen Elizabeth II after 70 years of rule laid the foundations for these changes and I would like to take this opportunity to once again pay tribute to her for her lifetime of service. On visits to Northern Ireland, particularly in the later years of her reign, she advocated for the endurance of peace and reconciliation. That message still stands today.
The passing of a monarch invites a period of flux, which is felt keenly as we look to the coronation of King Charles III this weekend. It is vital that communities in Northern Ireland feel represented during these huge changes to our country. The regulations represent sad but necessary changes that need to be made, and we will support them. Going forward, it is important that communication with the parties in Northern Ireland remains strong. It is vital that we work in the best interests of the people of Northern Ireland in the absence of an Executive. I thank the Minister once again for bringing the regulations forward and ensuring that Northern Ireland continues to be a valued part of the United Kingdom.
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
I would be very grateful if the Minister could respond to a quick question about the language in the draft regulations, which refer to the Queen Consort. I thought that Her Majesty was now Queen Camilla, Her Majesty the Queen, and that the term Queen Consort was now otiose.
Mr Baker
I confess that my hon. Friend has me at a disadvantage and I cannot give him an authoritative answer today. I believe that Her Majesty will become the Queen after the coronation; that is my understanding and I will write to him to confirm the correct position.
I am most grateful to the Opposition and to all Members who have attended the Committee today. As I have said, the regulations seek to align flag flying days in Northern Ireland with those in the rest of the UK and we believe that they meet with general consent.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) (Amendment) Order 2023
Draft Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Commodity Derivatives and Emission Allowances) Order 2023
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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The Chair
There are two statutory instruments before the Committee. Is it the wish of the Committee that they be taken together?
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Gray. In recent months, I have been a member of several Delegated Legislation Committees for which the Government have put two instruments together to try to rush them through, or get them through. In some cases, the two have been connected in some way, not just because they are from the same Department but because they are thematically connected. Although that is not entirely desirable, we can see the rationale for it.
In this instance, however, we have two statutory instruments that are completely unconnected, besides their departmental interests. The first deals with the consequences of leaving the EU and the regulation of commodity groups; the second deals with consumer exposure to financial instruments. They are not the same thing. Taking them together necessarily means that hon. Members have to digest two quite complicated bits of legislation at the same time. I realise that for a lot of colleagues, holding more than one idea in their head is possible, but for a number of us, particularly given the complexity of cryptocurrency and its implications, that is a huge imposition. Putting the two instruments together will not, in my view, give us a coherent debate on what are two quite important bits of legislation.
The Chair
I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. If he wishes to do so, he can simply object to the two instruments being taken together, in which case they will be heard separately. My question to the Committee is therefore whether it is content that both statutory instruments be heard together.
The Chair
Objection taken. We will therefore consider the two statutory instruments separately—the first one being the draft Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Commodity Derivatives and Emission Allowances) Order 2023.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Andrew Griffith)
I beg to move that the Committee has considered the draft Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Commodity Derivatives and Emission Allowances) Order 2023.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. The Government have a clear vision for financial services: an open, sustainable and technologically advanced financial services sector that is globally competitive and acts in the interests of communities and citizens across all four nations of the UK.
The Chair
Order. I introduced the incorrect statutory instrument. We are actually debating the draft Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) (Amendment) Order 2023. I think the Minister was quite correctly addressing it, but I wanted to point out that I got it wrong in my introductory remarks.
Andrew Griffith
Thank you, Mr Gray. Two excellent proposals remain in front of the Committee.
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) (Amendment) Order 2023.
Over recent years, multiple reports by the cryptoassets taskforce and the Financial Conduct Authority have identified misleading advertising and a lack of suitable information as a key consumer protection issue in cryptoasset markets. The statutory instrument seeks to address those issues by ensuring that cryptoasset promotions are held to the same standards as broader financial services products carrying similar risks. The statutory instrument therefore proposes to expand the scope of the restrictions provided for by the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 by amending the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005 to include financial promotions in respect of in-scope cryptoassets.
Firms that are not authorised by the FCA will be required to have promotions of qualifying cryptoassets approved by an authorised firm unless an exemption applies. To avoid the unintended consequence of an effective ban on such promotions, the intention is to have a temporary exemption for firms registered with the FCA under its anti-money laundering regime. The intention is that promotions made under that exemption would still have to comply with the same rules set by the FCA for equivalent promotions made by authorised firms. When in force, the SI and the FCA rules will apply to all businesses making cryptoasset promotions to UK-based consumers, whether from the UK or abroad, so it is a valuable protection for UK consumers.
In order that firms have suitable time to understand and prepare for the regime, the SI proposes a four-month implementation period, which is intended to commence on publication of the FCA’s detailed rules, subsequent to the SI being made. That will reduce a key risk to consumers of suffering unexpected or large losses without regulatory protection as a result of buying cryptoasset products while unaware of the associated risks. That complements, and forms part of, our wider proportionate approach to regulation, harnessing the advantages of distributed ledger and crypto technologies while mitigating the most significant risks for consumers.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Gray. The Opposition will support the SI. In recent months, we have seen major scandals in the crypto sector, including the concerning activities of FTX; the collapse of so-called stablecoins, which saw the savings of millions of British people put at risk; and a surge in crypto-related crime and scams. It is therefore right that consumers are made aware of the significant dangers of purchasing cryptoassets, and that the companies promoting such assets are properly regulated.
I have a few questions that I wish the Minister to address. I am particularly concerned about the temporary exemption to allow cryptoasset businesses that are not authorised by the FCA but that are registered under anti-money laundering rules to communicate their own financial promotions. I know that the Minister will agree that the risks posed by the cryptoasset sector extend far beyond money laundering and include other forms of crime, such as many scams targeting the public, but how will the Government ensure that they have made it absolutely clear to the public that those firms are not authorised by the FCA, and that consumers are fully aware of the associated risks?
The organisation Positive Money, which the Minister will probably know, has made the case that if the Government are serious about an approach of “same risk, same regulatory outcome”, stablecoins should be regulated in a similar way to bank deposits. Has the Minister made an assessment of that proposal? If the Government plan to regulate stablecoins as e-money rather than as akin to bank deposits, how will the Treasury ensure that consumers are made fully aware that their funds are not covered by the financial services compensation scheme?
What work is the Minister doing to develop additional protections for consumers in this high-risk and volatile space? For example, has he considered requiring crypto firms to include risk warnings that make clear to investors the percentage of retail investor accounts that have lost money when trading cryptoassets, as is the case for firms offering spread betting and contracts for difference?
Finally, it is noticeable that the Government are making the distinction that non-fungible tokens are collectibles rather than financial investments. Does that mean that NFTs are not considered cryptoassets under the draft order? The Government recently U-turned on their instruction to the Royal Mint to issue an NFT as part of plans
“to make the UK a global hub for crypto asset technology and investment”.
Does the distinction made in the SI signal that the Government’s NFT offer has finally been abandoned?
The Chair
I call Kevin Brennan. Will Members stand up if they wish to speak? It is hard to see people.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
Thank you, Mr Gray —it is Peter Grant, by the way, not Kevin Brennan. I am sure that Kevin will be more insulted than I am if you mistake him for me.
Peter Grant
I can assure you I have been called worse, Mr Gray.
The Scottish National party, like the official Opposition, will not be opposing the draft order today, but I want to raise one or two points. I am concerned not about the way in which these transactions will be regulated, but about just how effective the arrangements will be. My concern is that the financial promotion regulation that we have for more traditional forms of financial products is not working. It is not protecting consumers. Too many of my constituents have lost a lot of money. I do not remember whether I have had discussions with the Minister about Blackmore Bond, which I have certainly discussed with a lot of his colleagues.
Peter Grant
I see from the Minister’s nodding that he knows what I am referring to. The Financial Conduct Authority just never got ahead of the chancers in the way that those bonds were being sold and promoted to innocent members of the public in my constituency and elsewhere. There is still an issue as to whether the Financial Conduct Authority takes seriously enough potential scams that may not break the economy, but will certainly cause untold harm to sometimes quite significant numbers of our constituents.
Will the Minister indicate what the Government are doing to make sure that the Financial Conduct Authority and others who are trying to regulate the crypto market have got the resources and expertise to do the job? If we are giving them more and more responsibilities and they are already saying that they do not have the resources they need to regulate as firmly as we would like, that means that significant additional resources will have to be put in. Will the Minister confirm whether, on the back of this order, there is an intention to increase the resourcing of the Financial Conduct Authority?
What are we going to do to make sure that where there are breaches, those who are in breach are brought to book much more quickly than often happens with more traditional promotions? One of the problems with any kind of e-commerce is that if things start to go wrong, they can go very wrong very quickly indeed. We need to make sure that the regulatory process can be speeded up.
Finally—this may be beyond the remit of the Minister today—what are the Government doing to make sure that when cases come to court, those hearing the cases understand what they are dealing with? A judge and jury trial in relation to these matters might not work, for example: where are we going to find a jury that understands the very fine points of technical detail that may be critical in deciding whether something is permitted or not permitted and therefore in deciding whether somebody is innocent or guilty?
My primary concern is whether those who will be asked to regulate under this new order will have the resources and the expertise necessary to make sure that they can do the job effectively.
Kit Malthouse
It is a pleasure to appear before you, Mr Gray. There are many reasons for not just consumers, but Governments, to fear cryptocurrency. The growth in cryptocurrency effectively represents a loss of control in nation states of our money supply, and a loss of control by co-ordinating nations across the world of the global money supply.
At the moment, cryptocurrency capitalisation, if you like, or gross valuation is anywhere between $1.2 trillion and $1.5 trillion, against a global liquid money supply of about $50 trillion, so it is not a huge percentage. Nevertheless, it could have an impact at the margin, and it is only going to grow. The Government should be careful about seeking to legitimise the use of cryptocurrency, not just among individual retail investors and users but among businesses. When I see this kind of legislation coming forward, I am not necessarily convinced that the full implication of the journey on which we are heading with cryptocurrency has been appreciated.
You will recall from your history studies, Mr Gray, the Dutch tulip bulb madness of, I think, the 18th century. Tulip bulbs became a form of currency, many a family were bankrupted to purchase one or two bulbs, and thereafter the market crashed. It was based on an imputed value of something that had no connection to reality. I am afraid that the same is true with bitcoin.
While bitcoin, ethereum and others—there are now hundreds, if not thousands, of these cryptocurrencies out there—are supposedly fungible and exchangeable, they effectively rely on trust between individuals as to the value, and an opinion of the value, unlike normal cash and assets such as the pound sterling or the dollar, which rely on the Government or the central bank standing behind the value of the currency. That makes them very different; it also makes them very volatile. There have been massive plunges in the value of bitcoin, for example, over the past few months: I think it is down something like 36% in just the past three to six months. That makes me wonder whether we want our constituents to be exposed to this currency—if it is one—at all.
In seeking to regulate the promotion of cryptocurrencies, the Government are, I am afraid, unwittingly giving them an element of legitimacy and bringing them into the same fold of investment as stocks and shares, bonds or anything that someone might put in their individual savings account. They will be promoted with a big banner headline, but at the bottom, tiny type that nobody reads will say, “The value of investments can go down as well as up. You could lose the farm, your house—everything—on this investment.”
Peter Grant
I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that the self-same weaknesses in the current system apply already to investment bonds and property development bonds. The issue is not the kind of scam asset that is being sold, but the fact that they are not being properly regulated, regardless of whether they are traditional investments or crypto investments.
Kit Malthouse
The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point. Of course, traditional investments very often have some foundation in reality. A stock or share very often has a company behind it that is producing revenue or otherwise. A bond will have the same thing. With bitcoin, all that is being sold is the assumption that somebody else will pay for that asset, even though there is no asset whatever that sits behind it. That is where it is subtly and importantly different.
The other thing to bear in mind is that cryptoassets are being overwhelmingly used in international organised crime. They have become the equivalent of the £50 note, in that they are being used by large international crime syndicates to move money around the world, largely undetected and unmolested by Governments. That is another major problem and a reason to be wary. As the Government regulates—and therefore brings into the fold and adds a veneer of legitimacy to—this form of exchange, they are effectively facilitating transfers between the illegitimate and criminal market and the legitimate market.
An individual will never know from whom or where their bitcoin is coming when they buy it from their investment adviser. It may well have been through the hands of several organised criminals before it gets to them, and unlike many £50 notes it will not bear traces of cocaine or heroin. We have seen the scale of the problem with cash in this country. The Bank of England has about £70 billion-worth of cash in notes and coins in circulation. Only about £20 billion is seen through the tills, so £50 billion is somewhere else. The Bank reckons that about £1.5 billion is in suitcases under the bed, held in cash savings or otherwise. The rest, I am pretty certain, is involved in crime. The same will be true, I am afraid, of so many of these cryptoassets.
I will not necessarily vote against the draft order, but the Government have to ask themselves whether they are legitimising a form of exchange that in the long term is likely to be damaging to the country’s economy and the global economy, and to those individuals who invest in it. For all the warnings that we put on things, once this sits alongside all the other investments that an independent financial adviser will offer, it becomes a legitimate option. At the moment, it is an esoteric investment available only to the most sophisticated of those looking to invest. I realise that that is growing every day, but when it gets a stamp of respectability I worry that it will become like the economic equivalent of cigarettes, which were out there for years causing millions of people to die of lung cancer before we stamped a health warning on them all. By then, they were just too legitimised for us to do anything about them. I worry about that in particular.
My second major point is about fraud and money laundering. I understand that one reason the Government want to bring cryptoassets into the fold is to give fraud and money laundering legislation greater purchase. However, we have to reflect on the fact that over the past 30 years we have had ever greater attempts by Governments of all stripes to introduce legislation to deal with fraud and money laundering yet it is worse than it ever was. Strangely, criminals worked out that they too had a passport and a utility bill and therefore found it fairly easy to open a bank account. We are certainly seeing much higher levels of money laundering, particularly around drugs, than there used to be, and that is now very much enabled by cryptocurrencies. Given how much more susceptible such currencies are to being used in money laundering, fraud and crime in general, because they are much less trackable and traceable, I would be interested to know from the Minister why the existing rules will make any difference at all.
My final point is about the exclusion of NFTs. As the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn said, although NFTs are carved out in this legislation and are deemed to be different because, thus far, they have largely been used as collectibles because they are supposedly digital works of art, there is growing evidence that they are being used as a means of exchange and that, slowly over time, they will become fungible. It will not be long before there will be—in fact, there already are—central exchanges of NFTs that mark a price on them. We will have classes of price for different NFTs that will make them, in effect, the same as bitcoin. If the Government aspire to bring in this regulation, they really ought to include NFTs. Two students in a back room with a bit of sophisticated computer programming knowledge can create a class of NFTs and sell them—and people do buy them, sometimes for thousands of pounds. The idea that they should be excluded from the regulation seems to me to be a bit strange.
To conclude, I am concerned that a Government running helter-skelter towards cryptocurrency are not looking far enough ahead at the consequences. I realise that there is now a global consensus that crypto is a good thing, and we cannot be like King Canute and stick our finger in the dam, but cryptocurrencies present questions about the controllability of economies in the future. No one has yet come up with a solution to the significant and escalating crime problem that cryptocurrencies represent. No one has actually answered the question, before we bring in this regulation, of whether we think retail consumers should have access to this asset class at all.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
I pay tribute to you in the Chair, Mr Gray, and look forward to contributing to this debate, but only to say this: King Canute would be horrified to find out that he was a Dutchman. King Canute was not a Dutchman and did not stick his finger in the dam. King Canute was the chap who tried to stop the tides from coming in and failed to do so. I just wanted to correct the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire on his metaphor.
Andrew Griffith
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brent North. I will attempt briefly to address Members’ concerns.
The fact that there is an exemption process is something that came out of the consultation, to which we responded. It is the way in which we can encompass regulation around what is currently an unregulated sector. It still requires the relevant firms to act as if and to comply with the FCA requirements in this area. It is not a bug; it is a feature. I hope the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn will accept that.
We did not talk too much about the specific regulations with which we expect the FCA to come forward. It is right that the purpose of this SI is to set out the overall structure, on the bones of which the FCA will put some flesh. Members will be interested to know, though, that the regulations will certainly encompass, for example, a 24-hour cooling-off period.
I will try to address the points of my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire separately—he gave an interesting tour around this space—but he is wrong to assert that the regulation for cryptoassets would be the same as that for stocks and shares or for bonds. Cryptoassets would form part of a high-risk group that required, for example, a 24-hour cooling-off period, which we do not apply to those other assets. They are therefore being regulated as high-risk assets.
The hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn mentioned stablecoins. The detailed regulations for them have yet to be seen. There are stablecoins backed by fiat currency, and the thrust of the regulations will ensure that people can have the highest level of trust that they are properly backed. As ever, I am happy to write to the hon. Lady.
I think that I wrote to the hon. Lady about the decision on NFTs—I certainly wrote to the Chair of the Treasury Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin). We have clearly delineated that because NFTs are—as in their name—non-fungible and we do not wish investors and consumers to confuse them with instruments of investment. That is important because the counterfactual that Members should consider is not that consumers are not exposed to promotions of cryptoassets. One does not have to go far—we have only to venture down into London’s fine underground—to find currently unregulated promotions, which expose consumers to all the risks without any of the protections. The statutory instrument seeks to rectify that.
My right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire gave quite a tour around the sector. He talked about money supply and cash fraud, on which he is obviously an expert. I would argue that by bringing cryptoasset promotions within the perimeter, we are not making the existing situation worse. Arguably, by imposing the FCA’s rigorous anti-money laundering measures and providing a greater incentive for more firms to come within them, we potentially add a clearly difficult task, on which I will not expand.
Kit Malthouse
I just want to take the Minister back to his point about NFTs. He said that they are not a form of investment, but I am afraid that they are. People are investing thousands of dollars in NFTs, and particular groups of NFTs, and effectively holding them as a collection as they would fine wine or art. They are certainly not a consumable. They are designed to hold value and to be disposed of at a future date, which is why NFT exchanges exist.
Secondly, does my hon. Friend accept that bringing NFTs into the investment fold grants them an air of legitimacy? We are saying, “This is a legitimate investment, notwithstanding the risk. We’ll give you some protections and the FCA will provide investment advice.” It makes such investment more legitimate than it otherwise would be.
Andrew Griffith
My right hon. Friend has not been dabbling in either tulips or NFTs, but just like, for example, the art market, they are not within the scope of financial regulations. We can revisit the subject. The purpose of today is to address the clear challenge before us: the number of unprotected consumers, whom all the evidence suggests are being exposed to the promotions. If my right hon. Friend wants to continue to engage in the debate, we shall do so, and I am sure that the Treasury Committee will keep a close eye on that. However, there are markets or perceived investments, whether they be tulips, art or NFTs, that do not fall within the scope of financial regulations and therefore we are not addressing them today.
The hon. Member for Glenrothes made points, which he has made directly to me in the past, that pertain to the regulations but are a bit more general and relate to the FCA’s conduct and effectiveness. He and I served on the Committee that considered the Financial Services and Markets Bill, which seeks to place greater duties and accountability on the FCA. I hope that he will continue to work on that, but will let the matter rest for today.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Commodity Derivatives and Emission Allowances) Order 2023
Andrew Griffith
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Commodity Derivatives and Emission Allowances) Order 2023.
This is like the main feature after the short film, for those of us who are old enough to remember that. The second instrument reduces the burdens that firms face when determining whether their trading in commodity derivatives or emission allowances require them to be authorised as an investment firm. Effective commodities markets regulation is key to ensuring that market speculation does not lead to economic harm. The regulator should be able to effectively regulate and supervise firms that trade commodity derivatives for investment purposes as their main role. However, as well as financial services firms, a number of businesses trade on commodity markets to protect their business from market fluctuations. In regulation that is referred to as trading that is ancillary to their main business.
We have inherited a regime from the EU that uses something called the ancillary activities test, which determines whether activities are primarily for investment purposes or support only the firm’s commercial business. That ancillary activities test requires firms to undertake complex calculations. They are also required to notify the FCA about the outcome of the calculations on an annual basis. Taken together, the regime is overly burdensome for firms. Prior to the implementation of the EU ancillary activities test, the UK had a simpler test for determining whether firms were trading in commodity derivatives or emission allowances as an ancillary activity. It was cheaper for firms to comply with and resulted in the same outcomes as the current regime.
In 2021, as part of the wholesale markets review, the Government consulted on reverting to that simpler regime, which maintains the same regulatory outcome. The proposal was to remove the annual notification requirement and revert to a principles-based approach. Respondents to that consultation agreed with the proposed changes, stating that the current regime was onerous and complicated. Consequently, the Government committed to bringing forward those changes when we responded to the consultation in 2022. Today’s SI delivers that. It will pave the way for the FCA to adopt a simpler and more streamlined approach to determining whether firms need to be authorised, alongside this SI.
To reflect the FCA’s adoption of that simpler approach, the instrument also amends part of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities) Order 2001, which exempts firms from having to perform the current calculation. As the FCA’s new approach will be based on different information, that exemption is no longer relevant. The SI will not come into force until 1 January 2025, to ensure that industry has sufficient time to reflect on the changes that the FCA will make, and to make the necessary system changes. I understand that the FCA plans to consult on its changes later this year.
The measure will reduce costs for firms and make the UK a more attractive place to do business, with no detriment to our high regulatory standards. I therefore commend it to the Committee.
Tulip Siddiq
The Opposition support the SI, and recognise that the current ancillary activities test, onshored into UK legislation from the EU rulebook, is too complicated. My only question for the Minister is how the Government will work with the FCA to ensure that relevant stakeholders are consulted on a new test.
Kit Malthouse
I am grateful for your indulgence a second time, Mr Gray. Again, in delving into the details of the legislation, I wish to urge a little caution about this regulatory approach. The trading of commodities and, in particular, commodities futures can have a huge impact on the price our constituents pay for ordinary goods in their everyday lives. In history, attempts have been made to manipulate those prices. In the 1950s, two traders attempted to corner the onion futures market in the United States. That resulted in the Onion Futures Act, which is still extant in the US and forbids the trading of onion futures. Similarly, we saw—in the 1980s, I believe—a 10-year project by a trader at Sumitomo bank to corner the copper market, which eventually collapsed and failed. The trading of commodities and commodities futures, particularly at a time when there is more and more algorithmic trading and artificial intelligence being used in trading, means that we should take care in this complicated area of regulation and legislation.
One thing I could not find in the information given to us on this SI was why the current rules were introduced. What problem were they trying to solve? I acknowledge the supposed cost of these calculations, while being a little sceptical about them, given the amount of automation that so many of these traders use. Nevertheless, that rationale has not been offered to us, so I would be grateful if the Minister explained why the original rules were devised as they were and what problem they were deemed to be solving. In the past few months, we have learned that we need to take care because our regulatory organisations are not always watertight on looking at systemic and structural risk in financial markets, commodities or otherwise.
Barry Gardiner
I was listening to the right hon. Gentleman’s argument on onion futures trading. How does he reconcile that? Does it not give the lie to his argument about NFTs? It shows precisely that anything can be traded as a derivative in that way and therefore there would be no specific reason—he previously outlined this—to put NFTs into the other regulation. I find that his arguments conflict.
The Chair
I call Kit Malthouse, to respond specifically on the SI that we are considering.
The Chair
No, no. You do not need to respond to it all, just specifically to points that relate to the instrument.
Kit Malthouse
Okay. Well, in all circumstances my view is that we need to take care about the extent of regulation, and whether and how we include things within a regulatory envelope. I just ask that people take care. My first question to the Minister was: why were the previous rules adopted as they were? What problem were they deemed to be solving? Why will that problem not reoccur with these rules? Paragraph 7.7 of the explanatory notes to this SI states that
“since the test and annual notification was introduced in 2018, no UK firms have exceeded the threshold of speculative trading activity and therefore the requirement to inform the FCA about the outcome of the ATT every year was particularly burdensome.”
That is a cause-and-effect argument. The fact that no firm has exceeded the limits for speculative trading may be because the limits were in place and there was a notification requirement. Obviously those limits for speculative trading were there for a reason: some kind of systemic threat was deemed to be posed, either to the individual organisation or to the market as a whole. I guess I am asking: what problem are we solving here, other than cost to these firms, and are we exposing ourselves to future problems?
The Minister will know that part of the calculation is the market share test, which does what it says on the tin: it works out who is trading the largest part of any particular market and therefore whether their trading is likely to present any kind of risk, either to other participants in the market or to the market as a whole. With the abandonment of this test for a number of organisations that, in effect, do not have to record that their trading is only ancillary, the calculation that they are doing, which they now do not have to do, is not revealing how much of the market they either individually or collectively make up. Given the example of the Bank of England and the structural problem that liability-driven investment phenomenon in pension funds caused us, I am concerned that we may be exposing ourselves to a structural problem here, without knowing.
My final point is about the dynamics of the market. As the Minister will know, when trading in commodity futures, whether on one’s own account or speculatively as a hedge fund, one is relying on one’s counterparty in that trade being good for the money or the commodity—whichever comes to fruition. When we remove regulation from a section of the market, we are not necessarily providing the kind of reassurance that others might need when they look to their counterparty risk in futures trading in particular.
When I contemplate trading in whatever it might be, whether it be in copper futures or something else, and I am trading with counterparties in that market, some will be FCA regulated and others will not be. How will that be reflected in the market, as I necessarily trade in the commodities that I have, and therefore what greater risk is being presented to me as a trader within the market? While I understand the Minister’s admirable desire to deregulate where he can and save money for firms—although as I said, I would be interested, given the level of automation, in understanding exactly what cost is required—I am concerned that we are unwittingly creating further problems for ourselves. What risk assessment has the Minister done of those problems occurring?
Andrew Griffith
I shall be brief. I am happy to be guided by the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn; she should let me know if there is anyone she would particularly like to be consulted as the FCA brings forward rules. This is the third consultation in the process, so it will be fairly well sighted on the interested parties, but, as ever, one would encourage the widest range of participants. That is certainly the way that we seek to make and inform policy, and I know that the FCA will also seek to do so.
My right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire will forgive me; he used the word “trading” repeatedly, so let me be very clear that this is not the regulation of those who are trading in commodities. By their very definition, they would not be able to take advantage of this measure. This is for the manufacturer of an engine who seeks to place their order for copper some months in advance—those who are using a commodities market, but not for the purpose of trading. With this measure, we are reverting to the situation prior to 2018, when a piece of European legislation came into a regulatory environment that was working perfectly well, in which no one had diagnosed any problem. There was a pragmatic way for businesses to operate and then the bar was raised. We now have the opportunity simply to revert to the situation prior to the introduction of that legislation.
Kit Malthouse
I understand the Minister’s point. I am aware of the fact that it is perfectly possible for a company that is trading in a commodity to have futures trading, which is what we are talking about here—commodity derivatives trading—as an ancillary function of its overall business. For example, the Man Group, of which I am sure the Minister is aware, started as a cocoa and sugar ordinary trader. It had a small derivatives department, which was actually algorithmic black box trading—commodity trading adviser trading—which grew and grew. In the early days of the Man Group, under the test, that would have been ancillary to their trading. Nevertheless, it would have been a reasonably big part of the market.
Andrew Griffith
I suspect that neither my right hon. Friend nor I would know the exact application of that test. Clearly, the Man Group would look very much like a very large trading outfit, with all its revenue derived from a source of trading, rather than the purchase of being an end user. However, we are reverting to the original position. Let us be clear: whether it is onions or the Man Group, it would have fallen within the scope of this test in 2018 and we seek to simply revert to that.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2023
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2023.
It is a pleasure to have you in the Chair this evening, Mr Vickers. The draft regulations were laid before the House on 23 March. The purpose of the statutory instrument is to make nine minor amendments to the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 as applied to groundwater activities.
Groundwater is a critical national resource. It provides a clean and reliable source of drinking water, plays a vital role across many industry sectors and supports our ecosystems. The Government are committed to ensuring that the quality of our groundwater resources is protected. In the face of growing pressures from climate change and population growth, it is important to optimise the regulatory tools available for managing and protecting groundwater.
The Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 are an effective tool for managing groundwater activities. However, several limitations with the way the regulations implement groundwater protections have been identified, and that has led to inconsistencies in approach in the wider environmental permitting regulations regime. Those limitations can be resolved by the nine amendments, which will support many industries by reducing regulatory burden and costs; facilitating green energy production from, for example, geothermal and ground source heat pumps; and promoting growth, and so they will accelerate permit delivery.
I stress in particular that the statutory instrument aims to provide the Environment Agency with what is really an improved hierarchy of regulatory controls for groundwater activities. It in no way reduces protection of groundwater. These amendments create the right regulatory conditions to promote and allow innovation in the wider circular economy, allowing the appropriate and safe re-use of materials where it is environmentally acceptable.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
The Minister will know that in former mining areas, we still have lots of former mine workings where mine water interacts with groundwater. Could she reassure us that there is no loosening of the controls here, and that stuff cannot be done to move that water around and risk having dirty water put where we do not want it? There is nothing here that changes that protection at all, is there?
Rebecca Pow
I thank my hon. Friend for that really important point. I stress that we are not changing the permits that are already in place and that, critically, must be in place; in fact, we are opening up the opportunity to have a better look at how the whole system works. Indeed, some things will now need to be permitted that were previously not looked at as closely as the mines, for example, so I can give my hon. Friend that reassurance.
Currently, groundwater activities can be permitted only through the use of bespoke environmental permits, which are the highest level of permits—they would relate to coal mines and so forth. My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley raised a good point, and that will not change. However, in many cases it can result in unnecessary costs and, in some cases, unnecessary regulatory burden to business. The statutory instrument will give the regulators the ability to grant other types of permits, such as standard rules permits and mobile plant permits. These non-bespoke permits are significantly less costly and will reduce the administrative burden on businesses while, importantly, maintaining environmental standards. The statutory instrument will also introduce exemptions from the requirement to have an environmental permit for new cemeteries that pose a low risk of pollution to the groundwater environment.
The public consultation that we conducted on all the measures that I am describing received 264 responses, and almost all the proposals received majority support. The only exception was the proposal on cemeteries, which received some significant opposition. I have engaged with our all-party parliamentary group for funerals and bereavement, and I met them to listen to all their views. The APPG, too, consulted widely in the industry, so following the feedback and further discussion with key stakeholders, adjustments have been made to the cemetery-specific amendments to enable greater clarity and ease of implementation.
Clarity has been added to the draft statutory instrument so that existing cemeteries will be exempt automatically from permitting, unless the regulators are made aware of proven groundwater pollution. The adjustments have been tested in targeted engagement with stakeholders. Controls will be applied to prevent groundwater pollution by currently uncontrolled pollutants such as heat and micro-organisms.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
If I understand paragraph 7.15 of the explanatory notes correctly—that is the one about exemptions for cemeteries from the requirement for an environmental permit—the draft regulations will mean that existing cemeteries do not need an environmental permit, and new cemeteries will be exempt if their risk of pollution is calculated as being low, but there will be some further explanation of that definition of low risk. Is that correct?
Rebecca Pow
I thank my hon. Friend for being so clear, because that is exactly what is stated. If a cemetery is in an area where there might be some implications for the groundwater, the Environment Agency will become involved and permits might be needed. I will get some clearer detail in a minute, but with particular procedures in some burials—potentially involving certain chemicals—one might want permits to be involved. I can get more clarity on that for my closing speech, if that is all right with him.
Heat is now being added as a pollutant. The majority of closed-loop ground heat pump activities will be exempt from the requirement to have an environmental permit. That is to deal with the growth in the ground source heat pump industry. The fact is that they are closed-loop systems—the water is not going into the ground, because it is in a closed loop—so they are considered to be suitable for exemption from requirements unless they are near a protected site or ancient woodland, in which case they would need a permit, just to be super-sure that there is no potential impact from any heat on the flora.
The draft statutory instrument will also help to fix a loophole in the general binding rules for small sewage discharges, which are being exploited, resulting in harm to nearby environmental habitats and local water quality. Thus, the new rules will reduce the risk of groundwater pollution. An example of that is caravan sites, where landowners might be escaping the need for any kind of regulation because each caravan gets rid of its own sewage, instead of it all coming into one area. The measure is considered necessary and was raised in the consultation.
The existing wording of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 is unclear about the defence that applies to the breach of permit conditions. The draft statutory instrument will help to bring clarity around the liability of sewerage undertakers for breaches of permit conditions that are due to specific circumstances beyond their control. One example of such a breach is an unlawful discharge of waste water into the sewer that breaches the chemical limits of the water company’s permit. The statutory instrument clarifies all that. It does not reduce any protections; in a way, it strengthens them.
The current list of exemptions from the prohibition on direct discharges to groundwater needs to be updated to bring regulations in line with current operational practices and facilitate energy recovery and the latest green technology. The instrument updates that list. There will be a requirement for operators of onshore oil and gas facilities to apply to surrender their groundwater activity permits. They will need to satisfy the regulators that any pollution issues are remediated and that there are no ongoing risks to the groundwater environment at the point of decommissioning or that may arise in future. This measure will ensure that the environment is better protected.
The draft regulations will bring about benefits for groundwater quality, reduce unnecessary costs to businesses and help to ensure that Government resources are being used most effectively to protect and preserve groundwater quality for future generations.
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
It is good to see you in the Chair, Mr Vickers; I think this is the first time that I have served under your chairmanship. It is good to join with the Minister and colleagues from around the House this evening. I suspect that colleagues of all parties would probably prefer to be out knocking doors as we approach Thursday, but there is no better place to be discussing the policy of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs than with you, Mr Vickers, and the Minister.
The proposed changes contained in the statutory instrument seek to improve the regulatory tools available to the Environment Agency. We therefore have no plans to oppose the legislation this evening, but before anyone rushes to the door, there are a number of outstanding questions that I want the Minister to address now or in writing after the sitting. As colleagues will know, the regulations make amendments to the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 in relation to the management and protection of groundwater quality in England. I note that regulation 3 makes amendments to definitions in regulation 2 of the 2016 regulations and inserts several new definitions in that provision, for example a definition of groundwater mobile plant. Will the Minister outline what engagement took place with stakeholders and experts in the drafting of those new definitions?
Regulation 4 makes amendments to regulation 24 of the 2016 regulations, to the effect that environmental permits for activities relating to hydrocarbon exploration or extraction, or that intersect a hydrocarbon formation, may be surrendered by notifying the Environment Agency. The hon. Member for Amber Valley raised that point earlier. It would be helpful to know exactly what that notification process looks like, and what discussions have taken place with the Environment Agency to ensure that there is a speedy process for receiving said notifications.
Regulation 5 makes amendments to parts 2 and 3 of schedule 3 to the 2016 regulations, which deals with exempt facilities and waste operations to which section 33(1)(a) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 does not apply. The amendments have the effect that certain closed-loop ground source heating and cooling systems and low environmental risk burials at new cemeteries or new extensions of cemeteries are exempt, so long as the conditions set out in the new provision are met. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Gloucester for asking a question about that and to the Minister for clarifying the situation. The Committee knows why cemeteries are exempt, but it would be helpful to know what the monitoring process is for those conditions and what enforcement there will be if they are not met.
Regulation 6 makes amendments to paragraph 6 of schedule 21 to the 2016 regulations, which deals with liability resulting from the discharge of sewage effluent from public sewers. The Minister will not be surprised to know that that part of the draft regulations has raised questions, not least with our constituents, who are concerned about the waste in their waters. It would be helpful to hear what recent engagement there has been between her Department and the leadership of Britain’s water companies. Will she also set out what further powers the Government plan to give the Environment Agency to ensure that we can finally clean our water, as Labour will when we are in government?
The draft regulations are broadly technical, so I hope that my questions will allow for a greater dive into the detail. I look forward to a clear, detailed response from the Minister and her officials.
Rebecca Pow
Thank you, Mr Vickers; that gives me no time to get my answers together. I thought that perhaps our former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth, would contribute.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
Can I give the Minister some more time?
Rebecca Pow
Shall I begin, and then I will be delighted to answer the right hon. Member’s question? I am very grateful to the shadow Minister for her comments, and for being helpful and constructive in allowing me to say a bit more about one or two of the items that I mentioned.
The measure will optimise the regulatory tools available to us for managing and protecting groundwater quality. It will not reduce protections; indeed, it will strengthen them, giving the EA a greater range of tools. That is something that business and industry have come to us about in many different areas. The new tools will be more proportionate to the risk. If matters are deemed to be very low risk, the EA will be more generic in its approach. Other more complex areas will continue to be bespoke, as at present with the mines and so forth. Some responses will therefore be less costly, and potentially more speedily delivered. For example, if the EA has to react to a discharge, it might speed up its response. There are an awful lot of positives in improving the hierarchy of regulatory controls for groundwater. Including extra pollutants such as heat will be of great benefit.
On the mobile plant question, again, this is something that business and industry asked for particularly in the consultation. It is a well-recognised term used for waste activities. It is long established, and a lot of discussion went on with industry about it.
Reference was also made to cemeteries. Exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester described, a new cemetery will not need to get a permit unless there are deemed to be specific reasons for one, in which case the Environment Agency will work with the cemetery operator to ensure that the right conditions are met. A permit might be needed if the cemetery were near a vulnerable aquifer, or if there were a significant number of burials. Say there was a terrible incident, or something like that—no, I will not say that. Also, if a cemetery were in close proximity to vulnerable water users, public water suppliers, private water suppliers or chalk streams, a permit would be considered. I hope that that gives a bit more clarity.
Ruth Jones
I am grateful to the Minister for describing and outlining examples, but the question was more about the monitoring process. How is this going to be monitored and what will the enforcement process be?
Rebecca Pow
We have a well-established process for the regional monitoring of groundwater. Any long-term trends in quality and in what is found in the groundwater are monitored, and we have research programmes looking into the impact at regulated facilities. I hope that helps to clarify that that is an important part of checking that what is in place is doing the right thing. Just out of interest, areas that might not need a permit are clay areas or areas where there are very small numbers of burials. I hope that that has dealt with the death section of this SI.
The shadow Minister asked about the onshore oil and gas industry’s surrendering of permits. An oil and gas operator can send a notification to the Environment Agency stating that it no longer requires a permit for its discharge. An application to surrender the environmental permit will require evidence to demonstrate that there has been no impact on the environment from that discharge at the onshore oil and gas site. This amendment will ensure that there are no ongoing risks to the groundwater environment at the point of decommissioning, or any future likelihood of pollution occurring. I hope that that answers the question.
John McDonnell
Before I vote on these things, I do occasionally try to understand them. Paragraph 7.22 of the explanatory notes clarifies the defence of sewerage undertakers who are in breach of permit conditions. That relates to regulation 7(c), which inserts new sub-paragraph (5A) into schedule 22 to the 2016 regulations. New sub-paragraph (5A) states that a sewerage undertaker is not guilty of an offence, first, if it did not do it —understood—and, secondly, if it
“could not reasonably have been expected to prevent the discharge into the sewer or works.”
Understood. But sub-paragraph (5A)(b) states that the undertaker is not in breach if it
“was not bound to receive the discharge into the sewer or works or was bound to receive it there subject to conditions which were not observed”.
That seems to be a huge blanket exemption from the sewerage undertaker’s responsibility for ensuring that discharge is leaked properly and complies with any conditions attached. If the Minister wants to clarify the answer to that question in writing, I am happy for her to do so.
Rebecca Pow
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that, and he is absolutely right that it is important to understand what we are talking about. This is very detailed. I do have some notes here, but if it suits him, I will put the answer to his question in writing, and I will share it with the shadow Minister as well, because I think it is important to clarify that. We have done so, because we have updated that particular section of the explanatory notes, but I will get back to him on that.
I think that brings me to the end of my points. I thank the shadow Minister for supporting this SI, albeit with some testy questions, and I commend it to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
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Marine Protected Areas
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Marine Protected Areas.
It is a pleasure to take part in this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I am grateful to have the opportunity to debate this issue again, which is one that I feel passionately about and I intend to keep pushing on.
This is not the first time I have pursued this matter on the Floor of the House. Two years ago, I brought forward a private Member’s Bill, the Marine Protected Areas (Bottom Trawling) Bill, with the objective of banning bottom trawling in marine protected areas. Since then, I have been pleased with what the Government have done. They have taken the first steps in the right direction by banning bottom trawling in areas that are particularly important. We were not able to do that when we were part of the common fisheries policy. That Government have made a good start, but while the intent is good, progress is not yet rapid enough and planned measures not extensive enough to provide adequate protection to key species around our shoreline.
I want to set out the measures that are essential if we are to protect and restore a thriving ecosystem around our shores. I do not believe that this needs to be done at the expense of the fishing industry—indeed, it must not be done at its expense. I see no reason why fishing boats from ports around the UK cannot continue to do the important job that they do today. What must stop is the situation where large, industrial-scale boats are able to scalp our seabeds, towing huge mechanisms behind them to hoover up marine life, without regard to what gets trapped in their nets. That is what has got to stop.
Outside the EU, we have a chance to pursue a different course. As we approach the review of the post-Brexit arrangements—that is not too far away now—we need to make sure that we do not leave nature behind when planning the future of the industry. The starting point is our marine protected areas. I have said it before: most people would be astonished to discover that marine protected areas are not really properly protected at all.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
Despite measures to protect marine protected areas from damaging fishing gear, ecosystems were subjected to more than 130,000 hours of industrial fishing in 2022; 7,000 of them involved the use of destructive bottom-towed fishing gear. Does the right hon. Member agree that current Government measures are not sufficient to protect MPAs from detrimental fishing practices?
Chris Grayling
The hon. Member makes an important point about the nature of the equipment and the damage it does to the seabed. I think the Government have made a good start in the process, but there is a way to go.
I want all our marine protected areas to have the same protections that have been introduced to the Dogger Bank. I hope that, after this debate, the Minister and officials will get a move on. The job is not nearly completed. We now have the first four or five areas protected. The Dogger Bank is particularly important, and that is a good start, but every day of needless destruction in other marine protected areas causes more damage to our ecosystems, which will take years and years to restore.
My message to the Minister today, first and foremost, is that we need to get on with stopping these destructive practices altogether. That is why I have particularly focused on bottom trawling. If we destroy the seabed and the habitat of the creatures that live on it, we also deeply damage the food chain for the fish who live there. In doing so, we compound the problem for our fish stocks. To my mind, there is a benefit to the fishing industry in sorting out adequate, proper and appropriate protections for marine life. I do not believe that there are any fishing communities around the UK that want to destroy our fish stocks and create a situation where fishing is unsustainable.
We must prevent the most damaging practices—big industrial trawlers, often coming from continental ports, towing vast mechanisms behind them—simply scalping the seabed and leaving a trail of destruction. We have to take a wholly new approach to managing fish stocks and supporting the industry. As stocks diminish, the industry has had to go further and further afield to stay in business. Our focus therefore must be on helping our fish stocks to recover. Proper protection in marine protected areas is an essential part of that.
If people do not engage in damaging fishing practices and there is only limited scale local fishing, marine protected areas become a breeding ground for new fish. Those fish will spread outside of the protected areas. Fish stocks have shown signs of really recovering in the small number of highly protected marine areas around our shores, and in the waters around them. That approach is beneficial to the fishing industry as well as being of absolute importance to our natural ecosystems. We must step up our approach to restoring the marine environment and managing it well so that both nature and fishing can flourish.
My first ask of the Minister—it is one of a number—is to drive forward with bans on damaging fishing practices in marine protected areas. There really is no reason why that cannot be done in the current Parliament. Let us take responsibility. We have done some great things in government, including taking the legislative framework for nature protection further than it has ever been before. Before we get to a general election, let us be able to say to the country that we have completed the job, that we have provided those protections in the MPAs and that we have done what we started out to do. My message to the Minister is: please, let us get on with it.
We must also take a further step forward and provide even greater protections for our most important waters. As recommended by the Benyon review, I want to see highly protected marine areas around our shores. In such areas, no extractive activity is permitted, and nature can be left to its own devices. In the few areas around the UK where really tough protections have been put in place already, there has been a resultant rapid increase in local marine populations. That has happened only on a very small scale in the UK, but the results have been dramatic. It benefits the surrounding fisheries because if an area’s nature, fish stocks and ecosystems are given a chance to recover, surrounding areas have better fish stocks and healthier marine life. If we look after nature, the benefits work for everyone.
My second request to the Minister is this: let us move to designate our most important ecological areas as highly protected marine areas. If we ban all extractive activity in those areas to help them to recover, we will provide a real boost to the surrounding seas too. I say that fully in the knowledge that we must find a balance for the fishing industry; we cannot just close the fishing industry off from large areas of the waters that it has fished for centuries. However, it is also in the interests of the industry that there are patches where we provide complete protection.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The right hon. Gentleman is being sufficiently general in his terms that I do not think that anyone, even from the fishing industry, would disagree with him. However, he may want to look northwards to the experience of the Scottish Government with their consultation on highly protected marine areas. There is a great deal of advantage in hastening slowly in this area. The right hon. Gentleman really must bring fishing, coastal and island communities with him. Otherwise, he will end up doing something that is ultimately counterproductive to fish conservation. If the right hon. Gentleman can demonstrate the benefits in a small number of areas first, there will be more support from coastal and island communities.
Chris Grayling
I absolutely take on board the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the need to do this in stages. It is still more important to do this in partnership with the fishing industry and with fishing communities as well. Where there are highly protected marine areas, communities are seeing the benefits. I am not in favour of barging in and saying, “This area of sea that you currently use is closed from tomorrow.” Let us talk to them and work with them to designate areas in a way that works for those communities and for marine life. Let us not approach this on the basis that there should be no more marine protected areas or highly protected marine areas. This can be made to work for both sides.
Mr Carmichael
The right hon. Gentleman has to bear this point in mind. He wants to exclude fishermen for rewilding purposes, but fishermen find themselves excluded from other fishing opportunities as well because of cables, pipelines, aquaculture and offshore renewables. It is a salami-slicing effect. Does he agree that if we are to be effective in creating marine protected areas, or highly protected marine areas, we have to look at it in the round, and not just the HPMAs in isolation?
Chris Grayling
I accept that we need to look strategically at all our waters to see what the right approach is, but I do not think this is something we can simply not do. The need to protect and restore the ecology around our shores is such that we must take bold steps, although we should take those steps fully aware of the potential impact on coastal communities, and work in full consultation with those communities to identify the best places on which to focus. This is not something we can avoid doing, or even try to avoid doing. We need to step up the pace to provide protections where it is appropriate and most important to do so.
Margaret Ferrier
I thank the right hon. Member for being generous and giving way again. The 2015 figures show that 341,000 people were employed full time in the marine economy, with sectors such as marine transport, defence and oil and gas among the largest employers. Does he agree that the Government must balance employment and environmental concerns to ensure that the UK marine economy moves forward in a sustainable manner?
Chris Grayling
I do not think that there is any contradiction between high-quality environmental protection and employment, and indeed the welfare of communities. It is paramount that we get the marine ecology piece right. We have done so much damage to nature in this country that, frankly, it is to our benefit and our children’s benefit that we start to turn back the clock.
I will touch on another area where there has been a loss that needs to be restored.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman is being generous with his time. Before he moves on to another point, I want to follow the previous interventions by accepting that the development of protected areas has to have the support of local fisherpeople. That was the experience of the sites off Lyme Regis and elsewhere in the country.
I am a member of the Science and Technology Committee. From time to time we and other Select Committees have called on the Government to be quicker in their implementation while consulting. Will the right hon. Gentleman, who is experienced in government, give us any insight as to why it has taken more than 10 years to develop the sites this far?
Chris Grayling
Most immediately, we are only recently free of the common fisheries policy, so it was never that straightforward. We now have the opportunity to get a move on, though. That is why I set a goal for Ministers for this Parliament. I see no reason why we cannot provide, in the course of this Parliament, a ban on bottom trawling in marine protected areas. It does huge damage to the seabed and to ecosystems. Most members of the public in this country, and frankly most people in coastal communities, will be amazed to discover that a large continental fishing boat dragging huge amounts of equipment behind it can scour the seabed. To my mind, that is the first priority. The second is to start looking at additional areas, as the Benyon review recommended, where localised no-take areas can be put in place to help the ecology recover.
My next point is about the seabed itself, which is crucial. We hear a lot about the need to plant trees and reforest degraded areas. As hon. Members know, I am passionate about my view that deforestation is a blight internationally and needs to be reversed. However, the loss of seabed habitats—kelp and seagrass—also has a big ecological impact, and we must deal with that as well. We have seen huge loss of seagrass beds around the world and around this country. Restoring and expanding the seagrass and kelp beds on our shores and under our waters is important because it helps local marine ecosystems and is a rather quicker way of absorbing carbon than planting a tree. The Government and all those who work in this field should be eagerly pursuing the opportunity for this country to contribute to our 2050 net zero goal by restoring the traditional kelp and seagrass beds around our shores.
My third request to the Minister is, therefore, for regulatory and financial support for those working to restore seagrass beds and kelp forests. We have lost 90% of our seagrass beds, with a corresponding loss of small marine creatures; many species are vulnerable to disappearing altogether. That would be a sensible, logical part of the good Government strategy over the coming decade of turning around the loss of nature in this country. Of course, there is a financial benefit too, and groups that work in this field have highlighted a number of areas where the UK can benefit financially from a smarter approach to marine protection, but it is not about money. It is just the right thing to do. It is also necessary to protect our future.
I very much hope that the Minister will follow up on all three of those requests, but I also want to touch on an area outside the United Kingdom: the future of the marine areas we do not control around the world. I pay tribute to the UK team that played an active part in the recent negotiations to secure the international agreement on the future of our oceans. As they did at the COP summit, the Government have continued to play a leading role internationally in seeking better protection for and the recovery of nature. That is clearly a very good thing, and Ministers and officials should take credit for it.
Margaret Ferrier
I commend the ethos behind the blue planet fund and the Government’s commitment to aid developing countries in protecting marine environments, but it is vital that the many workers in the microplastic industry are given the opportunity to transition into alternative jobs. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the blue planet fund must be inclusive and sensitive to the economic realities of developing countries?
Chris Grayling
We clearly have to be sensitive to the issues in developing countries, but they do not benefit from a damaged environment. I see this proposal as beneficial to everyone on the planet. I do not see any downside to living on a cleaner, greener planet. It will bring different kinds of job opportunities. There are many opportunities across the developing world—renewable energy is an opportunity in parts of the world that are hotter and windier than the UK—so it is not an either/or. There are benefits to pursuing an environmental strategy and an economic strategy.
International agreements are all well and good, but to make those strategies work, it is action that matters. Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing around the world remains a huge problem, despite the international community’s readiness to talk positively about growing the number of marine protected areas around the world. That is a good thing, but those areas have to be protected. Illegal activity is doing real damage around the world. It is making fish stocks much less sustainable, and is having a big negative impact on smaller coastal communities. One of the key steps to deal with that problem and to protect our marine protected areas is to require every fishing vessel around the world to have satellite monitoring devices on board and to keep them switched on. Even in our own waters, boats occasionally go dark, but elsewhere it is a particular problem. I will be grateful if the Minister touches briefly on what the Government are and will be doing to address this issue.
There is also a job to be done onshore. I have long argued for a system of food labelling in this country that indicates clearly how sustainable the product and its supply chain are. A lot of the focus has been on products such as palm oil from south-east Asia and soy from Brazil, and we need to keep pushing on those issues. It is very much a current problem: recently, beef from deforested areas of Brazil ended up on Tesco shelves. We in this House should clearly keep the pressure up, to ensure that we bring about the right international pressure against deforestation, and that the Government do what they can to move us in the right direction.
We really have to step up progress on food labelling. When the Environment Act 2021 was before Parliament, I pushed the issue of moving towards a system of sustainable food labelling. Ministers made encouraging noises, and committed to doing work on that, which I know they are, although I want to see it happen straightaway, or pretty much straightaway. May I ask the Minister to give the Chamber an update on that work and on when we can expect a proper sustainable food labelling system to come to fruition? Unless and until we can demonstrate to consumers that the products they are buying are from sustainable sources, or that they are not, so consumers can take a decision not to buy them, we will not bring to bear the full weight of consumer power on this issue.
There are always limits to what Governments can do, but consumer power, harnessed in the right way, can probably make a bigger difference than any politician can. We need to bring the full strength of consumer power to bear on marine protection, environmental protection, combating deforestation, and creating a greener, more nature-friendly world. That is basically my message to the Minister. Let us get on with completing the work on banning bottom trawling from all marine protected areas. Let us start the process of going further in expanding highly protected areas, though not in a way that completely cripples the local fishing industry. Let us work with the industry to do that, but let us get a move on to make it happen. Let us do what we can around the world to turn the recent international agreements on illegal fishing into action.
Let us move to bring in sustainable food labelling in this country, and let us continue to focus, on both sides of the House, on the protection and restoration of nature, whether it is seagrass beds, kelp forests or the things that we need to do on land. This is an agenda that the nation increasingly feels passionate about. There is a real need for action before further damage is done, but the opportunity is enormous. We can make a real difference over the next decade, so my message to the Minister and the Government is please get on with it.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
As always, it is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Sharma. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) on securing the debate. I know that he is passionate about this issue. I agree with everything that he said, except the little blip about the common fisheries policy being responsible for everything; he would not expect me to agree on that.
It has been a long time since the last Labour Government drew up plans for an ecologically coherent network of marine protected areas around our coast. Since then, I have served on the Environmental Audit Committee. We did really good reports into the fact that what we really had was a system of little more than paper parks, where protections were not properly enforced. It was far from coherent. Obviously, the Benyon review was important, but it seemed to me yet another way of kicking things into the long grass. We are still nowhere near the position in which we need to be.
I will focus on one specific point, and suggest one way of ensuring that marine protected areas are genuinely protected, not just now but in perpetuity, and not polluted or plundered for the sake of short-term gains. Rather than looking at what we should not do in those areas, I will look at positive interventions—what we can do to create more value in these areas and give more people a vested interest. I hope that people would be motivated by the need to protect the planet and a love of biodiversity and our marine environment, but we know that financial interests can be powerful, too. We heard in some of the interventions a worry about the economic impact of marine protected areas. I will talk about how they could attract financial investment. In doing so, I will talk specifically about seagrass, which the right hon. Member touched on.
At the moment, we do not really value seagrass. The UK has lost nearly half of our seagrass beds since the 1930s. Globally, they are declining by 7% a year. They are the fastest disappearing habitat on the planet. We hear a lot from climate campaigners about rainforests, because we can see them—they are not hidden under water—but seagrass is just as, if not more, important, and I will come on to say why. Boats anchoring, fishing activity and sewage are all damaging seagrass. One problem is that boat users do not actually know where the seagrass beds are, which is another point I will come on to.
We think that 98% of carbon stored in the UK’s seafloor is in areas with no trawling restrictions, and the right hon. Member focused on bottom trawling. I come back to the value of protecting our marine environment, in terms of carbon sequestration and the importance of nature-based solutions to climate change, and creating nature markets.
Seagrass is 35 times more efficient at absorbing carbon than rainforest, alongside its biodiversity benefits. The Marine Conservation Society says that the UK’s salt marshes, which are very much part of the mix, and seagrass beds have
“the carbon storage potential of between 1,000 and 2,000 km2 of tropical forests.”
Damaging that habitat comes at a huge environmental cost. According to the Climate Change Committee, the organic carbon stored in the soils of marine ecosystems is equivalent to around 17% of the UK’s total emissions. That was calculated in 2020. Damaging those ecosystems risks releasing all that carbon into the atmosphere. We need to protect our seagrass meadows and our seabeds, and we need to enhance them.
During the Easter recess, I went down to Plymouth and met the Ocean Conservation Trust at Plymouth’s National Marine Aquarium. Two weeks before that, I went to an event hosted by the Crown Estate on the launch of the blue carbon accelerator programme, which is really interesting. I met the Ocean Conservation Trust to hear about its seagrass programme, and what is needed to scale it up. It nurtures the seagrass plants onshore and then plants them on the seabed. Investment of around £5 million is needed to scale that up, of which the trust has raised £1 million.
My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) told me that a self-planting, self-replicating seagrass meadow has been discovered near his constituency, but the general feeling is that there is a need for onshore growing, followed by mechanical planting on the seabed—when I say mechanical, I mean divers going down and planting by hand.
In the first instance, creating more seagrass meadows would be about nature, such as creating breeding grounds for fish, and creating more biodiversity. That ties in with the points made by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael). We will not have a fishing industry if we take all the fish out of the sea. That is common sense; the debate in the past has been quite frustrating. We have to fish sustainably. Seagrass meadows are a wonderful breeding ground for the fish stocks of the future.
In the short term, seagrass meadows are about nature and biodiversity. In the longer term, the carbon sequestration benefits could also be huge, but there is a difficulty in evaluation at the moment. The Climate Change Committee has said that there are currently no estimates of carbon accumulation rates in UK seagrass ecosystems, and that UK-specific data is urgently needed. We also need a seagrass code, so that it can be properly accounted for.
Last month, we heard about the discovery of one of the UK’s largest seagrass beds off the coast of Cornwall, in St Austell bay. I was surprised—the seagrass bed is absolutely massive, it is not that far out from shore and it is not that deep; this is not like not knowing what is at the bottom of our very deepest oceans. The fact that it has remained undiscovered for so long shows how little we know about our marine environment, as opposed to what is on land.
Now that we have discovered that seagrass bed, we need to protect it. According to the joint report from the Cornwall Wildlife Trust and Natural England, St Austell bay currently benefits from only one formal marine protected area designation, a special protection area. The report notes that:
“Understanding the current legislative processes and that further formal designations are unlikely to be assigned to this site in the near future, Cornwall Wildlife Trust recommends that a whole site approach for the management of the SPA is considered thus protecting the associated habitats, in this case the seagrass and maerl, from damaging marine activity, such as bottom-towed fishing.”
The authors of the report said that a lack of funding limited their survey work, so what support can the Minister give people who are carrying out valuable work such as that and trying to discover exactly what we have around our shores? There is potentially a really big benefit from making the initial outlay, finding out what we have and then being able to place a proper value on it.
The Office for National Statistics conservatively valued the annual carbon sequestration of our marine and coastal ecosystems at £57.5 billion, which means that the UK seabed is more valuable as a carbon sink than as a source of fossil fuels and fishing.
A report by the Marine Conservation Society, Deloitte, and Whale and Dolphin Conservation—[Interruption.] I have a very on-brand cup here, from Surfers Against Sewage—contrasts the mechanisms and voluntary carbon markets that support investment in terrestrial nature solutions, not least the woodland code and the peatland code, with the
“significant lack of existing or scalable mechanisms…to incentivise or mandate private sector investment in ocean restoration.”
That goes back to what I said about the need for a seagrass code and the progress being made on the saltmarsh code. I have been told at events such as the one at the Crown Estate, which I mentioned, that there is plenty of private sector financing available for blue carbon projects. The problem is a lack of projects to invest in, a lack of data and a lack of certainty. We need to improve monitoring, verification and reporting. As the MCS report said:
“Without robust scientific data, creating investable ocean projects and markets is problematic.”
Last year, the Climate Change Committee recommended that saltmarsh and seagrass be included in the greenhouse gas inventory, and called for a roadmap to identify the additional data required to enable that to happen. In response, the Government accepted that there were
“significant data gaps surrounding emissions from coastal wetlands (including saltmarsh and seagrass habitats), activity data regarding extraction activities, and habitat extent which hinder the accurate reporting of emissions from these habitats.”
The Government said that such information must be collected before a decision on inclusion in the greenhouse gas inventory can be made.
As I understand it, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has established a cross-Administration UK blue carbon evidence partnership to make progress on the evidence base for blue carbon, and I hope that the Minister can give us an update on how that is going. I also remind her that she promised me a meeting when, at DEFRA questions, I asked how the Department was working with the newly created Department for Energy Security and Net Zero on nature-based solutions. I would like to gently chase her up on that, because it would be really useful to see how we can make progress.
I have talked about the positive side—the potential—and now I want to flag up something that is very worrying. This was contained in the briefing sent to MPs today by Uplift, an organisation that provides the secretariat for the all-party group for climate change. Some 900 locations in the UK’s oceans have been offered as sites of development for oil and gas extraction in the latest offshore oil and gas licensing round, and more than a third of them clash with marine protected areas. I do not expect the Minister to comment on the Government’s dash for more fossil fuel extraction—I know that is a matter for another Department—but she should be very concerned about the overlap with marine protected areas.
If this is approved by the Government, the UK’s largest undeveloped oil field, Rosebank, will have a pipeline through the Faroe-Shetland sponge belt marine protected area, potentially harming this fragile ecosystem. It is a shame that the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland is not still present, because he might have wanted to intervene on me on that issue. This habitat is already assessed as being in an unfavourable condition, and efforts should be under way to recover it, not to approve a new oil and gas development. Modelling shows that a major oil spill from Rosebank could risk serious impact to at least 16 UK marine protected areas, so I hope that we can hear something from the Minister on how the desire to protect marine protected areas—which I am sure she will tell us all about—squares with what another Government Department is seeking to do in terms of our future energy use.
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
It is a real pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Sharma. It is good to be back in Westminster Hall to discuss such an important topic, and I thank the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) for his interest in this matter and for bringing it before the House. I am pleased to see his progress—I hope that he will continue his journey of enlightenment and that we will see him on our Benches before too long.
This is a busy week for many across the House who represent communities who will be exercising their democratic right on Thursday. I am sure that if this debate was on at any other time, we would have seen a lot more Members taking part. Mindful of parliamentary convention, and the visit that Parliament received this morning, I extend my best wishes, and those of the Opposition and the people of Newport West, to all those involved in the coronation.
We are an island nation, and our seas, oceans, rivers and lakes have been at the core of what we are as a country for generations. As well as their economic power, our seas and oceans support a range of diverse marine ecosystems. They provide rich biodiversity and act as important carbon stores, as has been made clear this afternoon.
It is a matter of no surprise to anyone sitting here, or any of the millions of people throughout our country, that our marine environment and the creatures and species that call it home now face innumerable threats from human activity. That is made worse by inaction when it comes to cleaning and protecting our waters. We can all see the damage caused by waste and toxins from dredging and dragging the seabed, which also destroys corals, maerls and sandbanks. I suspect that all colleagues across the House will agree that marine protected areas are an important tool in safeguarding our ocean’s future. It is important that we are focused, committed and ambitious in how we protect our natural waters.
In advance of this debate, I received a very helpful briefing from the Marine Conservation Society, and I pay tribute to it for all the work it does to raise awareness and campaign to secure real policy change. In the briefing, it was noted that on the 28 February 2023, DEFRA announced three new highly protected marine areas: Allonby bay in the Irish sea; Dolphin Head in the channel; and the north east of Farnes Deep in the North sea. That is to be welcomed, but, as ever, it is simply not enough. Those sites represent less than 0.5% of English seas, and I urge the Minister to break the 13-year-long habit and show the ambition needed to respond to the climate and nature crises that we see all around us.
Marine protected areas play a vital role in combating climate change. We know that healthy seas enable the sequestration and storage of atmospheric carbon dioxide, as I touched on and as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) expanded on eloquently—I do not propose to go over what she already said. When blue carbon habitats, such as seaweed and seagrass ecosystems, are degraded and the seabed is disturbed, stored carbon is released back into the water column and could re-enter the atmosphere. By protecting and rewilding our marine environments, we can keep carbon locked in the ocean through increased numbers and biomass of marine species and healthier marine habitats.
Marine ecosystems will play a key role if the UK is to meet its ambitions for net zero by 2050, particularly as the UK has one of the world’s largest exclusive economic zones and governs substantially more marine territory than terrestrial. The area of UK MPAs is 27% greater than that of the entirety of the UK land area. As such, by making MPAs rich with life, we will materially help carbon storage on a massive scale.
I would be grateful if the Minister outlined where discussions regarding the UK’s largest undeveloped oil field, Rosebank, are now, as the hon. Member for Bristol East asked. I suspect the Minister will share the concerns that, if approved, a pipeline will be installed right through the Faroe-Shetland sponge belt marine protected area. That would potentially harm an already fragile ecosystem and the creatures within it, such as quahogs—who knew there was such a thing?—a type of clam that can live for hundreds of years. The area is visited by numerous species of dolphin and whales, as well as multiple species of seabirds, and commercial species, such as haddock. The habitat is already assessed as being in an unfavourable condition, and efforts should be under way to recover it as best as possible.
Climate change is already having severe impacts on the world’s oceans, but oil and gas developments can have direct impacts, including: pollution from oil spills; the release of toxic chemicals through exploration, drilling and infrastructure decommissioning; the release of microplastic waste; and noise from seismic blasting. Will the Minister outline what safeguards will be put in place to mitigate any negative impact?
The matter of marine protected areas is an important one, so I thank the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell for bringing it before us today. I want to be clear that Labour wants to see—and we will deliver—a bold and comprehensive plan to protect and clean our waters. We all know that healthy seabeds are home to many species, and we need to see a broader programme of ocean and sea renewal. Will the Minister outline in clear terms her policy on ocean and sea renewal? I am happy for her to write to me, if she would prefer to do that.
I would also be grateful if she could outline what discussions—and when they took place—she has had with the First Minister and the Environment Minister in Wales, the Cabinet Secretary and First Minister in Scotland, and officials in the Northern Ireland Office and Northern Ireland civil service about her proposals for ocean renewal. As all parts of our United Kingdom are bordered by sea, it is vital that comprehensive discussion takes place across devolved Governments.
Globally, saltmarsh and seagrass beds alone can store up to 450 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. That is almost half the emissions of the entire global transport industry. Imagine what more we can do to preserve our planet and protect our environment by doing just a little bit more and going a little bit further, faster. Restoring and protecting key marine ecosystems can lock up billions of tonnes of carbon each year—as much as 5% of the savings needed globally. A sustained programme of ocean renewal must be part of any plan to tackle the climate emergency. It is time the Minister started to implement this plan, and fast.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Trudy Harrison)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. Mr Sharma. Although this topic does not fall under my brief at DEFRA, but rather that of my noble Friend Lord Benyon in the other place, I am pleased to represent his responsibilities today and to respond to a real champion for the environment in Parliament. My right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) has spoken on this subject and submitted parliamentary questions many times. I pay tribute to his advocacy for the marine environment in particular.
Marine protected areas are of particular importance to DEFRA because we recognise that they are one of the many tools in the toolkit to protect the wide range of precious and sensitive habitats, which all Members have recognised the importance of. We have created more than 100 MPAs since 2010, and now have 178, covering around 40% of English waters. MPAs protect specific habitats and species within the designated site, so that those features can recover to a favourable condition.
As set out in the environmental improvement plan published on 31 January, we have targets to ensure that percentages reach those favourable conditions. We are focusing on MPAs because we recognise that they are a vital part of the story. It is essential that they are robustly protected, as has been eloquently said today, otherwise they will do no good at all. I hope I can set out how we are protecting them, outline the progress that has been made, answer Members’ points and possibly commit to writing to hon. Members where more detailed responses are required.
The EIP—environmental improvement plan—describes how fisheries byelaws in the first four offshore MPAs came into force last year, providing protection from bottom-towed fishing gear. The Marine Management Organisation is working speedily, has consulted this year on protections for a further 13 MPAs and is now analysing responses to that consultation. We aim to have all necessary byelaws in place in our MPAs to protect them from damaging fishing activity by the end of 2024. Since we are no longer bound by the common fisheries process, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell rightly pointed out, we will be able to make more progress. The Marine Management Organisation and the Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities have engaged fully with the fishing industry and other stakeholders, and will continue to do so. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) rightly referred to the importance of working with the fishing industry, and all Members agreed.
I will set out some of the financial support that has been given to the fishing sector. We have allocated £32.7 million a year to support the UK seafood sector through to 2024-25. That settlement enables each of the four fishing Administrations of the UK to invest in their industries by delivering financial support schemes tailored to the specific needs of their sectors. In addition, the £100 million UK seafood fund was announced on Christmas eve 2020, following the conclusion of the trade and co-operation agreement with the EU. The fund was set up to support the long-term future and sustainability of the UK fisheries and seafood sector.
I will give just a couple of examples of how the fisheries sector is being supported to transition. As I mentioned, the targets set out in the environmental improvement plan are published, and we have a statutory target to have 70% of designated features in MPAs in a favourable condition by 2042, with the remainder in a recovering condition. Our analysis shows that by putting in place by 2024 the MPA byelaws that I have mentioned we will be able to meet our interim statutory target of 48% of designated features in MPAs being in a favourable condition, with the remainder in a recovering condition, by 2028.
Ruth Jones
I thank the Minister for giving way; I am very grateful for her time today. She has talked a lot about the targets, and we all agree that we need to have objectives, but what about enforcement? I am listening carefully to her speech. What enforcement will be done? How will the enforcement be undertaken? I am not clear at the moment how we will protect the MPAs. Having them on paper is great, but we need to protect them.
Trudy Harrison
Earlier the hon. Member mentioned a potential oil and gas project. This is one example of how we will ensure that environmental concerns are fundamental to any approval. Clearly, that will be the responsibility of the Scottish Government, but the assessment is being done by OPRED, the Offshore Petroleum Regulator for Environment and Decommissioning, which is part of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. In response to the hon. Member’s specific question about the regulation and perhaps any penalties that will be enforced, I would appreciate it if she would allow me or my noble Friend in the other place to write to her. We use a mix of strategies. The MMO ensures compliance by desk-based reviews of fishing vessel trackers and also site-based inspection, but I recognise that the hon. Member really wants to understand the regulatory and penalty process.
Following the work of my right hon. Friend Lord Benyon and the consultation last year, we have announced that we will be designating the first three pilot highly protected marine areas by 6 July and will explore additional sites later this year. These are areas of the sea that will allow for the highest level of protection in our waters and full recovery of marine ecosystems, and will exclude all fishing. For highly protected marine areas to be successful, we will need to work hand in hand with the fishing industry, other marine industries and sea users in designating, managing and monitoring them. I hope that that demonstrates the Government’s ambition to restore our marine environment with strengthened protections.
We need to do all we can in a way that helps to deliver a thriving and sustainable fishing industry alongside a healthy marine environment, as set out in our joint fisheries statement. We recognise that there are growing spatial tensions between industries such as fishing, the renewable energy sector, dredging, and the oil and gas industry, alongside the need to conserve and enhance our marine environment.
“Bottom trawling” is a broad term describing methods of pulling fishing gear along the seabed to catch fish and/or shellfish. Bottom trawls are used by all parts of the fishing fleet, from small day boats to large offshore vessels. It is important to recognise that approximately 30% of the tonnage and 45% of the value of fish landed by UK vessels in 2021—that includes cod, plaice and scallop—came from bottom trawling.
Bottom trawling and other fishing methods will be stopped only where they are having a negative impact on the habitats or species protected by each MPA. For example, netting and potting are allowed to continue in many MPAs, including Dogger Bank—which has been discussed today—given that they do not have the same impacts as bottom trawling. Bottom trawling can continue in parts of the Inner Dowsing, Race Bank and North Ridge MPA, which does not contain protected features such as Sabellaria reefs, which are sensitive to bottom trawling.
A blanket ban on bottom trawling in all MPAs, which some are calling for, has the appeal of simplicity, but in some cases would involve unnecessary restrictions. We are determined to protect our MPAs as properly as possible, but want to do so in ways that will not involve unnecessary impacts on activities such as fishing. Ensuring that all vessels, including those under 12 metres in length, have inshore vessel monitoring systems installed will enable more efficient decisions on local and national management measures and policies.
The Marine Management Organisation and the inshore fisheries and conservation authorities have embarked on a programme of detailed site-by-site assessments of each MPA. Each assessment is informed by scientific advice on what types of fishing can take place. Byelaws are then designed accordingly, restricting those types of fishing found to be an issue in each site. I recognise that this detailed approach takes more time than a blanket ban, but it is well worth it to avoid unnecessary impacts on our fishing industry.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell referenced illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. That provides me with an opportunity to provide an update on the situation. We stand proudly on a global stage; my right hon. Friend mentioned the COPs, and a number of global collaborations and agreements. At the 2022 United Nations Ocean Conference, the UK, US and Canada launched the Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing Action Alliance, which brings together state and non-state actors to tackle the illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing of which my right hon. Friend spoke. Through committing to implement international agreements, promote active monitoring, control and surveillance, and encourage transparency and data sharing, the IUU-AA—a mouthful, Mr Sharma —is growing in momentum, and it has recently welcomed the EU, Chile, Panama and New Zealand to its membership.
The UK’s blue belt ocean shield aims to tackle the challenges of IUU fishing and unlawful marine activities around the UK overseas territories, using innovative technology. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell said, that technology will be critical in this fight. Through surveillance techniques, alongside comprehensive compliance and enforcement frameworks, territories are ensuring that over 4.3 million square kilometres of ocean are protected under this measure.
We will continue to work with the industry to ensure it meets the requirements of the regulation and avoids those illegal, unreported and unregulated methods, as my right hon. Friend set out. The Marine Management Organisation and IFCAs have embarked on that programme. The site-based protection does not mitigate potential impacts from these vessels on the targeted, highly migratory stocks. Although most of what those vessels fish is covered by coastal state quota allocations, the Government are looking closely at what our policies for them should be. It is important that those decisions are based on evidence and that we work with the fishing sector.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell also asked me for an update on labelling. I am afraid I do not have specific information on the sustainability of seafood labelling, but will happily write to him on that point. He is correct that we are taking action under the forest risk commodities provisions to ensure that products bought in this country have not contributed to illegal deforestation. That same kind of sustainability must also be in place for seafood and the like, so I will endeavour to provide that information.
We do have seafood labelling that means that seafood must be traceable from catch—or harvest—to the point of retail sale. In England, the MMO is responsible for ensuring seafood traceability from catch to first point of sale. That is currently achieved through a range of controlled measures requiring the submission of data by both fishers and merchants. Traceability provides assurance to consumers and associated benefits to all fully compliant agents within the industry supply chain.
Finally—I hope that I have covered all points so far—we have taken huge strides in protecting and recovering precious marine life. I would like to be able to say more about seagrass and kelp, which the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) mentioned, but I am afraid that I will have to write to her because I do not have the information to hand. I was particularly interested to learn about her examples off the shores of Cornwall and Plymouth. When we arrange the meeting I promised a couple of weeks ago—which I will absolutely ensure happens—perhaps she could be bring me further details, as I would certainly like to understand more about the benefits of seagrass and how we can support those organisations.
Highly protected marine areas will ensure that the UK plays its part in achieving the global 30 by 30 target. More broadly, we are also taking steps outside of protected areas, such as our consultation on banning the industrial fishing of sand eels and our progress on our six frontrunner fisheries management plans. I have set out the impressive rate of progress over the 178 marine protected areas, but there is always more to do. For further reading, I always recommend the environmental improvement plan—all 262 pages of it—which covers the 10 goals across DEFRA to ensure that we leave this environment in a better place than we found it in.
Chris Grayling
This has been a helpful and informative debate. As the Minister said, the noble Lord Benyon holds this portfolio, but she will no doubt be assiduous in communicating the nature of what has been said to her colleague—as I am sure the officials will too—so I am grateful to her for stepping in and making some very helpful points.
I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones); I am not on a journey. Conservatives are, by nature, conservative, and I do not think that there is much contradiction in being Conservative and being focused on conservation—they do rather go together.
Since 2010, this Government have been to places that no previous Government have been, by putting in place measures that will be needed to reverse the loss of wildlife in this country. However, as the Minister says, although it is a good start, there is a long way to go and there is always more to do. The purpose of this debate is really to give DEFRA a hefty nudge. I know that officials like to take their time to go through the responses and work thoroughly to prepare the strategies, but we do need to get on with this. Of course, there is likely to a major political event next year, and it would be very nice, by the time that we get to that, to be able to point to some real further steps in marine protected areas.
When arguing for change, I have always been careful not to say that a ban on bottom trawling in MPAs should be absolute; there will, of course, be localised exceptions for small boats—DEFRA can work with that—but I do not buy the argument that a blanket ban is wrong. I would prefer a blanket ban with some thoughtful exceptions rather than a whole paraphernalia of stuff that eventually, step by step by step, gets to something approximating a ban. Let’s do it the other way around: let’s look at where we need the exceptions and get on with it. Every week or month that goes past sees a continued degradation in too many areas, particularly from large industrial ships.
I agree with the Opposition Front-Bench spokesperson, the hon. Member for Newport West, on enforcement. We really need to get that right. I would like to see some measures to ban from UK waters all together vessels, such as big industrial trawlers, that break the rules when the ban is in place. I hope we will see proper enforcement and real consequences, so that people do not break the rules.
As I have said, this has been a good start—with a long way to go. We need a bit of a foot on the accelerator, as we cannot afford to wait longer for the measures that need to be taken. I have set out today some things that I want to see happen, but my message to Ministers is this: thank you for listening, but please accelerate now, because, both politically and naturally—in conservation terms—time is not on our side.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered Marine Protected Areas.
Vaping: Under-18s
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered vaping among under-18s.
It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma, and it is great to welcome many colleagues from across the House to this important debate. I completely recognise that vaping has a vital role to play in supporting adults to give up tobacco smoking. However, vaping is a public good only if it is helping people to end addictions that they already have, not creating new ones, especially in our vulnerable young folk.
It is not an exaggeration to say that we are seeing an epidemic among our young people, which can be attributed to an increasingly popular and powerful market for disposable vapes. Action on Smoking and Health—ASH —said in its survey of 11 to 17-year-olds in Great Britain that 15.8% of 11 to 17-year-olds had tried vaping in 2022, up from 11.2% in 2021. It also said that in 2022, 7% of 11 to 17-year-olds were current users of vapes, up from 3.3% in 2021.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
It is currently illegal for young people under 18 to purchase vapes. Does my hon. Friend agree that we have a problem implementing the existing regulations, rather than anything else?
Dr Hudson
I completely agree, and I want to stress that key point: it is illegal to sell vapes to under-18s. I will be asking the Minister about that. I know that the Government are moving on it, and we need to address it going forward.
Similarly, an NHS survey in 2021 said that 9% of 11 to 15-year-olds, and 18% of 15-year-olds, had used vapes. Those are alarming statistics. ASH England also noted that the most frequently used e-cigarettes among young people are disposable vapes, with an astonishing increase from 7.7% in 2021 to 52% in 2022. Although this is not the main focus of my speech, I will point out that, quite aside from the health concerns associated with such a marked rise in the sale and consumption of disposable vapes, they are a major environmental concern, with over 1 million of them thrown away every week. It is estimated that the lithium used in those batteries equates to about 10 tonnes of lithium per year, which is equivalent to the lithium used in approximately 1,200 electric vehicle batteries.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
My hon. Friend will be aware of my ten-minute rule Bill to ban disposable vapes for exactly the reasons he has described: the effects on children’s health particularly, and on the environment. Does he agree that the Government should support the Bill?
Dr Hudson
I very much agree with my hon. Friend. I thank her for intervening and I welcome her medical expertise in this debate.
I have touched on some of the environmental concerns, and there are also concerns about fires related to disposable vapes. However, at the heart of my speech is the impact that such a frightening level of vape use is having on our young people, even as young as primary age. I urge our policymakers not to underestimate it. There are increasing reports suggesting that the use of vapes has negative effects on heart and lung health, and may be associated with tooth and gum disease. Other issues reported include coughs, shortness of breath and headaches. Nicotine, which these products often contain, is highly addictive with potentially harmful effects on the adolescent brain, which is still developing.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
Enforcement is absolutely vital in this industry, but does my hon. Friend agree that there is a danger of demonising vaping for adult smokers? Vaping is 95% risk free, according to ASH, which he has mentioned, the British Heart Foundation, the British Lung Foundation, Public Health England and so on. It is therefore a vital part of a smoker’s ability to come off tobacco use. It quite literally saves lives, and therefore should be promoted to smokers.
Dr Hudson
I totally agree. As I said, the use of vaping to help adults get away from tobacco smoking has significant health benefits, but today we are talking about stamping out its use by people who are not trying to give up smoking. We are trying to protect our young people, but I totally concur with my hon. Friend.
Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)
My hon. Friend is being very generous in taking interventions. I concur with his last point, but does he agree that one of the issues that we face is advertising? Vapes are stacked up like sweeties in all sorts of outlets, which presents them as rather benign and makes them attractive to younger users.
Dr Hudson
I totally concur. My hon. Friend has read my mind: I am about to talk about the advertising, the colourful labelling, the fruit flavours and so on, which draw in young people.
I have asked a number of parliamentary questions about vaping, and the recurrent theme in the Government’s answers is that they acknowledge that vapes are not risk free, and that nicotine is highly addictive and can be harmful. Some studies suggest that vaping among young people can be a gateway to risky behaviour such as drinking and tobacco smoking, which would be a perverse thing to happen. Vaping is supposed to get adults off smoking, but if it is leading young people into smoking, that is not a good thing.
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech about the detriment to health of vaping for under-18s. He mentioned a study, but does he agree that there is not sufficient research on under-18s, so we do not know exactly how safe or unsafe these products are?
Dr Hudson
I agree. That is exactly right: there is a paucity of data. I will ask the Government and the Department of Health and Social Care to create the datasets so that we can make evidence-based decisions.
Concerningly, ASH Scotland suggests that children with mental health issues including mood disorders and eating disorders, who are among the most vulnerable people in society, are potentially more likely to use vapes. That is a real concern. I am passionate about mental health, especially among our young people, and I urge the Government to continue to protect the most vulnerable. That has been the hallmark of this compassionate Conservative Government.
Anecdotally, we hear much about the impact of these products. We hear reports of children’s sleep patterns being disrupted. They set their alarms for 2 o’clock or 3 o’clock in the morning so that they can vape in the middle of the night to avoid withdrawal symptoms the next day. At school, there have been reports of students leaving lessons and even walking out of examinations because they simply cannot last without the use of a vape. If vaping is having a detrimental impact on our young children’s life chances, this is a matter not merely of health but of social and educational development. One teacher in my constituency noted that the issue is so widespread that vapes are being illicitly traded in the school playground.
I want to touch on the marketing of vapes to under-18s, as colleagues have done. A particular issue with the vaping market is the flagrant targeting of under-18s as potential consumers through trendy advertising on social media. Products are promoted with bright colours and inviting fruit flavours—sweet flavours such as mango, bubblegum and cherry ice.
Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities annual review of vaping reveals that 39% of ex-smokers use fruit-flavoured vapes, against 17% who use tobacco. There absolutely are issues with marketing, advertising and presentation to young people, but does my hon. Friend agree that an overly simplistic blanket ban of flavours might have the serious unintended consequence of preventing some potential vapers from vaping, meaning that they would carry on smoking and thus massively increasing their chances of an early death?
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for making such an excellent speech. Does he agree that recruiting a new generation of addicts is the business model that the industry has forever driven, no matter whether the product kills or harms? The industry itself needs to be tackled on the issue.
Dr Hudson
I agree with the hon. Member. The industry needs to take a close look at itself, but it is also the case that a lot of the vapes that are ending up with children are coming through illicit means. We need to have a targeted approach to look at how best we can prevent our young people from accessing those products.
Dr Caroline Johnson
My hon. Friend made a very good point about advertising. We need to get across the nuanced message that vaping may be beneficial to people who want to quit smoking—although I would argue that it could become an alternative addiction rather than a stop-smoking aid—but we must also prevent children from using vapes. In the past, nuanced advertising for formula milk stated that breast milk was better at the beginning but that formula milk was a reasonable alternative for six month olds. Could a form of words be used in vaping adverts to make it clear that the products should be for people who smoke, not for those who do not?
Dr Hudson
I agree with my hon. Friend that if we can get more nuance into the advertising and labelling of vapes, that would help articulate to people the benefits of using them for the legitimate purpose of getting off tobacco smoking. It could also serve as a stern warning that young people should not take the products, because of their significant health risks. As ASH notes, 57% of e-cigarette use among 11 to 17-year-olds involves fruit flavours. Clearly and deliberately, the marketing of fruit-flavoured and trendy products is driving demand among our young people. We need to be very careful.
Aside from the nicotine, there are questions over whether the flavourings and chemicals inhaled also impact on the health risks to people who vape. For instance, in 2019 The American Journal of Physiology: Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology reported that the flavouring chemical cinnamaldehyde was associated with decreased mucociliary clearance in the respiratory tract due to dysregulation of mitochondrial function. That presents a compelling case to treat this issue as an urgent priority and, as the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) has said, to gather much-needed data in the area. We can then demonstrate the reality of what dangers our young people are potentially being exposed to in the long term.
As one teacher in my constituency has noted, the prevailing view seems to be that the use of such products is completely harmless. As the evidence I have mentioned suggests, however, that is very much not the case, as has also been acknowledged by health experts and, indeed, the Government.
Worse still, the potential impacts assume that the products are being sold in accordance with Government regulations. However, we have seen an increase in illicit and non-compliant trade of e-cigarettes. Checks on imports of these products find that regulations are regularly flouted, including higher numbers of puffs per vape and higher nicotine levels than those permitted. That also demonstrates that any Government action needs to remember online trading as well, not just physical sales in shops.
The Government are tackling the problem. I welcome the recent announcements by the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien), but I believe that the emerging reality of the dangerous effects that vaping may be having on our young people presents a compelling case for Government to act and move forward on the issue. His intervention on the subject last month was a welcome and major step, and a clear signal that this Government recognise the severity of the issue.
To successfully tackle a failure in any market, a holistic approach focused on both supply and demand needs to be examined. I am, therefore, heartened that that is exactly the line of travel that the Government are taking in their call for evidence on vaping plans. They are focusing not just on illegal sales, which is vital, but on what is driving up demand among our young people, such as the influence of advertising and social media. I strongly encourage those who are watching this debate, and people at large, to take part in that call for evidence, so that we can collate more data. I am thinking in particular of those who are seeing the impact at first hand, such as those involved in schools.
As I have raised with the Ministry of Justice, it is imperative that unscrupulous sellers of vapes to under-18s should feel the full force of the law if they break it. I therefore welcome the Government’s announcement of £3 million for an illicit vapes enforcement taskforce to tackle those who are illegally selling vapes to our young people, but also to look out for products that should not be on our shelves. It is an important reminder that laws are effective only if there is the determination and resources to enforce them.
To summarise, although vaping has an important part to play in supporting adults to quit tobacco smoking for good, it must not come at the cost of creating new addictions and health issues in our young people. I am very pleased that the Government recognise the severity of this issue and are acting with compassion by acting for those most vulnerable to serious harm. It must be a priority for our health policy, and in fulfilling our commitment to young people we must tackle this real threat to them and to gather information on the potential long-term effects of these products.
Mark Pawsey
I know that my hon. Friend is nearing the end of his remarks. Everybody in the Chamber acknowledges that the problem he has identified is that these products are getting into the hands of young people. He has already praised the work that the Government are doing, but what more should they be doing to prevent these products from getting into the hands of the wrong people?
Dr Hudson
I look forward to hearing from the Minister what he and the Government are going to do. Calling for evidence and having a taskforce is a good starting point, but I think that is just a staging post. We need to do more by tackling the advertising and making sure that the labelling is sufficient. The health warnings on cigarette packets are quite alarming now, and tobacco products are kept behind closed cabinets in outlets. We need to be moving in that direction, so that vapes are not like sweeties on shelves for our young kids. That is the real issue: they are appealing, colourful and fruit-flavoured products, and people think, “Do you know what? I’d like to have a try of this.” That is where people are slipping into this problem.
I fear that our young people face a public health ticking timebomb, and we as a Parliament and as a society must address it as a priority. I welcome colleagues’ interventions today, and I look forward to hearing more from the Minister about what steps the Government are going to take to tackle this very important issue.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Neil O'Brien)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson) for securing this very important and timely debate on youth vaping, and for his excellent speech. Lots of Members have made important contributions to policy in this area, and I pay tribute to them for that, as well as for their contributions today.
Until recently, our regulations—including on the minimum age of sale, advertising restrictions and the cap on nicotine levels—have been reasonably effective at keeping the rate of vaping among under-18s low. However, over the last 18 months we have seen a surge in the use and promotion of cheap, colourful products that do not always comply with our regulations, and there has been a sharp increase in the number of children vaping. NHS figures show that 9% of 11 to 15-year-old children used e-cigarettes in 2021—up from 6% in 2018. That is a big concern, because there is every reason to think that the rate has continued to go up.
We know that vapes are not risk-free. Nicotine is highly addictive and can be harmful, and there are unanswered questions about the effects of long-term use, as the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) pointed out. Our message is very clear: vapes should not be used by people under the age of 18, or by non-smokers. That is why I announced on 11 April that we are stepping up our efforts to stop kids getting hooked on vaping. First, we launched a call for evidence on youth vaping to identify opportunities to reduce the number of children accessing and using vape products, and to explore where the Government can go further. That call for evidence explores a range of issues, including how we ensure regulatory compliance, the appearance and characteristics of vapes, the marketing and promotion of them, and the role of social media. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell) rightly talked about them being stacked up like sweeties, and that concerns me, too. On the other hand, my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) warned that this is not a straightforward matter to regulate, and pointed out the need to avoid counterproductive changes that stop people swapping from smoking to vaping.
Our call for evidence will also seek to ensure that we understand the vaping market better. It will look at such issues as the price of low-cost products. The call for evidence also considers the environmental impact of vapes, particularly the disposable ones that have become so appealing to young people.
Ruth Jones
The Minister is talking about the environmental impact. How closely is he working with Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs colleagues to ensure recycling, and to ensure a circular economy in the precious metals mentioned, which must be brought back into the economy?
Neil O'Brien
Closely. I am also listening to my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson), who has led discussion on the subject through her ten-minute rule Bill. She is right to be concerned about the environmental impact of disposable products. The proportion of young people using those disposable products has gone up from 8% in 2021 to 52% by 2022. Clearly, they are an important part of youth vaping.
Gareth Johnson
We have heard a few calls for vaping products to be placed with tobacco products. Does the Minister agree that there is a danger in connecting vaping with tobacco to such a degree? It is not surprising that a disproportionately high number of people in this country believe that vaping is just as bad as smoking. People are put off going from smoking to vaping as a consequence. Should we not separate vaping from smoking wherever possible?
Neil O'Brien
My hon. Friend is right, and I will come to that in a moment. The call for evidence that I talked about will be open for the next eight weeks, and we hope that everyone concerned will take the opportunity to share their views and put evidence in, to shape our future approach.
Caroline Ansell
In the review, will there be any consideration of the role of Trading Standards?
Neil O'Brien
Absolutely, and I hope people will put in evidence on that. I will touch in a moment on something else we are doing. In the speech I mentioned, I announced the new specialised illicit vaping flying squad, a team to tackle under-age vape sales and illicit products that young people are accessing. It will hold companies to account and enforce rules.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey), the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for vaping (e-cigarettes), said that we must enforce the rules, and he is absolutely right. That is why we are providing £3 million in new funding to Trading Standards, which will help share knowledge and intelligence around the country. The squad will undertake test purchasing, so that we find out who is selling to young people. It will disrupt illicit supply, and will also do work on organised crime gangs. It will remove illegal products, not just from our shelves but at our borders. It will undertake more testing to ensure compliance with our rules, bolstering the capacity of Trading Standards. Companies that fail to comply with the law will be held accountable.
It is important that we teach young people about the risks of vaping. That is why we have published new content on the potential risks of vaping for young people on the FRANK and Better Health websites. We have also provided extra input into educational resources produced by partners, including the PSHE Association.
Mark Pawsey
The Government has an objective to be smoke-free by 2030—that is, to get down to 5% of people smoking. Is the Minister concerned that if we continue to talk about the dangers and harms that may be associated with vaping, we are in grave danger of providing a disincentive for smokers to switch to a much safer alternative?
Neil O'Brien
My hon. Friend has pre-empted my next paragraph almost perfectly. I was about to say that although we want to ensure that children do not take up vaping, vaping can play an important part in achieving our ambition of a smoke-free England by 2030. Vaping is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, we do not want children to develop an addiction to any substance at a young age, but on the other, it is substantially less harmful than smoking, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) said. It is 95% safer than smoking.
Rachael Maskell
Will the Minister also put in place services, similar to smoking programmes, to support people who are now addicted to vaping, to enable them to come off vaping?
Neil O'Brien
Absolutely, and I will touch on that in just one moment. Vapes—
Neil O’Brien
I think I should try to answer the last intervention before taking another one; I will come back to my hon. Friend in a second. Vapes are not yet being used widely enough to reach their full potential as a quit smoking aid, so on 11 April, I announced new funding for a new national “swap to stop” programme—the first of its kind anywhere in the world. We will work with councils and others to offer 1 million smokers across England a free vaping starter kit. Smokers who join the scheme, which will run initially over the next two years, will join on one condition: they must commit to quitting smoking, with support. We will provide additional support to help them quit vaping after they have quit smoking. We will target the most at-risk communities first, focusing on settings such as jobcentres, homelessness centres and social housing providers. I do not know whether my hon. Friend still has a burning question.
Dr Johnson
Yes, and I thank the Minister for giving way; he has been extremely generous with his time. He has talked about the importance of educating children about the risks. Does he agree that a key problem is that many young people and children who use vapes do not believe that they are harmful at all?
Neil O’Brien
My hon. Friend is quite probably right. There is a lack of understanding of some of the risks, and of the effects on mental health and wellbeing. I am very, very worried when I hear about young people at school smoking, and about the disruption that various hon. Members have raised in this debate.
I conclude by thanking all Members here for highlighting concerns about these issues, and for their contributions, not only in the debate but over a longer period. That has had an effect on Government policy, and will continue to. The Government are committed to doing all we can to prevent children and young people from vaping, while also ensuring that we use the full potential of vaping as a tool to help smokers quit.
Question put and agreed to.
Terminal Illness: Early Access to Pensions
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered early access to pensions for people with a terminal illness.
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Sharma. In the United Kingdom, it is not possible under any circumstances to access a state pension before retirement age—not even if a person has paid national insurance contributions for the full 35 years, is terminally ill, and have less than a year to live. The purpose of the state pension is to support all of us towards the end of life, at a time when we are less capable or incapable of work, yet people with a terminal illness, who are nearing the end of life and, in the majority of cases, are no longer able to work, are not entitled to draw on their state pension, regardless of their contributions, financial difficulties or personal or family situation.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
Terminal cancer patients who have surpassed their life expectancy have been told by firms such as Legal & General that they are ineligible to access their pension early because they may live longer. People are being punished for defying their life expectancy. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that people with a terminal illness should be given the dignity and respect of being able to access their own pension early?
Dave Doogan
I absolutely agree. Dignity and respect is at the heart of that ambition, as she so clearly articulates.
I start the debate with an appalling statistic. More than a quarter of people who die before retirement age spend their final days in poverty. In my Angus constituency, that figure is 24%. It is awful to think that for so many people with terminal illness, their last days are filled with worry and fears that go beyond the illness with which they have been diagnosed. Marie Curie reports that many terminally ill people feel stress about keeping a roof over their head, paying for their children’s school uniform or the energy use of their specialist medical equipment. As far as possible, the last days of life should be spent surrounded by friends and family, making happy memories in comfortable surroundings.
My constituent Ian Bain, from Forfar, was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 2014. Mr Bain worked his entire life. He started work in 1977, and accrued 41 years of national insurance contributions—six more than necessary to entitle him to a full state pension on retirement. When he stopped working due to illness, there was no way for him to access his state pension, because he was not yet 65. Due to Department for Work and Pensions delays, he also did not receive any social security payments until nine months after applying. Mr Bain was not entitled to claim under the special rules, as he had been advised that he had more than six months left to live. When he did eventually start receiving payments, he received them only at the lower rate of the personal independence payment and employment and support allowance.
Although Mr Bain had been diagnosed as terminally ill by a medical practitioner, he was required to return annually for follow-up assessments to see if his incurable degenerative condition had improved. He was even informed by one assessor that he “looked well”—cold comfort if ever there was. It was only in 2021 that Mr Bain started receiving the higher rate, when he was moved to the Scottish Government’s adult disability payment. Mr Bain can no longer speak to me on the telephone and has to use a single finger to email me. He should not face the indignity and stress of continually having to jump through bureaucratic hoops for a pittance, while the pension that he has so completely paid into for decades is denied to him by the tightest of all fists.
Sadly, Mr Bain’s situation is far from rare. Another Angus constituent, Ross, told me that his father
“died of cancer in 2019 just 2 days before being able to draw on his pension, he had spent his whole life working. He paid his contributions religiously from the day he was able to work and got nothing back.”
My constituent Malcolm advised:
“When you hear someone tell you that you have cancer, you immediately think you are going to die. That thought automatically triggers the need to make sure for the provision for your loved ones. The only thing we should have to deal with is building up happy memories for those left. This is more difficult when money is in short supply due to escalating costs.”
Another Angus constituent said that her husband died of a glioblastoma
“4 months before he retired. He worked his entire life and was never off sick or claimed benefits once. Once he was diagnosed I had to battle to get assistance. He should have been able to access his state pension early.”
It would have made all the difference. She continues:
“it would have helped with the financial strain.”
Access to funds for the terminally ill is a problem across these islands. People are twice as likely to die in poverty if they are terminally ill and under 66 years of age. The reasons for this poverty are well understood. People with terminal illnesses very often cannot work. Two thirds of terminally ill people rely on benefits as their main or only source of income. At the same time, costs can often increase dramatically at the end of life. The additional cost of terminal illness can reach up to £16,000 a year. There is often a need for energy-intensive specialist medical care in the home. Many people need to keep their home warmer, and their energy bills increase dramatically. All of us in the United Kingdom are exposed to inflationary pressure and sky-high energy costs, but for the terminally ill, the situation is permitted to become even more dire.
The Scottish Government have acted to mitigate some of the financial and bureaucratic pressure on those experiencing terminal illness. Scotland is introducing its own extra costs disability assistance benefit, having already introduced the child disability payment and adult disability payment, which replace the disability living allowance and personal independence payment. It is working towards the introduction of a further payment to replace the attendance allowance.
The Scottish Government have also changed the definition of “terminal illness” used to allow access to benefits from the 12-month special-rule definition used in England to an indefinite definition that includes all people diagnosed with a terminal illness. This allows people to be fast-tracked to receive the highest rate of payment as quickly as possible, and for longer. The central principle of the approach is to ensure that terminally ill people are provided with the support that they need, when they need it. That approach represents nothing more than the dignified acceptance of a terminally ill person’s circumstances. It is simply doing the right thing. Those changes are welcome and will do much to improve the experience of those with a terminal illness living in Scotland, but the fact remains that their state pension is kept from them, no matter how long they have paid into the system. The Scottish Government have no power to intervene when it comes to that injustice.
People with terminal illnesses have often paid enormous amounts of national insurance. On average, people aged 20 to 64 who are in their last year of life have accrued 24 years of national insurance contributions, and will never see the benefit of that investment, yet the path to improving the situation is straightforward and affordable. France, Germany, Italy and Spain all provide for early access to the state pension in the event of disability, and for those found to have a terminal illness.
Research conducted by Loughborough University found that giving working-age terminally ill people access to their state pension could almost halve the rate of poverty in that cohort, lifting more than 8,600 people a year out of poverty at the end of their life. That change would be not only effective but extremely affordable. It is estimated to cost £144 million per year—just 0.1% of the annual state pension bill—and would make an immeasurable improvement to the dignity and life of some of the most vulnerable people in our communities, and their families. It is also fair. People pay into a state pension their whole life to ensure a comfortable end of life, but when they reach end of life, the UK Government tell them that they will keep the money. How can that be? To put it another way, the UK Government are saving £144 million per year by withholding access to state pensions from terminally ill people. That is unconscionable.
Members not just from my own party but from across the House have asked the UK Government to consider permitting terminally ill people to access their state pension, regardless of age. Many Members in this debate and beyond fear that the Minister’s response will echo previous Government responses—that she will say that terminally ill people already get access to benefits, or that those in their final years of life will have their applications fast-tracked. Those measures have failed to avoid the extraordinarily high rates of poverty among the terminally ill, they do very little for those diagnosed as having more than 12 months to live, and they are clearly insufficient in supporting people during what can be one of the most devastating and frightening periods of anyone’s life.
I hope that the Minister will give this humane and decent aspiration the due consideration it deserves, and that the Government will change the rules for terminally ill people not just in Angus but across these islands.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I wish that more Members had attended this very important debate so that I could sum up some more contributions, but I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Dave Doogan) for securing it and delivering a powerful speech in which he entreated the UK Government to act with compassion. It is vital that terminally ill people are finally given the respect they deserve in UK Government circles.
When terminally ill people get their diagnosis, they are absolutely devastated, and so are their families. It is a situation that none of us wants to face, and nor do we want members of our family to face it. It is absolutely devastating, and grief kicks in immediately. That is just one of the pressures facing terminally ill people and their families, which my hon. Friend laid out.
Margaret Ferrier
Terminal illness puts an emotional, mental and financial strain on the individual and their family. More than four in five families living with advanced cancer face income losses as a result. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that allowing early access to pensions will enable people with terminal illness and their families to focus on the quality of their end-of-life experience and not worry about money?
Drew Hendry
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. This should be about making the people who are facing this most dreadful situation and their families as comfortable as possible and helping them to move forward. The cost is small, although as my hon. Friend the Member for Angus said, by not paying out the £144 million a year, the UK Government are running a lottery; they hope to get that dividend in from people. That is a small amount for dignity and fairness for the people in that situation and their families.
My hon. Friend shared the damning statistic that terminally ill people are twice as likely as others to die in poverty. They have bigger costs; it costs more to be terminally ill. For a start, they are ill, and most are homebound, which increases energy costs. There is the cost of the adaptations that they have to make, and increased costs for their families, who have to visit more to provide support.
The issue should be very simple for the UK Government. I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group for terminal illness, and although our entreaties about the six-month rule were listened to—on every occasion, Ministers said, “Yes, we must do something about this”—the change to 12 months took years in which thousands of people died waiting. I welcomed the change from six months to 12 months because it made life marginally more easy for people, but the fact that the effect is marginal—the very minimum that could be done for terminally ill people—is the most damning thing about this. As has been stated, this is about fairness and dignity, and people’s ability to have a quality end of life. The power is with the UK Government to make a very simple and fair adjustment. As has been underlined, in the scale of things, the cost is small, but the scale of the impact on the lives of people who are terminally ill and their families is enormous.
Nobody is asking for things that people have not earned; these pensions are something that people have earned throughout their lives. The Government can look at it this way: when someone gets that devastating note that says they are terminally ill, the Government know they will save money from the fact that that person is not going to be around for years collecting their state pension. Therefore, the Government can at least make this gesture towards making people’s lives easier. Why do we not see more compassion from the UK Government over this very simple matter? People are dying; why not treat them the way they should be treated? Why not strain every sinew and make every move to ensure that people in this situation have the best possible end of life? It is one thing that all of us could achieve by working together, and that the UK Government could commit to.
We heard about the tragedy of Mr Bain, a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Angus, who spent 41 years paying into his pension. He earned it but he is not going to get it. Think of my hon. Friend’s other constituent, Malcolm, who is quoted as saying when his diagnosis of cancer came in, “You immediately think you are going to die.” Of course he thought that, with that diagnosis. People are going to die; the problem is that, with the best will in the world, doctors cannot put a definitive timescale on when. However, they can often say that, “You are going to degenerate and your life is going to get more difficult as you go towards the end of life.”
This is a simple act. State pensions are reserved to the UK Government, so only they can act on this for people in Scotland and the other nations of the UK. Other nations can, as we have heard, make provisions like this; they can do the right thing for people. My hon. Friend the Member for Angus laid it out very clearly, but I will say it again: this is not a mammoth choice, and it is not going to destroy the UK budget. It is a small step that, along with other measures, should be taken to assist people who are terminally ill and their families.
When the Minister sums up the debate and answers our questions, I ask her not to just give out platitudes and promises of long-term action, as we have heard so many times before from so many other Ministers in the UK Government. I am not saying she will do that, but I believe the debate deserves answers on how she will take the issue back to her Department and work out a proper plan for people who are terminally ill and their families, so they can have the dignity, respect and fairness they deserve. She can give a reassurance that she will fight tooth and nail to get state pensions released for people who are terminally ill.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I thank the hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan) and colleagues from across the House who have contributed to this important debate. I hope the Government will take this issue seriously and find ways to improve the lives of people with a terminal illness.
I am pleased that legislation was passed last year to support people with a terminal illness in having fast-track access to benefits. I hope that we can develop a consensus on other matters, including the related issue we are discussing today, but I would sound a note of caution following on from the debate last September on the Social Security (Special Rules for End of Life) Act 2022, where the House worked together to allow people in the last years of life to receive increased benefits. One of the challenges raised at the time was whether the Government were able to deliver on their promises, given the series of failures over the last decade. I hope that the Minister will ensure that DWP runs smoothly and that the errors we have seen in some aspects of the pensions and benefits system will be addressed, so that the people in that greatest need are protected. I ask the Minister to reassure Members that the Department will be able to provide individual pension savers and people in need with the level of service they would expect.
On the substance of the debate—early access to pensions—I want to cover two aspects in my speech: the issue of occupational pensions, and then the issue of access to the state pension, which the hon. Member for Angus mentioned. Occupational pensions play a very important role in allowing constituents to save for their retirement, and it is only right that people who have saved all their lives and contributed to the system should be able to access the money that they have saved. I understand that people with less than a year to live are already able to withdraw their entire pension in some cases, and a substantial amount in other cases, and even those who are younger may be able to take advantage of that facility through the pension freedoms that are normally available at the age of 55. I ask the Minister to reassure Members about her work with the pensions industry to develop this further, so that we can have a further discussion and perhaps gain further understanding of the possible ways to support people. Given that a great deal of many constituents’ income in retirement does not come from money that is saved through occupational pensions, it is very important that the money that people have saved is available to them at their time of need.
On the state pension, I want to put on the record my thanks to Marie Curie and other campaign groups for raising this issue. It is very important that we listen to the voices of those campaigners, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Angus for securing the debate so that we can discuss them. I understand that the Government’s current position is not to allow early access to the state pension. I would be very grateful if the Minister confirmed that that and set out the evidence on which the decision is based. I am sure that the Department will have explored the issue in detail, and I ask her to consider publishing some of the research carried out by the Department on this matter, so that we can understand it better and have a fuller debate in future.
I want to take this opportunity to raise some other points that have been made by campaigners. I am worried by some of the research that outlines the scale of the problem that energy bills can cause those facing the awful diagnosis of terminal illness, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Angus for mentioning that point. For example, research by Marie Curie explains that after a terminal illness diagnosis, energy bills may rise by as much as 75%. I think I heard the hon. Member refer to some of the additional medical needs, the need for greater home heating and sometimes the need for expensive equipment, such as oxygen tanks, in a person’s home. It is very important that we understand that, take it into account and see the wider needs of somebody facing an awful diagnosis and suffering a terrible challenge.
There is a lot of independent research on the consequences of living in damp, under-heated properties, which we should also bear in mind when we consider this issue. For example, the World Health Organisation estimates that about 30% of excess winter deaths are directly attributable to living in cold, damp environments, and we have to take that point into account, as well as the additional cost of heating for medical reasons and of paying for additional energy to support machinery. That is why it is really important that we take steps to reduce energy bills in a sustainable and long-term way. As the official Opposition, we are calling for energy bills to be cut for good, which should obviously start with a proper windfall tax on oil and gas giants, continuing with our long-term mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower by 2030.
Campaigners have highlighted other financial and family impacts of having a terminal illness diagnosis, and one difficult challenge faced by some families is that other forms of support may not be available to them. For example, access to paid childcare may diminish as a result of not being able to work, although a family may still need it. I would like the Government—I hope the Minister will address this in her speech—to look at not only reforming the childcare system in broad terms but addressing the specific issue faced by those who have a family member with a terminal illness diagnosis. They should look at the need for childcare at that difficult time and at the unintended consequences of some aspects of Government policy. There is a need for wider reform because, sadly, families, children’s education and our economy are paying the price for our current childcare system.
To conclude, I hope the Government will respond and continue to work with the pensions industry. I look forward to the Minister answering my questions about her work with the industry, confirming Government policy on the state pension and committing to publish suitably informative material about the research carried out by the Department.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Laura Trott)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. We have been discussing a very sensitive issue, and I thank the hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan) for bringing forward the debate, and all hon. Members for their contributions.
The Government remain committed to ensuring that all citizens can live with the dignity and respect they deserve. I think it would help if I first set out the principles behind the state pension, which is the foundation of state support for older people. In 2016, the system was reformed, with the introduction of the new, simpler and more straightforward state pension as the basis for private saving, to which people can add throughout their lives.
The state pension is a contributory social benefit, financed through the national insurance fund. The national insurance system operates on a pay-as-you-go basis, meaning that today’s contributors are paying for today’s social security entitlements and pensions, while those who paid contributions in the past were paying for the pensions of that time. In other words, the contributors to the national insurance system do not accumulate an individual pot of money that is personal to them.
People’s national insurance contributions do not just pay for the state pension. They also entitle them—or, in certain circumstances, their spouses—to contributory social security benefits such as unemployment and bereavement benefits, which are available on the basis of the rules applicable at the time the claim is made, and about 20% of national insurance contributions are paid into the NHS. Therefore, it is a question not so much of a person paying for their own benefits, but of a general pooling of resources to meet current benefit claims for all those covered by the national insurance system.
A person’s contributions are geared towards liability to pay rather than any likelihood of future benefit entitlement. In that sense, it is similar to income tax rather than a private insurance or pension scheme. It has always been an overriding principle of the national insurance system that liability to contribute exists, whether or not those contributions will eventually give entitlement to a particular benefit. That is very different from private pensions, where a person builds up a pool that is specifically theirs, and where different laws rightly exist.
Therefore, early access to a state pension would not be appropriate in the case of terminally ill people, but there are a variety of other benefits available to them. For those nearing the end of their life, significant support is already available through the welfare system. Hearing that an illness cannot be cured must be a frightening and devastating experience, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) for all his work on that with the APPG. Our priority within the DWP is providing people with financial support quickly and compassionately. The main way we do that is through the special benefit rules, which have been mentioned today and which are sometimes referred to as the special rules. They give people nearing the end of their life faster and easier access to certain benefits, without their needing to attend a medical assessment or serve waiting periods. In most cases, people will receive the highest rate of benefit.
Changes to the special rules mean that thousands of people nearing the end of their life will be able to claim fast-tracked financial support from the benefits system six months earlier than they were able to previously. Historically, people had to be assessed by their healthcare professional as having six months or less to live. That is known as the six-month rule, which the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey referred to. In July 2021, the Government announced that they intended to replace the six-month criteria with a 12-month, end-of-life approach. Last April, the Department made those changes to the special rules for eligibility for universal credit and employment and support allowance. In April 2023, the Department made similar changes for PIP, disability living allowance and attendance allowance. Those changes have been welcomed—as they have been today—by the key charities active in the area, by the public and by parliamentarians.
I will now expand on my earlier remarks on early access to state pension. Unlike a personal or workplace pension, which can potentially be drawn earlier, it has always been the case that nobody can claim their state pension before they reach state pension age. There are a wide range of working-age benefits available to support people who are below state pension age . Removing the clear boundaries between working-age and pensioner benefits would create complexity and confusion. This is not simply a monetary issue.
As an example of the complex issues relating to early access, the value of an individual’s state pension is based on their contribution record. Is the intention here to base it on the contribution record of those who are, sadly, at the heart of today’s debate? If the value of that state pension, based on the person’s record, is deficient, would they be entitled to means-tested pension credit? If they took their state pension early, would it need to be actuarially reduced to reflect that? Early access actually means lowering the age of entitlement to state pension. At what age would it be set for this group? Would it be 16, in line with the age—
Drew Hendry
I appreciate the Minister’s position, but I am not sure that many people who are terminally ill, or those who work with them, will be comforted by the technicalities she is laying out. She is laying out the rules as they stand, but does she see no opportunity for things to be adjusted so that the entitlement age for those who are terminally ill could be adjusted, as it is in other countries? Is there no opportunity or intention for the UK Government to look at that?
Laura Trott
The Department’s position is that help is available through benefits other than the state pension. The state pension is not an entitlement pool that exists; it is done on a pay-as-you-go basis. Of course, it is different from private pensions, which I will come to in a second, and there is more that we could do on that front to make the situation easier and more straightforward.
I of course accept the sentiment on which this proposal is based—that those who are terminally ill should be financially supported—but grounding this support on the state pension system, because it is there, does not make for a practical proposition, and that is in addition to my earlier points on the nature of the state pension.
Hon. Members will be aware that the second Government review of state pension age was published on 30 March 2023. The Government noted the independent report’s recommendations on the rise from 67 to 68, but highlighted that Baroness Neville-Rolfe was unable to take into account the long-term impact of recent significant external factors, bringing uncertainty to the data on life expectancy, the economic position and labour market.
I raise that point because, as part of that process, independent reviewers looked at early-access policies that would allow variation in state pension age for certain groups. John Cridland covered that in his 2017 independent review of state pension age. More recently, Baroness Neville-Rolfe, in her independent review, recommended that the Government should look at such a scheme for people who had spent long periods of their lives doing physical work.
However, both reviewers recognised the real, practical difficulties of designing and delivering such a scheme. We are aware that when and why people leave the labour market will vary and will be affected by a host of factors, including their national insurance record, savings, health, caring responsibilities and other factors. It would be impossible to take account of all those factors in setting the state pension age or to create rules for one particular group that would be fair to others. In addition, the Government are mindful of the fact that a universal state pension age has many benefits, including giving a clear signal to those planning for retirement.
Private pensions are very different. Through automatic enrolment, we have extended pension saving, so more individuals will have access to choices at retirement, with more than 10.8 million people automatically enrolled into a workplace pension as of March 2023. If someone has a defined benefit private or workplace pension, they may be able to begin taking an income and/or lump sums from their pension at any age due to ill health. That provision is dependent on the rules of the scheme.
In addition, the generous tax benefits of saving into a defined contribution pension provide individuals with the ability to accrue savings for their retirement and provide them with freedom and choice about how they access them. Individuals can normally access those savings, without penalty, from age 55. However, to address the point made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda), they may be able to access their pension as a lump sum from any age if the scheme administrator has received evidence from a registered medical practitioner that the member is expected to live for less than one year.
The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) raised a specific example of where there were difficulties. I would be grateful if she would write to me about that, and we can see whether there is anything we can do to help.
The hon. Member for Reading East raised some points on energy. The energy price guarantee has been extended for an additional three months at its current level, from April to the end of June. That will bring a typical household energy bill for dual-fuel gas and electricity down to around £2,500 per year in Great Britain and around £2,109 per year in Northern Ireland.
In conclusion, I have set out the range of support that the Government provide for people with terminal illnesses. Although I of course have the greatest sympathy for anyone in that position, the Government do not believe that adjusting the state pension system to support that group is the right approach, although early access to private pensions is obviously a different matter.
Dave Doogan
Thank you very much, Mr Sharma. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions to this important discussion. I am disappointed, if I am honest, that so much of the oxygen in the room has been devoted to private pensions. There is a fundamental—and, dare I say it, fundamentally clear—distinction to make between private pensions and state pensions. People in the workplace have a choice over whether to take out a private pension or not; they do not have a choice over whether to pay their national insurance contributions. I would suggest—respectfully—that that is a fundamental, fairly obvious difference between private and state pensions.
In her summing up, the Minister talked about the pay-as-you-go nature of national insurance contributions. I think that most of us, as Members of Parliament, already understand that there is no national insurance pot and that national insurance is, in effect, a distinct version of general taxation.
Drew Hendry
My hon. Friend is making a point about the state pension and the mechanics that have been described. However, this situation—where there is no specific pot—is the same in other countries, such as Australia and Canada, which do allow early access to the state pension. There is no difference in the mechanism for it, or indeed the principle behind it; they have just applied the compassion that is missing in this situation. Does my hon. Friend not agree?
Dave Doogan
I agree entirely. A narrative has been advanced this afternoon that, because this does not happen, it cannot happen. But, of course, if we want to make it happen, it can happen. As my hon. Friend points out, that is the case in other jurisdictions that have more cognisance of, and respect for, not just the fiscal elements, but the social contract that exists between society, individuals and the Government that seek to represent them.
I think the point the Minister made in her summing up was that it has never been possible to draw down a state pension early. Well, I think we know that too. What we are seeking to debate here is that that is not a cogent or sustainable position and that the Government should therefore introduce legislation that makes it possible—in very distinct and challenging circumstances —to draw down that state pension early.
Of the range of reasons or excuses for not doing what has been proposed, I would suggest that “introducing complexity to the system” will fall on fairly stony ground with people who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness. I am sure they would imagine that a bureaucracy the like of which the UK has at its command could sufficiently marshal the resources to tackle the complexity of a very distinct change to the state pension regime to allow them the dignity they sorely deserve.
The benefits system was also talked about a lot this afternoon. Well, again, a bit like private pensions, that issue is distinct from this one. Those state benefits—whether personal independence payments or employment and support allowance—are a function of the person’s or underlying health, whether or not they have been diagnosed with a terminal illness. As every hon. and right hon. Member can attest, many case studies show that those lumbering regimes take a long time—too long—to come to fruition, and they do not recognise the fact that, whether there is a pot there or not, those people have substantively contributed to a system that, in their time of need, has abandoned them. I respectfully suggest to the Minister that she and the Government really should think again.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered early access to pensions for people with a terminal illness.
Written Statements
Closure of Gov.UK Verify
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
I would like to update the House on the Gov.UK Verify programme, following the written ministerial statement in April 2022 made by my colleague Heather Wheeler MP. As planned, the Gov.UK Verify programme has now closed. The final Government service stopped using the platform on 30 March 2023.
Many services which used Gov.UK Verify have moved to Gov.UK One Login—the new Government-built solution which enables users to prove their identity and access central Government services online. The Government Digital Service is using lessons learnt from Gov.UK Verify to help in the development of Gov.UK One Login and provide people with an experience that is representative of a modern, forward-looking democracy.
[HCWS755]
Circumstances leading to the Resignation of a Senior Civil Servant
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Secretary of State (Oliver Dowden)
On 6 March 2023, the Minister for the Cabinet Office and HM Paymaster General announced in reply to an urgent question that the Cabinet Office had been asked to look into the circumstances leading to the resignation of Sue Gray, the former Permanent Secretary for the Union and the Constitution, and committed to update Parliament as appropriate.
This process has involved interviewing relevant persons to establish further details on the contact between Ms Gray and the Leader of the Opposition. I can update the House that Ms Gray was given the opportunity to make representations as part of this process but chose not to do so.
I hope the House will understand that, in order to maintain confidentiality towards an individual former employee, I am unable at this stage to provide further information relating to the departure of Ms Gray whilst we consider next steps.
All civil servants are required to follow the civil service code which sets out the four core values of the civil service:
Integrity—putting the obligations of public service above your own personal interests
Honesty—being truthful and open
Objectivity—basing your advice and decisions on rigorous analysis of the evidence
Impartiality—acting solely according to the merits of the case and serving equally well Governments of different political persuasions.
Section 4.4.9 of the civil service management code sets out that all members of the senior civil service are in the “politically restricted” category, which places further restrictions on their political activity.
In addition, there is a requirement under the directory of civil service guidance, which underpins the civil service code, that
“contacts between senior civil servants and leading members of the Opposition parties...should...be cleared with...Ministers.”
The impartiality and perceived impartiality of the civil service is constitutionally vital to the conduct of Government. Ministers must be able to speak to their officials from a position of absolute trust, so it is the responsibility of everyone in this House to preserve and support the impartiality of the civil service.
Separately, the Cabinet Office has made submissions to the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACoBA), the independent appointments watchdog, in relation to Ms Gray’s application for advice under the business appointment rules, prior to her taking up an appointment as chief of staff to the Leader of the Opposition. The Government’s confidential assessment is in line with the usual process and ACoBA will consider evidence from a range of sources to make a recommendation on any appropriate restrictions on the appointment. As set out in the business appointment rules, the aim of the rules includes avoiding any reasonable concerns that
“a former civil servant might improperly exploit privileged access to contacts in Government or sensitive information”.
The decision on any recommended restrictions on the appointment is for ACoBA.
The Government will provide a further update to the House in due course.
[HCWS757]
Notification of Contingent Liability
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Jeremy Hunt)
The independent Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England decided at its meeting ending on 3 February 2022 to reduce the stocks of UK Government bonds and sterling non-financial investment-grade corporate bonds held in the Asset Purchase Facility by ceasing to reinvest maturing securities. The Bank ceased reinvestment of assets in this portfolio in February 2022 and has since commenced sales of corporate bonds on 28 September 2022, and sales of gilts acquired for monetary policy purposes on 1 November 2022.
The previous Chancellor agreed a joint approach with the Governor of the Bank of England in an exchange of letters on 3 February 2022 to reduce the maximum authorised size of the APF for asset purchases every six months, as the size of APF holdings reduces.
Since 16 January 2023, the total stock of assets held by the APF for monetary policy purposes has fallen from £851 billion to £821.3 billion. In line with the approach agreed with the Governor, the authorised maximum total size of the APF has therefore been reduced to £821.3 billion.
The risk control framework previously agreed with the Bank will remain in place, and HM Treasury will continue to monitor risks to public funds from the APF through regular risk oversight meetings and enhanced information sharing with the Bank.
There will continue to be an opportunity for HM Treasury to provide views to the MPC on the design of the schemes within the APF, as they affect the Government’s broader economic objectives and may pose risks to the Exchequer.
The Government will continue to indemnify the Bank, the APF and its directors from any losses arising out of, or in connection with, the facility. If the liability is called, provision for any payment will be sought through the normal supply procedure.
A full departmental minute has been laid in the House of Commons providing more detail on this contingent liability.
[HCWS756]
Appointments Update: BBC Board Chairman
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Lucy Frazer)
On Friday 28 April, Richard Sharp submitted his resignation as chair of the BBC Board. On the same day, the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments published the decision notice on the inquiry into the appointment process for the chair of the BBC Board.
I understand and respect Richard Sharp’s decision to stand down, and following his resignation letter to me I wrote to him. A copy of this exchange of letters will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
The board proposed that Richard Sharp stay in post until the next board meeting on 27 June 2023, while an acting chair is appointed in line with the charter. This will provide certainty and stability. A process will also commence to appoint a permanent new chair.
[HCWS753]
UK Concussion Guidelines for Grassroots Sport
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Stuart Andrew)
I wish to inform the House that His Majesty’s Government announced the UK concussion guidelines for grassroots sport in conjunction with the Sport and Recreation Alliance on Friday 28 April:
https://www.sportandrecreation.org.uk/policy/research-publications/concussion-guidelines
The vast majority of people participate in sport safely, but reducing the risks associated with concussion and making sport even safer for everyone is an ambition shared by both Government and the sport sector. Ultimately, we want more people to participate in sport and have a positive, enjoyable and safe experience.
The new UK concussion guidelines for grassroots sport are, therefore, a significant step forward. The most important message is: “If in doubt, sit them out”, and the new guidelines are designed to help those at grassroots level:
RECOGNISE the signs of concussion;
REMOVE anyone suspected of being concussed immediately and;
RETURN safely to daily activity, education/work and, ultimately, sport.
The guidelines are designed for everyone involved in grassroots sport from school age upwards—participants, coaches, volunteers, parents—as well as those working in education settings and healthcare professions. The guidelines are aimed at grassroots sport where trained healthcare professionals are typically not available to manage concussed individuals.
The guidelines have been developed by an independent drafting group of leading UK and international experts in the field of sport-related concussion who used the latest and most robust scientific and medical evidence available. The guidelines have been endorsed by the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Royal College of Emergency Medicine and supported by the NHS and the home nations’ chief medical officers.
The UK-wide high level guidelines are part of a wider package of work being taken forward under the Government’s Action Plan on Concussion, as set out in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s Command Paper of December 2021.
Since publication of the Command Paper, through the action plan, the Government have created a distribution network of key stakeholders to share the new concussion guidelines and directed UK Sport and Sport England to ensure that the guidelines are implemented where appropriate by sports in receipt of public funding.
We have also encouraged sport national governing bodies to discuss training protocols with player associations. For the longer term, we have also created an Innovation and Technology panel of experts to work with companies in the tech industry to explore technological solutions, and established a new Sports Concussion Research Forum to identify the research questions that need answering in this important area.
We encourage Members of the House to share this important message widely to ensure that the benefits of sport are enjoyed safely.
[HCWS754]
Draft Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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The Minister for Security (Tom Tugendhat)
Today, I am pleased to announce the publication of the draft Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill, also known as Martyn’s law, for pre-legislative scrutiny by the Home Affairs Committee. The draft Bill (CP 840) has been laid before the House and is also available on www.gov.uk.
The Government confirmed their intention to bring forward Martyn’s law in December 2022. Since this announcement, officials have been working at pace to finalise the proposals.
The plans have been developed following extensive engagement with security partners, business and victims’ groups, including Figen Murray and the Martyn’s Law Campaign Team. The Government would particularly like to thank Figen Murray, whose son Martyn Hett was killed in the Manchester Arena attack, for the significant contribution she has made through her tireless campaign to introduce the Bill.
The threat from terrorism is evolving and enduring. One of the most significant long-term trends, irrespective of ideology, is individuals—or small groups—who plan or carry out terrorist attacks without being part of an organised terrorist group. This type of terrorism is not new, but it is now the most prevalent, and it presents unique challenges for our counter-terrorism response.
Attacks have tended to be “low-complexity” involving “low-sophistication” attack methodologies. For example, we have seen attacks that utilised knives and vehicles. Individuals may not have any relationship with or direction from established terrorist groups—but just because an attack is low-sophistication, it does not mean it is less deadly.
This trend is not exclusive, as such individuals are capable of higher-complexity attacks involving more sophisticated attack methodologies, such as the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing. This trend of radicalised self-initiated actors makes identification and disruption difficult, and it becomes increasingly challenging to predict threat at specific locations.
This is why it is right that Martyn’s law should seek to improve protective security and organisational preparedness at a wide range of public premises across the UK. Those responsible for certain public premises will be required to consider the threat from terrorism and implement reasonably practicable and proportionate mitigating measures. It will also establish an associated inspection and enforcement regime, which will seek to educate, advise, and ensure compliance with the requirements of the Bill.
The requirements within the Bill will only apply to qualifying premises—in short, qualifying premises have specific uses and a large capacity. Qualifying premises are split into two tiers, the “standard duty” and the “enhanced duty”. Standard duty premises are those with a capacity of 100 to 799 people. Enhanced duty premises are those with a capacity of 800 people or more. The Bill allows for provision to be made for some qualifying premises to be treated as standard duty premises when they would otherwise be enhanced duty premises, and vice versa.
Standard duty requirements have been developed to ensure there is a baseline level of protection and preparedness throughout the UK. These requirements will help keep the public safe, while at the same time not unduly burdening business. The enhanced tier requirements are more extensive because those premises have a responsibility to keep larger numbers of people safe.
The regulator will apply a “reasonably practicable” test to carefully consider what it is reasonable to expect of a specific premise; there will not be a one size fits all approach. In all instances, the Government and the regulator will provide guidance and support to ensure we do everything possible to alleviate the burden on business.
The requirements that apply to enhanced duty premises will also apply to large events held at non-qualifying premises, known as qualifying events. These are public events with a capacity of 800 or over that require express permission for entry—with or without payment.
We recognise that it would not be appropriate for all locations to consider and put in place security measures. Striking the right balance between protecting the public and proportionality has been at the heart of policy development and the Bill.
I am looking forward to working with the Home Affairs Committee to ensure that the legislation is robust and delivers on its core aims ahead of a formal introduction into Parliament.
[HCWS751]
Product Security Regime: Implementation Plan
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Paul Scully)
I am repeating the following written ministerial statement made today in the other place by my noble Friend, the Minister for AI and Intellectual Property, Viscount Camrose:
The Government are determined to cement the UK’s place as a science and technology superpower by 2030. We will grow the UK economy, create high-paid jobs of the future, protect our security, and radically improve people’s lives through science, innovation and technology. To ensure that consumer connected technology is more secure against cyber threats, the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act 2022 (PSTI Act) will mandate that minimum security requirements must be complied with before consumer connectable products can be supplied to UK customers. UK consumers will be the first in the world to benefit from these protections.
I have now made commencement regulations which will bring part 1 of the PSTI Act into effect on 29 April 2024. The Government are also today publishing the technical wording of the new security requirements within the full draft text of the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure (Security Requirements for Relevant Connectable Products) Regulations 2023. Manufacturers and other businesses in the supply chain of these products now have 12 months to transition their businesses to comply with these new security requirements.
From April next year, consumers and businesses across the UK will benefit from world-leading security protections from the threat of cyber-crime:
Universal default and easily guessable default passwords will be banned on consumer connectable products—meaning UK customers will enjoy additional protections from their products being compromised by hackers, and used to launch cyber-attacks against citizens, businesses, critical national infrastructure, and nation states.
Device manufacturers will have to publish contact information allowing vulnerabilities relating to their devices to be reported to them. This will enable manufacturers to maintain an awareness of, and therefore address, existing or future cyber security risks.
Manufacturers will have to be transparent about how long their products will receive security updates for. This will provide security-conscious consumers with vital, standardised security information, that they can use to inform their purchasing decisions, and drive the provision of longer security update periods through market forces.
Manufacturers will also be required to ensure that a customer is made aware of a product’s security update support period before allowing them to purchase the product on the manufacturer’s website.
Officials at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology have been working closely with industry, consumer rights organisations, and cyber security experts, to ensure the requirements this legislation will set out satisfy the Government’s ambitions. Today, in addition to making commencement regulations, the Government are publishing the technical wording of the new security requirements within the full draft text of the PSTI (Product Security) Regulations 2023:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/secure-by-design
Once the notification requirements of international bodies, including the World Trade Organisation, have been complied with, the final draft regulations will be laid before Parliament for scrutiny.
[HCWS752]
Grand Committee
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Geddes) (Con)
My Lords, as is usual at the beginning of a Grand Committee, I should advise the Grand Committee that if there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, which I am told is unlikely, this Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes.
Register of Overseas Entities (Definition of Foreign Limited Partner, Protection and Rectification) Regulations 2023
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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The Earl of Minto
That the Grand Committee do consider the Register of Overseas Entities (Definition of Foreign Limited Partner, Protection and Rectification) Regulations 2023.
The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade (The Earl of Minto) (Con)
My Lords, I beg to move that these regulations, which were laid before the House on 15 March 2023, be considered. These regulations form part of a series of secondary legislation needed to effectively implement the register of overseas entities, which I will refer to as the register.
The register was created under Part 1 of the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act, which gained Royal Assent last year. The register will help to crack down on dirty Russian money in the UK and corrupt foreign elites abusing the openness of our economy. It requires overseas entities owning or buying property in the UK to give information about their beneficial owners or managing officers to Companies House, and provides greater information for law enforcement officers to help them track down those using UK property as a vehicle for money laundering.
The register went live on 1 August 2022 and the deadline for registration was set at 31 January this year. There has been a high rate of compliance, with over 27,500 overseas entities registering to date. A further 700 have provided details to Companies House, having disposed of all their interests in land before the end of the transitional period. This means that over 28,000 entities have complied with the requirements. While that likely leaves a few thousand entities still to register, some of these are believed to have been dissolved or struck off while others have not kept their address details up to date with the Land Registry. Companies House continues to work to increase compliance even further; it is now also assessing cases for compliance action.
Noble Lords will recall my noble friend Lord Callanan introducing the first tranche of regulations last year. These included the Register of Overseas Entities (Delivery, Protection and Trust Services) Regulations, the Register of Overseas Entities (Verification and Provision of Information) Regulations, and the Land Registration (Amendment) Rules. The subject of today’s debate is the first regulations in the latest tranche that is subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. Other instruments are being prepared to ensure that the register can function even more effectively.
I turn to the details of this instrument. These regulations are laid under the powers of the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022, which I will refer to as the Act. They deal with three main elements: first, prescribing the characteristics of a foreign limited partner for the purposes of the Act; secondly, allowing for information held within the register to be removed on application under circumstances; and, thirdly, amending the protection elements of the Register of Overseas Entities (Delivery, Protection and Trust Services) Regulations 2022.
The first part of this instrument sets out the characteristics of a foreign limited partner for the purposes of the register. These regulations provide that such individuals participate in a foreign limited partnership as a limited liability participant or hold shares or a right, either directly or indirectly, in a legal entity that participates in a foreign limited partnership as a limited liability participant. The regulations also define exactly what is meant by a foreign limited partnership and how a person would qualify as a limited liability participant in such a partnership. These provisions will assist overseas entities in identifying registerable beneficial owners under the legislation for the register.
As regards the measure on rectification, Regulation 4 sets out the grounds for rectifying the register. There may be occasions when information submitted to and visible on the register is factually inaccurate, forged, or has been submitted without the consent of the overseas entity. This regulation therefore allows for the register to be rectified by removing such information.
Regulation 5 of the instrument establishes the criteria for those entitled to receive notice of an application for rectification. It also specifies the information that must be included in the notice.
Accordingly, Regulation 6 lays down the grounds for interested parties objecting to such an application while confirming how objections should be made and the time limit for making them. Regulation 6 also sets out how the register is to determine whether to accept an application for rectification where an objection has been received.
Without these regulations, it would not be possible for a person to apply for the removal of inaccurate or forged information from the register. These measures therefore strengthen the accuracy and utility of the register.
On the third measure, on protection, Regulation 7 sets out details of an amendment to the existing protection regime. The regime deals with the protection of personal information from public inspection; “protection” means that information is not displayed by Companies House on the public register, although protected information must be provided to Companies House and is available to law enforcement. As it stands, protection can be granted only on an application subject to strict criteria. Applicants must provide evidence that they are, or a person living with them is, at risk of serious violence or intimidation if their details are publicly disclosed. Such a disclosure must result directly from their link with the overseas entity.
The amending provision will remove the requirement to demonstrate the risk of violence or intimidation arising directly from the individual’s association with the overseas entity. The measure will subsequently allow applications for protection that are needed because an individual is at serious risk. They would still need to demonstrate that risk before protection is granted but the risk would no longer need to be linked to the overseas entity.
The amendment will also allow for relevant individuals’ usual residential addresses to be protected if, for example, an individual provides a usual residential address as a service address without realising that it will be displayed on the public register. The person will then have to provide an alternative address to protect their usual residential address. These changes are necessary because it has become apparent that the current criteria lack flexibility. Without these changes, there is a real risk that, by publicly disclosing their details, some people will be in danger of serious violence or intimidation due to the ease with which a link could be made to their residential address.
To sum up, the measures in these regulations are crucial for the effective operation of the register of overseas entities. I hope that noble Lords will support these measures and their objectives. I commend these draft regulations to the Committee.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, we welcome this small adjustment to last year’s Act. I think we all approach it from the angle of the Committee on this year’s economic crime Bill, and the Minister is well aware that the largest concern coming out of its successive sittings is about how serious the Government are on enforcement. That question will continue all the way through our consideration of that Bill and it relates to this SI a little.
We are aware of the problem we have with properties in London owned by foreign companies, particularly where it is not clear who owns them, and, to a more limited extent, with land across the UK. We are conscious that this leads to a loss of tax revenue because, if you cannot identify the owner, you cannot get the rates paid or whatever. I have not yet seen an assessment of how much revenue is being lost to local councils and others from this hole, but it must be considerable.
I was told that 40% of properties in the Nine Elms development around Battersea Power Station have been sold to people from outside the UK. That is a large amount, and we know that there are a considerable number of areas, including Belgravia, where the lights are off.
Over the weekend, I was quite surprised to get some interesting statistics from an organisation with which I was not previously familiar called Open Ownership. I note that Transparency International is one of the entities that funds and supports this new body. It gave me some very interesting figures including that, of the beneficial owners personally registered, some 70 appear to be under the age of 12, one appears to have been born in 1897, which makes him 126 now, and another was born in 1907, which makes him 116. There are possibly one or two inaccuracies in what is being reported. Perhaps the Minister will say a little about how checks will be made on what comes in, so that rectification can take place.
I was even more interested to discover that the overwhelming majority of individuals identified as beneficial owners so far were British, by both nationality and residence. I had expected more to be from Asia—Hong Kong, mainland China and Singapore—and areas of eastern Europe, Cyprus and elsewhere. The large majority of companies mentioned as beneficial owners were registered in either the UK or the three Crown dependencies. If what I have received is accurate, it suggests a considerable amount of a different sort of economic crime under way here, which is called tax evasion. There may be a substantial loss of revenue to the United Kingdom that, as we proceed further down this line, we might at last begin to tackle.
While I welcome this small step forward, we have a long way to go. There are a lot of questions about what we do with this information as we gather it and if this information is correct. One of the questions raised in the Committee on the Bill was how much capacity Companies House will have to go through this and trigger action on it, and with which agencies the Government will then pursue that action.
I apologise to the Minister for not having given notice of the questions I have just thrown at him, but I received this SI only two or three days ago. I welcome the regulations, but we still have a lot of other things to do in this large and complicated area in which the United Kingdom Government and, as we know from other areas of economic crime, British citizens lose a lot of money.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his opening comments. I think he will be aware that several of us are spending quite a lot of our time on the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill, which is going through the House at the moment, and many of the issues in the statutory instrument we are discussing today are the subject of ongoing conversations.
We recognise that this is secondary legislation to amend the Act that went through last year. I welcome the Minister’s comment that this is work in progress and that further revisions will be required because there are still some gaps that we may need to consider in future.
I preface my remarks by highlighting the scale of the problem that we are dealing with. I do not think any of us should shy away from the real problem we have in this country now as a result of not taking action sooner. It is a tragedy in many ways that it was the onset of the conflict in Ukraine that necessitated swift action, and it is regrettable that this problem, which had been highlighted before, had not come into our focus and received the attention necessary.
I welcome in the main the provisions in the statutory instrument, but I shall make a couple of comments and ask a couple of questions. I make it clear, as we have done throughout the discussions in this area, that we recognise that the vast majority of companies investing in the UK do so with good intentions and bring great benefit to the country and that we are concentrating on the actions of the relatively small number of bad actors. Sadly, their contribution to this is profound and has done an enormous amount to damage the reputation of the UK on the world stage. I hope that we are united across the Committee in making sure that we take every opportunity to improve the chances of our reputation being recovered and are seeking out problems as they arise.
My main hope is that those at serious risk if information is given out are protected. It is very important that we recognise that there are genuine cases where protection needs to be secured. By the same token, we have to avoid disproportionate burdens and make sure that legitimate investors are welcome to operate in our country.
I seek some clarification. There seems to be some concern that the Act still does not provide a complete definition of what a foreign limited partner is. The description in the Explanatory Memorandum seems rather abstract. I wonder whether this may lead to practical implications where the confusion continues to exist. Reassurance on this point would be gratefully received. Most of all, we want to make sure that the register is populated correctly and effectively. Throughout the discussions on this matters, transparency is paramount in the context of those who will need further protection, as the Minister outlined.
I thank the Minister for his comments about risk, but I want to understand if bringing this instrument forward has led to further thought on the definition of risk. Have we gone far enough? I would like to understand how this is demonstrated and whether there has been an assessment of how well this is working so far. As has been highlighted, the issue of the alternative address could still be problematic. I understand the need for flexibility, but is there a risk remaining? We would like to be confident of the success of this provision. Again, this links to the balance between protection and transparency.
The other area is—if you can describe it as this—cleaning up the register and recognising, as we have heard, that some of the information held is clearly not factually accurate or even worse, as we know there is certainly a measure of intent in some of the entries. Do we know the extent of this? On how many occasions is this going to be necessary? Do we have an estimate of how much of a problem this is and how regular it is? Most importantly—I think this runs through all the debates on the Bill itself—how will this work be resourced? Can we be reassured that there are adequate personnel and resources at our disposal to make sure that we get this done successfully?
What are the sanctions once a forgery or anything factually inaccurate has been identified? Are there punishments? Do we have any evidence of this? Can we have a general clarification around the deterrent factor to make sure that we do not have problems going forward? Obviously, with there being an equivalent provision in the Companies Act 2006, I would hope that we have learned from the experience of working on this. I wonder if there are examples of that that would help to inform the debate.
I understand the Minister’s comments about the deadline of 31 January, but I have heard an estimate that 7,000 companies failed to register. Is that about the ballpark he is suggesting? Since January—we are now in May—has there been an understanding of how successful the action taken against the remaining numbers has been?
There are still other issues and I look forward to other measures coming forward to fill the loopholes. In conclusion, of course we welcome the provisions being made, but are seeking reassurance and confidence that concerns will be addressed, and the necessary changes will be made as we go forward.
The Earl of Minto (Con)
I thank both noble Lords for their valuable contributions to the debate. The Government are committed to ensuring that the register of overseas entities is robust and effective at tackling the use of UK property to launder money. These regulations provide the mechanisms that ensure that the register of overseas entities operates effectively. A clear definition of “foreign limited partner” provides greater certainty concerning registrable beneficial owners of overseas entities; I have a full definition for the noble Baroness that I can share. Applicants will be able to identify registrable beneficial owners more easily with a definition that is recognisable across multiple jurisdictions.
The amendment to the protection regime will address the unintended consequences of the regulations as they stand, by removing the requirement to demonstrate the risk of violence or intimidation arising directly from the individual’s association with the overseas entity. The measure on rectification ensures that errors on the register, whether deliberate or accidental, are identified and removed. The points raised by noble Lords highlight the necessity of the measures in these regulations, and I will answer some of them now.
The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, raised the question of accuracy—that is definitely ongoing. I do not think Companies House fully knows the number of inaccurate entries, but it still stands by the estimate it has used before of there being 32,000 registrable entities in total. We are up above 28,000 now. Although there will be some inaccuracies, I hope that by continuing to approach these organisations, Companies House will iron them out. I have not been involved in this sort of thing before but, despite the fact that it has taken some time to get there—it took the atrocious situation in Ukraine to bring this to the fore—it has certainly made some significant progress in getting that many people to register in such a short period of time. However, the point is well made that the accuracy of the register is paramount, including in terms of lost revenue.
On the younger people mentioned, I understand there are issues of family trusts, particularly with UK beneficial owners. That point, too, was well made. I could go through what is meant by the “foreign limited partner”, but I would rather share that with the noble Baroness. I hope that answers some of the more direct questions, and I will write to noble Lords if there is anything that I have not answered.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
May I ask two questions, not to be answered now but perhaps in a letter? First, checking the accuracy of everybody’s name on the register will not be easy. Particularly for those that are not registered in Britain—those relying on co-operation from foreign authorities—it raises a large number of questions about how we get other authorities to co-operate with us and what multilateral network there is to ensure that they provide accurate information. I would appreciate knowing more about that.
Secondly, we are all familiar with the cascade of companies that one often finds—you go to the first company, which is owned by two different companies in two different jurisdictions and so on. If we are serious about this, how are we going to work through that, given that we are dealing not simply with overseas territories officially under British sovereignty but with other offshore financial centres which do not have a good record of co-operating to provide accurate information?
The Earl of Minto (Con)
Behind the noble Lord’s question is the question of resource. Companies House has 120 full-time equivalent staff working on this and pursuing precisely what the noble Lord referred to. I hope that will continue to improve the situation as time moves on, but the point was very well made.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
Can I link that to the question I asked about what punishment or sanction there is? I apologise if the Minister is coming to that.
The Earl of Minto (Con)
At the moment, the main emphasis is trying to get the accuracy of the data. No punishment has been meted out yet, but there is power—both financial and legal—to punish as and when. Companies House is working hard to get those cases under way, but its main emphasis has been on trying to get the information as accurate as possible so that a lot of the anomalies that sit within it can be effectively eliminated. As the noble Lord said, some of these corporate structures are quite complicated, so it takes a while to get to the bottom of them. I promise that I will write.
The register of overseas entities provides sets of new global standards for transparency and levels the playing field with property owned by UK companies, which must already disclose their beneficial owners to Companies House. The register is a crucial part of the Government’s fight against illicit finance. The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill, currently before Parliament, will feature substantial changes to UK economic and partnership law and complement the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act. The Bill will introduce amendments to the Act that provide further operational detail on the register of overseas entities. For example, new measures in the Bill will require more information about overseas entities, including the title numbers of the properties held by overseas entities. It also introduces minimum age limits for managing officers to ensure that details of a person over 16 years of age are always be provided.
The Bill will also make further provisions for registrable beneficial owners in cases involving trusts and includes an anti-avoidance mechanism to ensure that those in scope of the register at the time that the Act was first published as a Bill to Parliament cannot circumvent its requirements. The laying of these regulations will complement the measures in the Bill to ensure that the register is as effective as possible, and I commend them to the Committee.
Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) (Amendment) Order 2023
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Penn
That the Grand Committee do consider the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) (Amendment) Order 2023.
Relevant document: 36th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
The Parliamentary Secretary, HM Treasury (Baroness Penn) (Con)
My Lords, this Government have a clear vision for financial services—that is, for an open, sustainable and technologically advanced financial services sector that is globally competitive and acts in the interests of communities and citizens by creating jobs, supporting businesses and powering growth across all four nations of the UK. The two statutory instruments that we are debating today complement some of the measures that are being delivered through the Financial Services and Markets Bill, which is currently before this House. I note that both statutory instruments were raised as instruments of interest by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee.
I turn first to the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) (Amendment) Order 2023. In recent years, multiple reports from the Cryptoasset Taskforce and the Financial Conduct Authority have identified that misleading advertising and a lack of suitable information are key consumer protection issues in crypto asset markets. This statutory instrument seeks to address those issues by ensuring that crypto asset promotions are held to the same standards as broader financial services products carrying similar risk.
To do this, the SI expands the scope of the financial promotion restriction provided by the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 by amending the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005 to include financial promotions in respect of in-scope crypto assets. This will mean that businesses that intend to make qualifying crypto asset promotions would need to have their promotions approved by an authorised person under the Financial Services and Markets Act if they are not FSMA-authorised persons or exempt.
At present, most crypto firms do not hold such FSMA authorisation in respect of their crypto activities under existing regulations, so the requirement to be authorised means that most crypto firms will not be able to communicate their own promotions, unlike other financial services firms. As set out in the February 2023 policy statement, there is also evidence of a lack of suitable FSMA-authorised persons in the market willing and able to approve crypto promotions.
In practice, the net effect of these issues would be to restrict significantly or amount to an effective ban on crypto asset financial promotions because there are unlikely to be FSMA-authorised persons willing to approve the promotions of unauthorised firms. To avoid the unintended consequence of an effective ban on crypto asset promotions, the SI introduces an exemption for crypto asset firms registered with the FCA under its anti-money laundering regime. This will enable qualifying firms to communicate their own crypto asset financial promotions without seeking approval from a FSMA-authorised person.
Crucially, the SI confers powers to the FCA to ensure that AML-registered crypto asset businesses relying on this exemption will still be subject to the same financial promotion rules as FSMA-authorised persons communicating equivalent promotions. Firms using this exemption will not be able to approve others’ financial promotions or to communicate their own financial promotions in relation to other controlled investments.
The Government intend this AML exemption to be temporary in nature. It will be in place only until the proposed broader regulatory regime for crypto assets is established. The Government are preparing to bring stablecoins used for payment into the scope of regulation and are also consulting further on their regulatory approach to unbacked crypto assets.
When in force, the SI and the FCA rules will apply to all businesses making crypto asset promotions to UK-based consumers, whether from the UK or abroad. The SI provides for a four-month implementation period, which will commence when this SI is made and on the publication of the FCA’s detailed rules subsequent to this SI. As set out in the policy statement published in February 2023, this period is intended to ensure that crypto asset firms have suitable time to understand and prepare for the financial promotions regime before it comes into force.
This SI will reduce a key risk to consumers, particularly that of consumers suffering unexpected or large losses without regulatory protection as a result of buying crypto asset products while being unaware of the associated risks. This complements and forms part of our wider, proportionate approach to regulation, harnessing the advantages of crypto technologies while mitigating the most significant risks.
Turning to the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Commodity Derivatives and Emission Allowances) Order 2023, this second instrument reduces the burdens that firms face when determining their trading in commodity derivatives and emission allowances by requiring them to be authorised as an investment firm. Effective commodities markets regulation is key to ensuring that market speculation does not lead to economic harm. The regulator should be able effectively to regulate and supervise firms that trade commodity derivatives for investment purposes.
As well as financial services firms, a number of corporates trade on commodity markets to protect their business from market fluctuations. In regulation, this is referred to as trading that is ancillary to the main business. The regime that we have inherited from the EU uses something called the ancillary activities test to determine whether the activities of a firm trading commodity derivatives are primarily for investment purposes or only support the firm’s commercial business. The ancillary activities test currently requires firms to undertake complex calculations; they are also required to notify the FCA about the outcome of these calculations on an annual basis.
Taken together, this regime is overly burdensome for firms. Prior to the implementation of the ancillary activities test in EU law, the UK had a simpler test for determining whether firms were trading in commodity derivatives or emission allowances as an ancillary activity. This regime was cheaper for firms to comply with and resulted in the same outcomes as the current regime.
In 2021, as part of the wholesale markets review, the Government consulted on reverting to a simpler regime while maintaining the same regulatory outcomes. The proposal was to remove the annual notification requirement and revert to a principles-based approach. Respondents to the consultation agreed with the proposed changes, stating that the current regime was onerous and complicated. Consequently, the Government committed to bringing forward these changes when they responded to the consultation last year.
This SI delivers on that commitment by removing the annual notification requirement and omitting references to the calculations, which are no longer needed in legislation. This will pave the way for the Financial Conduct Authority to adopt a simpler and more streamlined approach to determining whether firms need to be authorised, alongside this SI. To reflect the FCA’s adoption of a simpler approach, this instrument also amends part of the regulated activities order, which exempts firms from having to perform the current calculations. As the FCA’s new approach will be based on different information, this exemption is no longer relevant.
The SI will come into force on 1 January 2025. This will ensure that industry has sufficient time to reflect on the changes that the FCA will be making and to make the necessary system changes. I understand that the FCA plans to consult on these changes later this year.
Maintaining the ancillary activities test as it currently stands would impose continuing costs on both firms and the FCA, as evidenced by feedback received through the consultation process. The changes outlined will reduce costs for firms and make the UK a more attractive place to do business, while maintaining high regulatory standards. I beg to move.
Lord Sharkey (LD)
My Lords, we support both of these instruments, with some reservations and a few questions.
I will speak first to the commodity derivatives and emission allowances order. As the Minister said, it proposes a very sensible reduction to regulatory burdens. I note that the procedure followed in this case was a kind of super-affirmative, as prescribed in Schedule 8 to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. The instrument was published in draft to enable recommendations to be made by a committee of either House; no such recommendations were made but some questions nevertheless arise.
Perhaps the key question is when we will see the FCA’s new replacement regime, mentioned in paragraph 7.8 of the Explanatory Memorandum. Paragraph 10.2 of the EM notes that respondents to the consultation
“did not want to return to a wholly qualitative definition of ‘ancillary trading’”
and
“were in favour of the FCA developing a simplified method to determine when an activity is ancillary”—
one that would give them the legal certainty that qualitative definitions would not. I think this means that, until January 2025, when the SI comes into force, the current rules continue to apply. If that is the case, and if the current regulatory burden is so obviously unnecessary, why do we have to wait so long for the new regime?
The EM also notes:
“HMT is committed … to ensuring that the FCA has the right powers to set any transitional provisions that may be necessary to deal with the situation in which a firm’s trading activity can no longer be regarded as ancillary”.
I take this to mean that the FCA does not currently have these powers. If that is the case, perhaps the Minister can say why the usual transitional powers article was not included in this SI.
I now turn to the financial promotion SI. I agree that that it is vital both to increase consumers’ understanding of the risks associated with crypto assets and to ensure that the promotion of these assets is subject to the same standard of regulation as is the case for broader financial services; I welcome the proposed order. I am glad to see that the proposed implementation period has been reduced from six months to four months but I wonder whether this is still too long and invites an avalanche of unregulated promotion in those four months. Can the Minister explain why the four-month period was chosen and say what consideration was given to a shorter period? I would also be grateful for more explanation of the exemption mentioned in paragraph 6.4 of the EM— specifically why it is necessary and how long it will last—and for an assurance that it does not create any unhelpful loopholes.
Lord Naseby (Con)
My Lords, I am going to talk to the crypto assets SI only. This is a vital SI at this point in time. I am delighted that the objectives are,
“improving consumers’ understanding of the risks associated … and ensuring that cryptoasset promotions are held to the same standards as for broader financial services”.
The taskforce reported way back in 2018 and, my goodness, the world has changed dramatically since then. Paragraph 7.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum records what happened to the market a few months ago. Recent failures happened in November and, for all we know, there may be some just around the corner.
My noble friend and those who decide these things are absolutely right that the FCA should now be involved. However, I, too, question whether the four-month gap after the SI is passed is really necessary. In today’s modern world, I would have thought three months would be the absolute maximum—if even that long is needed. We also know, as highlighted in paragraph 10.3, that since the publication of this SI, the Government have recognised
“that risks to consumers have increased”
and they are still increasing.
I am no longer involved in the world of advertising and promotion, but I was in a previous incarnation. People are extraordinarily creative when it comes to financial promotion. Direct mail, in all its varying forms, and telephonic communications, in all their current sophisticated manners, are a very difficult area to control and to have a regime for. Therefore, His Majesty’s Government must look at this very carefully, take the best advice of those doing the communicating—I hope my noble friend has access to the genuine people who are communicating—and look at what developments are happening in communication. In paragraph 13.4 the Government quite rightly say that they do
“not have an estimate of the number of small or micro businesses in the UK that are liable to be affected by this measure”.
I know from experience that number is growing. Therefore, this is needed urgently. Again, I emphasise that four months is a little too generous.
Finally, I see in paragraph 14.3 that the Minister with responsibility for small business, enterprise and employment has claimed that this SI does not need a review clause. If there is a market that really needs a review clause, this one is a wonderful case history. I cannot believe that we really believe that. It is up to His Majesty’s Government to decide at what stage there should be a review, which is entirely right, but this is a market that needs to be kept in total focus, otherwise things will go wrong again.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for introducing these orders. Let me also express thanks to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for flagging the orders as instruments of interest in its 36th report of the Session. As the Minister outlined, the first order brings crypto assets into the regulatory regime for financial promotions. This is not the first time we have debated the risks associated with crypto assets, and I doubt it will be the last.
As the Explanatory Memorandum notes, crypto assets have been subject to severe market instability in recent years. Some assets have seen significant reductions in their value, and we have also witnessed the failure of several high-profile firms, including the bankruptcy of FTX late last year. With that instability in mind, we welcome any steps to reduce the risk posed to consumers, particularly through the misleading advertising which seems to have become commonplace as crypto popularity has soared.
However, this order is only one piece in an increasingly complex regulatory puzzle, with supplementary steps being taken through other vehicles, including the ongoing Financial Services and Markets Bill. I hope the Minister can provide assurance that the Treasury and the regulators are moving as quickly as they can in this area. Financial regulation is iterative and new measures need to be properly consulted on, but the Minister will understand concerns that remaining regulatory gaps will continue to be exploited. The implementation period for this measure has been shortened, which appears to be a sensible step. Can the Minister comment on the likely implementation period for related future measures?
The Explanatory Memorandum helpfully explains the exemptions granted to UK-based businesses on the FCA’s anti-money laundering register. However, the SLSC’s comments on the exemption raise an important question: if it is intended to be temporary, why has no end date been specified? I appreciate that this order is part of a bigger package but, in the interests of good legislating, can the Minister identify at what point a review of the exemption is likely to be carried out?
Finally on this topic, the Minister will be familiar with the suggestion that the Government regulate stablecoins in a similar way to bank deposits—that is, protect funds under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. What consideration, if any, is the Treasury giving to that proposal? If the Government do not plan to take that approach, how will the Treasury and the FCA ensure that consumers are aware that their stablecoins holdings are not protected?
The second order relates to commodity derivatives and emission allowances, specifically when relevant firms will need to be authorised as investment firms. The Explanatory Memorandum promises
“a simpler and therefore lower cost regime”,
with the EU-derived markets in financial legislation regulations rolled back in favour of a new principles-based approach, to be implemented by the FCA. Again, this is part of a broader reform package being undertaken by the Treasury, with part of that package contained in the Financial Services and Markets Bill.
We recognise that the current ancillary activities test is too complicated and burdensome. However, can the Minister outline the proposed timelines associated with these changes, with a particular focus on the FCA’s creation of the new regime? As with crypto assets and many other areas of financial regulation, the FCA is being left to do a lot of heavy lifting but questions remain as to whether current parliamentary oversight of the financial regulators is sufficient. I realise that there are ongoing discussions on this subject between the Minister and interested colleagues across the House, but does she feel that we are getting any closer to a satisfactory outcome? While the risks associated with changes to these elements of financial regulation might be low, that should be as much a judgment for legislators as it is for Ministers and regulators. I hope that we will be able to achieve consensus on that matter as the aforesaid Bill proceeds to Report.
We support the passage of these orders but, as I am sure the Minister will acknowledge, they do not offer the final word on either subject. These are small pieces of a much bigger, more complicated puzzle. I hope that she will be able to speak to that bigger picture in her response and provide both answers and reassurance around some of the issues raised in this debate.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for participating in today’s debate. I turn first to the changes to the financial promotions regime in respect of crypto assets. Several noble Lords asked about the exemption that applies to anti-money laundering regulated firms. I set out some of this in my opening speech but it is worth returning to it now. As set out in the policy statement published in February this year, the anti-money laundering exemption will exempt firms that are not FSMA-authorised but are included on the FCA’s anti-money laundering register from the requirement to have their crypto asset promotion approved by a FSMA-authorised firm. This is subject to said promotions also complying with the same rules set by the FCA for equivalent promotions made by FSMA-authorised firms. The purpose of the AML exemption is to avoid the unintended consequence of an effective ban on crypto asset financial promotions as there are not currently sufficient numbers of FSMA-authorised firms in the crypto space.
Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Commodity Derivatives and Emission Allowances) Order 2023
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Penn
That the Grand Committee do consider the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Commodity Derivatives and Emission Allowances) Order 2023.
Relevant document: 36th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
House of Lords
Royal Assent
Tuesday 2nd May 2023
(1 year, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Leasehold Enfranchisement
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to make leasehold enfranchisement a simpler, more viable option for residential leaseholders.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. I declare my interests as set out in the register and the fact that I am a leaseholder.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Scott of Bybrook) (Con)
My Lords, we are committed to making enfranchisement simpler and cheaper for leaseholders. We will abolish marriage value, cap the treatment of ground rents in the enfranchisement calculation and prescribe rates to be used, saving some leaseholders thousands of pounds. An online calculator will also be introduced to make it simpler for leaseholders to find out how much it will cost them to enfranchise. We are due to bring forward further leaseholder reforms later in this Parliament.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, there is a specific problem with any lease extension granted in blocks of flats after 14 February 2022, as they are not protected by the Building Safety Act 2022. When will that be put right? Secondly, the Minister will have seen the interview her predecessor—the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh—gave to the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership on 14 April, which raised grave doubts about the promised leasehold reform Bill being in the King’s Speech. Does she understand the concern and worry that has caused leaseholders, and will she bring those worries and concerns to the attention of the Secretary of State?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My noble friend—or, rather, the noble Lord opposite; the number of times he brings this Question means I think of him as a friend —is quite right that, if you are a qualifying leaseholder and extend or vary your lease, you may surrender your existing lease and be granted a new lease. As the new lease will not have been granted before 14 February 2022, the statutory leaseholder protections in the Building Safety Act will not apply. We are looking to legislate to resolve this issue as soon as parliamentary time allows. In the meantime, before seeking a new extended or varied lease, leaseholders should seek legal advice and seek to come to agreements with landlords to apply the same protections as contractual terms.
I am very sorry, but I did not answer the second question. He asked whether I would bring the letter to leaseholders from the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, to the attention of the Secretary of State. I have already done so.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, further to the Answer which my noble friend has just given to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, will the protection to which my noble friend has just referred be retrospective so those leaseholders who extended their leases after February last year will get the protection she referred to?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I thank my noble friend for that question. As I say, we are looking at how we can protect it. On whether it is retrospective or not, I will have to write to my noble friend.
Lord Naseby (Con)
Is my noble friend aware that the general tenor of the Answer she has given this afternoon is enormously welcome and a demonstration of the statements made in the last 12 months that our Government believe in not only modernising leasehold but the whole structure of the housing market in the United Kingdom?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I thank my noble friend for that question—or statement, I think. Yes, we have made it very clear all along, in answering every question that I have been asked at this Dispatch Box, that we are going to bring forward further leasehold reform and it will be in this Parliament.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
My Lords, my recent experience of helping leaseholders in a retirement block near me leads me to ask: does the Minister accept that going to the final arbiter of leasehold disputes, which is the First- tier Tribunal, is a long, off-putting, expensive, complex process? Can she reassure us that, when the renters reform Bill finally arrives, it will address this unsatisfactory service which, I can bear testimony to, really is a serious detriment to leaseholders seeking fair treatment?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
Certainly, we will be looking at the First-tier Tribunal issue, as we will be looking at all issues, when we get to the leaseholders Bill and the private renters reform Bill.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, when this new legislation gets published, can the Minister ensure that the exemptions on certain pretty ordinary houses on the Isles of Scilly, which the Duchy of Cornwall has opposed for so many years, will be included and they will be able to buy their leases like everybody else? I would have mentioned it to His Majesty this morning, but my train was late.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for that question. I am afraid I cannot tell him whether the few cottages on the Isles of Scilly that he refers to will be covered, but I am sure he will ask further questions during the passage of that Bill.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, over 20 years ago we introduced the law of commonhold, and I think I contributed to a textbook on the subject as a junior barrister. In the years since, I think only about 20 commonholds have been established. I know the Law Commission looked at this a couple of years ago, and commonhold is designed to be a better alternative to leasehold without the complications. Can the Minister explain what is happening to update commonhold and to encourage the adoption of it?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
The noble Earl brings up a very interesting point. Commonhold, as he knows, allows home owners to own the freehold of a unit, such as a flat, within buildings and it is commonplace in places such as Australia, New Zealand, the US and Canada. Unlike leasehold, commonhold does not run out, there is no third-party landlord and owners are in control of the costs and decisions affecting the management of their buildings. Commonhold was introduced in this country in 2002, but for some reason it has not taken off and, as the noble Earl says, there are currently fewer than 20 commonhold developments. In 2020, the Law Commission recommended reforms to reinvigorate commonhold as an alternative to leasehold ownership, and the Government are looking at this and will respond in due course.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
Would my noble friend agree that, with the shortage of leasehold properties and the extensive number of good landlords that there are across the country, it is important, when we have the new legislation, to ensure that not only are tenants protected—because of course, rightly, they must have protection in their own homes—but we are careful about the balance around putting too much burden on landlords to the extent that we may drive good ones out of the market? I declare my interests as set in the register.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My noble friend is absolutely right: this is a balance. There are a lot of exceptionally good landlords in this country, but there are a few that are not good—in fact, you could probably call them rogue. It is important that whatever legislation we put through gets that balance right, protecting tenants and good landlords but ensuring that we get rid of those rogue landlords.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
Does the Minister recognise the distress and anxiety caused to leaseholders and, indeed, the degree of uncertainty that still exists? Could she explain to us why the opportunity was not taken in the levelling-up Bill to include leaseholders? They are signally not included in it, and so many other things are.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
It is very simple: the leasehold Bill was already in production when LURB came in. It is a very complex Bill and the issues in it need their own legislation; it will be here before the end of the Parliament.
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
It has been very helpful to hear the assurance that we will see leasehold reform before the end of this Parliament, but could my noble friend push to have the Bill published? It is going to be very complex, with issues around enfranchisement, the right to manage and encouraging and reinvigorating commonhold. Can we publish the Bill so that we can begin the pre-legislative scrutiny as soon as possible?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
We have had this question before, but I can tell my noble friend that we are trying to get the Bill here. We have a short period of time, it is a complex Bill and—I am going to be totally honest with noble Lords—it will not get here for pre-legislative scrutiny, but we will get it in shortly.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, can I just be absolutely clear? Are we definitely going to get this Bill in the next Session of Parliament, without a doubt?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
Does the noble Lord want me to repeat it? I shall not waste time—but, yes.
Voter Authority Certificates
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Lord Rennard
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of (1) the number of registered electors who have acquired Voter Authority Certificates, and (2) the effectiveness of the scheme in practice.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Scott of Bybrook) (Con)
My Lords, over 89,500 applications have been received for voter authority certificates. The Government have never had a target for applications and are pleased with the initial rollout. A three-stage evaluation will begin after May’s elections, seeking to understand how the policy measures are implemented and their impact on electors and election staff. Publication of the first review is expected in November 2023, with further reviews after each of the next UK general elections.
Lord Rennard (LD)
My Lords, the Government estimated that around 2 million people who are on the electoral register do not have one of the forms of photo ID required this year. Around 1.6 million of those people have elections on Thursday—but the figures show that more than 1.5 million do not have the local authority certificate and will be unable to vote on Thursday, unless by any chance they have acquired another form of photo ID in the meantime. So perhaps 1.5 million people could be denied their vote. Is the spending of £180 million of taxpayers’ money over 10 years a successful investment for the Conservatives if it blocks this many people from voting?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, there are multiple reasons why voters have chosen not to apply for a voter authority certificate at this time. Not everyone will have elections in their area, for a start, and not everyone will choose to vote in a polling station. Those who vote by post or by proxy will not need voter identification and therefore have no need to apply for a VAC. While we would not seek to predict turnout on 4 May, in previous local elections over the past decade a significant proportion of votes have been cast by post. For example, in the May 2022 local elections, postal votes comprised 38% of overall turnout and proxy votes a further 1%. We also have to accept that, while we hope that every elector takes part in the democratic process, this is simply never going to be the case and many will choose not to vote. The cost of this is £2.42 per elector over a 10-year period.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend not agree that the best form of voter authority certificate would be an identity card? Will she also reflect on her own remarks about postal voting? Where there has been manifest corruption in recent years, it has been not at the ballot box in the station but among postal voters.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
The discussion about ID cards is a whole new question that I do not intend to go into. As for postal votes, the Elections Act 2022 contains further measures on postal votes to secure that vote.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
My Lords, if I heard the Minister correctly, she said there would be a review this autumn on these local election results and another review after the next general election and so on. What is the point of a review if things will continue to go on as if nothing has happened, no matter how bad the election was in terms of voter turnout? Surely, what is required if the review shows a drop in voter turnout is not another review but an abandonment of the whole policy.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I do not think it is an abandonment of the whole policy. We expect the Electoral Commission, as an independent regulator, to provide some analysis and some early, interim reports on the May elections some time this summer. We will learn from that and, if any changes need to be made, we will consider those changes.
Lord Pannick (CB)
Will the Government ensure that adequate, accurate records are kept of the number of potential voters who are turned away because of inadequate documents?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
Yes, my Lords; it is in legislation that local authorities will count the numbers, anonymously, of electors who are turned away and we will look at those and at all the other evidence from the electoral returning officers when we look at how this has worked.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
Does my noble friend have any idea why the opposition parties should be against ensuring that the ballot is properly conducted and secure?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
No, I do not, because it was the Labour Party, supported by the Liberal Democrat Party, that agreed in 2003 to Northern Ireland having a similar system. They voted for it and I cannot understand why they are not voting for it this time.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, we have heard about the review, but the review has to be meaningful, otherwise it is pointless. So, given that the Minister has previously stated that this will consider evidence from polling stations, what exactly will that evidence include, what steps have been taken to prepare for it and what guidance has been given to electoral staff?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
Both the Electoral Commission and the Government have been working with electoral staff continuously since the Act came in. What will be collected at polling stations will include the numbers and the reasons why electors have been turned away, if they have, whether they returned and whether they voted later, as well as other aspects of the policy. This will just be adding to what they would normally collect in a polling station.
Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)
My Lords, will the Minister take this opportunity to apologise for those Conservative leaflets that have been distributed in Norwich and other places, specifically telling people that they do not need ID to vote?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
As a Norfolk resident, I have taken that issue forward.
Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that there seem to be different restrictions in different local authorities before they issue ID cards? I had a message from someone who had been on the electoral roll since 1999. They were initially denied a certificate and had to go back with four different proofs of ID before the authority agreed to issue one. Is this normal practice, and will she look into it?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
It does not sound like normal practice. If the noble Baroness would like to give me some further details, I will look into it. I cannot discuss an individual case.
Lord Hayward (Con)
My Lords, I take this opportunity to thank noble Lords on all sides who supported the passage of the Ballot Secrecy Act, which was given Royal Assent a few moments ago. Further to this particular Question, can I ask my noble friend to re-emphasise the fact that those people who return, having previously been refused the ballot, will be recorded as well, so that there will be a clear record not only of those who are turned away but who return?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
Yes, I am happy to repeat that: those who return with voter ID will be recorded.
Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister is making a pretty bad fist of a very poor case. She mentioned 2003 in Northern Ireland, where there was manifest data on impersonation. If she does not know the difference between Northern Ireland and the British mainland over the past 40 years—before 2003—I cannot really help her. But 2003 was also the year when voluntary biometric ID cards were introduced, in an attempt to make sure that access to public services was not misused, to help in the control of immigration, to make sure that there could not be voter impersonation on the British mainland, and for a dozen other good reasons.
Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)
That scheme was unilaterally abolished by the Liberal Party when they were in the coalition. They are the very same people who are now crying out for some decent method of identification. It is the only way to make sure that there is no impersonation in voting.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, I do understand what happened in Northern Ireland in 2003. Let us get it right. Personation in polling stations is very difficult to identify and prove. By definition, it is a crime of deception. If you listen to the people of Northern Ireland, you will hear that they are more satisfied with their voting system than people in this country. We should allow our residents to be as satisfied with ours. If you look at what comes from polling, you will see that two out of three people in this country would feel more confident in the voting system if there were photo ID.
Schools: “Ghost Children”
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Twycross
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to address the issue of so called ‘ghost children’, including the two million children who are persistently absent from school in England.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)
My Lords, the pandemic was a shock to education. Sickness absence increased, and persistent absence challenges were exacerbated: the persistent absence rate was 22.5%—approximately 1.6 million pupils—in the last academic year. This year, persistent absence has fallen from 25% in the autumn to 21.2% last term. This remains too high. Our priority is to reduce absence, and our strategy includes new, stronger expectations on schools, trusts and local authorities, and targeted support for them.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
My Lords, in evidence to the Commons Select Committee inquiry on persistent absence, the Children’s Commissioner gave three reasons for it: special educational needs not being met in school; anxiety or mental health issues arising post Covid; and those who have simply not gone back to school. Given the long-term impact on children’s life chances and potential safeguarding concerns, can the Minister assure the House that the Government are treating this issue seriously?
Baroness Barran (Con)
I absolutely can reassure the House of that. I express my thanks to the Children’s Commissioner for her work in this area, particularly on children who are not on any school roll at all and are missing education entirely. The noble Baroness may be aware that we set up an attendance alliance, chaired by the Secretary of State, which meets monthly and is working with a number of experts in the field, sharing best practice with schools and other stakeholders to make sure that we get children back to school as quickly as possible.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
My Lords, this has the potential to be a major safeguarding issue, which many professionals are concerned about. What are His Majesty’s Government doing to help schools work with local social services teams to ensure that we have identified who these children are, that their risk is assessed and that they are given the proper support that they need?
Baroness Barran (Con)
There is a safeguarding risk, but there is also a danger of conflating different groups of children. Of those who are persistently absent—those who miss 10% or more of sessions in school—the vast majority have authorised absence for sickness reasons. However, the right reverend Prelate is right that we need to focus on particularly vulnerable children; we have set out new guidance with expectations that local authorities should have termly targeted support meetings with schools to put together a plan for exactly the sort of pupil to which the right reverend Prelate refers.
Lord Laming (CB)
My Lords, the Minister will agree that education is essential for every child, not just for academic study but for their emotional and social development. Does someone actually visit the homes of these children to ascertain why they are not in school and to remind their parents that there is a statutory duty entitling the child to a proper education?
Baroness Barran (Con)
The noble Lord is right that education is essential, for the reasons that he gave. Whether and by whom a child’s door might be knocked on will depend on whether they have a social worker, but best practice in these cases is clear and we see many schools and trusts doing it: knocking on the doors of children who are not in school and trying to do so as early as possible, before it becomes a persistent issue.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that a number of children’s charities are high- lighting that children and young people—often from disadvantaged backgrounds and less academically able—are saying that they do not want to go to school, and their parents are saying, “We’ll home educate you”. These children then claim to be home-educated but home education is not taking place, and because home educators do not have to register, we have no knowledge of whether a proper education is taking place, the quality of any education being provided or whether those children are being safeguarded. Is it not time that the Government brought in a quick Bill on home education?
Baroness Barran (Con)
As the noble Lord may agree, I am not sure that a home education Bill would be quick. More importantly, we support the rights of parents to educate their children at home and know that many parents are very committed and do a fantastic job. Equally, we cannot overlook the rising numbers of children being home educated. We remain committed to introducing statutory local authority registers of children not in school, but in the meantime we are working closely with local authorities on a voluntary basis to collect that data. I recently met the chair of the ADCS to discuss this exact point.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, guidance on school absence refers to multiagency and whole-family approaches but not to family hubs, which specialise in this for children aged nought to 19, not just the early years. They exist in more than half of English local authorities, but the Family Hubs Network—which I co-founded, as recorded in my entry in the register—finds many schools not engaging with them. Will the Minister commit to updating the guidance to refer specifically to family hubs so that they become the starting point for addressing anxiety and other underlying issues affecting our children?
Baroness Barran (Con)
I thank my noble friend for his work in this area and I agree with him that very often persistent absence will not be the only issue that is going on in a family; therefore, the nature of family hubs is ideal to address this. The department has commissioned a team of 10 expert attendance advisers who are working with every local authority and with multi-academy trusts to help address issues of persistent absence. As part of that support, those advisers strongly recommend and encourage engagement with family hubs.
Baroness Whitaker (Lab)
My Lords, following the question from and answer to the Liberal Democrat Benches, the Secretary of State very helpfully replied to a letter signed by Peers all around the House saying that she would like to find the time to create a local authority register. When is that time going to be? Quite apart from home-educated children, where, as the Minister says, standards of education vary from good to non-existent, there are a large number of excluded children who make very good targets for recruitment into gangs and other criminal activities.
Baroness Barran (Con)
As I said, we would need primary legislation to bring in statutory registers; until a legislative opportunity is available, we will work very hard to make the voluntary registers work. There are very high rates of return from local authorities—over 90% of them are returning their data on a voluntary basis.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, I want to pursue the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Storey. Home education has been growing dramatically in this country and following on from the Ofsted processes in schools there is a growing concern that many children are not obtaining the level of education that they should have. Children who are home educated are under very few regulations, and it is necessary for something to be done, rather than leaving this in a nebulous state with local authorities.
Baroness Barran (Con)
I am sorry that my noble friend feels that it is in a nebulous state; I do not think the local authorities who are working on this would necessarily agree with him. I point him to my earlier answers in relation to the legislative timetable, and we are also keen to make sure that home-educating parents who are struggling receive support so that they can give their children a good education if that is the right thing for them.
Baroness Eaton (Con)
My Lords, a whole-family approach to absenteeism needs co-ordination at the local and national government level, with family hubs becoming the go-to place where families can access wide-ranging support. Further to the question asked by my noble friend Lord Farmer, what can His Majesty’s Government do to shift the focus away from the education provider in the community, and towards these hubs as a place where parents of children of all ages can get the co-ordinated help they need for often complex issues such as persistent absenteeism?
Baroness Barran (Con)
I respectfully say to my noble friend that we do not want to steer families away from the education provider. The relationship between school and family is an extremely important one, which we need to reinforce and build up as much as possible. But it is clear that the family hub model provides the opportunity to join up different forms of attendance support to families, in partnership with the school.
BBC: Appointment and Resignation of Chair
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Merron
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the damage caused to the reputation of the BBC following the appointment and subsequent resignation of the Chair, Richard Sharp.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)
My Lords, the BBC is a world-class broadcaster and cultural institution which produces some of the very best television and radio in the world. We understand and respect Richard Sharp’s decision to stand down. His Majesty’s Government and the BBC board both want to see stability for the corporation. We want to ensure an orderly transition and will launch a process to identify and appoint a new permanent chairman.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, last week’s report found Richard Sharp to be wrong in not declaring his close links with Boris Johnson when applying for the job of BBC chair. The facts have been clear for some time, so while we welcome the report, this matter could and should have been resolved much earlier. Does the Minister accept that this sorry episode has caused damage both to the BBC’s reputation and to confidence in the public appointments process? With Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promising integrity at every level of his Government, why was it left to Mr Sharp to resign rather than him being dismissed weeks ago?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
It is right that an independent process was commissioned and allowed the time to run. Mr Sharp himself has said that he regrets the impact this has had on the corporation he has faithfully served. Mr Heppinstall’s report says:
“Overall, DCMS officials conducted a good and thorough process”.
There are some helpful lessons for all in his investigation, which we will look at and take forward as appropriate.
Lord Birt (CB)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a former director-general of the BBC. This episode will not damage the BBC—there, I agree with the Minister. It has been around for 100 years, and it is a wonderful institution. It will quickly ride through this sorry affair. The damage that has been done is to the Government’s own process for making public appointments. The Heppinstall report is a truly shocking read. Will the Government now overhaul the process for making public appointments?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I agree with the first part of what the noble Lord says. The news today about the BBC’s work launching the emergency radio service in Sudan is another testament to the fantastic work it does not just in this country but around the world. As I have said, Mr Heppinstall’s report concluded that:
“Overall, DCMS officials conducted a good and thorough process”.
There are some lessons in his report. We will carefully consider its findings and respond in due course.
Baroness Kingsmill (Lab)
My Lords, would it preferable if Ministers and holders of public office were, in fact, suspended when being investigated for various situations, such as bullying or arranging loans and things like that for the Prime Minister? Should they not be suspended rather than being allowed to continue with their employment while an investigation takes place?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
It is important that there is a thorough and swift investigation in cases such as this, and that is what has happened here; Adam Heppinstall has produced a thorough report. He has looked into this carefully and brought forward his conclusions. Richard Sharp has resigned, and we understand and respect his reasons for doing so.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)
My Lords, it is very nice to have a Tory voice in this debate. I declare my interest as a presenter on Times Radio. Richard Sharp was an excellent chair of the BBC, and he has been extremely harshly treated—not least by that terrible cartoon in the Guardian over the weekend. However, I echo the noble Lord, Lord Birt: one of things that is clear from this report, and something we all knew at the time, is who the Government’s favoured candidate for the position was. This does a disservice to the Government because it prevents excellent candidates putting themselves forward and giving them a genuine choice. I know the Minister will simply play a completely straight bat as he answers this Question, but he must know that the Government should have a much more open process for the appointment of the next chair of the BBC.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I completely agree with what my noble friend says about the brilliant work done by Richard Sharp during his time as chairman of the BBC and with the comments he made about the deplorable cartoon in the Guardian, which I am glad was pulled. The Adam Heppinstall report rightly points to the impact that the publication of candidates’ names in the media can have on the public appointments process, and we echo the concerns he raised there. The process to appoint a new permanent chairman will be run in a robust, fair and open manner, in accordance with the governance code.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)
My Lords, when I was a councillor and somebody knocked on my door to say that they were applying for a school caretaker’s job or a dinner assistant’s job, I would say, “Congratulations; I hope you do well. I will now take no part in the selection because I now have an interest: I know who you are”. The noble Lord opposite is right: the Government must make sure that the appointments process is open and that lobbying will actually be a disadvantage rather than the way you get on, which is the way the Government have been behaving.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
Ministerial responsibility is a core principle of the public appointments system. It is important that the process is run and is seen to be run in accordance with that code, and that people declare the things they are required to declare, so that people know. However, there are other independent panel members who are appointed to appointment panels to make sure that there is independence in the system. These are decisions on which Ministers are entitled to take a view, in line with the Government’s code.
Lord McNally (LD)
My Lords, nothing the Minister has said so far can give us any confidence that the process is not going to still be influenced by No. 10 Downing Street. Therefore, is it not absolutely imperative that a system of selection be produced that makes it clear that whoever the incumbent is in No. 10, they will not have undue or improper influence on this appointment? I say this as someone who was once head of the political office in No. 10, so I know how that, under successive Governments, there is a desire to interfere. The Government have an opportunity now to create a really transparent, open system, but they have to have the will to do it as well.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
The process for appointing the chair of the BBC is set out in the BBC’s royal charter. It requires an appointment to be made by Order in Council following a fair and open competition. By convention, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport recommends the appointment to the Lord President of the Council, and the Prime Minister recommends the appointment to His Majesty the King. It is important that the process be followed and that all public appointments be set out and conducted in accordance with the Government’s code.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a freelance broadcaster for the BBC. Does the Minister agree that there is a parallel here with your Lordships’ House? For example, we read endless headlines about prime ministerial appointments to the House but very little about the hours and hours of scrutiny that go into legislation. So it is with the BBC, but this has very little to do with the workforce, who produce programmes day in, day out. It has more to do, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Birt, with the selection and appointment process.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I agree with the noble Lord. Indeed, Mr. Sharp pointed in his own resignation statement and letters to his regret at the distraction this has caused to the corporation. We are very lucky indeed to have the BBC in this country, producing the world-class television and radio content I mentioned in my first response.
Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)
My Lords, we know that he disclosed the possible conflict to the Cabinet Secretary. Why did the Cabinet Secretary not disclose or tell him to disclose that conflict to those responsible for making the recommendation? When the Government are reviewing the process for these public appointments, will they ensure that the rules on potential conflicts of interest say that all those people involved in making recommendations or making the eventual choice need to have the declaration of interest made known to them? It seems to be an obvious point, which was overlooked by some otherwise perfectly sensible people on this occasion.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
Adam Heppinstall’s report makes it clear that the governance code puts the obligation to make a disclosure on the candidate and not on others. He has looked into this matter and concluded that Mr Sharp accepted that he should have disclosed the matter to the panel and apologised for his error. Given that error, he tended his resignation, and the Government understand and respect his reason for doing so.
Flags (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Regulations 2023
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Lord Caine
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 29 March be approved. Considered in Grand Committee on 26 April
Ukraine
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Government for their comments on Ukraine but can the noble Baroness ensure that Statements are more regularly made to Parliament? The Defence Secretary last made a Statement on Ukraine in January, and I think that all of us, in both Houses, would welcome the opportunity to hear more often of progress and be able to question the Government about it.
The Minister in the other place said that the focus at last week’s meeting in Ramstein was on accelerating the delivery of military aid packages. Can the Minister say how the Government intend to accelerate the progress of the provision of these weapons, and in particular how we intend to accelerate the progress of the provision of air defence weapons?
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Baroness Goldie) (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for his observations. I listened with interest to his view that we should devote more time to the consideration of matters in Ukraine, and I quite understand that he makes that point very seriously. I am certainly aware of fairly regularly appearing at this Dispatch Box to answer questions on Ukraine, which I am very happy to do. I am also aware that, in this House, we had an exceedingly good debate on 9 February, in which I think the noble Lord participated and in which I and my noble friend Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon participated on behalf of the Government. Certainly in this House we are trying to ensure that your Lordships are kept informed. However, I am sure that noble Lords will share with me if they have any reservations about seeking more information, and I will endeavour to facilitate the provision of that.
On the specific point which the noble Lord raises about the provision of equipment, I have observed before that the thrust of this, apart from the dominant roles played by the United Kingdom and the United States, really comes from acting in concert with other partners and allies. As the noble Lord will be aware, on 21 April, at Ramstein, the US hosted the Ukraine defence contact group, which discussed further co-ordinated military support to Ukraine. This is done in conjunction and co-ordination with our partners.
A very important part of this is the international donor co-ordination centre, which makes sense of getting all the things in and then providing them to Ukraine as efficiently and effectively as possible. The other important element of all this is the International Fund for Ukraine, which has reached urgent bidding round 2, launched on 11 April. Requirements are being released in phases, the first two of which are for air defence, which closed on 26 April, and long-range strike, which will close on 4 May. Further requirements under that urgent bidding round 2 will be raised via the Defence Sourcing Portal in a phased approach over the coming weeks. I think your Lordships will understand that there is a coherent pattern here. We cannot do this randomly or indiscriminately; we have to make sure that it is part of a sensible, conjoined approach.
Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)
My Lords, Op Interflex, the training of Ukrainian recruits here in the United Kingdom by UK Armed Forces and our NATO allies, has been a tremendous success. However, it takes up quite a lot of the contingent capability of our Armed Forces. I simply ask this: will it continue?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
I reassure my noble friend and the House that it will continue. We have an ambition to train up to 20,000 Ukraine armed forces personnel this year, and I am able to inform the House that, as of 2 May, we have already trained more than 5,000.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, His Majesty’s Government’s commitment to Ukraine is very welcome, but in the past few weeks we have had additional commitments in Sudan. Can the Minister reassure the House that the MoD has the resources to enable us to work in both countries? One common link is the Wagner Group. What assessment have the Government made of finally proscribing that group?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for raising an important point. We have resources and assets to cover those contingency demands on our personnel. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to what I thought was, once again, the impressive professionalism and commitment of our Armed Forces personnel in effecting a safe evacuation of British nationals, and indeed other personnel, from Sudan.
I think we all in this House agree that the Wagner Group is an odious organisation. We do not comment regularly on whether we are going to proscribe an organisation or designate it a transnational criminal organisation—these are matters we keep within our confidence—but I can say that we have taken action. The UK has now sanctioned more than 1,500 individuals and more than 120 entities in response to Putin’s war in Ukraine. This includes the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin and his family, and Dmitry Utkin. We are taking action against the group.
Lord Craig of Radley (CB)
My Lords, media reports suggest that Russia has made increasing attacks by air on Ukraine. What assessment have His Majesty’s Government made of Ukraine’s ability to resist these attacks and not submit to a loss of air superiority against the Russians?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
I say to the noble and gallant Lord that I think that the evidence to date has been that Ukraine has mounted an extraordinarily courageous and very effective response to Russian air aggression. Among the many types of equipment we have supplied to Ukraine, we have included anti-aircraft missile systems that can be launched from both land and ship.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, for the obvious reason that we must at all costs avoid an escalation of this war, Ukraine’s allies have equipped Ukraine for a defensive war, but now all the talk is about offensives. Attacking is certainly much more difficult than defending. If all the Leopard 2 tanks that have been promised arrive, will there be sufficient to break through the Russian defences? Who is going to provide the air support that will be necessary for any offensive to be effective?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
Obviously we remain engaged with Ukraine on its immediate needs and how best we, in conjunction with partners, can respond to them. I am not at liberty to disclose operational matters, for reasons widely understood. We constantly monitor the situation, and we will continue to do whatever we can to support Ukraine as it tries to repel this illegal invader.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
Will my noble friend use her influence to see whether, in future Ukraine Statements, we could learn a little more about the state of internal morale inside Russia in the face of the appalling slaughter, which is almost reminiscent of the First World War? The level of morale in Russia itself, and the pressures on the Government, may be the decisive factor in ensuring that this hideous horror comes to an end. Does she see any comparison with the Russian mood when Russian troops had to retreat from failure in Afghanistan, which of course helped to bring about the collapse of the whole Soviet Union in those days?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
Many people will be in sympathy with the important point made by my noble friend. We do everything that we can through intelligence outlets to try to ascertain what is happening in Russia—what the mood is and what the sentiment is. It is difficult to elicit any specific information, apart from a general observation that there is now evidence that morale is being impacted by this illegal war in Ukraine. Increasingly within Russia, as a consequence of that war, the brutal effect upon families who have lost loved ones or seen loved ones seriously injured is beginning to tell its own story. My noble friend makes an important point. I wish that I had some more specific instrument available to me to ascertain in detail what he asks. We continue to monitor the situation as best we can.
Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)
My Lords, I have a question on the high-level strategic purpose of the UK’s support and the international support for Ukraine. To an interested observer, it appears to be an attempt to allow Ukraine neither to lose badly nor to win decisively. The net result is a sustained, mutually hurting stalemate. Can the Minister comment on the morality of that? Would it be fair to say that pragmatism has trumped morality in UK policy?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
The morality is that, when someone behaves in an inexcusably illegal and brutal fashion, it must be resisted, in the interests of international respect for upholding law and for a country’s sovereignty. That is what Ukraine is doing, supported by many countries around the world. How Ukraine wishes to approach that conflict is not for me to interpret or advance an opinion upon, but, as the noble and gallant Lord is aware, everyone understands the propriety of what Ukraine is doing. The United Kingdom, with our allies and partners, will support Ukraine as very best we can.
Police Uplift Programme
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)
My Lords, I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place:
“With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a Statement about the Government’s police uplift programme.
Today is a significant day for policing. We can officially announce that our unprecedented officer recruitment campaign has met its target. We said we would recruit an additional 20,000 officers, and we have. We have recruited 20,951 additional officers. This means that we now have a record 149,572 officers across England and Wales.
This is the culmination of a colossal amount of work from forces, the National Police Chiefs’ Council, the College of Policing, the Home Office and beyond. They have my heartfelt gratitude and admiration. I feel honoured and privileged to be holding the baton as we pass the finishing line. I am especially grateful to my right honourable friends the Members for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Witham and North West Hampshire. Their vision and leadership were instrumental in helping us reach this point, and I know they will share my delight today. I pay tribute too to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, who has energetically steered the campaign to its successful conclusion, and to my right honourable friend the Prime Minister for his continued support and encouragement.
This was not a simple task. There have been challenges along the way and people doubted our prospects of success, but by sticking to the course and believing unequivocally in the cause, we have done it. To every single new recruit who has joined up and helped us reach our goal, I say thank you. There is no greater or more noble example of public service, and they have chosen a career like no other. Not everyone will be as happy as we are today. Criminals must be cursing their luck, and so they should, because we are coming after them.
Not only are there more officers than ever before but the officer workforce is more diverse than it has ever been. There are now 53,083 female police officers in post, compared with 39,135 in 2010. There are 12,087 officers identifying as ethnic minorities, compared with 6,704 in 2010. There are more officers working in public protection, in local policing and in crime investigations. There are now 725 more officers working in regional organised crime units tackling serious and organised crime, as we promised.
While it is right that today we pause and reflect on the success of the uplift programme, this is not the end. This is not just about hitting a number. It is about making a real and tangible difference to the lives of people we serve and the communities they live in. It is the latest step in our mission to crush crime and make our country safer. The public want to see bobbies on the beat; we have delivered. The public want courageous and upstanding public servants in whom they can have pride and, most importantly, whom they can trust. Now the public quite rightly expect forces to maximise the increased strength and resources available to them. They want to see criminals caught and locked up, and to feel safe and secure, whether in their homes, online or out and about. They want the police to focus on the issues that matter most to them.
We have made good progress already. Crime is going in the right direction, falling in England and Wales by 50% since 2010, excluding fraud and computer misuse, with burglary falling 56%, robbery by 57% and criminal damage by 65% over the same period. Figures also show reductions in homicide, serious violence and neighbourhood crime since December 2019. On homicide, reductions are being made, with the numbers 6% lower than in December 2019 as of September 2022. Now we need policing to work with partners to ensure that these reductions are maintained.
Crime is a broad and ever-evolving menace, which is why we are addressing it from all angles. We are acting to turn the tide on drugs misuse through our 10-year strategy, and our crackdown on county lines has yielded excellent results. We have stepped up efforts to tackle domestic abuse, violence against women and girls, and child sexual abuse. Our twin-track approach to tackling serious violence is bedding in and having a real impact. We are supporting law enforcement in the ongoing fight against serious and organised crime, terrorism, cybercrime and fraud. We have shown that when our constituents raise concerns about an issue, we listen and we act. That was demonstrated recently with the publication of our comprehensive plan to drive anti-social behaviour out of our communities and neighbourhoods.
We will keep up the momentum. We will challenge and support the police in equal measure. We expect police forces to maintain officer numbers at the levels delivered by the uplift and are pushing them to drive up standards and drive down crime. It is vital that forces seize this opportunity. As the Home Secretary has made clear, common-sense policing is the way forward. This is our mantra, and it should be a guiding principle for forces too.
For the Government’s part, we are holding up our side of the bargain. That includes measures I announced earlier this month to cut red tape that gets in the way of real police work. It includes the steps we are taking on ethics, integrity and conduct, as policing strives to secure and retain public trust, which has been shaken by recent reports and cases. Before I finish, I want to highlight that I will be holding a drop-in surgery here in the large ministerial room from 3 pm today for any colleagues who wish to discuss the uplift programme.
We said we would recruit 20,000 additional police officers; we have delivered. We said we would bear down relentlessly on crime; we have delivered. I am proud of what we have achieved, but there is more to come. To the decent, law-abiding majority, I say this: we have got your back. Your safety is our number one priority. My message to the criminals is this: we are coming for you, you will be caught and you will face justice.
More police, less crime, safer streets and common-sense policing: those are the pillars upon which our approach is built. Today, as we mark another hugely significant step forward in that mission, we reaffirm our commitment to do everything in our power to protect the public. I commend this Statement to the House.”
Lord Coaker (Lab)
Well, there you go. I thank the Government for their Statement, and the information they have provided regarding this police uplift programme. This is not, however, year nought of a new Government. It is the 13th year of this Government. Where are the Government pretending to have been for the last 13 years? They cut police numbers by 20,000 and now, having reversed those cuts, want us all to clap them for it and to praise them for this brilliant achievement. Why would we do that?
We all want more police, and we all congratulate them on the work that they do on our behalf. But is it not the case that the last decade and more of police cuts has had appalling consequences, as the Government were warned? Let us look at some of the consequences. Is it not the case that the numbers of arrests and of crimes solved have halved? Is it not the case that since 2015 the charge rate has dropped by two-thirds?
In case the Minister feels that this is just Labour Party propaganda—that we would say that—I quote from three articles in the Daily Telegraph from the last 18 months; there are too many but I chose just these three: “Record low of just 5.8pc of crimes solved”, “Police fail to solve a single theft in more than eight out of 10 neighbourhoods”, and “Police criticised for failing to solve one million thefts and burglaries”. I could go on.
Police cuts have had consequences, particularly as we saw with the complete and utter decimation of neighbourhood policing. How will we see a restoration of this? How will we see a restoration of that visible police presence—crimes investigated, victims supported and criminals prosecuted? How will the police uplift programme deliver that? Instead of fancy phrases about criminals being frightened and so on, the public would have wanted to hear from the Government how the police uplift programme will deal with some of the consequences that they face in their everyday lives in their neighbourhoods.
Following the recent awful findings of inquiries into the police such as that on the murder of Sarah Everard and, most recently, the Casey review, how will the police uplift programme restore trust and confidence in our officers? Does the programme deal with the fact, not mentioned by the Minister, that 8,000 police community support officers were cut—alongside 6,000 police staff, including some of the most specialised officers in forensics, digital and many other such examples?
Of course, anyone would welcome more police officers, but this is not a reform programme. It does not deal with many of the crucial issues facing our police. Boasting about restoring the police numbers that you have cut simply will not do it. What is needed, alongside increased numbers, is a proper programme to restore neighbourhood policing, proper training and accreditation, ensuring that all crimes—including so-called low-level crimes such as anti-social behaviour, bike theft and many others—are properly investigated, with trust and confidence restored. How does the police uplift programme do any of that? We have heard not a word.
The Home Secretary said on TV last week that what has happened over the last 10 years is irrelevant. Does the Minister agree with that, or does he agree with me that it is not irrelevant if you were a victim of theft, rape or violence against women, or if it was your bike, your car or your shed targeted for theft or attack?
I finish with this crucial challenge to the Government: does the police uplift programme deal with the lack of police on the street, on the front line? Does it deal with the fact that 90% of crimes are unsolved? Does it deal with the lack of policing experience, such as in the case of detectives? Does it deal with low levels of public confidence? More police are welcome, of course, but proper reform is needed alongside that, not the populist rhetoric that we have just heard.
Lord German (LD)
My Lords, this is obviously a Statement that the Government are pleased to make but, unfortunately, the rhetoric does not lead to change, which is what the public will be looking for. A huge number of questions fall out of the programme and tell you something about the way in which policing takes place in this country.
What we are seeing, of course, is that record numbers of police are leaving the police force while new people come in. Does this record number of police leaving mean that we are basically trading inexperience for experience? In 2021-22, the last year for which figures are available, 8,117 police officers left the profession; that is a 20-year high. Can the Minister tell us whether that figure is reflected in the figures up to the end of March this year and whether, again, we are seeing that change? Clearly, what we need is an experienced profession.
The second thing that the uplift programme shows is the number of people in various age groups within the new police forces around the country. If you look carefully the figures for those aged 55 and over, you see that they represent only some 1.8% of the police force. Has that figure been shared, not in this financial year but in previous years? Is that an accelerating figure, with the number of older police officers declining? At present 38% of the force are aged 45 or over. Was that figure higher or lower in the past?
The other question that needs raising is how police officers are recruited. We have had a series of questions back and forth with the Minister about the way in which police officers are recruited and we know that some 50% of all recruited police officers do not have a face-to-face interview with another police officer. I know that the Minister has replied to my questions and said that this is being altered. I have read what the Government intend to do with the police college and to make that change work, but we certainly need to be reassured that the right people are getting into the police force and we are not seeing the sort of problems that we have seen in the very recent past.
If you want true community policing, what sense does it make to lose all the community support officers that we have had? Since 2015, 4,000 police support officer posts have been lost and since 2019, given that that is the bedrock date that the Minister wants to work from, 1,284 community police officer posts have been lost. The great advantage for those of us who remember the way in which those support officers worked around our communities is that they were seen on the streets; they were what you might call “bobbies on the beat”. They were an essential part of that. As the Minister knows, you do not put one policeman on the beat; you used to put a policeman with a PCSO. So it is two police officers now, because the number of PCSOs has dropped.
The real test of this measure is: will the quality and nature of the service that people get change? Some 275 car thefts per day in the past year went unsolved, and just 3.4% of car thefts resulted in a charge. Also, 574 burglaries went unsolved and only 6% resulted in a charge. The sort of result that people want to see is people being charged and found guilty of the crimes that are being committed against them. Clearly that has not happened. The test for the Government is how community policing is going to work in the future. A recent Savanta poll found that four in 10 UK adults have installed in the past year CCTV, stronger locks, alarm systems or camera doorbells, all of which demonstrates that people are worried about crime and about these crimes being detected, which they have not been as yet.
One thing absent from the Statement is any mention of cybersecurity. Those of us who have been privileged to hear what is happening in this Parliament will know of the battle against those who are trying to burst into the security of our nation. Can the Minister tell us what resource is going to go into the battle of the future against those who are causing cybercrime?
Finally, there is the issue of head count versus full-time equivalents. The Government in the published Statement say that there is little difference—some 1% or 2%. However, 1% or 2% of experienced people who are doing the work that we want to see done is a considerable number. What we are seeing here is a shell without the interior. The interior has to be made to work for the communities of this country and I am not certain that that is the progress which the Government have made.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their comments. Since I arrived in your Lordships’ House, every debate and Question has been a demand for more from the Government—money, resources and so on. We have finally delivered more, on time and on budget, and, if I am honest, I am a bit disappointed with the response. However, I will do my best to answer the questions that have been put to me.
To forestall any questions about fraud and the cybersecurity aspects that will be asked, I will alert noble Lords to the fact that the fraud strategy is going to be published this week. There will be more to be said on that, and as a consequence I am not able to go into detail about it.
Before I go into detailed answers to the questions, the data that I read out in the Statement was in fact a little out of date, because on Thursday last week the Crime Survey for England and Wales published its latest data, which takes us up to December 2022. That shows that all crime, excluding fraud and computer misuse, has fallen by 52% since March 2010, from 9.5 million incidents in the year ending March 2010 to 4.65 million in the year ending December 2022—a reduction of 4.978 million.
The latest data from the crime survey shows a 12% decrease in all CSEW crime since the year ending March 2020 and a 14% decrease in all crime since the year ending December 2019. There were 1.5 million incidents of neighbourhood crime estimated by the crime survey for the year ending December 2022, a fall of 26%, compared with the year ending March 2020. I could go on, but I think the data supports the fact that the police have been doing a good job and, hopefully, with this uplift in numbers, will continue to do so. I remind the House that there are now over 149,500—more than ever before. The Government are determined to cut crime and make our streets safer. Over the course of the police uplift programme, 46,505 new recruits have joined police forces. I will come back to that in a moment.
The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, asked about charge rates. I agree that the current data on charge rates is concerning. We expect police forces to get the basics right, to focus on common-sense policing and to work with partners across the criminal justice system to see more criminals charged and prosecuted. But that is a shared responsibility and the system needs to work better to catch criminals and help victims of crime.
With regard to online crime, as I said, the fraud strategy will be published this week. However, to put some numbers on that, we have already committed £400 million over the next three years to bolster law enforcement’s response to economic crime. The strategy will set out a co-ordinated response from government, law enforcement and the private sector to better protect the public and increase the disruption and prosecution of fraudsters.
The subject of vetting has quite rightly come up. The Government have been clear that all police forces must meet the high standards that the public expect, and that forces must root out those who are unfit for service at the very first opportunity. It is of the utmost importance that robust processes are in place to stop the wrong people joining the police in the first place, which is why we have invested in improving recruitment processes and supporting vetting as part of the £3 billion of funding provided to forces to recruit and maintain officers. New recruits will have been vetted in line with the College of Policing’s Vetting Code of Practice and relevant vetting APP, which were first established in 2017. The APP is due for an upgrade very shortly, as noble Lords will be aware.
On neighbourhood policing, there are now more officers working in public protection, local policing and crime investigations. Thousands of additional officers are already out on the streets, and the latest data available shows that overall 91% of police officers were in front-line roles. The uplift programme provides the opportunity to ensure that we have the officers that policing needs, both to respond to the increase in demand and to take a more proactive response to managing that demand, including crime prevention.
The noble Lord, Lord German, asked about the attrition rates. We have made it very clear to police forces that the large investment we have put into policing means that we expect officer numbers across England and Wales to be maintained throughout 2023-24. The police uplift programme was designed to provide a genuine uplift of 20,000 officers that accounts for attrition rates. Voluntary resignation rates in policing are at less than 3%, which is low compared to other sectors. Policing is obviously a career like no other, and the results of our latest survey of new recruits showed a positive onboarding experience overall: 82% of respondents are satisfied with the job, and 77% intend to continue as police officers for the rest of their working lives. Those numbers are very encouraging.
The noble Lord also asked me, perfectly reasonably, about face-to-face contact. In February, the College of Policing wrote to all chief constables with updated and reissued guidance on post-assessment in-force interviews. The college reiterated the importance of those interviews and that all forces should deliver them using college assessment standards to ensure the same quality nationally. The college expected forces to have implemented the updated guidance by the end of last month. Following the issuing of new guidance by the college on post-online assessment centre interviews, the latest data provided by the college shows that 38 forces are currently using a post-assessment interview and that four plan to do so with their next cohorts.
The noble Lord, Lord German, also mentioned CCTV—as if it somehow indicates against the quality of the data I have already shared with your Lordships’ House, and that there is more, shall I say, concern about crime in local areas. Of course, people are right to be concerned. However, perhaps it also demonstrates that this equipment and technology is cheaper and more readily available than ever before and, more to the point, that it can be installed on a Sunday afternoon by oneself.
The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, is quite right: the numbers have consequences for everyday lives, which is why I believe that your Lordships’ House should support them. I certainly do not believe that any of this is irrelevant.
Lord Soames of Fletching (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the tenor and content of the Statement my noble friend the Minister read out. However, does he agree with me that one of the principal problems our police forces have is the lack of quality in their leadership at middle-rank and senior-rank levels? Will he consider looking at the way the Armed Forces trains its officers to ensure that, when police officers take positions of senior command, they are prepared and wholly trained for such awesome responsibilities?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My noble friend makes some solid points. It is undeniable that some of the incidents which have been seen over the past few years, and which are coming to light now, are a consequence of a failure of leadership. I am pleased that the leadership of the country’s main police force is in very good hands, and I support Sir Mark Rowley of the Metropolitan Police in the work he has to do. My noble friend also makes some very good points about leadership more generally. I believe—and I will be asking about this more frequently—that the College of Policing is working on the reinstatement of a national police college to ensure rigorous, nationally consistent standards.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, it is no fault of the Minister, but metaphors about passing batons and crossing finishing lines will be seen to be complacent and even insensitive by many victims of sexual and violent crime in particular. I share the concerns expressed repeatedly on all sides of your Lordships’ House that, when reversing drastic police cuts in a hurry, there will be issues with the quality of recruitment, vetting, training and discipline, as we have heard. So, rather than constantly batting this off to the College of Policing, will the Government take responsibility and propose a clear timeline for a legislative framework of standards across the nation for all those vital matters?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
The noble Baroness will be aware that a number of ongoing reviews on matters such as dismissals are due to conclude very shortly. She makes some very good points about victims, and we are committed to delivering justice for victims and putting some of the vile offenders referred to behind bars for longer, but there is obviously still a long way to go. We have previously discussed at the Dispatch Box some of the factors the noble Baroness mentioned and, while I will not go into them in detail again, I note that programmes such as Operation Soteria are delivering meaningful results.
Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)
The noble Lord was quite right in saying that I was going to mention fraud. The Statement says that crime is falling, excluding fraud. Fraud remains a substantial growth industry and now accounts for over 40% of all crime against the individual. The noble Lord agreed last week that the current level of law enforcement resources aimed at it is insufficient. He skilfully shot my fox earlier by referring to the national fraud strategy that is to be issued this week, which is an improvement on “imminently” and “shortly”. How many of these 20,591 officers who have been recruited have specialist fraud skills?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
The noble Lord asks a question which I cannot answer at the moment. I will endeavour to find out those statistics and I would hope that some of those questions about resourcing will be dealt with on publication of the strategy this week. As regards the overall uplift, as I said earlier, 91% of the new intake, as it were, are involved in frontline policing.
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, while the diversity statistics my noble friend outlined are encouraging, in terms of women and ethnic minorities they are still not proportionate to the population. Is not one of the issues that many police forces have, particularly the Met, retaining those staff? Can my noble friend outline how we are going to monitor—maybe with swifter inspections from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services—whether they retain their female and ethnic minority staff and promote them at the same rate as their white officers?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My noble friend makes some very good points. Obviously, as she would expect me to say, these are matters for local police forces themselves. However, I absolutely take the point, and we should all be involved in making sure that retention and lack of attrition remains as it is.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
My Lords, I find it pretty astonishing that the Government should call for national rejoicing that they have finally got the level of policing up to the level of 13 years ago, under the last Labour Government. An apology for all the cuts that were made in the early years of this Government would be in order. As for comments in the Statement such as criminals now “must be cursing their luck” because the figures have gone up, the inevitable response is that immediately after 2010, criminals must have been rejoicing at the savage cuts made to policing—to dangerous levels—in many cities in this country.
The Minister still has not answered a couple of specific questions that were put to him. First, we are told that these 20,000 new recruits have been recruited since 2019. How many people have left the police service during that precise period, and is that allowed for in describing the number of police officers available today? Secondly, this mass recruitment is obviously to be welcomed, but can he tell us how many of these new recruits actually leave the police service before they have completed their probationary period? It is no use having the police officers unless they give a substantial period of service after they have been trained.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, in fact there are more policemen than under the last Labour Government: 3,542 more, to be precise. The fact is that demand for policing has changed since 2010, which is why in 2019 the Government made this commitment to increase the number of police officers by 20,000, to help the police respond. I am afraid that I cannot say how many of this new intake will complete their probationary period, as, obviously, some will still be in their probationary period. I will endeavour to find out the statistics and come back to the noble Lord. On the number who left, I have already gone into the statistics in some detail on the number who were recruited, as well as the attrition statistics.
The Lord Bishop of Gloucester
My Lords, it is very good to hear the Minister speak about police uplift. I am certainly not asking for more and more but I am asking for more join-up. I am really concerned about the “we are coming for you” rhetoric being part of the solution, and the sense that if we simply arrest more people and send more people to prison, we will reduce reoffending. There was nothing in the data about the high rate of reoffending. Unless we look at what is going on in our prisons, at how we rehabilitate people and address some of the systemic issues relating to why people offend in the first place, we will not be doing that join-up across the criminal justice system. I am really concerned about the rhetoric whereby, if you arrest more people and lock them up for longer, our streets will be safer; the data simply does not reflect that. Will the Minister say more about the join-up across the whole of the criminal justice system?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
The right reverend Prelate has made some very good points. The public would expect charge, arrest and prevention rates to increase from the current levels. However, without work on reoffending and the criminal justice system in the round, as the right reverend Prelate suggests, I think that things will fail to improve as much as we would all like. I cannot give her any precise details but, when it comes to the drug strategy, work is being done between the Ministry of Justice, the criminal justice system more generally and the Home Office on reoffending and referring people to preventive programmes at an earlier stage. That should yield some results.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to Paul Sanford, who was appointed Norfolk chief constable in 2021? He made it among his priorities to clamp down on the county lines and low-level antisocial behaviour, and he has succeeded in both areas. However, is the Minister aware that rural counties such as Norfolk, Suffolk and Lincolnshire are facing quite profound problems with the police funding formula? As a consequence, Paul Sanford’s predecessor had to scrap the police community support officer programme. What can the Minister say about those counties that have suffered relative to other counties in funding and their desire to reinstate that programme in future?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I thank my noble friend for his question and I am happy to join him in congratulating the chief constable whom he has mentioned. As for the funding formula, I do not have the precise details in front of me. However, as I said in the Statement, the demand has changed over the past 10 years. If the funding has changed, that will be a reflection of the change in demand.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister’s Statement refers to the importance of public trust. As the House will know, in the case of the Metropolitan Police, that is understandably very low—indeed, the Metropolitan Police is itself on probation. To follow up his answer to my noble friend a moment ago about probation, do the Government keep figures on the current number of police officers in the Metropolitan Police who are on probation? Do the Government have an estimate of those who are expected to pass through their probation to become finally qualified police officers?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I am glad that the noble Viscount has raised the subject of the Metropolitan Police. It is a little disappointing that it is one of the only forces—in fact, the only force—that did not meet its targets in police uplift, with only an additional 3,468 officers recruited, whereas the target was for 4,557, and the funding was there to do that. As for the probationary statistics that the noble Viscount asked for, as I said in answer to an earlier question, I am afraid that I do not have them to hand, but I shall endeavour to find them and communicate them to the noble Viscount.
Lord Dholakia (LD)
My Lords, the composition of police forces should reflect the community that they represent. Why has recruitment of those from ethnic-minority and diverse communities been so low in the Metropolitan Police?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
That I cannot answer but, as I said, in the national picture, the fact is that we have more officers identifying as ethnic minorities than ever before.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, as the Minister said, it is not just about hitting a target; it is also about public trust. How concerned is he about the media reports around police recruitment of unsuitable so-called rogue candidates being given jobs, precisely to meet government targets? The police inspectorate has said explicitly that hundreds of people have joined the police in the past three years who simply should not have. If the Minister recognises this, what is he going to do to address it?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I hope that I have gone into reasonable detail about the standards of vetting that are required and expected. I also point out that there were 10 applicants for every job, which implies—or should imply, at least—that there is a reasonable pool from which to choose and, I hope, get the right people. That is of course not a guarantee that there will not be a few bad apples in this particular barrel, but I sincerely hope that there are not—but perhaps I might be surprised if there are not as well.
Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon (Lab)
My Lords, even with the police uplift programme, since 2010 there are 9,000 fewer police officers, and 6,000 fewer on the beat in real terms. Does the Minister think that this programme is sufficient, given that 90% of crimes go unsolved every year, or are the Government considering further action?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness asks me to comment on operational policing matters. I have talked a bit about neighbourhood policing activities; I have also, on a number of occasions, said that 91% of policemen are involved in front-line activities. These are really issues that should be debated between police and crime commissioners and chief constables, depending on the area.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Bellingham said, rural crime takes on a life of its own. North Yorkshire was the first police force, I understand, to create a rural task force. Will the Home Office give a specific target for rural crime to ensure that the funding for such task forces is secured going forward?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My noble friend will be aware that, as I said in answer to the previous question, these are operational matters for chief constables and police and crime commissioners—and, of course, in the case of police and crime commissioners, the people who elect them.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, this will not wash. The people outside know that crime is going up; they know that there are not the police numbers on the street. How will the Government make sure that these criminals get longer sentences when there are no places in prison for them?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord is wrong: crime is going down and there are more police officers than ever before. That is according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which the Office for National Statistics recognises as the most reliable source of those statistics. As for inviting me to comment on sentencing practices and so on, which obviously stray into the responsibilities of other government departments, I am not going to do that.
Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister has given us a great deal of data this afternoon. However, the proportion of front-line officers is lower today than in any year since 2011, while the proportion of officers in organisational support is higher today than in any year since 2011. Have the Government considered the merits of committing to a target for putting more police and PCSOs on the streets in our nations and regions?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I say to the noble Baroness that, again, that is an invitation to comment on operational policing matters, which depend very much on local circumstances. However, 91% of all police are currently in front-line roles and, as I have already said, the nature of that—the demand, if you like—has changed over the last decade and it would not be wise for me to speculate as to how that demand has changed in various local areas.
Lord Watson of Wyre Forest (Lab)
My Lords, just last week we heard that the Met Police may be failing to identify serial killers, in the wake of the appalling case of Stephen Port. The report identified five key failings: lack of training; poor supervision; unacceptable record-keeping; confusing policies; and inadequate intelligence procedures. How are the Government urgently supporting the Met to fix this?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
The Government’s support for Sir Mark Rowley has been very clear indeed, and I am happy to wish him very well in his endeavours over the coming months. He has a very large set of responsibilities on his shoulders and, as far as I can see, he is discharging them well. The noble Lord asked me about operational policing in London. He will be aware that the responsibility for that, as the police and crime commissioner, is with the Mayor of London.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, 41% of crime is fraud, so why does the Minister keep using figures that do not include fraud?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
The fraud strategy will be published this week.
Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)
My Lords, while the Government make a virtue of the fact that police numbers in England have started to turn marginally upwards, in Northern Ireland we have reached a point at which the security threat is the highest it has been for many years from terrorist and dissident organisations, and yet the number of police officers in Northern Ireland is perhaps the lowest it has been in many decades, if not the entire history of the state. What representations have Ministers been making to their colleagues in the Northern Ireland Office to ensure that the citizens of Northern Ireland are given an equal level of protection from crime and terrorist actions?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
The picture that the noble Lord paints is obviously concerning. I will say that this is not a marginal uplift but a substantial uplift. As regards specific circumstances in Northern Ireland, I am afraid I cannot answer his question on the numbers, but I will investigate and come back to him.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, I think there is general agreement that trust has declined since 2010. We need to restore that as best we can. Knowing the Minister, I was rather surprised by his throwaway line in response to some of the questions about trust. When he said that there will be “a few bad apples”, I found that rather complacent. The police inspectorate has said that, of the people being recruited into the police force, some hundreds have come in within the past three years who should not be there. We know the plan that has been set in place to try to avoid a repetition of this in the future, but what is happening to try to root out the 300 or so that are around?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I am sorry if I sounded complacent to the noble Lord. It was really just a reflection on the statistics of this, as with any normal distribution—the noble Lord will know how normal distributions of population cohorts and so on work out. That is all that that comment was meant to reflect. As regards the numbers of police that have been recruited, I have commented extensively on the vetting processes. The dismissals review, which I referred to earlier, is concluding this month. I hope that we will have a lot more to say very soon on how that process will be strengthened.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I am sorry: the Minister has not answered my question about the fraud strategy. The Government have been consistently excluding fraud from the reporting of crimes —why?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right. I am sorry if I seemed to evade the question. The simple fact of the matter is that I cannot comment on the strategy because I have not seen it, it is due to be published this week, and it will address all the various questions that the noble Lord has asked me—in other words, I do not know.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, as we have heard from my noble friend Lady Lawrence, even with the police uplift programme, there is still a shortage of over 9,000 police officers. As well as the decimation of neighbourhood policing that that has caused, many of the officers lost in earlier rounds of cuts will have been among the most experienced and highly trained; for example, officers trained in specialist intelligence, firearms and dealing with sexual offences. This has put immense pressure on those left behind to hold the fort and may explain, for example, why only 1% of rape offences reach a conviction. What assessment have the Government carried out of the impact of this loss of experience, and how long will it take to build back up so that the specialist officer posts can be filled?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
The noble Baroness is right to talk about specialist skills and experience. I do not recognise the 9,000 number: as I have said repeatedly this afternoon, we have record numbers of police. I am afraid I cannot answer, as with the question that the noble Lord, Lord German, asked, about age distribution and so on. I can say that certain specific programmes, such the one I referenced earlier, Operation Soteria, are delivering very strong results. The necessary people are being trained in the right way in dealing with some of the things that are of significant public concern.
Online Safety Bill
Tuesday 2nd May 2023
(1 year, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Online Safety Act 2023 View all Online Safety Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 87(Rev)-IV(b) Amendments for Committee (Supplementary to the Fourth Marshalled List) - (2 May 2023)
Lord Russell of Liverpool
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require user to user services to eliminate identified risks to children from their platforms in addition to mitigating and managing them.
Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, this large group of 33 amendments is concerned with preventing harm to children, by creating a legal requirement to design the sites and services that children will access in a way that will put their safety first and foremost. I thank my co-sponsors, the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Harding, and the noble Lord, Lord Knight. First of all, I wish to do the most important thing I will do today: to wish the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, a very happy birthday.
Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)
My co-sponsors will deal with some of the more detailed elements of the 30 amendments that we are dealing with. These will include safety duties, functionality and harm, and codes of practice. I am sure that the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Knight, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford will speak to their own amendments.
I will provide a brief overview of why we are so convinced of the paramount need for a safety by design approach to protect children and remind digital companies and platforms, forcibly and legally, of their obligation to include the interests and safety of children as a paramount element within their business strategies and operating models. These sites and services are artificial environments. They were designed artificially and can be redesigned artificially.
In her testimony to the US Senate in July 2021, the Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen put her finger on it rather uncomfortably when talking about her erstwhile employer:
“Facebook know that they are leading young users to anorexia content … Facebook’s internal research is aware that there are a variety of problems facing children on Instagram … they know that severe harm is happening to children”.
She was talking about, probably, three years ago.
On the first day of Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Allan, who is not with us today, used the analogy of the legally mandated and regulated safe design of aeroplanes and automobiles and the different regimes that cover their usage to illustrate some of our choices in dealing with regulation. We know why aeroplanes and cars have to be designed safely; we also know that either form of transportation could be used recklessly and dangerously, which is why we do not allow children to fly or drive them.
First, let us listen to the designers of these platforms and services through some research done by the 5Rights Foundation in July 2021. These are three direct quotes from the designers:
“Companies make their money from attention. Reducing attention will reduce revenue. If you are a designer working in an attention business, you will design for attention … Senior stakeholders like simple KPIs. Not complex arguments about user needs and human values … If a senior person gives a directive, say increase reach, then that’s what designers design for without necessarily thinking about the consequences”.
Companies know exactly what they need to do to grow and to drive profitability. However, they mostly choose not to consider, mitigate and prioritise to avoid some of the potentially harmful consequences. What they design and prioritise are strategies to maximise consumption, activity and profitability. They are very good at it.
Let us hear what the children say, remembering that some recent research indicates that 42% of five to 12 year-olds in this country use social media. The Pathways research project I referred to earlier worked closely with 21 children aged 12 to 18, who said: “We spend more time online than we feel we should, but it’s tough to stop or cut down”. “If we’re not on social media, we feel excluded”. “We like and value the affirmations and validations we receive”. “We create lots of visual content, much of it about ourselves, and we share it widely”. “Many of us are contacted by unknown adults”. “Many of us recognise that, through using social media, we have experienced body image and relationships problems”.
To test whether the children in this research project were accurately reporting their experiences, the project decided to place a series of child avatars—ghost children, in effect—on the internet, whose profiles very clearly stated that they were children. It did this to test whether these experiences were true.
They found—in many cases within a matter of hours of the profiles going online—proactive contacting by strangers and rapid recommendations to engage more and more. If searches were conducted for eating disorders or self-harm, the avatars were quickly able to access content irrespective of their stated ages and clearly evident status as children. At the same time they were being sent harmful or inappropriate content, they also received age-relevant advertising for school revision and for toys—the social media companies knew that these accounts were registered as children.
This research was done two years ago. Has anything improved since then? It just so happens that 5Rights has produced another piece of research which is about to be released, and which used the exact same technique—creating avatars to see what they would experience online. They used 10 avatars based on real children aged between 10 and 16, so what happened? For an 11 year-old avatar, Instagram was recommending images of knives with the caption “This is what I use to self-harm”; design features were leading children from innocent searches to harmful content very quickly.
I think any grandparents in the Chamber will be aware of an interesting substance known as “Slime”—a form of particularly tactile playdough which one’s grandchildren seem to enjoy. Typing in “Slime” on Reddit was one search, and one click, away from pornography; exactly the same thing happened on Reddit when the avatar typed in “Minecraft”, another very popular game with our children or grandchildren. A 15 year-old female avatar was private-messaged on Instagram by a user that she did not follow—an unknown adult who encouraged her to link on to pornographic content on Telegram, another instant messaging service. On the basis of this evidence, it appears that little or nothing has changed; it may have even got slightly worse.
By an uncomfortable coincidence, last week, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, published better than expected results and saw its market value increase by more than $50 billion in after-hours trading. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Meta, proudly announced that Meta is pouring investment into artificial intelligence tools to make its platform more engaging and its advertising more effective. Of particular interest and concern given the evidence of the avatars was his announcement that since the introduction of Reels, a short-term video feed designed specifically to respond to competition from TikTok, its AI-driven recommendations had boosted the average time people spend on Instagram by 24%.
To return to the analogy of planes and cars used by the noble Lord, Lord Allan, we are dealing here with planes and cars in the shape of platforms and applications which we know are flawed in their design. They are not adequately designed for safety, and we know that they can put users, particularly children and young people, in the way of great harm, as many grieving families can testify.
In conclusion, our amendments propose that companies must design digital services that cater for the vulnerabilities, needs, and rights of children and young people by default; children’s safety cannot and must not be an afterthought or a casualty of their business models. We are asking for safety by design to protect children to become the mandatory standard. What we have today is unsafe design by default, driven by commercial strategies which can lead to children becoming collateral damage.
Given that it is the noble Baroness’s birthday, I am sure we can feel confident that the Minister will have a positive tone when he replies. I beg to move.
Baroness Kidron (CB)
It is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Russell and to thank him for his good wishes. I assure the Committee that there is nowhere I would rather spend my birthday, in spite of some competitive offers. I remind noble Lords of my interests in the register, particularly as the chair of 5Rights Foundation.
As my noble friend has set out, these amendments fall in three places: the risk assessments, the safety duties and the codes of practice. However, together they work on the overarching theme of safety by design. I will restrict my detailed remarks to a number of amendments in the first two categories. This is perhaps a good moment to recall the initial work of Carnegie, which provided the conceptual approach of the Bill several years ago in arguing for a duty of care. The Bill has gone many rounds since then, but I think the principle remains that a regulated service should consider its impact on users before it causes them harm. Safety by design, to which all the amendments in this group refer, is an embodiment of a duty of care. In thinking about these amendments as a group, I remind the Committee that both the proportionality provisions and the fact that this is a systems and processes Bill means that no company can, should or will be penalised for a single piece of content, a single piece of design or, indeed, low-level infringements.
Amendments 24, 31, 77 and 84 would delete “content” from the Government’s description of what is harmful to children, meaning that the duty is to consider harm in the round rather than just harmful content. The definition of “content” is drawn broadly in Clause 207 as
“anything communicated by means of an internet service”,
but the examples in the Bill, including
“written material … music and data of any description”,
once again fail to include design features that are so often the key drivers of harm to children.
On day three of Committee, the Minister said:
“The Bill will address cumulative risk where it is the result of a combination of high-risk functionality, such as live streaming, or rewards in service … This will initially be identified through Ofcom’s sector risk assessments, and Ofcom’s risk profiles and risk assessment guidance will reflect where a combination of risk in functionalities such as these can drive up the risk of harm to children. Service providers will have to take Ofcom’s risk profiles into account in their own risk assessments for content which is illegal or harmful to children”.—[Official Report, 27/4/23; col. 1385.]
However, in looking at the child safety duties, Clause 11(5) says:
“The duties … in subsections (2) and (3) apply across all areas of a service, including the way it is designed, operated and used”,
but subsection (14) says:
“The duties set out in subsections (3) and (6)”—
which are the duties to operate proportionate systems and processes to prevent and protect children from encountering harmful content and to include them in terms of service—
“are to be taken to extend only to content that is harmful to children where the risk of harm is presented by the nature of the content (rather than the fact of its dissemination)”.
I hesitate to say whether that is contradictory. I am not actually sure, but it is confusing. I am concerned that while we are reassured that “content” means content and activity and that the risk assessment considers functionality, “harm” is then repeatedly expressed only in the form of content.
Over the weekend, I had an email exchange with the renowned psychoanalyst and author, Norman Doidge, whose work on the plasticity of the brain profoundly changed how we think about addiction and compulsion. In the exchange, he said that
“children’s exposures to super doses, of supernormal images and scenes, leaves an imprint that can hijack development”.
Then, he said that
“the direction seems to be that AI would be working out the irresistible image or scenario, and target people with these images, as they target advertising”.
His argument is that it is not just the image but the dissemination and tailoring of that image that maximises the impact. The volume and frequency of those images create habits in children that take a lifetime to change—if they change at all. Amendments 32 and 85 would remove this language to ensure that content that is harmful by virtue of its dissemination is accounted for.
I turn now to Amendments 28 and 82, which cut the reference to the
“size and capacity of the provider of the service”
in deeming what measures are proportionate. We have already discussed that small is not safe. Such platforms such as Yubo, Clapper and Discord have all been found to harm children and, as both the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, told us, small can become big very quickly. It is far easier to build to a set of rules than it is to retrofit them after the event. Again, I point out that Ofcom already has duties of proportionality; adding size and capacity is unnecessary and may tip the scale to creating loopholes for smaller services.
Amendment 138 seeks to reverse the exemption in Clause 54 of financial harms. More than half of the 100 top-grossing mobile phone apps contain loot boxes, which are well established as unfair and unhealthy, priming young children to gamble and leading to immediate hardship for parents landed with extraordinary bills.
By rights, Amendments 291 and 292 could fit in the future-proof set of amendments. The way that the Bill in Clause 204 separates out functionalities in terms of search and user-to-user is in direct opposition to the direction of travel in the tech sector. TikTok does shopping, Instagram does video, Amazon does search; autocomplete is an issue across the full gamut of services, and so on and so forth. This amendment simply combines the list of functionalities that must be risk-assessed and makes them apply on any regulated service. I cannot see a single argument against this amendment: it cannot be the Government’s intention that a child can be protected, on search services such as Google, from predictive search or autocomplete, but not on TikTok.
Finally, Amendment 295 will embed the understanding that most harm is cumulative. If the Bereaved Parents for Online Safety were in the Chamber, or any child caught up in self-harm, depression sites, gambling, gaming, bullying, fear of exposure, or the inexorable feeling of losing their childhood to an endless scroll, they would say at the top of their voices that it is not any individual piece of content, or any one moment or incident, but the way in which they are nudged, pushed, enticed and goaded into a toxic, harmful or dangerous place. Adding the simple words
“the volume of the content and the frequency with which the content is accessed”
to the interpretation of what can constitute harm in Clause 205 is one of the most important things that we can do in this Chamber. This Bill comes too late for a whole generation of parents and children but, if these safety by design amendments can protect the next generation of children, I will certainly be very glad.
Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)
My Lords, it is an honour, once again, to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell, in this Committee. I am going to speak in detail to the amendments that seek to change the way the codes of practice are implemented. Before I do, however, I will very briefly add my voice to the general comments that the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell, have just taken us through. Every parent in the country knows that both the benefit and the harm that online platforms can bring our children is not just about the content. It is about the functionality: the way these platforms work; the way they suck us in. They do give us joy but they also drive addiction. It is hugely important that this Bill reflects the functionality that online platforms bring, and not just content in the normal sense of the word “content”.
I will now speak in a bit more detail about the following amendments: Amendments 65, 65ZA, 65AA, 89, 90, 90B, 96A, 106A, 106B, 107A, 114A—I will finish soon, I promise—112, 122ZA, 122ZB and 122ZC.
Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)
I am afraid I may well have done.
That list shows your Lordships some of the challenges we all have with the Bill. All these amendments seek to ensure that the codes of practice relating to child safety are binding. Such codes should be principles-based and flexible to allow companies to take the most appropriate route of compliance, but implementing these codes should be mandatory, rather than, as the Bill currently sets out, platforms being allowed to use “alternative measures”. That is what all these amendments do—they do exactly the same thing. That was a clear and firm recommendation from the joint scrutiny committee. The government’s response to that joint scrutiny committee report was really quite weak. Rather than rehearse the joint scrutiny committee’s views, I will rehearse the Government’s response and why it is not good enough to keep the Bill as it stands.
The first argument the Government make in their response to the joint scrutiny report is that there is no precedent for mandatory codes of conduct. But actually there are. There is clear precedent in child protection. In the physical world, the SEND code for how we protect some of our most vulnerable children is mandatory. Likewise, in the digital world, the age-appropriate design code, which we have mentioned many a time, is also mandatory. So there is plenty of precedent.
The second concern—this is quite funny—was that stakeholders were concerned about having multiple codes of conduct because it could be quite burdensome on them. Well, forgive me for not crying too much for these enormous tech companies relative to protecting our children. The burden I am worried about is the one on Ofcom. This is an enormous Bill, which places huge amounts of work on a regulator that already has a very wide scope. If you make codes of conduct non-mandatory, you are in fact making the work of the regulator even harder. The Government themselves in their response say that Ofcom has to determine what the minimum standards should be in these non-binding codes of practice. Surely it is much simpler and more straightforward to make these codes mandatory and, yes, to add potentially a small additional burden to these enormous tech companies to ensure that we protect our children.
The third challenge is that non-statutory guidance already looks as if it is causing problems in this space. On the video-sharing platform regime, which is non-mandatory, Ofcom has already said that in its first year of operation it has
“seen a large variation in platforms’ readiness to engage with Ofcom”.
All that will simply make it harder and harder, so the burden will lie on this regulator—which I think all of us in this House are already worried is being asked to do an awful lot—if we do not make it very clear what is mandatory and what is not. The Secretary of State said of the Bill that she is
“determined to put these vital protections for … children … into law as quickly as possible”.
A law that puts in place a non-mandatory code of conduct is not what parents across the country would expect from that statement from the Secretary of State. People out there—parents and grandparents across the land—would expect Ofcom to be setting some rules and companies to be required to follow them. That is exactly what we do in the physical world, and I do not understand why we would not want to do it in the digital world.
Finally—I apologise for having gone on for quite a long time—I will very briefly talk specifically to Amendment 32A, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Knight, which is also in this group. It is a probing amendment which looks at how the Bill will address and require Ofcom and participants to take due regard of VPNs: the ability for our savvy children—I am the mother of two teenage girls—to get round all this by using a VPN to access the content they want. This is an important amendment and I am keen to hear what my noble friend Minister will say in response. Last week, I spoke about my attempts to find out how easy it would be for my 17 year-old daughter to access pornography on her iPhone. I spoke about how I searched in the App Store on her phone and found that immediately a whole series of 17-plus-rated apps came up that were pornography sites. What I did not mention then is that with that—in fact, at the top of the list—came a whole series of VPN apps. Just in case my daughter was naive enough to think that she could just click through and watch it, and Apple was right that 17 year-olds were allowed to watch pornography, which obviously they are not, the App Store was also offering her an easy route to access it through a VPN. That is not about content but functionality, and we need to properly understand why this bundle of amendments is so important.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I was not going to speak on this group, but I was provoked into offering some reflections on the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, especially his opening remarks about cars and planes, which he said were designed to be safe. He did not mention trains, about which I know something as well, and which are also designed to be safe. These are a few initial reflective points. They are designed in very different ways. An aeroplane is designed never to fail; a train is designed so that if it fails, it will come to a stop. They are two totally different approaches to safety. Simply saying that something must be designed to be safe does not answer questions; it opens questions about what we actually mean by that. The noble Lord went on to say that we do not allow children to drive cars and fly planes. That is absolutely true, but the thrust of his amendment is that we should design the internet so that it can be driven by children and used by children— so that it is designed for them, not for adults. That is my problem with the general thrust of many of these amendments.
A further reflection that came to mind as the noble Lord spoke was on a book of great interest that I recommend to noble Lords. It is a book by the name of Risk written in 1995 by Professor John Adams, then professor of geography at University College London. He is still an emeritus professor of geography there. It was a most interesting work on risk. First, it reflected how little we actually know of many of the things of which we are trying to assess risk.
More importantly, he went on to say that people have an appetite for risk. That appetite for risk—that risk budget, so to speak—changes over the course of one’s life: one has much less appetite for risk when one gets to a certain age than perhaps one had when one was young. I have never bungee jumped in my life, and I think I can assure noble Lords that the time has come when I can say I never shall, but there might have been a time when I was younger when I might have flung myself off a cliff, attached to a rubber band and so forth—noble Lords may have done so. One has an appetite for risk.
The interesting thing that he went on to develop from that was the notion of risk compensation: that if you have an appetite for risk and your opportunities to take risks are taken away, all you do is compensate by taking risks elsewhere. So a country such as New Zealand, which has some of the strictest cycling safety laws, also has a very high incidence of bungee jumping among the young; as they cannot take risks on their bicycles, they will find ways to go and do it elsewhere.
Although these reflections are not directly germane to the amendments, they are important as we try to understand what we are seeking to achieve here, which is a sort of hermetically sealed absence of risk for children. I do not think it will work. I said at Second Reading that I thought the flavour of the debate was somewhat similar to a late medieval conclave of clerics trying to work out how to mitigate the harmful effects of the invention of movable type. That did not work either, and I think we are in a very similar position today as we discuss this.
There is also the question of harm and what it means. While the examples being given by noble Lords are very specific and no doubt genuinely harmful, and are the sorts of things that we should like to stop, the drafting of the amendments, using very vague words such as “harm”, is dangerous overreach in the Bill. To give just one example, for the sake of speed, when I was young, administering the cane periodically was thought good for a child in certain circumstances. The mantra was, “Spare the rod and spoil the child”, though I never heard it said. Nowadays, we would not think it morally or psychologically good to do physical harm to a child. We would regard it as an unmitigated harm and, although not necessarily banned or illegal, it is something that—
Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I respond to the noble Lord in two ways. First, I ask him to reflect on how the parents of the children who have died through what the parents would undoubtedly view as serious and unbearable harm would feel about his philosophical ruminations. Secondly, as somebody who has the privilege of being a Deputy Speaker in your Lordships’ House, it is incumbent and germane for us all to focus on the amendment in question and stay on it, to save time and get through the business.
Lord Moylan (Con)
Well, I must regard myself as doubly rebuked, and unfairly, because my reflections are very relevant to the amendments, and I have developed them in that direction. In respect of the parents, they have suffered very cruelly and wrongly, but although it may sound harsh, as I have said in this House before on other matters, hard cases make bad law. We are in the business of trying to make good law that applies to the whole population, so I do not think that these are wholly—
Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)
If my noble friend could, would he roll back the health and safety regulations for selling toys, in the same way that he seems so happy to have no health and safety regulations for children’s access to digital toys?
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, if the internet were a toy, aimed at children and used only by children, those remarks would of course be very relevant, but we are dealing with something of huge value and importance to adults as well. It is the lack of consideration of the role of adults, the access for adults and the effects on freedom of expression and freedom of speech, implicit in these amendments, that cause me so much concern.
I seem to have upset everybody. I will now take issue with and upset the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, with whom I have not engaged on this topic so far. At Second Reading and earlier in Committee, she used the phrase, “childhood lasts a lifetime”. There are many people for whom this is a very chilling phrase. We have an amendment in this group—a probing amendment, granted—tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, which seeks to block access to VPNs as well. We are in danger of putting ourselves in the same position as China, with a hermetically sealed national internet, attempting to put borders around it so that nobody can breach it. I am assured that even in China this does not work and that clever and savvy people simply get around the barriers that the state has erected for them.
Before I sit down, I will redeem myself a little, if I can, by giving some encouragement to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, on Amendments 28 and 32 —although I think the amendments are in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool. These amendments, if we are to assess the danger posed by the internet to children, seek to substitute an assessment of the riskiness of the provider for the Government’s emphasis on the size of the provider. As I said earlier in Committee, I do not regard size as being a source of danger. When it comes to many other services— I mentioned that I buy my sandwich from Marks & Spencer as opposed to a corner shop—it is very often the bigger provider I feel is going to be safer, because I feel I can rely on its processes more. So I would certainly like to hear how my noble friend the Minister responds on that point in relation to Amendments 28 and 32, and why the Government continue to put such emphasis on size.
More broadly, in these understandable attempts to protect children, we are in danger of using language that is far too loose and of having an effect on adult access to the internet which is not being considered in the debate—or at least has not been until I have, however unwelcomely, raised it.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)
My Lords, I assure your Lordships that I rise to speak very briefly. I begin by reassuring my noble friend Lord Moylan that he is loved in this Chamber and outside. I was going to say that he is the grit in the oyster that ensures that a consensus does not establish itself and that we think hard about these amendments, but I will revise that and say he is now the bungee jumper in our ravine. I think he often makes excellent and worthwhile points about the scope and reach of the Bill and the unintended consequences. Indeed, we debated those when we debated the amendments relating to Wikipedia, for example.
Obviously, I support these amendments in principle. The other reason I wanted to speak was to wish the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron—Beeban—a happy birthday, because I know that these speeches will be recorded on parchment bound in vellum and presented to her, but also to thank her for all the work that she has done for many years now on the protection of children’s rights on the internet. It occurred to me, as my noble friend Lady Harding was speaking, that there were a number of points I wanted to seek clarity on, either from the Minister or from the proponents of the amendments.
First, the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, mentioned the age-appropriate design code, which was a victory for the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. It has, I think, already had an impact on the way that some sites that are frequented by children are designed. I know, for instance, that TikTok—the noble Baroness will correct me—prides itself on having made some changes as a result of the design code; for example, its algorithms are able, to a certain extent, to detect whether a child is under 13. I know anecdotally that children under 13 sometimes do have their accounts taken away; I think that is a direct result of the amendments made by the age-appropriate design code.
I would like to understand how these amendments, and the issue of children’s rights in this Bill, will interact with the age-appropriate design code, because none of us wants the confetti of regulations that either overlap or, worse, contradict themselves.
Secondly, I support the principle of functionality. I think it is a very important point that these amendments make: the Bill should not be focused solely on content but should take into account that functionality leads to dangerous content. That is an important principle on which platforms should be held to account.
Thirdly, going back to the point about the age-appropriate design code, the design of websites is extremely important and should be part of the regulatory system. Those are the points I wanted to make.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I want, apart from anything else, to speak in defence of philosophical ruminations. The only way we can scrutinise the amendments in Committee is to do a bit of philosophical rumination. We are trying to work out what the amendments might mean in terms of changing the Bill.
I read these amendments, noted their use of “eliminate” —we have to “eliminate” all risks—and wondered what that would mean. I do not want to feel that I cannot ask these kinds of difficult questions for fear that I will offend a particular group or that it would be insensitive to a particular group of parents. It is difficult but we are required as legislators to try to understand what each other are trying to change, or how we are going to try to change the law.
I say to those who have put “eliminate” prominently in a number of these amendments that it is impossible to eliminate all risks to children—is it not?—if they are to have access to the online world, unless you ban them from the platforms completely. Is “eliminate” really helpful here?
Previously in Committee, I talked a lot about the potential dangers, psychologically and with respect to development, of overcoddling young people, of cotton wool kids, and so on. I noted an article over the weekend by the science journalist Tom Chivers, which included arguments from the Oxford Internet Institute and various psychologists that the evidence on whether social media is harmful, particularly for teenagers, is ambiguous.
I am very convinced by the examples brought forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron—and I too wish her a happy birthday. We all know about the targeting of young people and so forth, but I am also aware of the positives. I always try to balance these things out and make sure that we do not deny young people access to the positives. In fact, I found myself cheering at the next group of amendments, which is unusual. First, they depend on whether you are four or 14—in other words, you have to be age-specific—and, secondly, they recognise that we do not want to pass anything in the Bill that actually denies children access to either their own privacy or the capacity to know more.
I also wanted to explore a little the idea of expanding the debate away from content to systems, because this is something that I think I am not quite understanding. My problem is that moving away from the discussion on whether content is removed or accessible, and focusing on systems, does not mean that content is not in scope. My worry is that the systems will have an impact on what content is available.
Let me give some examples of things that can become difficult if we think that we do not want young people to encounter violence and nudity—which makes it seem as though we know what we are talking about when we talk about “harmful”. We will all recall that, in 2018, Facebook removed content from the Anne Frank Centre posted by civil rights organisations because it included photographs of the Holocaust featuring undressed children among the victims. Facebook apologised afterwards. None the less, my worry is these kinds of things happening. Another example, in 2016, was the removal of the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph “The Terror of War”, featuring fleeing Vietnamese napalm victims in the 1970s, because the system thought it was something dodgy, given that the photo was of a naked child fleeing.
I need to understand how system changes will not deprive young people of important educational information such as that. That is what I am trying to distinguish. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, about “harmful” not being defined—I have endlessly gone on about this, and will talk more about it later—is difficult because we think that we know what we mean by “harmful” content.
Finally, on the amendments requiring compliance with Ofcom codes of practice, that would give an extraordinary amount of power to the regulator and the Secretary of State. Since I have been in this place, people have rightly drawn my attention to the dangers of delegating power to the Executive or away from any kind of oversight—there has been fantastic debate and discussion about that. It seems to me that these amendments advocate delegated powers being given to the Secretary of State and Ofcom, an unelected body —the Secretary of State could amend for reasons of public policy in order to protect children—and this is to be put through the negative procedure. In any other instance, I would have expected outcry from the usual suspects, but, because it involves children, we are not supposed to object. I worry that we need to have more scrutiny of such amendments and not less, because in the name of protecting children unintended consequences can occur.
Baroness Kidron (CB)
I want to answer the point that amendments cannot be seen in isolation. Noble Lords will remember that we had a long and good debate about what constituted harms to children. There was a big argument and the Minister made some warm noises in relation to putting harms to children in the Bill. There is some alignment between many people in the Chamber whereby we and Parliament would like to determine what harm is, and I very much share the noble Baroness’s concern about pointing out what that is.
On the issue of the system versus the content, I am not sure that this is the exact moment but the idea of unintended consequences keeps getting thrown up when we talk about trying to point the finger at what creates harm. There are unintended consequences now, except neither Ofcom nor the Secretary of State or Parliament but only the tech sector has a say in what the unintended consequences are. As someone who has been bungee jumping, I am deeply grateful that there are very strict rules under which that is allowed to happen.
The Lord Bishop of Gloucester
My Lords, I support the amendments in this group that, with regard to safety by design, will address functionality and harms—whatever exactly we mean by that—as well as child safety duties and codes of practice. The noble Lord, Lord Russell, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Harding and Lady Kidron, have laid things out very clearly, and I wish the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, a happy birthday.
I also support Amendment 261 in the name of my right reverend friend the Bishop of Oxford and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville. This amendment would allow the Secretary of State to consider safety by design, and not just content, when reviewing the regime.
As we have heard, a number of the amendments would amend the safety duties to children to consider all harms, not just harmful content, and we have begun to have a very interesting debate on that. We know that service features create and amplify harms to children. These harms are not limited to spreading harmful content; features in and of themselves may cause harm—for example, beautifying filters, which can create unrealistic body ideals and pressure on children to look a certain way. In all of this, I want us to listen much more to the voices of children and young people—they understand this issue.
Last week, as part of my ongoing campaign on body image, including how social media can promote body image anxiety, I met a group of young people from two Gloucestershire secondary schools. They were very good at saying what the positives are, but noble Lords will also be very familiar with many of the negative issues that were on their minds, which I will not repeat here. While they were very much alive to harmful content and the messages it gives them, they were keen to talk about the need to address algorithms and filters that they say feed them strong messages and skew the content they see, which might not look harmful but, because of design, accentuates their exposure to issues and themes about which they are already anxious. Suffice to say that underpinning most of what they said to me was a sense of powerlessness and anxiety when navigating the online world that is part of their daily lives.
The current definition of content does not include design features. Building in a safety by design principle from the outset would reduce harms in a systematic way, and the amendments in this group would address that need.
Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)
My Lords, I support this group of amendments. Last week, I was lucky—that is not necessarily the right word—to participate in a briefing organised by the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, with the 5Rights Foundation on its recent research, which the noble Lord referred to. As the mother of a 13 year-old boy, I came away wondering why on earth you would not want to ensure safety by design for children.
I am aware from my work with disabled children that we know, as Ofcom knows from its own research, that children—or indeed anyone with a long-term health impact or a disability—are far more likely to encounter and suffer harm online. As I say, I struggle to see why you would not want to have safety by design.
This issue must be seen in the round. In that briefing we were taken through how quickly you could get from searching for something such as “slime” to extremely graphic pornographic content. As your Lordships can imagine, I went straight back to my 13 year-old son and said, “Do you know about slime and where you have you seen it?” He said, “Yes, Mum, I’ve watched it on YouTube”. That echoes the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron—to whom I add my birthday wishes—that these issues have to be seen in the round because you do not just consume content; you can search on YouTube, shop on Google, search on Amazon and all the rest of it. I support this group of amendments.
Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)
I too wish my noble friend Lady Kidron a happy birthday.
I will speak to Amendment 261. Having sat through the Communications Committee’s inquiries on regulating the internet, it seemed to me that the real problem was the algorithms and the way they operated. We have heard that again and again throughout the course of the Bill. It is no good worrying just about the content, because we do not know what new services will be created by technology. This morning we heard on the radio from the Google AI expert, who said that we have no idea where AI will go or whether it will become cleverer than us; what we need to do is to keep an eye on it. In the Bill, we need to make sure that we are looking at the way technology is being developed and the possible harms it might create. I ask the Minister to include that in his future-proofing of the Bill, because, in the end, this is a very fast-moving world and ecosystem. We all know that what is present now in the digital world might well be completely changed within a few years, and we need to remain cognisant of that.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, we have already had some very significant birthdays during the course of the Bill, and I suspect that, over many more Committee days, there will be many more happy birthdays to celebrate.
This has been a fascinating debate and the Committee has thrown up some important questions. On the second day, we had a very useful discussion of risk which, as the noble Lord, Lord Russell, mentioned, was prompted by my noble friend Lord Allan. In many ways, we have returned to that theme this afternoon. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, who I do not always agree with, asked a fair question. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, said, it is important to know what harms we are trying to prevent—that is how we are trying to define risk in the Bill—so that is an absolutely fair question.
The Minister has shown flexibility. Sadly, I was not able to be here for the previous debate, and it is probably because I was not that he conceded the point and agreed to put children’s harms in the Bill. That takes us a long way further, and I hope he will demonstrate that kind of flexibility as we carry on through the Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and I have totally different views about what risk it is appropriate for children to face. I am afraid that I absolutely cannot share his view that there is this level of risk. I do not believe it is about eliminating risk—I do not see how you can—but the Bill should be about preventing online risk to children; it is the absolute core of the Bill.
As the noble Lord, Lord Russell, said, the Joint Committee heard evidence from Frances Haugen about the business model of the social media platforms. We listened to Ian Russell, the father of Molly, talk about the impact of an unguarded internet on his daughter. It is within the power of the social media companies to do something about that; this is not unreasonable.
I was very interested in what the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, said. He is right that this is about algorithms, which, in essence, are what we are trying to get to in all the amendments in this really important group. It is quite possible to tackle algorithms if we have a requirement in the Bill to do so, and that is why I support Amendment 261, which tries to address to that.
However, a lot of the rest of the amendments are trying to do exactly the same thing. There is a focus not just on moderating harmful content but on the harmful systems that make digital services systematically unsafe for children. I listened with great interest to what the noble Lord, Lord Russell, said about the 5Rights research which he unpacked. We tend to think that media platforms such as Reddit are relatively harmless but that is clearly not the case. It is very interesting that the use of avatars is becoming quite common in the advertising industry to track where advertisements are ending up—sometimes, on pornography sites. It is really heartening that an organisation such as 5Rights has been doing that and coming up with its conclusions. It is extremely useful for us as policymakers to see the kinds of risks that our children are undertaking.
We were reminded about the origins—way back, it now seems—of the Carnegie duty of care. In a sense, we are trying to make sure that that duty of care covers the systems. We have talked about the functionality and harms in terms of risk assessment, about the child safety duties and about the codes of practice. All those need to be included within this discussion and this framework today to make sure that that duty of care really sticks.
I am not going to go through all the amendments. I support all of them: ensuring functionalities for both types of regulated service, and the duty to consider all harms and not just harmful content. It is absolutely not just about the content but making sure that regulated services have a duty to mitigate the impact of harm in general, not just harms stemming from content.
The noble Baroness, Lady Harding, made a terrific case, which I absolutely support, for making sure that the codes of practice are binding and principle based. At the end of the day, that could be the most important amendment in this group. I must admit that I was quite taken with her description of the Government’s response, which was internally contradictory. It was a very weak response to what I, as a member of the Joint Committee, thought was a very strong and clear recommendation about minimum standards.
This is a really important group of amendments and it would not be a difficult concession for the Government to make. They may wish to phrase things in a different way but we must get to the business case and the operation of the algorithms; otherwise, I do not believe this Bill is going to be effective.
I very much take on board what about the noble Viscount said about looking to the future. We do not know very much about some of these new generative AI systems. We certainly do not know a great deal about how algorithms within social media companies operate. We will come, no doubt, to later amendments on the ability to find out more for researchers and so on, but transparency was one of the things our Joint Committee was extremely keen on, and this is a start.
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
My Lords, I too agree that this has been a really useful and interesting debate. It has featured many birthday greetings to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, in which I obviously join. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, bounced into the debate that tested the elasticity of the focus of the group, and bounced out again. Like the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, I was particularly struck by the speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, on the non-mandatory nature of the codes. Her points about reducing Ofcom’s workload, and mandatory codes having precedent, were really significant and I look forward to the Minister’s response.
If I have understood it correctly, the codes will be generated by Ofcom, and the Secretary of State will then table them as statutory instruments—so they will be statutory, non-mandatory codes, but with statutory penalties. Trying to unravel that in my mind was a bit of a thing as I was sitting there. Undoubtedly, we are all looking forward to the Minister’s definition of harm, which he promised us at the previous meeting of the Committee.
I applaud the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for the excellent way in which he set out the issues in this grouping and—along with the Public Bill Office—for managing to table these important amendments. Due to the Bill’s complexity, it is an achievement to get the relatively simple issue of safety by design for children into amendments to Clause 10 on children’s risk assessment duties for user-to-user services; Clause 11 on the safety duties protecting children; and the reference to risk assessments in Clause 19 on record-keeping. There is a similar set of amendments applying to search; to the duties in Clause 36 on codes of practice duties; to Schedule 4 on the content of codes of practice; and to Clause 39 on the Secretary of State’s powers of direction. You can see how complicated the Bill is for those of us attempting to amend it.
What the noble Lord and his amendments try to do is simple enough. I listened carefully to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, as always. The starting point is, when designing, to seek to eliminate harm. That is not to say that they will eliminate all potential harms to children, but the point of design is to seek to eliminate harms if you possibly can. It is important to be clear about that. Of course, it is not just the content but the systems that we have been talking about, and ensuring that the codes of practice that we are going to such lengths to legislate for are stuck to—that is the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Harding—relieving Ofcom of the duty to assess all the alternative methods. We certainly support the noble Lord, Lord Russell, in his amendments. They reinforce that it is not just about the content; the algorithmic dissemination, in terms of volume and context, is really important, especially as algorithms are dynamic—they are constantly changing in response to the business models that underpin the user-to-user services that we are debating.
The business models want to motivate people to be engaged, regardless of safety in many ways. We have had discussion of the analogy on cars and planes from the noble Lord, Lord Allan. As I recall, in essence he said that in this space there are some things that you want to regulate like planes, to ensure that there are no accidents, and some where you trade off freedom and safety, as we do with the regulation of cars. In this case, it is a bit more like regulating for self-driving cars; in that context, you will design a lot more around trying to anticipate all the things that humans when driving will know instinctively, because they are more ethical individuals than you could ever programme an AI to be when driving a car. I offer that slight adjustment, and I hope that it helps the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, when he is thinking about trains, planes and automobiles.
In respect of the problem of the business models and their engagement over safety, I had contact this weekend and last week from friends much younger than I am, who are users of Snap. I am told that there is an AI chatbot on Snap, which I am sure is about engaging people for longer and collecting more data so that you can engage them even longer and, potentially, collect data to drive advertising. But you can pay to get rid of that chatbot, which is the business model moving somewhere else as and when we make it harder for it to make money as it is. Snap previously had location sharing, which you had to turn off. It created various harms and risks for children that their location was being shared with other people without them necessarily authorising it. We can all see how that could create issues.
Lord Bethell (Con)
Does the noble Lord have any reflections, talking about Snap, as to how the internet has changed in our time? It was once really for adults, when it was on a PC and it was only adults who had access to it. There has, of course, been a huge explosion in child access to the internet because of the mobile phone—as we have heard, two-thirds of 10 year-olds now have a mobile phone—and an app such as Snap now has a completely different audience from the one it had five or 10 years ago. Does the noble Lord have any reflections on what the consequences of the explosion of children’s access to applications such as Snap has been on those thinking about the harms and protection of children?
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord. In many ways, I am reminded of the article I read in the New York Times this weekend and the interview with Geoffrey Hinton, the now former chief scientist at Google. He said that as companies improve their AI systems, they become increasingly dangerous. He said of AI technology:
“Look at how it was five years ago and how it is now. Take the difference and propagate it forwards. That’s scary”.
Yes, the huge success of the iPhone, of mobile phones and all of us, as parents, handing our more redundant iPhones on to our children, has meant that children have huge access. We have heard the stats in Committee around the numbers who are still in primary school and on social media, despite the terms and conditions of those platforms. That is precisely why we are here, trying to get things designed to be safe as far as is possible from the off, but recognising that it is dynamic and that we therefore need a regulator to keep an eye on the dynamic nature of these algorithms as they evolve, ensuring that they are safe by design as they are being engineered.
My noble friend Lord Stevenson has tabled Amendment 27, which looks at targeted advertising, especially that which requires data collection and profiling of children. In that, he has been grateful to Global Action Plan for its advice. While advertising is broadly out of scope of the Bill, apart from in respect of fraud, it is significant for the Minister to reflect on the user experience for children. Whether it is paid or organic content, it is pertinent in terms of their safety as children and something we should all be mindful of. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, that as I understand it, the age-appropriate design code does a fair amount in respect of the data privacy of children, but this is much more about preventing children encountering the advertising in the first place, aside from the data protections that apply in the age-appropriate design code. But the authority is about to correct me.
Baroness Kidron (CB)
Just to add to what the noble Lord has said, it is worth noting that we had a debate, on Amendment 92, about aligning the age-appropriate design code likely to be accessed and the very important issue that the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, raised about alignment of these two regimes. I think we can say that these are kissing cousins, in that they take a by-design approach. The noble Lord is completely right that the scope of the Bill is much broader than data protection only, but they take the same approach.
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
I am grateful, as ever, to the noble Baroness, and I hope that has assisted the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey.
Finally—just about—I will speak to Amendment 32A, tabled in my name, about VPNs. I was grateful to the noble Baroness for her comments. In many ways, I wanted to give the Minister the opportunity to put something on the record. I understand, and he can confirm whether my understanding is correct, that the duties on the platforms to be safe is regardless of whether a VPN has been used to access the systems and the content. The platforms, the publishers of content that are user-to-user businesses, will have to detect whether a VPN is being used, one would suppose, in order to ensure that children are being protected and that that is genuinely a child. Is that a correct interpretation of how the Bill works? If so, is it technically realistic for those platforms to be able to detect whether someone is landing on their site via a VPN or otherwise? In my mind, the anecdote that the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, related, about what the App Store algorithm on Apple had done in pushing VPNs when looking for porn, reinforces the need for app stores to become in scope, so that we can get some of that age filtering at that distribution point, rather than just relying on the platforms.
Substantially, this group is about platforms anticipating harms, not reviewing them and then fixing them despite their business model. If we can get the platforms themselves designing for children’s safety and then working out how to make the business models work, rather than the other way around, we will have a much better place for children.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)
My Lords, I join in the chorus of good wishes to the bungee-jumping birthday Baroness, Lady Kidron. I know she will not have thought twice about joining us today in Committee for scrutiny of the Bill, which is testament to her dedication to the cause of the Bill and, more broadly, to protecting children online. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, is right to note that we have already had a few birthdays along the way; I hope that we get only one birthday each before the Bill is finished.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
Very good—only one each, and hopefully fewer. I thank noble Lords for the points they raised in the debate on these amendments. I understand the concerns raised about how the design and operation of services can contribute to risk and harm online.
The noble Lord, Lord Russell, was right, when opening this debate, that companies are very successful indeed at devising and designing products and services that people want to use repeatedly, and I hope to reassure all noble Lords that the illegal and child safety duties in the Bill extend to how regulated services design and operate their services. Providers with services that are likely to be accessed by children will need to provide age-appropriate protections for children using their service. That includes protecting children from harmful content and activity on their service. It also includes reviewing children’s use of higher-risk features, such as live streaming or private messaging. Service providers are also specifically required to consider the design of functionalities, algorithms and other features when delivering the child safety duties imposed by the Bill.
I turn first to Amendments 23 and 76 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell. These would require providers to eliminate the risk of harm to children identified in the service’s most recent children’s risk assessment, in addition to mitigating and managing those risks. The Bill will deliver robust and effective protections for children, but requiring providers to eliminate the risk of harm to children would place an unworkable duty on providers. As the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, my noble friend Lord Moylan and others have noted, it is not possible to eliminate all risk of harm to children online, just as it is not possible entirely to eliminate risk from, say, car travel, bungee jumping or playing sports. Such a duty could lead to service providers taking disproportionate measures to comply; for instance, as noble Lords raised, restricting children’s access to content that is entirely appropriate for them to see.
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
Does the Minister accept that that is not exactly what we were saying? We were not saying that they would have to eliminate all risk: they would have to design to eliminate risks, but we accept that other risks will apply.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
It is part of the philosophical ruminations that we have had, but the point here is that elimination is not possible through the design or any drafting of legislation or work that is there. I will come on to talk a bit more about how we seek to minimise, mitigate and manage risk, which is the focus.
Amendments 24, 31, 32, 77, 84, 85 and 295, from the noble Lord, Lord Russell, seek to ensure that providers do not focus just on content when fulfilling their duties to mitigate the impact of harm to children. The Bill already delivers on those objectives. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, noted, it defines “content” very broadly in Clause 207 as
“anything communicated by means of an internet service”.
Under this definition, in essence, all communication and activity is facilitated by content.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
I hope that the Minister has in his brief a response to the noble Baroness’s point about Clause 11(14), which, I must admit, comes across extraordinarily in this context. She quoted it, saying:
“The duties set out … are to be taken to extend only to content that is harmful to children where the risk of harm is presented by the nature of the content (rather than the fact of its dissemination)”.
Is not that exception absolutely at the core of what we are talking about today? It is surely therefore very difficult for the Minister to say that this applies in a very broad way, rather than purely to content.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I will come on to talk a bit about dissemination as well. If the noble Lord will allow me, he can intervene later on if I have not done that to his satisfaction.
I was about to talk about the child safety duties in Clause 11(5), which also specifies that they apply to the way that a service is designed, how it operates and how it is used, as well as to the content facilitated by it. The definition of content makes it clear that providers are responsible for mitigating harm in relation to all communications and activity on their service. Removing the reference to content would make service providers responsible for all risk of harm to children arising from the general operation of their service. That could, for instance, bring into scope external advertising campaigns, carried out by the service to promote its website, which could cause harm. This and other elements of a service’s operations are already regulated by other legislation.
Baroness Kidron (CB)
I apologise for interrupting. Is that the case, and could that not be dealt with by defining harm in the way that it is intended, rather than as harm from any source whatever? It feels like a big leap that, if you take out “content”, instead of it meaning the scope of the service in its functionality and content and all the things that we have talked about for the last hour and a half, the suggestion is that it is unworkable because harm suddenly means everything. I am not sure that that is the case. Even if it is, one could find a definition of harm that would make it not the case.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
Taking it out in the way that the amendment suggests throws up that risk. I am sure that it is not the intention of the noble Lord or the noble Baroness in putting it, but that is a risk of the drafting, which requires some further thought.
Clause 11(2), which is the focus of Amendments 32, 85 and 295, already means that platforms have to take robust action against content which is harmful because of the manner of its dissemination. However, it would not be feasible for providers to fulfil their duties in relation to content which is harmful only by the manner of its dissemination. This covers content which may not meet the definition of content which is harmful to children in isolation but may be harmful when targeted at children in a particular way. One example could be content discussing a mental health condition such as depression, where recommendations are made repeatedly or in an amplified manner through the use of algorithms. The nature of that content per se may not be inherently harmful to every child who encounters it, but, when aggregated, it may become harmful to a child who is sent it many times over. That, of course, must be addressed, and is covered by the Bill.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
Can the Minister assure us that he will take another look at this between Committee and Report? He has almost made the case for this wording to be taken out—he said that it is already covered by a whole number of different clauses in the Bill—but it is still here. There is still an exception which, if the Minister is correct, is highly misleading: it means that you have to go searching all over the Bill to find a way of attacking the algorithm, essentially, and the way that it amplifies, disseminates and so on. That is what we are trying to get to: how to address the very important issue not just of content but of the way that the algorithm operates in social media. This seems to be highly misleading, in the light of what the Minister said.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I do not think so, but I will certainly look at it again, and I am very happy to speak to the noble Lord as I do. My point is that it would not be workable or proportionate for a provider to prevent or protect all children from encountering every single instance of the sort of content that I have just outlined, which would be the effect of these amendments. I will happily discuss that with the noble Lord and others between now and Report.
Amendment 27, by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, seeks to add a duty to prevent children encountering targeted paid-for advertising. As he knows, the Bill has been designed to tackle harm facilitated through user-generated content. Some advertising, including paid-for posts by influencers, will therefore fall under the scope of the Bill. Companies will need to ensure that systems for targeting such advertising content to children, such as the use of algorithms, protect them from harmful material. Fully addressing the challenges of paid-for advertising is a wider task than is possible through the Bill alone. The Bill is designed to reduce harm on services which host user-generated content, whereas online advertising poses a different set of problems, with different actors. The Government are taking forward work in this area through the online advertising programme, which will consider the full range of actors and sector-appropriate solutions to those problems.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
I understand the Minister’s response, and I accept that there is a parallel stream of work that may well address this. However, we have been waiting for the report from the group that has been looking at that for some time. Rumours—which I never listen to—say that it has been ready for some time. Can the Minister give us a timescale?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I cannot give a firm timescale today but I will seek what further information I can provide in writing. I have not seen it yet, but I know that the work continues.
Amendments 28 and 82, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, seek to remove the size and capacity of a service provider as a relevant factor when determining what is proportionate for services in meeting their child safety duties. This provision is important to ensure that the requirements in the child safety duties are appropriately tailored to the size of the provider. The Bill regulates a large number of service providers, which range from some of the biggest companies in the world to small voluntary organisations. This provision recognises that what it is proportionate to require of providers at either end of that scale will be different.
Removing this provision would risk setting a lowest common denominator. For instance, a large multinational company could argue that it is required only to take the same steps to comply as a smaller provider.
Amendment 32A from the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, would require services to have regard to the potential use of virtual private networks and similar tools to circumvent age-restriction measures. He raised the use of VPNs earlier in this Committee when we considered privacy and encryption. As outlined then, service providers are already required to think about how safety measures could be circumvented and take steps to prevent that. This is set out clearly in the children’s risk assessment and safety duties. Under the duty at Clause 10(6)(f), all services must consider the different ways in which the service is used and the impact of such use on the level of risk. The use of VPNs is one factor that could affect risk levels. Service providers must ensure that they are effectively mitigating and managing risks that they identify, as set out in Clause 11(2). The noble Lord is correct in his interpretation of the Bill vis-à-vis VPNs.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
Technical possibility is a matter for the sector—
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for engaging in dialogue while I am in a sedentary position, but I had better stand up. It is relevant to this Committee whether it is technically possible for providers to fulfil the duties we are setting out for them in statute in respect of people’s ability to use workarounds and evade the regulatory system. At some point, could he give us the department’s view on whether there are currently systems that could be used —we would not expect them to be prescribed—by platforms to fulfil the duties if people are using their services via a VPN?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
This is the trouble with looking at legislation that is technologically neutral and future-proofed and has to envisage risks and solutions changing in years to come. We want to impose duties that can technically be met, of course, but this is primarily a point for companies in the sector. We are happy to engage and provide further information, but it is inherently part of the challenge of identifying evolving risks.
The provision in Clause 11(16) addresses the noble Lord’s concerns about the use of VPNs in circumventing age-assurance or age-verification measures. For it to apply, providers would need to ensure that the measures they put in place are effective and that children cannot normally access their services. They would need to consider things such as how the use of VPNs affects the efficacy of age-assurance and age-verification measures. If children were routinely using VPNs to access their service, they would not be able to conclude that Clause 11(16) applies. I hope that sets out how this is covered in the Bill.
Amendments 65, 65ZA, 65AA, 89, 90, 90B, 96A, 106A, 106B, 107A, 114A, 122, 122ZA, 122ZB and 122ZC from the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, seek to make the measures Ofcom sets out in codes of practice mandatory for all services. I should make it clear at the outset that companies must comply with the duties in the Bill. They are not optional and it is not a non-statutory regime; the duties are robust and binding. It is important that the binding legal duties on companies are decided by Parliament and set out in legislation, rather than delegated to a regulator.
Codes of practice provide clarity on how to comply with statutory duties, but should not supersede or replace them. This is true of codes in other areas, including the age-appropriate design code, which is not directly enforceable. Following up on the point from my noble friend Lady Harding of Winscombe, neither the age-appropriate design code nor the SEND code is directly enforceable. The Information Commissioner’s Office or bodies listed in the Children and Families Act must take the respective codes into account when considering whether a service has complied with its obligations as set out in law.
As with these codes, what will be directly enforceable in this Bill are the statutory duties by which all sites in scope of the legislation will need to abide. We have made it clear in the Bill that compliance with the codes will be taken as compliance with the duties. This will help small companies in particular. We must also recognise the diversity and innovative nature of this sector. Requiring compliance with prescriptive steps rather than outcomes may mean that companies do not use the most effective or efficient methods to protect children.
I reassure noble Lords that, if companies decide to take a different route to compliance, they will be required to document what their own measures are and how they amount to compliance. This will ensure that Ofcom has oversight of how companies comply with their duties. If the alternative steps that providers have taken are insufficient, they could face enforcement action. We expect Ofcom to take a particularly robust approach to companies which fail to protect their child users.
My noble friend Lord Vaizey touched on the age-appropriate design code in his remarks—
Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)
My noble friend the Minister did not address the concern I set out that the Bill’s approach will overburden Ofcom. If Ofcom has to review the suitability of each set of alternative measures, we will create an even bigger monster than we first thought.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I do not think that it will. We have provided further resource for Ofcom to take on the work that this Bill will give it; it has been very happy to engage with noble Lords to talk through how it intends to go about that work and, I am sure, would be happy to follow up on that point with my noble friend to offer her some reassurance.
Responding to the point from my noble friend Lord Vaizey, the Bill is part of the UK’s overall digital regulatory landscape, which will deliver protections for children alongside the data protection requirements for children set out in the Information Commissioner’s age-appropriate design code. Ofcom has strong existing relationships with other bodies in the regulatory sphere, including through the Digital Regulation Co-operation Forum. The Information Commissioner has been added to this Bill as a statutory consultee for Ofcom’s draft codes of practice and relevant pieces of guidance formally to provide for the ICO’s input into its areas of expertise, especially relating to privacy.
Amendment 138 from the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, would amend the criteria for non-designated content which is harmful to children to bring into scope content whose risk of harm derives from its potential financial impact. The Bill already requires platforms to take measures to protect all users, including children, from financial crime online. All companies in scope of the Bill will need to design and operate their services to reduce the risk of users encountering content amounting to a fraud offence, as set out in the list of priority offences in Schedule 7. This amendment would expand the scope of the Bill to include broader commercial harms. These are dealt with by a separate legal framework, including the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations. This amendment therefore risks creating regulatory overlap, which would cause confusion for business while not providing additional protections to consumers and internet users.
Amendment 261 in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford seeks to modify the existing requirements for the Secretary of State’s review into the effectiveness of the regulatory framework. The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that all aspects of a regulated service are taken into account when considering the risk of harm to users and not just content.
As we have discussed already, the Bill defines “content” very broadly and companies must look at every aspect of how their service facilitates harm associated with the spread of content. Furthermore, the review clause makes explicit reference to the systems and processes which regulated services use, so the review can already cover harm associated with, for example, the design of services.
Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response. I think the entire Chamber will be thankful that I do not intend to respond in any great detail to almost one hour and three-quarters of debate on this series of amendments—I will just make a few points and suggestions.
The point that the noble Baroness made at the beginning about understanding the design and architecture of the systems and processes is fundamental, both for understanding why they are causing the sorts of harm that they are at the moment and for trying to ensure that they are designed better in future than they have been to date. Clearly, they are seriously remiss in the harms that they are inflicting on a generation of young people.
On the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, about trying to make Ofcom’s job easier— I can see the noble Lord, Lord Grade, in the corner— I would hope and anticipate that anything we could suggest that would lead the Government to make Ofcom’s job slightly easier and clearer would be very welcome. The noble Lord appears to be making an affirmatory gesture, so I will take that as a yes.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that I fully understand the importance of waving the flag of liberty and free speech, and I acknowledge its importance. I also acknowledge the always-incipient danger of unintentionally preventing things from happening that can and should happen when you are trying to make things safer and prevent harm. Trying to get the right balance is extraordinarily difficult, but I applaud the noble Lord for standing up and saying what he said. If one were to judge the balance of the contributions here as a very rough opinion poll, the noble Lord might find himself in the minority, but that does not necessarily mean that he is wrong, so I would encourage him to keep contributing.
I sympathise with the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, in trying to find the right balance; it is something that we are all struggling to do. One of the great privileges we have in this House is that we have the time to do it in a manner which is actively discouraged in the other place. Even if we go on a bit, we are talking about matters which are very important—in particular, the pre-legislative scrutiny committee was able to cover them in greater detail than the House of Commons was able to do.
The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, was right. In the same way as they say, “Follow the money”, in this case it is “follow the algorithms”, because it is the algorithms which drive the business model.
On the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, regarding the New York Times article about Geoffrey Hinton, one of the architects of AI in Google, I would recommend that all your Lordships read it to see somebody who has been at the forefront of developing artificial intelligence. Rather like a character in a Jules Verne novel suddenly being slightly aghast at what they have created—Frankenstein comes to mind—it makes one pause for thought. Even as we are talking about these things, AI is racing ahead like a greyhound in pursuit of a very fast rabbit, and there is no way that we will be able to catch up.
While I thank the noble Minister for his reply, as when we debated some of the amendments last week where the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, spoke about the train journey she took when she was trying to interrogate and interpret the different parts of the Bill and was trying to follow the trail and understand what was going on to the extent that she became so involved that she missed her station, I think there is a real point here about the fact that this Bill is very complex to follow and understand. Indeed, the way in which the Minster had to point to all the different points of the compass—so to speak—both within the Bill and without it in many of the answers that he gave to some of the amendments indicates to me that the Bill team is finding it challenging to respond to some of them. It is like filling in one of those diagrams where you join the dots, and you cannot quite see what it is until you have nearly finished. I find it slightly disturbing if the Bill team and some of the officials appear to be having a challenging time in trying to interpret, understand and explain some of the points we are raising; I would hope and expect that that could be done much more simply.
One of the pleas from all of us in a whole variety of these amendments is to get the balance right between legislating what it is that we want to legislate and making it simple enough to be understandable. At the moment, a criticism of this Bill is that it is extraordinary difficult to understand in many parts. I will not go through all the points, but there are some germane areas where it would be extremely helpful to pursue with the Minister and the Bill team some of the points we are trying to make. Many of them are raised by a variety of outside bodies which know infinitely more about it than I do, and which have genuine concerns. We have the time between Committee and Report to put some of those to bed or at least to understand them better than we do at the moment. We will probably be happy and satisfied with some of the responses that we receive from the department once we feel that we understand them, and perhaps more importantly, once we feel that the department and the Bill team themselves fully understand them. It is fair to say that at the moment we are not completely comfortable that they do. I do not blame the Minister for that. If I were in his shoes, I would be on a very long holiday and I would not be returning any time soon. However, we will request meetings—for one meeting, it would be too much, so we will try to put this into bit-size units and then try to dig into the detail in a manageable way without taking too much time to make sure that we understand each other.
With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Russell of Liverpool
“(c) uphold children’s rights per the United Kingdom’s obligations as a signatory of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), with reference to General Comment No. 25 (2021) from the Committee on the Rights of the Child on children’s rights in relation to the digital environment.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would mean regulated services would have to have regard for the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to ensure children are treated according to their evolving capacities, in their best interests, in consideration of their wellbeing and are not locked out of spaces that they have a right to participate in and to access.
Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I am sorry that it is me again—a bit like a worn 78. In moving Amendment 25, I will speak also to Amendments 78, 187 and 196, all of which speak to the principle of children’s rights as set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and, more specifically, how those rights are applied to the digital world as covered in the United Nations’ general comment No. 25, which was produced in 2021 and ratified by the UK Government. What we are suggesting and asking for is that the principles in this general comment are reflected in the Bill. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Harding, Lady Kennedy and Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton—who is not with us—for adding their names to these amendments and for their support.
The general comment No. 25 that I mentioned recognises that children’s rights are applicable in the digital world as well as the real world. These amendments try to establish in the Bill the rights of children. Believe it or not, in this rather lengthy Bill there is not a single reference—as far as we can discern—specifically to children’s rights. There are a lot of other words, but that specific phrase is not used, amazingly enough. These amendments are an attempt to get children’s rights specifically into the Bill. Amendments 30 and 105 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Knight, also seek to preserve the well-being of children. Our aims are very similar, but we will try to argue that the convention would achieve them in a particularly effective and concise way.
The online world is not optional for children, given what we know—not least from some of the detailed and harrowing experiences related by various of your Lordships in the course of the Bill. The fact that the online world is not optional for children may be worrying to some adults. We have all heard about parents, grandparents and others who have direct experience of their beloved coming to harm. By contrast, it is also fascinating to note how many senior executives, and indeed founders, of digital companies forbid their own children from possessing and using mobile phones, typically until they are 12 or 14. That is telling us something. If they themselves do not allow their children to have access to some of the online world we are talking about so much, that should give us pause for reflection.
Despite the many harms online, there is undoubted good that all children can benefit from, including in terms of their cognitive and skills development, social development and relationships. There are some brilliant things which come from being online. It is also beneficial because having age-appropriate experiences when they are online is part of their fundamental rights. That, essentially, is what these amendments are about.
Throughout the many years that the Bill has been in gestation, we have heard a lot about freedom of speech and how it must be preserved. Indeed, in contrast to children’s rights not being mentioned once in the Bill, “freedom of expression” appears no less than 49 times. I venture to suggest to your Lordships that there is a degree of imbalance there which should cause us to pause and reflect on whether we have that balance quite right.
I will not go into detail, but the UNCRC is the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history, and it is legally binding on the states which are party to it. The UK is a signatory to this convention, yet if we do not get this right in the Bill, we are in danger of falling behind some of our global counterparts. Although I recognise that saying the name of this organisation may bring some members of the governing party out in a rather painful rash, the EU is incorporating the UNCRC into its forthcoming AI Act. Sweden has already incorporated it into law at a different level, and Canada, New Zealand and South Africa are all doing the same. It is not anything to be worried about. Even Wales incorporated it into its domestic law in 2004, and Scotland did so in 2021. This appears to be something that the English have a particular problem with.
Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)
My Lords, I rise on this group of amendments, particularly with reference to Amendments 25, 78, 187 and 196, to inject a slight note of caution—I hope in a constructive manner—and to suggest that it would be the wrong step to try to incorporate them into this legislation. I say at the outset that I think the intention behind these amendments is perfectly correct; I do not query the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and others. Indeed, one thing that has struck me as we have discussed the Bill is the commonality of approach across the Chamber. There is a strong common desire to provide a level of protection for children’s rights, but I question whether these amendments are the right vehicle by which to do that.
It is undoubtedly the case that the spirit of the UNCRC is very strongly reflected within the Bill, and I think it moves in a complementary fashion to the Bill. Therefore, again, I do not query the UNCRC in particular. It can act as a very strong guide to government as to the route it needs to take, and I think it has had a level of influence on the Bill. I speak not simply as someone observing the Bill but as someone who, in a previous existence, served as an Education Minister in Northern Ireland and had direct responsibility for children’s rights. The guidance we received from the UNCRC was, at times, very useful to Ministers, so I do not question any of that.
For three reasons, I express a level of concern about these amendments. I mentioned that the purpose of the UNCRC is to act as a guide—a yardstick—for government as to what should be there in terms of domestic protections. That is its intention. The UNCRC itself was never written as a piece of legislation, and I do not think it was the original intention to have it directly incorporated and implemented as part of law. The UNCRC is aspirational in nature, which is very worth while. However, it is not written in a legislative form. At times, it can be a little vague, particularly if we are looking at the roles that companies will play. At times, it sets out very important principles, but ones which, if left for interpretation by the companies themselves, could create a level of tension.
To give an example, there is within the UNCRC a right to information and a right to privacy. That can sometimes create a tension for companies. If we are to take the purpose of the UNCRC, it is to provide that level of guidance to government, to ensure that it gets it right rather than trying to graft UNCRC directly on to domestic law.
Secondly, the effect of these amendments would be to shift the interpretation and implementation of what is required of companies from government to the companies themselves. They would be left to try to determine this, whereas I think that the UNCRC is principally a device that tries to make government accountable for children’s rights. As such, it is appropriate that government has the level of responsibility to draft the regulations, in conjunction with key experts within the field, and to try to ensure that what we have in these regulations is fit for purpose and bespoke to the kind of regulations that we want to see.
To give a very good example, there are different commissioners across the United Kingdom. One of the key groups that the Government should clearly be consulting with to make sure they get it right is the Children’s Commissioners of the different jurisdictions in the United Kingdom. Through that process, but with that level of ownership still lying with government and Ofcom, we can create regulations that provide the level of protection for our children that we all desire to see; whereas, if the onus is effectively shifted on to companies simply to comply with what is a slightly vague, aspirational purpose in these regulations, that is going to lead to difficulties as regards interpretation and application.
Thirdly, there is a reference to having due regard to what is in the UNCRC. From my experience, both within government and even seeing the way in which government departments do that—and I appreciate that “due regard” has case law behind it—even different government departments have tended to interpret that differently and in different pieces of legislation. At one extreme, on some occasions that effectively means that lip service has been paid to that by government departments and, in effect, it has been largely ignored. Others have seen it as a very rigorous duty. If we see that level of disparity between government departments within the same Government, and if this is to be interpreted as a direct instruction to and requirement of companies of varying sizes—and perhaps with various attitudes and feelings of responsibility on this subject—that creates a level of difficulty in and of itself.
My final concern in relation to this has been mentioned in a number of debates on various groups of amendments. Where a lot of Peers would see either a weakness in the legislation or something else that needs to be improved, we need to have as much consistency and clarity as possible in both interpretation and implementation. As such, the more we move away from direct regulations, which could then be put in place, to relying on the companies themselves interpreting and implementing, perhaps in different fashions, with many being challenged by the courts at times, the more we create a level of uncertainty and confusion, both for the companies themselves and for users, particularly the children we are looking to protect.
While I have a lot of sympathy for the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and while we need to find a way to incorporate into the Bill in some form how we can drive children’s rights more centrally within this, the formulation of the direct grafting of the UNCRC on to this legislation, even through due regard, is the wrong vehicle for doing it. It is inappropriate. As such, it is important that we take time to try to find a better vehicle for the sort of intention that the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and others are putting forward. Therefore, I urge the noble Lord not to press his amendments. If he does, I believe that the Committee should oppose the amendments as drafted. Let us see if, collectively, we can find a better and more appropriate way to achieve what we all desire: to try to provide the maximum protection in a very changing world for our children as regards online safety.
Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)
My Lords, I support these amendments. We are in the process of having a very important debate, both in the previous group and in this one. I came to this really important subject of online safety 13 years ago, because I was the chief executive of a telecoms company. Just to remind noble Lords, 13 years ago neither Snap, TikTok nor Instagram—the three biggest platforms that children use today—existed, and telecoms companies were viewed as the bad guys in this space. I arrived, new to the telecoms sector, facing huge pressure—along with all of us running telecoms companies—from Governments to block content.
I often felt that the debate 13 years ago too quickly turned into what was bad about the internet. I was spending the vast majority of my working day trying to encourage families to buy broadband and to access this thing that you could see was creating huge value in people’s lives, both personal and professional. Sitting on these Benches, I fundamentally want to see a society with the minimum amount of regulation, so I was concerned that regulating internet safety would constrain innovation; I wanted to believe that self-regulation would work. In fact, I spent many hours in workshops with the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and many others in this Chamber, as we tried to persuade and encourage the tech giants—as everyone started to see that it was not the telecoms companies that were the issue; it was the emerging platforms—to self-regulate. It is absolutely clear that that has failed. I say that with quite a heavy heart; it has genuinely failed, and that is why the Bill is so important: to enshrine in law some hard regulatory requirements to protect children.
That does not change the underlying concern that I and many others—and everyone in this Chamber—have, that the internet is also potentially a force for good. All technology is morally neutral: it is the human beings who make it good or bad. We want our children to genuinely have access to the digital world, so in a Bill that is enshrining hard gates for children, it is really important that it is also really clear about the rights that children have to access that technology. When you are put under enormous pressure, it is too easy—I say this as someone who faced it 13 years ago, and I was not even facing legislation—to try to do what you think your Government want to do, and then end up causing harm to the individuals you are actually trying to protect. We need this counterbalance in this Bill. It is a shame that my noble friend Lord Moylan is not in his place, because, for the first time in this Committee, I find myself agreeing with him. It is hugely important that we remember that this is also about freedom and giving children the freedom to access this amazing technology.
Some parts of the Bill are genuinely ground-breaking, where we in this country are trying to work out how to put the legal scaffolding in place to regulate the internet. Documenting children’s rights is not something where we need to start from scratch. That is why I put my name to this amendment: I think we should take a leaf from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. I recognise that the noble Lord, Lord Weir of Ballyholme, made some very thought-provoking comments about how we have to be careful about the ambiguity that we might be creating for companies, but I am afraid that ambiguity is there whether we like it or not. These are not just decisions for government: the tension between offering services that will brighten the lives of children but risking them as well are exactly behind the decisions that technology companies take every day. As the Bill enshrines some obligations on them to protect children from the harms, I firmly believe it should also enshrine obligations on them to offer the beauty and the wonder of the internet, and in doing that enshrine their right to this technology.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I have attached my name to Amendment 25 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and I rise to speak primarily to that. It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, and agree with every word she has just said. I will draw on two elements of my personal history that she reminded me of. As a journalist in country Australia in the early 1990s—pre-internet days—I worked the night shift, and at least once a week we would get a frantic phone call from a parent calling on behalf of a child along the lines of, “Do you know anything about dolphins?” A school project had just been discovered that needed to be done by the next morning, and the source of information that the parent thought of was, “The local newspaper—they might be able to tell us something!” I am slightly ashamed to say that we had a newspaper to get out and we very quickly told them to go away, so we were not a good source of information in that case. Most people in your Lordships’ House will remember—but most young people will have no recollection of—a time when there was little access to information outside the hours when the library was open or you could go to a bookshop. There were literally no other sources available. We have to consider this amendment in the light of that.
I also want to slightly disagree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, on the previous group. He suggested that it was only with the arrival of phones that the internet became primarily or significantly a children’s thing. The best I can date it is that either in 1979 or 1980 I was playing “Lemonade Stand” on one of the early Apples. This might have been considered to be a harmful game from some political perspectives, given that it very much encouraged a capitalist mindset, profit taking and indeed the Americanisation of culture—but none the less that was back in 1980, if not 1979, and children were there. If we look back over the history of the internet, we see that some of the companies started out with young people, under the age of 18 in some cases, who have been at the forefront of innovation and development of what we now think of as our social media or internet world. This is the children’s world as much as it is the adults’ world, and that is the reality.
I will pick up the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Weir of Ballyholme, who suggested that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was only a guide to government and not law. It is a great pity that the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, is not in her place, because she is far better equipped to deal with this angle than I am. But I will give it a go. Children’s rights are humans’ rights. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most backed and most ratified rights convention—
Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)
I appreciate what the noble Baroness is saying, but I made a slightly different point. I am suggesting not that what is there was not meant to be law but that it was not written in a form which should be simply directly put in as legislation. It was not drafted in that format on that basis, which is why a direct graft on to a domestic piece of legislation is not quite the way to do it. It is about using that as guidance as to what should be in the law, rather than simply a direct incorporation.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
I thank the noble Lord for his clarification, although, speaking not as a lawyer, my understanding is that a human right is a legal right; it is a law—a most fundamental right. In addition, every country in the world has ratified this except for the United States—which is another issue. I also point out that it is particularly important that we include reference to children’s rights in this Bill, given the fact that we as a country currently treat our children very badly. There is a huge range of issues, and we should have a demonstration in this and every Bill that the rights of children are respected across all aspects of British society.
I will not get diverted into a whole range of those, but I point noble Lords to a report to the United Nations from the Equality and Human Rights Commission in February this year that highlighted a number of ways in which children’s rights are not being lived up to in the UK. The most relevant part of this letter that the EHRC sent to the UN stresses that it is crucial to preserve children’s rights to accessible information and digital connectivity. That comes from our EHRC.
I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Russell, who referred to the fact that we live in a global environment, and of course our social media and the internet is very much a global world. I urge everyone who has not done so to look at a big report done by UNICEF in 2019, Global Kids Online, which, crucially, involved a huge amount of surveys, consultation and consideration by young people. Later we will get to an amendment of mine which says that we should have the direct voice of young people overseeing the implementation of the Bill. I am talking not about the NGOs that represent them but specifically about children: we need to listen to the children and young people.
The UNICEF report said that it was quite easy to defend access to information and to reputable sources, but showed that accessing entertainment activities—some of the things that perhaps some grandparents in this Chamber might have trouble with—was associated with the positive development of digital skills. Furthermore, the report says:
“When parents restrict children’s internet use”—
of course, this could also apply to the Government restricting their internet use—
“this has a negative effect on children’s information-seeking and privacy skills”.
So, if you do not give children the chance to develop these skills to learn how to navigate the internet, and they suddenly go to it at age 18 and a whole lot of stuff is out there that they have not developed any skills to deal with, you are setting yourself up for a real problem. So UNICEF stresses the real need to have children’s access.
Interestingly, this report—which was a global report from UNICEF—said that
“fewer than one third of children had been exposed to”
something they had found uncomfortable or upsetting in the preceding year. That is on the global scale. Perhaps that is an important balance to some of the other debates we have had in your Lordships’ House on the Bill.
Other figures from this report that I think are worth noting—this is from 2019, so these figures will undoubtedly have gone up—include the finding that
“one in three children globally is … an internet user and …. one in three internet users is a child”.
We have been talking about this as though the internet is “the grown-ups’ thing”, but that is not the global reality. It was co-created, established and in some cases invented by people under the age of 18. I am afraid to say that your Lordships’ House is not particularly well equipped to deal with this, but we need to understand this as best we possibly can. I note that the report also said, looking at the sustainable development goals on quality of education, good jobs and reducing inequality, that internet access for children was crucial.
I will make one final point. I apologise; I am aware that I have been speaking for a while, but I am passionate about these issues. Children and young people have agency and the ability to act and engage in politics. In several nations on these islands, 16 and 17 year-olds have the vote. I very much hope that that will soon also be the case in England, and indeed I hope that soon children even younger than that that will have the vote. I was talking about that with a great audience of year nines at the Queen’s School in Bushey on Friday with Learn with the Lords. Those children would have a great opportunity—
Lord Harlech (Con)
My Lords, we have a very full order of business to get through, so I encourage the noble Baroness to remain on topic.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
I think that is on topic. If 16 and 17 year-olds are voting, they have a right to access internet information about voting. I suggest that that is on topic.
My final point—for the pleasure of the noble Lord—is that historically we have seen examples where blocks and filters have denied children and young people who identify as LGBTQI+ access to crucial information for them. That is an example of the risk if we do not allow them right of access. On the most basic children’s right of all, we have also seen examples of blocks and filters that have stopped access to breastfeeding information on the internet. Access is a crucial issue, and what could be a more obvious way to allow it than by writing in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child?
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I welcome many of these amendments. I found reading them slightly more refreshing than the more dystopian images we have had previously. It is quite exciting, actually, because the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, sounded quite upbeat, which is in contrast to previous contributions on what the online world is like.
I want to defend the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, from the intervention that suggested that she was going off topic, because the truth is that these amendments are calling for children’s rights to be introduced into legislation via this Bill. I disagree with that, but we should at least talk about it if it is in the amendments.
Whereas I like the spirit of the amendments, it seems to me that children’s rights, which I consider to have huge constitutional implications, require a proper Bill to bring them in and not to be latched on to this one. My concern is that children’s rights can be used to undermine adult authority and are regularly cited as a way of undermining parents’ rights, and that children under 18 cannot enact political rights. Whether they have agency or capacity, they are not legally able to exercise their political rights, and therefore someone has to act on their behalf as an intermediary—as a third party—which is why it can become such a difficult, politicised area.
I say that because it would be a fascinating discussion to have. I do not think this is the Bill to have it on, but the spirit of the amendments raises issues that we should bear in mind for the rest of our discussion. During lockdown, we as a society stopped young people having any social interaction at all. They were isolated, and a lot of new reports suggest that young people’s mental health has suffered because they were on their own. They went online and, in many instances, it kept them sane. That is probably true not just of young people but of the rest of us, by the way, but I am making the point that it was not all bad.
Over recent years, as we have been concerned about children’s safety and protecting them, we have discouraged them from roaming far from home. They do not go out on their bikes or run around all the time; they are told, “Come back home, you’ll be safe”. Of course, they have gone into their room and gone online, and now we say, “That’s not safe either”.
I want to acknowledge that the online world has helped young people overcome the problems of isolation and lack of community that the adult world has sometimes denied them developing. That is important: it can be a source of support and solidarity. Children need spaces to talk, engage and interact with friends, mates, colleagues and so on where they can push boundaries, and all sorts of things, without grown-ups interfering. That is what we have always understood from child development. It is why you do not have spies wandering around all the time following them.
The main thing is that we know the difference between a four year-old and a 14 year-old. In the Bill, we call a child anyone under 18, but I was glad that the amendments acknowledge that distinction in terms of appropriateness is important. When young people are online, or if they are involved in encrypted messages, such as WhatsApp, that does not mean they are all planning to join county lines or are being groomed—it is not all dodgy. Appropriateness in terms of child age and not always imagining that the worst is happening are an important counter that these amendments bring to some of the pessimism that we have heard until now.
The noble Lord, Lord Russell, said that children’s rights are not mentioned in the Bill but freedom of expression has been mentioned 49 times. First, it is not a Bill about children’s rights, but when he says that freedom of expression has been mentioned 49 times, I assure him that quantity is not quality and the mention of it means nothing.
Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)
I want to challenge the noble Baroness’s assertion that the Bill is not about children’s rights. Anyone who has a teenage child knows that their right to access the internet is keenly held and fought out in every household in the country.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
The quip works, but political rights are not quips. Political rights have responsibilities, and so on. If we gave children rights, they would not be dependent on adults and adult society. Therefore, it is a debate; it is a row about what our rights are. Guess what. It is a philosophical row that has been going on all around the world. I am just suggesting that this is not the place—
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
I am sorry, but I must point out that 16 and 17 year-olds in Scotland and Wales have the vote. That is a political right.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
And it has been highly contentious whether the right to vote gives them independence. For example, you would still be accused of child exploitation if you did anything to a person under 18 in Scotland or Wales. In fact, if you were to tap someone and it was seen as slapping in Scotland and they were 17, you would be in trouble. Anyway, it should not be in this Bill. That is my point.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
My Lords, perhaps I may intervene briefly, because Scotland and Wales have already been mentioned. My perception of the Bill is that we are trying to build something fit for the future, and therefore we need some broad underlying principles. I remind the Committee that the Well-being of Future Generations Act (Wales) Act set a tone, and that tone has run through all aspects of society even more extensively than people imagined in protecting the next generation. As I have read them, these amendments set a tone to which I find it difficult to understand why anyone would object, given that that is a core principle, as I understood it, behind building in future-proofing that will protect children, among others.
Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I support the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, to require regulated services to have regard to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. As we continue to attempt to strengthen the Bill by ensuring that the UK will be the safest place for children to be online, there is a danger that platforms may take the easy way out in complying with the new legislation and just block children entirely from their sites. Services must not shut children out of digital spaces altogether to avoid compliance with the child safety duties, rather than designing services with their safety in mind. Children have rights and, as the UN convention makes clear, they must be treated according to their evolving capacities and in their best interests in consideration of their well-being.
Being online is now an essential right, not an option, to access education, entertainment and friendship, but we must try to ensure that it is a safe space. As the 5Rights Foundation points out, the Bill risks infringing children’s rights online, including their rights to information and participation in the digital world, by mandating that services prevent children from encountering harmful content, rather than ensuring services are made age appropriate for children and safe by design, as we discussed earlier. As risk assessments for adults have been stripped from the Bill, this has had the unintended consequence of rendering a child user relative to an adult user even more costly, as services will have substantial safety duties to comply with to protect children. 5Rights Foundation warns that this will lead services to determine that it is not worth designing services with children’s safety in mind but that it could be more cost effective to lock them out entirely.
Ofcom must have a duty to have regard for the UNCRC in its risk assessments. Amendment 196 would ensure that children’s rights are reflected in Ofcom’s assessment of risks, so that Ofcom must have regard for children’s rights in balancing their rights to be safe against their rights to access age-appropriate digital spaces. This would ensure compliance with general comment No. 25, as the noble Lord, Lord Russell, mentioned, passed in 2021, to protect children’s rights to freedom of expression and privacy. I urge the Ministers to accept these amendments to ensure that the UK will be not only the safest place for children to be online but the best place too, by respecting and protecting their rights.
Baroness Kidron (CB)
My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group, and will make two very brief points. Before I do, I believe that those who are arguing for safety by design and to put harms in the Bill are not trying to restrict the freedom of children to access the internet but to give the tech sector slightly less freedom to access children and exploit them.
My first point is a point of principle, and here I must declare an interest. It was my very great privilege to chair the international group that drafted general comment No. 25 on children’s rights in relation to the digital environment. We did so on behalf of the Committee on the Rights of the Child and, as my noble friend Lord Russell said, it was adopted formally in 2021. To that end, a great deal of work has gone into balancing the sorts of issues that have been raised in this debate. I think it would interest noble Lords to know that the process took three years, with 150 submissions, many by nation states. Over 700 children in 28 countries were consulted in workshops of at least three hours. They had a good shout and, unlike many of the other general comments, this one is littered with their actual comments. I recommend it to the Committee as a very concise and forceful gesture of what it might be to exercise children’s rights in a balancing way across all the issues that we are discussing. I cannot remember who, but somebody said that the online world is not optional for children: it is where they grow up; it is where they spend their time; it is their education; it is their friendships; it is their entertainment; it is their information. Therefore, if it is not optional, then as a signatory to the UNCRC we have a duty to respect their rights in that environment.
My second point is rather more practical. During the passage of the age-appropriate design code, of which we have heard much, the argument was made that children were covered by the amendment itself, which said they must be kept in mind and so on. I anticipate that argument being made here—that we are aligning with children’s rights, apart from the fact that they are indivisible and must be done in their entirety. In that case, the Government happily accepted that it should be explicit, and it was put in the Data Protection Act. It was one of the most important things that happened in relation to the age-appropriate design code. We might hope that, when this Bill is an Act, it will all be over—our job will be done and we can move on. However, after the Data Protection Act, the most enormous influx of lobbying happened, saying, “Please take the age down from 18 to 13”. The Government, and in that case the ICO, shrugged their shoulders and said, “We can’t; it’s on the face of the Bill”, because Article 1 of the UNCRC says that a child is anyone under the age of 18.
The evolving capacities of children are central to the UNCRC, so the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, which I very much share, that a four year-old and a 14 year-old are not the same, are embodied in that document and in the general comment, and therefore it is useful.
These amendments are asking for that same commitment here—to children and to their rights, and to their rights to protection, which is at the heart of so much of what we are debating, and their well-being. We need their participation; we need a digital world with children in it. Although I agreed very much with the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and her fierce defending of children’s rights, there are 1 billion children online. If two-thirds of them have not seen anything upsetting in the last year, that rather means that one-third of 1 billion children have—and that is too many.
Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I did not intend to speak in this debate but I have been inspired by it.
I was here for the encryption debate last week, which I did not speak in. One of the contributions was around unintended consequences of the legislation, and I am concerned about unintended consequences here.
I absolutely agree with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, around the need for children to engage on the internet. Due to a confidence and supply agreement with the then Government back in 2017, I ensured that children and adults alike in Northern Ireland have the best access to the internet in the United Kingdom, and I am very proud of that. Digital literacy is covered in a later amendment, Amendment 91, which I will be strongly supporting. It is something that everybody needs to be involved in, not least our young people—and here I declare an interest as the mother of a 16 year-old.
I have two concerns. The first was raised by my friend the noble Lord, Lord Weir, around private companies being legally accountable for upholding an international human rights treaty. I am much more comfortable with Amendments 187 and 196, which refer to Ofcom. I think that is where the duty should be. I have an issue not with the convention but with private companies being held responsible for it; Ofcom should be the body responsible.
Secondly, I listened very carefully to what the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, said about general comment No. 25. If what I say is incorrect, I hope she will say so. Is general comment No. 25 a binding document on the Government? I understood that it was not.
Baroness Kidron (CB)
We need to see the UNCRC included in the Bill. The convention is never opened up again, and how it makes itself relevant to the modern world is through the general comments; that is how the Committee on the Rights of the Child would interpret it.
Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)
So it is an interpretive document. The unintended consequences piece was around general comment No. 25 specifically having reference to children being able to seek out content. That is certainly something that I would be concerned about. I am sure that we will discuss it further in the next group of amendments, which are on pornography. If young people were able to seek out harmful content, that would concern me greatly.
I support Amendments 187 and 196, but I have some concerns about the unintended consequences of Amendment 25.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, I think this may have been a brief interlude of positivity. I am not entirely convinced, in view of some of the points that have been made, but certainly I think that it was intended to be.
I will speak first to Amendments 30 and 105. I do not know what the proprieties are, but I needed very little prompting from the LEGO Group to put forward amendments that, in the online world, seek to raise the expectation that regulated services must go beyond purely the avoidance of risk of harm and consider the positive benefits that technology has for children’s development and their rights and overall well-being. It has been extremely interesting to hear that aspect of today’s debate.
It recognises that through the play experience of children, both offline and online, it has an impact on the lives of millions of children that it engages with around the world, and it recognises the responsibility to ensure that, wherever it engages with them, the impact is positive and that it protects and upholds the rights of children and fosters their well-being as part of its mission.
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
My Lords, we too support the spirit of these amendments very much and pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for tabling them.
In many ways, I do not need to say very much. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, made a really powerful case, alongside the way the group was introduced in respect of the importance of these things. We do want the positivity that the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, talked about in respect of the potential and opportunity of technology for young people. We want them to have the right to freedom of expression, privacy and reliable information, and to be protected from exploitation by the media. Those happen to be direct quotes from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, as some of the rights they would enjoy. Amendments 30 and 105, which the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, tabled—I attached my name to Amendment 30—are very much in that spirit of trying to promote well-being and trying to say that there is something positive that we want to see here.
In particular, I would like to see that in respect of Ofcom. Amendment 187 is, in some ways, the more significant amendment and the one I most want the Minister to reflect on. That is the one that applies to Ofcom: that it should have reference to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. I think even the noble Lord, Lord Weir, could possibly agree. I understand his thoughtful comments around whether or not it is right to encumber business with adherence to the UN convention, but Ofcom is a public body in how it carries out its duties as a regulator. There are choices for regulation. Regulation can just be about minimum standards, but it can also be about promoting something better. What we are seeking here in trying to have reference to the UN convention is for Ofcom to regulate for something more positive and better, as well as police minimum standards. On that basis, we support the amendments.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, I will start in the optimistic spirit of the debate we have just had. There are many benefits to young people from the internet: social, educational and many other ways that noble Lords have mentioned today. That is why the Government’s top priority for this legislation has always been to protect children and to ensure that they can enjoy those benefits by going online safely.
Once again, I find myself sympathetic to these amendments, but in a position of seeking to reassure your Lordships that the Bill already delivers on their objectives. Amendments 25, 78, 187 and 196 seek to add references to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and general comment 25 on children’s rights in relation to the digital environment to the duties on providers and Ofcom in the Bill.
As I have said many times before, children’s rights are at the heart of this legislation, even if the phrase itself is not mentioned in terms. The Bill already reflects the principles of the UN convention and the general comment. Clause 207, for instance, is clear that a “child” means a person under the age of 18, which is in line with the convention. All providers in scope of the Bill need to take robust steps to protect users, including children, from illegal content or activity on their services and to protect children from content which is harmful to them. They will need to ensure that children have a safe, age-appropriate experience on services designed for them.
Both Ofcom and service providers will also have duties in relation to users’ rights to freedom of expression and privacy. The safety objectives will require Ofcom to ensure that services protect children to a higher standard than adults, while also making sure that these services account for the different needs of children at different ages, among other things. Ofcom must also consult bodies with expertise in equality and human rights, including those representing the interests of children, for instance the Children’s Commissioner. While the Government fully support the UN convention and its continued implementation in the UK, it would not be appropriate to place obligations on regulated services to uphold an international treaty between state parties. We agree with the reservations that were expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Weir of Ballyholme, in his speech, and his noble friend Lady Foster.
The convention’s implementation is a matter for the Government, not for private businesses or voluntary organisations. Similarly, the general comment acts as guidance for state parties and it would not be appropriate to refer to that in relation to private entities. The general comment is not binding and it is for individual states to determine how to implement the convention. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Russell, will feel reassured that children’s rights are baked into the Bill in more ways than a first glance may suggest, and that he will be content to withdraw his amendment.
The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, in his Amendments 30 and 105, seeks to require platforms and Ofcom to consider a service’s benefits to children’s rights and well-being when considering what is proportionate to fulfil the child safety duties of the Bill. They also add children’s rights and well-being to the online safety objectives for user-to-user services. The Bill as drafted is focused on reducing the risk of harm to children precisely so that they can better enjoy the many benefits of being online. It already requires companies to take a risk-based and proportionate approach to delivering the child safety duties. Providers will need to address only content that poses a risk of harm to children, not that which is beneficial or neutral. The Bill does not require providers to exclude children or restrict access to content or services that may be beneficial for them.
Children’s rights and well-being are already a central feature of the existing safety objectives for user-to-user services in Schedule 4 to the Bill. These require Ofcom to ensure that services protect children to a higher standard than adults, while making sure that these services account for the different needs of children at different ages, among other things. On this basis, while I am sympathetic to the aims of the amendments the noble Lord has brought forward, I respectfully say that I do not think they are needed.
More pertinently, Amendment 30 could have unintended consequences. By introducing a broad balancing exercise between the harms and benefits that children may experience online, it would make it more difficult for Ofcom to follow up instances of non-compliance. For example, service providers could take less effective safety measures to protect children, arguing that, as their service is broadly beneficial to children’s well-being or rights, the extent to which they need to protect children from harm is reduced. This could mean that children are more exposed to more harmful content, which would reduce the benefits of going online. I hope that this reassures the noble Lord, Lord Russell, of the work the Bill does in the areas he has highlighted, and that it explains why I cannot accept his amendments. I invite him to withdraw Amendment 25.
Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for taking part in this discussion. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Weir, although I would say to him that his third point—that, in his experience, the UNCRC is open to different interpretations by different departments—is my experience of normal government. Name me something that has not been interpreted differently by different departments, as it suits them.
Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)
I entirely take that point. I was making the slightly wider point—not specifically with regard to the UNCRC—that, whenever legislative provision has been made that a particular department has to have due regard to something, while there is case law, “due regard” has tended to be treated very differently by different departments. So, if even departments within the same Government treat that differently, how much more differently would private companies treat it?
Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)
I would simply make the point that it would probably be more accurate to say that the departments treat it with “due disregard”;
This has been a wide ranging debate and I am not going to go through all the different bits and pieces. I recommend that noble Lords read United Nations general comment 25 as it goes, in great detail, right to the heart of the issues we are talking about. For example —this is very pertinent to the next group of amendments—it explicitly protects children from pornography, so I absolutely recommend that it be mentioned in the next group of amendments.
As I expected, the Minister said, “We are very sympathetic but this is not really necessary”. He said that children’s rights are effectively baked into the Bill already. But what is baked into something that children—for whom this is particularly relevant—or even adults might decide to consume is not always immediately obvious. There are problems with an approach whereby one says, “It’s fine because, if you really understood this rather complicated legislation, it would become completely clear to you what it means”. That is a very accurate and compelling demonstration of exactly why some of us have concerns about this well-intentioned Bill. We fear that it will become a sort of feast, enabling company lawyers and regulators to engage in occasionally rather arcane discourse at great expense, demonstrating that what the Government claim is clearly baked in is not so clearly baked in.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
My Lords, I am very happy to move Amendment 29 and to speak to Amendments 83 and 103, which are also in my name. We have just had a debate about the protection of children online, and this clearly follows on from that.
The intention of the Bill is to set general parameters through which different content types can be regulated. The problem with that approach, as the sheer number of amendments highlights, is this: not all content and users are the same, and therefore cannot be treated in the same way. Put simply, not all content online should be legislated for in the same way. That is why the amendments in this group are needed.
Pornography is a type of content that cannot be regulated in general terms; it needs specific provisions. I realise that some of these issues were raised in the debate last Tuesday on amendments in my name, and again on Thursday when we discussed harms to children. I recognise too that, during his response to Thursday’s debate, the Minister made a welcome announcement on primary priority content which I hope will be set out in the Bill, as we have been asking for during this debate. While we wait to see the detail of what that announcement means, I think it safe to assume that pornography will be one of the harms named on the Bill, which makes discussion of these amendments that bit more straightforward.
Given that context, in Clause 11(3), user-to-user services that fall under the scope of Part 3 of the Bill have a duty to prevent children from accessing primary priority content. This duty is repeated in Clause 25(3) for search services. That duty is, however, qualified by the words,
“using proportionate systems and processes”.
It is the word “proportionate” and how that would apply to the regulation of pornography that is at the heart of the issue.
Generally speaking, acting in a proportionate way is a sensible approach to legislation and regulation. For the most part, regulation and safeguards should ensure that a duty is not onerous or that it does not place a disproportionate cost on the service provider that may make their business unviable. While that is the general principle, proportionality is not an appropriate consideration for all policy decisions.
In the offline world, legislation and regulation is not always proportionate. This is even more stark when regulating for children. The noble Lord, Lord Bethell, raised the issue of the corner shop last Tuesday, and that example is apt to highlight my point today. We do not take a proportional approach to the sale of alcohol or cigarettes. We do not treat a corner shop differently from a supermarket. It would be absurd if I were to suggest that a small shop should apply different age checks for children when selling alcohol, compared to the age checks we expect a large supermarket to apply. Therefore, in the same way, we already do not apply proportionality to some online activities. For example, gambling is an activity that is age-verified for children. Indeed, gambling companies are not allowed to make their product attractive to children and must advertise in a regulated way to avoid harm to children and young people. The harm caused to children by gambling is significant, so the usual policy considerations of proportionality do not apply. Clearly, both online and offline, there are some goods and services to which a proportionality test is not applied; there is no subjectivity. A child cannot buy alcohol or gamble and should not be able to access pornography.
In the UK, there is a proliferation of online gambling sites. It would be absurd to argue that the size of a gambling company or the revenue that company makes should be a consideration in whether it should utilise age verification to prevent children placing a bet. In the same way, it would be absurd to argue that the size or revenue of a pornographic website could be used as an argument to override a duty to ensure that age verification is employed to ensure that children do not access that website.
This is not a grey area. It is beyond doubt that exposing children to pornography is damaging to their health and development. The Children’s Commissioner’s report from this year has been much quoted already in Committee but it is worth reminding your Lordships what she found: that pornography was “widespread and normalised”, to the extent that children cannot opt out. The average age at which children first see pornography is 13. By age nine, 10% had seen it, 27% had seen it by age 11 and half had seen it by age 13. The report found that frequent users of pornography are more likely to engage—unfortunately and sadly—in physically aggressive sex acts.
There is nothing proportionate about the damage of pornographic content. The size, number of visitors, financial budget or technical know-how must not be considerations as to whether or not to deploy age checks. If a platform is incapable for any reason of protecting children from harmful exposure to pornography, it must remove that content. The Bill should be clear: if there is pornography on a website, it must use age verification. We know that pornographic websites will do all they can to evade age verification. In France and Germany, which are ahead of us in passing legislation to protect minors from pornography, regulators are tangled up in court action as the pornographic sites they first targeted for enforcement action argue against the law.
We must also anticipate the response of websites that are not dedicated exclusively to pornography, especially social media—a point we touched on during Tuesday’s debate. Reuters reported last year that an internal Twitter presentation stated that 13% of tweets were pornographic. Indeed, the Children’s Commissioner has found that Twitter is the platform where young people are most likely to encounter pornographic content. I know that some of your Lordships are concerned about age-gating social media. No one is suggesting that social media should exclude children, a point that has been made already. What I am suggesting is that pornography on that platform should be subject to age verification. The capabilities already exist to do this. New accounts on Twitter have to opt in to view pornographic content. Why cannot the opt-in function be age-gated? Twitter is moving to subscription content. Why can it not make pornographic content subscription based, with the subscription being age-verified. The solutions exist.
The Minister may seek to reassure the House that the Bill as drafted would not allow any website or search facility regulated under Part 3 that hosts pornographic content to evade its duties because of size, capacity or cost. But, as we have seen in France, these terms will be subject to court action. I therefore trust that the Government will bring forward an amendment to ensure that any platform that hosts pornographic content will employ age verification, regardless of any other factors. Perhaps the Minister in his wind-up can provide us with some detail or a hint of a future amendment at Report. I look forward to hearing and considering the Minister’s response. I beg to move.
Baroness Benjamin (LD)
My Lords, I wish to speak in support of Amendments 29, 83 and 103 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie. I am extremely pleased that the Minister said last Tuesday that pornography will be within primary priority content; he then committed on Thursday to naming primary priority content in the Bill. This is good news. We also know that pornography will come within the child safety duties in Clause 11. This makes me very happy.
In the document produced for the Government in January 2021, the BBFC said that there were millions of pornographic websites—I repeat, millions—and many of these will come within Part 3 of the Bill because they allow users to upload videos, make comments on content and chat with other users. Of course, some of these millions of websites will be very large, which means by definition that we expect them to come within the scope of the Bill. Under Clause 11(3) user-to-user services have a duty to prevent children accessing primary priority content. The duty is qualified by the phrase
“using proportionate systems and processes”.
The facts of deciding what is proportionate are set out in Clause 11(11): the potential harm of the content based on the children’s risk assessment, and the size and capacity of the provider of the service. Amendments 29, 83 and 103 tackle the issue of size and capacity.
Merchant Shipping (Fire Protection) Regulations 2023
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 3 March be approved.
Relevant document: 33rd Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)
My Lords, the draft regulations before the House relate to the fire safety of all passenger ships on international voyages, a limited class of passenger ships on non-international voyages, all cargo and sailing ships of 500 gross tonnage and over, and UK pleasure vessels of 500 gross tonnage and above. It makes provision for different generations of ship, with the fire protection requirements differing slightly between the generations.
The statutory instrument will be made under safety powers conferred by the Merchant Shipping Act 1995. It is subject to the enhanced scrutiny procedures under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018—and therefore there is an affirmative procedure today—because it revokes an instrument that was amended by Section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972. The instrument does not implement any EU obligations.
I acknowledge the amendment to the Motion relating to this instrument in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, referencing the time taken to make these changes to the domestic statute book and other delays to international maritime secondary legislation. In its 33rd report of Session 2022-23, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee—SLSC—noted that the
“DfT is gradually addressing its backlog of implementing international maritime legislation but these Regulations illustrate why we were so concerned that it was allowed to accumulate in the first place”.
I will address the amendment to the Motion and the SLSC’s remarks, but I turn first to the instrument under consideration today.
The draft regulations implement the most up-to-date requirements of chapter II-2 of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea 1974, known as SOLAS, and bring UK domestic law up to date and in line with internationally agreed requirements. The draft regulations contain direct references to the vast majority of the requirements of SOLAS chapter II-2. These references are made ambulatory, so future updates to the provisions will be given direct effect in UK law when they enter into force internationally. This will assist the UK in keeping legislation up with international requirements.
The regulations will revoke and replace the Merchant Shipping (Fire Protection) Regulations 2003 and the Merchant Shipping (Fire Protection: Large Ships) Regulations 1998—the latter apply to ships constructed before 1 July 2002 and the former to ships constructed on or before that same date. The regulations will further improve the fire safety standards for ships and will enable the UK to enforce these requirements against UK ships wherever they may be in the world, and against non-UK ships when they are in UK waters. This provides a level playing field for the industry.
I turn to the content of the SI. Chapter II-2 of SOLAS contains provisions for structural fire protection, fire detection and fire extinction on ships. This includes the prevention of fire and explosion, suppression of fire, escape from fire, operational requirements, alternative design and arrangements, and other requirements specific to particular situations. Chapter II-2 is supplemented by the fire safety systems code and the fire testing procedures code. All are amended from time to time in the International Maritime Organization—IMO.
A number of amendments have been agreed in the IMO and have come into force internationally since UK law was last updated in 2003. Amendments contained in 20 resolutions have been agreed at the IMO over the years since 2003, with the most recent changes being made in 2020. Those amendments further improve the safety standards of fire protection but have not yet been implemented into UK law. The UK supported the amendments during IMO discussions and, as a party to SOLAS, now has an obligation to implement these further updates. Amendments include, but are not limited to, new requirements for cabin balconies, tanker gas measurement equipment, fire test protocols for materials placed on ships and requirements related to vehicle spaces—they can be quite technical. Details of all 20 amendments are set out in the Explanatory Memorandum to this instrument in the normal way.
I turn to the amendment to the Motion in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, and the recent remarks by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee to which I previously alluded. Keeping pace with the frequent amendments to international maritime conventions is challenging and requires frequent updating of the implementing legislation to keep up to date. The Department for Transport has an extensive secondary legislation programme but limited policy, analytical and legal resources with which to carry out that task. That has required some prioritisation, particularly over recent years, and a backlog relating to implementation of international obligations has been allowed to develop. I am not content with the situation, nor was my predecessor; in fact, it was my predecessor who put in place an action plan to address it.
However, it should be noted that the lack of domestic statutory underpinning did not prevent enforcement, and there are powers in the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 that allow for prosecutions to be brought. For example, Section 100 places a duty on the ship owner to take all reasonable steps to make sure that a ship is operated in a safe manner; failure to do so is an offence. Section 98 of the Act allows for prosecution where a ship is found to be dangerously unsafe. However, making these draft regulations is necessary to bring the changes to SOLAS into UK law, and doing so provides the clarity and certainty that the industry requires, particularly in relation to specific offences and penalties.
I reassure your Lordships’ House that the Government are committed to clearing the maritime backlog. Good progress has been made on clearing the international backlog, which was identified in October 2021 by Robert Courts MP, the then Minister for Maritime, as comprising 13 instruments. Four of the 13 instruments currently remain to be made, with the instrument before your Lordships’ House today being one of them. The remaining three instruments will be consulted on in the coming months for the purpose of making them this year, ensuring that the international maritime backlog will be cleared before the end of 2023.
My department is also planning ahead for the implementation of future amendments to international maritime conventions, including for amendments that are still at the negotiating stage in the IMO and the International Labour Organization, the ILO. However, the House should note that there is often a fairly limited period between the adoption of the final, agreed text and the international in-force date. This is the case with both the IMO and the ILO. Therefore, in some cases, a short delay in implementation, owing to the parliamentary procedures in the UK, is inevitable. However, the objective remains that such a delay will be an exception rather than the rule, and that any delay will be as short as possible.
Approval of these regulations is crucial to ensuring that the UK meets its international obligations. The UK has already agreed to the amendments in the IMO. The Government are taking action to clear the maritime backlog and are on target to clear the international backlog by the end of the year. I beg to move.
Amendment to the Motion
Baroness Scott of Needham Market
At the end insert “that this House regrets that the draft Regulations represent a 20-year delay in the implementation of vital international safety resolutions; and calls on His Majesty’s Government to take urgent action to address the backlog of international maritime legislation awaiting implementation.”
Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)
My Lords, I have tabled an amendment to the Motion—unusually, not because I disagree with the content of the statutory instrument but for precisely the opposite reason. This is a very important instrument concerning the most serious occurrence that can befall a vessel at sea—namely, a fire. Despite everything the Minister has said, I find it incomprehensible that it has taken the UK Government 20 years to bring these international regulations into domestic law. I am not attacking the Minister, who I know to be diligent and committed to the maritime sector, and nor am I attacking her team of civil servants. However, many Ministers and very many civil servants have been in place over the last 20 years since these regulations needed to be incorporated into domestic law.
As the Minister referred to, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s report on this instrument describes the further 20 IMO regulations that have been agreed to apply to ships exceeding 500 gross tonnes. The Minister mentioned one regulation that was as recent as 2020—but that is still three years ago. The same report noted that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said that UK ships were “mostly in compliance”. It then went on to say that the ships would have risked being unable to trade in other jurisdictions had they not been in compliance. In other words, the UK has been relying on other countries to enforce these regulations. I put it to the Minister that this is not only bad in itself but damaging to our reputation as a leading maritime nation.
In its most recent report, published earlier this week, the SLSC considered an SI relating to seafarers’ documents. Since 1958, the ILO’s Seafarers’ Identity Documents Convention has included fishermen in its definition of seafarers, but the UK has neglected to bring its regulations in line until now. This is not a theoretical matter—it caused great distress during the pandemic, when fishers were not treated as seafarers—so it is right that it should be corrected now. Again, for a seafaring nation, we have to ask why it was not dealt with sooner.
In October 2021, the then Minister Robert Courts was questioned by the Select Committee about the backlog. The following January, the committee commented on the inadequate information provided to it on a number of SIs. It is a different issue, but it is troubling nevertheless. The International Relations and Defence Committee of our House, in its March 2022 report on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, said:
“It remains unclear why the UK Government has not signed the 1986 Convention on Conditions for Registration of Ships, and we regret that this has not happened”.
It feels to me that this is systemic; a pattern is emerging.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and the points she made. I too emphasise that this is not a criticism of the present Minister, who I know is trying very hard to catch up with these regulations; the problem goes back many years before she was appointed.
Today, the issue of fires on ships is very topical, because, as noble Lords will have seen, the ferry “Pentalina” caught fire near Orkney at the weekend and was grounded. I do not think that we know what the cause was, but, luckily, nobody was hurt. It indicates the importance that must be attached to fire prevention on ships. Its sister ship, MV “Alfred”, managed to hit a rock off the Orkney islands last summer—luckily, in broad daylight. Again, nobody was hurt, but these accidents happen, for whatever reason.
It is interesting to reflect that, while the noble Baroness’s amendment mentions a 20-year delay, the issue of lifejackets and bulkheads in river steamers was raised last year, which was 33 years after the “Marchioness” accident, in which a lot of people died. I appreciate that the Government are trying to catch up, but we have to comply with international regulations, and I hope that this work carries on. I am sure that we will all be monitoring the progress that the Minister outlined when she introduced the regulations.
I have one or two questions on some of the issues that the Minister outlined and on things in the Explanatory Memorandum. As we found when we were talking about seafarers’ wages, it is quite difficult and complicated. We are talking here, if I read paragraph 6.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum correctly, about
“passenger ships engaged on international voyages”,
which I think means being registered in the UK, and
“a small class of passenger ships engaged on domestic voyages”.
I suppose that includes the ships I have been talking about in the Orkneys. Does it include the ferries to and from the Isle of Wight? Where is the cut-off? It probably includes the “Scillonian III” going to the Isles of Scilly. I have no problem with this; I would just like to know what it applies to and what it does not. If you get a foreign-registered ship operating within the UK, I trust that the regulations still apply to it. It is terribly important that they do, of course.
I was interested to see in paragraph 6.2 the exceptions to the small ships regulations are that
“government ships and naval ships are not within scope of that instrument”.
Does that mean that it does not matter if naval ships catch fire or is there some other reason for not including them? Is there some alternative regulation? Naval ships, like any other ships, have had the habit of catching fire in the past and, clearly, preserving not only the lives of the seafarers but the government asset is pretty important.
I believe there is a sort of boundary between the 500-tonne ships included here and earlier regulations for smaller ships. I think the Minister has mentioned this before, but it would be nice to have some clarity on that.
My final point is on paragraph 7.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum. In her introduction, the Minister mentioned
“fire protection, prevention of fire and explosion, detection and suppression of fire, escape from fire, operational requirements, alternative design and arrangements and other requirements”.
That is a pretty wide-ranging definition. Presumably when the MCA gets round to the detail of this everybody will know what it is talking about but it is not very clear from this. It clearly has the right intention of reducing the risk and the scope of fire.
I suppose the issue that came up in the Explanatory Memorandum, which again the Minister referred to, is the fact that there are 19 different changes under paragraph 7. This indicates that the MCA is keeping up with different changes. That is very good but perhaps she could also explain what “ambulatory” means in relation to fire on ships. I look forward to her responses and again I congratulate her on bringing this forward because it is very difficult, very complicated and going to do good when it becomes legislation. I have posed a few questions and I look forward to her responses.
Lord Greenway (CB)
My Lords, I think this is the first occasion we have had to welcome the Minister to her new post as Shipping Minister. My mind goes back nearly 40 years to when it was almost de rigueur for the Shipping Minister to reside in this House, so it is extremely welcome to have a Shipping Minister back with us again.
These draft resolutions are extremely important, as has been pointed out by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott. Fire, as she said, remains one of the major areas of disaster at sea. Ships, thank God, are not usually built of wood any more but they carry all sorts of noxious substances that burn like hell if they catch fire and there have been a number of notable examples recently even of car batteries catching fire and sinking ships.
I should say we are almost here again. Every time we have one of these regulations coming forward, we say the same thing: why has it taken so long for this to be incorporated into British law? The original fire protection regulations were in 2003 and almost immediately there was a change in 2004. As we have heard, there have been about 20 such changes since then. Why has it all suddenly come into one thing nearly 20 years later? It hints, dare I say it, at a certain amount of sloppiness in the department that these things have not been dealt with more promptly.
Our standing is still, thank goodness, very high in the International Maritime Organization but things like this cannot help in due course. I know we do not have the merchant fleet we had many years ago but we are still an important player in the maritime scene and I think we should be acting more promptly to agree new regulations.
The “ambulatory reference” provision is most welcome because I hope it will put an end to all this complaining about delay because when new regulations come out of the International Maritime Organization it will be automatic in future.
I certainly have a lot of sympathy with the noble Baroness, Lady Scott. The performance of this country has not been up to scratch in these maritime matters, but I welcome the fact that everything should be sorted out by the end of this year.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, I start by thanking my noble friend for tabling her amendment and giving us the opportunity to raise these important issues. I also thank the Minister and acknowledge her efforts to tackle this backlog which is of such concern to us all. I want to mention here the role of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, of which I recently became a member. I have often referred to its excellent work in making sure that our attention is drawn to these important lapses.
As others have said, this SI relates to a total of about 20 IMO resolutions which successive UK Governments have so far ignored. Some of these, as has been pointed out, date back 20 years. The Minister referred to resources and I think that reveals to us how hopelessly beyond the Government’s capacity are their plans for the future revocation of EU law. If they cannot manage 20 year-old IMO regulations on fire, they are not going to manage several hundred transport-related pieces of legislation.
All of this relates, of course, to fire protection and, as has been pointed out, fire is one of the greatest dangers faced by mariners and their passengers. It is important to remember that these regulations relate to passenger vessels. That means that there will be people on board who are not professionals, not trained in how to respond if a fire breaks out, and not familiar with how things work or the layout of the ship; in other words, there are lots of people on board—the passengers—who are an additional risk, so it is not just mariners and their status we should be concerned about.
Some of these 20 regulations are about fire detection—the design of extinguishers and storage arrangements. As the Minister said, they are very technical. But some of them are about the basic design and construction materials of the ships concerned. So we could be talking about a maritime version of the Grenfell situation, where dangerous materials have been used. I have no reason to believe that that is the case, but I have no evidence, and neither do any of the rest of us, about whether there is a problem, because it has not been the subject of regulation.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, first, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, for moving this regret amendment, which has enabled a good discussion around the issues of compliance on these very important regulations—and I thank the Minister. I certainly get a sense that a real grip is now being taken of some of the issues raised by the amendment. I was grateful for a very detailed and thorough response. I echo the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, in that my comments are certainly not directed at the Minister who is responsible for this now, or at the civil servants dealing with this backlog.
There cannot be many more terrifying prospects than of a fire at sea. The enormous risk to crew and passengers and to those who are charged with rescue, as well as those in adjacent ports and harbours, are incalculable. Therefore, while we would not wish to hold up the implementation of these much-needed regulations, we, too, feel that questions need to be answered relating to the inexplicable delay, in some cases of 20 years, in implementing such a critical safety regime. We note that contained within the wording of the regulation and the Explanatory Memorandum is the detail of a very significant backlog in implementing international legislation which needed very urgent attention from the Government.
We, too, were very grateful for the report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which pointed out that the IMO requirements on firefighting and fire protection matters were last implemented in 2003. We note the 20 further IMO resolutions agreed that apply to ships of more than 500 gross tonnes, whether carrying cargo or passengers. It quotes DfT figures that there are 440 ships on the UK flag subject to the IMO requirements in this instrument, of which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, 324 are “mostly in compliance” and wholly or partially UK-owned. It is the Maritime and Coastguard Agency that has determined that these are “mostly in compliance”. However, I am a bit concerned about that term as well. What does “mostly in compliance” actually mean? Do we have a specific number of those surveyed, and what are the gaps in compliance? Is the Minister able to estimate how many ships are not currently compliant with these regulations and what steps will be taken to inform them of the importance of compliance before these regulations go any further in being implemented? As the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, “mostly in compliance” is not very reassuring, and I would agree with that.
It is only when these regulations come into effect that the UK can enforce the same requirements on foreign-flagged ships in UK waters. Can the Minister respond to the question asked by the SLSC about why the DfT has taken so long to address the backlog? She partially gave us some answers to that but, as she said, there was a report to the House of Commons from Robert Courts MP in 2021-22, and she stated that the backlog would be cleared by the end of 2023. If I heard her correctly, four of the regulations have taken 20 years to produce. Will we get the other nine done by the end of year? I hope that is the case.
The Minister stated that resources have been a very significant issue in that backlog. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, said that this seems like a systemic failing, and I cannot help but feel the same thing, with all the instances documented by the SLSC. It is very worrying. I wonder whether the Health and Safety Executive, for example, would take as an acceptable justification that resources were the issue, if there was non-compliance. I say that having been the leader of a local authority that was subject to Health and Safety Executive regulations.
I note that there is provision in the instrument for five-yearly reviews, which we are pleased to see with such important safety legislation. However, will sufficient resources be made available to carry out this thorough review process, if they have not been to implement the regulations themselves?
I have a number of questions on the regulations. I note the requirement for the Secretary of State to give approval to submissions relating to ships. Will these approvals be done on submission of written evidence, or will there be a requirement for inspection to ensure compliance with the relevant merchant shipping notices?
In relation to the exemptions set out in Clause 10, how does the Secretary of State reassure himself or herself that the exemption is valid and, under Regulation 10(7), where does the liability sit if the Secretary of State signs off an exemption which is later found to have resulted in loss of property or life? Is it with the owner or master, or with the Secretary of State?
Regulation 11 sets out details of a regime of engineering analysis in relation to exemptions. What analysis has been done of the likely workload for this and the capacity within the DfT to manage the review of the submitted engineering analyses? If the answers to those questions are not available immediately, I am happy to take written responses.
My noble friend Lord Berkeley gave the example of the “Pentalina”. On that incident, I commend the work of the RNLI, which very quickly rescued all 60 passengers, which was its usual fantastic work. I was also very reassured to hear my noble friend with his customary advocacy for Scilly passengers. I want to mention the example of the “Felicity Ace”, given by my honourable friend Mike Kane MP and mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Greenway. The Commons debate on these regulations set out new risks associated with the carriage of electric vehicles on shipping. In this example, which was cited, a serious fire took place on the “Felicity Ace” earlier this year. Some 4,000 cars were being carried, and although, thank goodness, no lives were lost on that occasion, the ship sadly sank to the bottom of the Atlantic, as the fire continued to be fuelled by the lithium batteries in the cars. I am aware that the land-based fire service has some concerns relating to similar risks, so this is clearly an important issue for shipping fire safety regulations to take into account. Can the Minister give us an update on how that risk is being considered, specifically in relation to fire safety on shipping?
The Conference on Fire Safety at Sea, held in 2022 in Lisbon, identified 20 specific challenges for vehicle-carrying ships. These are currently being assessed for their impact on risk reduction and cost, and advisory groups are being set up with operators and flag states. It is estimated that the potential of this work to significantly strengthen independent fire protection is between 35% and 45%. Will that data be considered as these regulations are implemented?
Lastly, I note that only five responses were received to the consultation on these regulations. Can the Minister tell us what consideration was given to extending the consultation or to approaching operators directly to achieve a better response rate? We also note that four of the five consultation responses, while supporting the ambulatory reference provision contained in the regulations—we agree that it is very sensible that these regulations are now updated automatically, as international regulations are updated—asked that arrangements be put in place to consult operators to ensure that changes are discussed with them before they are made. Will the Minister comment on any steps that have been put in place to do this?
We look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the further points raised in this debate. I am sure there can be no argument relating to the critical importance of safety at sea, so we are keen to hear why this has all taken so long and to learn how any lessons learned from the delay will be used to improve the process for the future. Our maritime nation depends so much on our ability to trade, travel and ship goods safely. We owe it to all those involved to ensure our ships meet the highest fire and other safety standards, without decades of delay for the implementation of internationally agreed regulations. I do not think there is any disagreement across the House on any of that. We need to make sure that the systems and resources are in place to deal with it.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My Lords, I am enormously grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate covering the ground of the regulations themselves and of course the backlog, which I am aware has been debated a number of times in your Lordships’ House, both in the Chamber and in Grand Committee in the Moses Room. Indeed, we will probably debate it again a few more times before the end of the year, as the backlog will once again resurface, and there will no doubt be further debates on the bits of secondary legislation that come through. However, I believe I can give myself some credit. I was a bit savvy before the debate today, in that I wrote to the SLSC last week; towards the end of the week, I placed a copy of the letter in the Library, and I will obviously share it with all noble Lords who have spoken today. It is the latest update on the international maritime backlog. If I could wish it away, I sincerely would, but I will no doubt be on my feet in front of your Lordships many times to explain that I am doing my absolute utmost to make it go away.
It is important to note that, in all circumstances, resources are never unlimited—they simply are not. The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, said that I stated that this was a very significant issue. I never said that—I did not say that at all. Of course resources must be considered, and of course any Government of any colour will need to prioritise. In these circumstances, we did prioritise: the Department for Transport and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency prioritise in the secondary legislation that we bring through. The Department for Transport has an enormous secondary legislation programme, and one of the limiting factors is not resources in the department but the time that your Lordships have to consider secondary legislation—parliamentary time is one of our biggest challenges in getting secondary legislation, or indeed other legislation, through.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
Before the Minister finishes on resources, can I make a comment? Most of the detailed work on catching up falls on the MCA. I have heard quite a few comments from people who deal with it saying that it is very short-staffed. The Minister shakes her head but I have heard it from other people. They say it is partly because the pay rates are pretty low but also because there is a shortage of people with the necessary highly technical experience. Perhaps she would look into that. I hope it is not what is restraining catching up.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
Obviously, the MCA is quite a large organisation and has many different people fulfilling different roles. The question is whether we have the right people focusing on the backlog at this moment. We absolutely do, and I still intend to get the backlog cleared by 2023. I think that would be welcomed by all.
On the various other issues mentioned by noble Lords, it is worth reflecting on the impact of the delays of these regulations to UK ship fire safety. The vast majority of the ships on the UK register, to which these regulations apply, trade internationally. The vast majority will have been built with these regulations in mind. They already operate internationally and therefore need to comply with these requirements in other port state jurisdictions. We have seen no evidence that delays in introducing this instrument have led to an increased risk from fire on ships to which it would apply. Indeed, looking at the MCA surveys and detentions data, we believe that compliance with the requirements of SOLAS chapter II-2 has been very good. Since 2015, 21 UK ships have been detained for fire-related non-compliance, but none of these detentions related to contraventions of the requirements of SOLAS II-2.
As I noted in my opening remarks, there are other ways for the MCA to enforce against unseaworthy and unsafe practices on ships. We consider the elements within the contravention at all times. The MCA already provides advice on the convention, whether or not those amendments have already gone into UK domestic law, because they are advising ship owners and operators about when they are travelling beyond UK waters, when they will have to comply. It is not the case that we are starting from a clean slate and have ship owners and operators who do not know that this is coming down the track. They absolutely do: these are international ships plying international waters, and therefore they will be complying. The MCA has found no evidence that they are not. There is no question that the MCA is not keeping up with the changes per se, as a noble Lord or noble Baroness mentioned. It is just that the legislation has not been put in place.
A number of noble Lords mentioned the ambulatory references. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, seemed to imply that it was a new thing but, again, it is not. We have been doing it for quite some time, particularly for maritime regulations. As the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, pointed out, that is a way that we can stop this backlog building up again in the future, because one does not then need to go back to the original secondary instrument and change it whenever amendments are made. That is why we do it. Indeed, there are many more amendments coming into force on 1 January 2024, I believe.
There are safeguards that should be in after consultation with the industry. We are satisfied that we have very good consultation routes into the industry around SOLAS changes. If there are objections and the UK Government decide that they want to object to something, we would pass further secondary legislation to exempt that particular thing. In general, we believe that we have a high standing within the IMO, and we nearly always agree with the changes that go through. Therefore, we feel that putting in ambulatory references is absolutely the way to go.
I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, to the SLSC. I do not know whether I should be more or less terrified now as my secondary legislation goes through that committee, but I am sure that her immeasurable experience will be very helpful in that scrutiny. As I noted, there will be a few more to come before the end of the year.
I cannot give a timeline on the review of the domestic legislation and regulations for domestic voyages and ships. In maritime, there are different regulations for different types of vessels on different types of water, which is why it is so very complicated and needs to be reviewed and why we did not simply lump all the domestic vessels in with these regulations; that would not have been right. If I have any further information on the timeline, I will certainly write.
Which regulations cover other vessels is hugely varied. It never ceases to amaze me how many classes of ships there are. There are regulations relating to workboats, fishing vessels, domestic passenger vessels and so on, so I cannot provide a specific example covering all possible types of vessels. In general, naval ships will follow these regulations. However, they may have certain exclusions because of their need to carry out warfare, so they might be slightly different. The MCA still inspects naval ships, but they have a slightly different arrangement with the MoD, given the different tasking of those vessels.
I briefly want to cover the retained EU law point. Obviously, the retained EU law Bill is continuing its passage through Parliament. My department has the resources available and is starting to plan the legislative programme that will follow that Bill when it comes into law.
I am convinced that there are other things that I have not yet answered, but I will be very happy to write. In doing so, I will include a copy of the letter that I wrote to the SLSC on a recent update. I look forward to discussing maritime secondary legislation again with noble Lords in the future.
Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)
My Lords, I also thank everyone who has taken part in this short debate, particularly the Minister, who I believe is committed to dealing with this backlog, much as we all regret the fact that it appears. I remain bemused that, in effect, we will continue to rely on other countries to enforce our legislation for us because we do not have the resources, whether parliamentary or Civil Service time, to put it into domestic law. I am sure that the Minister would privately agree that that is not a satisfactory situation.
With the best will in the world, I hope that we do not have to come back to this again—I am sure the Minister hopes that too—but we will watch the progress with great interest. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Online Safety Bill
Tuesday 2nd May 2023
(1 year, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Online Safety Act 2023 View all Online Safety Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 87(Rev)-IV(b) Amendments for Committee (Supplementary to the Fourth Marshalled List) - (2 May 2023)
Baroness Kidron (CB)
My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, in her search to make it clear that we do not need to take a proportionate approach to pornography. I would be delighted if the Minister could indicate in his reply that the Government will accept the age-assurance amendments in group 22 that are coming shortly, which make it clear that porn on any regulated service, under Part 3 or Part 5, should be behind an age gate.
In making the case for that, I want to say very briefly that, after the second day of Committee, I received a call from a working barrister who represented 90 young men accused of serious sexual assault. Each was a student and many were in their first year. A large proportion of the incidents had taken place during freshers’ week. She rang to make sure that we understood that, while what each and every one of them had done was indefensible, these men were also victims. As children brought up on porn, they believed that their sexual violence was normal—indeed, they told her that they thought that was what young women enjoyed and wanted. On this issue there is no proportionality.
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I also support Amendments 29, 83 and 103 from the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie. As currently drafted, the Bill makes frequent reference to Ofcom taking into account
“the size and capacity of … a service”
when it determines the extent of the measures a site should apply to protect children. We have discussed size on previous days; I am conscious that the point has been made in part, but I hope the Committee will forgive me if I repeat it clearly. When it comes to pornography and other harms to children, size does matter. As I have said many times recently, porn is porn no matter the size of the website or publisher involved with it. It does not matter whether it is run by a huge company such as MindGeek or out of a shed in London or Romania by a small gang of people. The harm of the content to children is still exactly the same.
Our particular concern is that, if the regulations from Ofcom are applied to the bigger companies, that will create a lot of space for smaller organisations which are not bending to the regulations to try to gain a competitive advantage over the larger players and occupy that space. That is the concern of the bigger players. They are very open to age verification; what concerns them is that they will face an unequal, unlevel playing field. It is a classic concern of bigger players facing regulation in the market: that bad actors will gain competitive advantage. We should be very cognisant of that when thinking about how the regulations on age verification for porn will be applied. Therefore, the measures should be applied in proportion to the risk of harm to children posed by a porn site, not in proportion to the site’s financial capacity or the impact on its revenues of basic protections for children.
In this, we are applying basic, real-world principles to the internet. We are denying its commonly held exceptionalism, which I think we are all a bit tired of. We are applying the same principles that you might apply in the real world, for instance, to a kindergarten, play centre, village church hall, local pub, corner shop or any other kind of business that brings itself in front of children. In other words, if a company cannot afford to implement or does not seem capable of implementing measures that protect children, it should not be permitted by law to have a face in front of the general public. That is the principle that we apply in the real world, and that is the principle we should be applying on the internet.
Allowing a dimension of proportionality to apply to pornography cases creates an enormous loophole in the legislation, which at best will delay enforcement for particular sites when it is litigated and at worst will disable regulatory action completely. That is why I support the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, the proposers of these amendments have made a very good case to answer. My only reservation is that I think there are rather more subtle and proportionate ways of dealing with this—I take on board entirely what the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, says.
I keep coming back to the deliberations that we had in the Joint Committee. We said:
“All statutory requirements on user-to-user services, for both adults and children, should also apply to Internet Society Services likely to be accessed by children, as defined by the Age Appropriate Design Code”.
This goes back to the test that we described earlier, to
“ensure all pornographic websites would have to prevent children from accessing their content”,
and back to that definition,
“likely to be accessed by children”.
The Government keep resisting this aspect, but it is a really important way of making sure that we deal with this proportionately. We are going to have this discussion about minimum age-assurance standards. Rather than simply saying, “It has to be age verification”, if we had a set of principles for age assurance, which can encompass a number of different tools and approaches, that would also help with the proportionality of what we are talking about.
The Government responded to the point we made about age assurance. The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, was pretty persuasive in saying that we should take this on board in our Joint Committee report, and she had a Private Member’s Bill at the ready to show us the wording, but the Government came back and said:
“The Committee’s recommendations stress the importance of the use of age assurance being proportionate to the risk that a service presents”.
They have accepted that this would be a proportionate way of dealing with it, so this is not black and white. My reservation is that there is a better way of dealing with this than purely driving through these three or four amendments, but there is definitely a case for the Government to answer on this.
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
My Lords, I think the whole Committee is grateful to my noble friend Lady Ritchie for introducing these amendments so well.
Clearly, there is a problem. The anecdote from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, about the call she had had with the barrister relating to those freshers’ week offences, and the sense that people were both offenders and victims, underscored that. In my Second Reading speech I alluded to the problem of the volume of young people accessing pornography on Twitter, and we see the same on Reddit, Discord and a number of other platforms. As the noble Baroness said, it is changing what so many young people perceive to be normal about sexual relationships, and that has to be addressed.
Ofcom very helpfully provided a technical briefing on age assurance and age verification for Members of your Lordships’ House—clearly it did not persuade everybody, otherwise we would not be having this debate. Like the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, I am interested in this issue of whether it is proportionate to require age verification, rather than age assurance.
For example, on Amendment 83 in my noble friend’s name in respect of search, I was trying to work out in my own mind how that would work. If someone used search to look for pornographic content and put in an appropriate set of keywords but was not logged in—so the platform would not know who they are—and if age verification was required, would they be interrupted with a requirement to go through an age-verification service before the search results were served up? Would the search results be served up but without the thumbnails of images and with some of the content suppressed? I am just not quite sure what the user experience would be like with a strict age-verification regime being used, for example, in respect of search services.
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, some light can be shone on that question by thinking a little about what the gambling industry has been through in the last few years as age verification has got tougher in that area. To answer the noble Lord’s question, if someone does not log into their search and looks for a gambling site, they can find it, but when they come to try to place a bet, that is when age verification is required.
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
That is right. What is interesting about that useful intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, is that that kind of gets search off the hook in respect of gambling. You are okay to follow the link from the search engine, but then you are age-gated at the point of the content. Clearly, with thumbnail images and so on in search, we need something better than that. The Bill requires something better than that already; should we go further? My question to the Minister is whether this could be similar to the discussion we had with the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, around non-mandatory codes and alternative methods. I thought that the Minister’s response in that case was quite helpful.
Could it be that if Part 3 and category 2A services chose to use age verification, they could be certain that they are compliant with their duties to protect children from pornographic and equivalent harmful content, but if they chose age-assurance techniques, it would then be on them to show Ofcom evidence of how that alternative method would still provide the equivalent protection? That would leave the flexibility of age assurance; it would not require age verification but would still set the same bar. I merely offer that in an attempt to be helpful to the Minister, in the spirit of where the Joint Committee and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, were coming from. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)
Before the noble Lord sits down, can I ask him whether his comments make it even more important that we have a clear and unambiguous definition of age assurance and age verification in the Bill?
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
I would not want to disagree with the noble Baroness for a moment.
Baroness Kidron (CB)
Does the noble Lord think it is also important to have some idea of measurement? Age assurance in certain circumstances is far more accurate than age verification.
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
Yes; the noble Baroness is right. She has pointed out in other discussions I have been party to that, for example, gaming technology that looks at the movement of the player can quite accurately work out from their musculoskeletal behaviour, I assume, the age of the gamer. So there are alternative methods. Our challenge is to ensure that if they are to be used, we will get the equivalent of age verification or better. I now hand over to the Minister.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)
My Lords, I think those last two comments were what are known in court as leading questions.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, said herself, some of the ground covered in this short debate was covered in previous groups, and I am conscious that we have a later grouping where we will cover it again, including some of the points that were made just now. I therefore hope that noble Lords will understand if I restrict myself at this point to Amendments 29, 83 and 103, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie.
These amendments seek to mandate age verification for pornographic content on a user-to-user or search service, regardless of the size and capacity of a service provider. The amendments also seek to remove the requirement on Ofcom to have regard to proportionality and technical feasibility when setting out measures for providers on pornographic content in codes of practice. While keeping children safe online is the top priority for the Online Safety Bill, the principle of proportionate, risk-based regulation is also fundamental to the Bill’s framework. It is the Government’s considered opinion that the Bill as drafted already strikes the correct balance between these two.
The provisions in the Bill on proportionality are important to ensure that the requirements in the child-safety duties are tailored to the size and capacity of providers. It is also essential that measures in codes of practice are technically feasible. This will ensure that the regulatory framework as a whole is workable for service providers and enforceable by Ofcom. I reassure your Lordships that the smaller providers or providers with less capacity are still required to meet the child safety duties where their services pose a risk to children. They will need to put in place sufficiently stringent systems and processes that reflect the level of risk on their services, and will need to make sure that these systems and processes achieve the required outcomes of the child safety duty. Wherever in the Bill they are regulated, companies will need to take steps to ensure that they cannot offer pornographic content online to those who should not see it. Ofcom will set out in its code of practice the steps that companies in the scope of Part 3 can take to comply with their duties under the Bill, and will take a robust approach to sites that pose the greatest risk of harm to children, including sites hosting online pornography.
The passage of the Bill should be taken as a clear message to providers that they need to begin preparing for regulation now—indeed, many are. Responsible providers should already be factoring in regulatory compliance as part of their business costs. Ofcom will continue to work with providers to ensure that the transition to the new regulatory framework will be as smooth as possible.
The Government expect companies to use age-verification technologies to prevent children accessing services that pose the highest risk of harm to children, such as online pornography. The Bill will not mandate that companies use specific technologies to comply with new duties because, as noble Lords have heard me say before, what is most effective in preventing children accessing pornography today might not be equally effective in future. In addition, age verification might not always be the most appropriate or effective approach for user-to-user companies to comply with their duties. For instance, if a user-to-user service, such as a particular social medium, does not allow pornography under its terms of service, measures such as strengthening content moderation and user reporting would be more appropriate and effective for protecting children than age verification. This would allow content to be better detected and taken down, instead of restricting children from seeing content which is not allowed on the service in the first place. Companies may also use another approach if it is proportionate to the findings of the child safety risk assessment and a provider’s size and capacity. This is an important element to ensure that the regulatory framework remains risk-based and proportionate.
In addition, the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, risk inadvertently shutting children out of large swathes of the internet that are entirely appropriate for them to access. This is because it is impossible totally to eliminate the risk that a single piece of pornography or pornographic material might momentarily appear on a site, even if that site prohibits it and has effective systems in place to prevent it appearing. Her amendments would have the effect of essentially requiring every service to block children through the use of age verification.
Those are the reasons why the amendments before us are not ones that we can accept. Mindful of the fact that we will return to these issues in a future group, I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in this wide-ranging debate, in which various issues have been raised.
The noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, made the good point that there needs to be a level playing field between Parts 3 and 5, which I originally raised and which other noble Lords raised on Tuesday of last week. We keep coming back to this point, so I hope that the Minister will take note of it on further reflection before we reach Report. Pornography needs to be regulated on a consistent basis across the Bill.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
“Offence of failing to comply with a relevant duty
(1) The provider of a service to whom a relevant duty applies commits an offence if the provider fails to comply with the duty.(2) In the application of sections 178(2) and 179(5) to an offence under this section (where the offence has been committed with the consent or connivance of an officer of the entity or is attributable to any neglect on the part of an officer of the entity) the references in those provisions to an officer of an entity include references to any person who, at the time of the commission of the offence—(a) was (within the meaning of section 93) a senior manager of the entity in relation to the activities of the entity in the course of which the offence was committed; or(b) was a person purporting to act in such a capacity.(3) A person who commits an offence under this section is liable on conviction on indictment to—(a) imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years,(b) a fine, or(c) both.(4) The Secretary of State may by regulations amend the sanctions in subsection (3), and such regulations may—(a) specify the maximum fine under subsection (3)(b), and(b) implement a scale to apply in cases where there have been repeated breaches of a relevant duty.(5) In this section, “relevant duty” means a duty provided for by section 11 of this Act.(6) Regulations under subsection (4) are subject to the affirmative procedure.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause would make it an offence for the provider of a user-to-service not to comply with the safety duties protecting children set out in Clause 11. Where the offence was committed with the consent or connivance of a provider’s senior manager or other officer, or was attributable to their neglect, that person, as well as the entity, would be guilty of the offence.
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
My noble friend Lord Stevenson apologises that he can no longer be with the Committee, and he apologised to me that I suddenly find myself introducing this amendment. It heads up an important group because it tackles the issue of enforcement and, in essence, how we ensure that Ofcom has all the tools it needs to persuade some of the richest, largest and most litigious companies in the world to comply with the regime we are setting out in the Bill. Amendment 33, which my noble friend tabled and I am moving, sets out an offence of failing to comply with a relevant duty in respect of the child safety duties, if they do so negligently, and that it would be an imprisonable offence for a senior manager or other officer. I recall that those of us who sat on the Joint Committee discussed the data protection regime and whether there could be a similarly designated officer to the data controller in companies in respect of the safety duties with which the company would have to comply.
Clearly, this amendment has now been superseded by the government amendments that were promised, and which I am sure my noble friend was looking to flush out with this amendment. Flushed they are, so I will not go into any great detail about Amendment 33, because it is better to give time to the Minister to clarify the Government’s intentions. I shall listen carefully to him, as I will to the noble Lord, Lord Curry, who has great expertise in better regulation and who, I am sure, through talking to his amendments, will give us the benefit of his wisdom on how we can make this stick.
That leaves my Amendment 219, which in essence is about the supply chain that regulated companies use. I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Mann and Lord Austin, and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for putting their names to the amendment. Their enthusiasm did not run to missing the Arsenal game and coming to support in the Chamber, but that implies great trust in my ability to speak to the amendment, for which I accept the responsibility and compliment.
The amendment was inspired by a meeting that some Members of your Lordships’ House and the other place had in an all-party group that was looking, in particular, at the problems of the incel culture online. We heard from various organisations about how incel culture relates to anti-Semitism and misogyny, and how such content proliferates and circulates around the web. It became clear that it is fairly commonplace to use things such as cloud services to store the content and that the links are then shared on platforms. On the mainstream platforms, there might be spaces where, under the regime we are discussing under the Bill now that we have got rid of the controversial “legal but harmful” category, this content might be seen to be relatively benign, certainly in the category of freedom of expression, but starts to capture the interest of the target demographic for it. They are then taken off by links into smaller, less regulated sites and then, in turn, by links into cloud services where the real harmful content is hosted.
Therefore, by way of what reads as an exceptionally complicated and difficult amendment in respect of entities A, B and C, we are trying to understand whether it is possible to bring in those elements of the supply chain, of the technical infrastructure, that are used to disseminate hateful content. Such content too often leads to young men taking their own lives and to the sort of harm that we saw in Plymouth, where that young man went on the rampage and killed a number of people. His MP was one of the Members of Parliament at that meeting. That is what I want to explore with Amendment 219, which opens the possibility for this regime to ensure that well-resourced platforms cannot hide behind other elements of the infrastructure to evade their responsibilities.
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I beg the forbearance of the Committee because, despite the best efforts of the Whips, this group includes two major issues that I must tackle.
Starting with senior management liability, I thank the Minister and the entire ministerial team for their engagement on this big and important subject. I am enormously proud of the technology sector and the enormous benefits that it has brought to the economy and to society. I remain a massive champion of innovation and technology in the round. However, senior executives in the technology sphere have had a long-standing blind spot. Their manifesto is that the internet is somehow different from the rest of the real world and that nothing must stand on its way. My noble friend Lord Moylan gave that pony quite a generous trot round the arena, so I will not go through it again, but when it comes to children, they have consistently failed to take seriously their safeguarding responsibilities.
I spoke in Committee last week of my experience at the Ministry of Sound. When I saw the internet in the late 1990s, I immediately saw a wonderful opportunity to target children, to sell to them, to get past their parents and normal regulation, and to get into their homes and their wallets. Lots of other people had the same thought, and for a long time we have let them do what they like. This dereliction of their duty of care has led to significant consequences, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell, spoke very movingly about that. Those consequences are increasing all the time because of the take-up of mobile phones and computers by ever younger children. That has got to stop, and it is why we are here. That is why we have this Bill—to stop those consequences.
To change this, we cannot rely just on rhetoric, fines and self-regulation. We tried that, the experiment has failed, and we must try a different approach. We found that exhortations and a playing-it-nicely approach failed in the financial sector before the financial crisis. We remember the massive economic and societal costs of that failure. Likewise, in the tech sector, senior managers of firms big and small must be properly incentivised and held accountable for identifying and mitigating risks to children in a systematic way. That is why introducing senior management liability for child safety transgressions is critical. Senior management must be accountable for ensuring that child safety permeates the company and be held responsible when risks of serious harm arise or gross failures take place. Just think how the banks have changed their attitude since the financial crisis because of senior liability.
I am pleased that the Government have laid their own amendment, Amendment 200A. I commend the Minister for bringing that forward and am extremely grateful to him and to the whole team for their engagement around this issue. The government amendment creates a new offence, holding senior managers accountable for failure to comply with confirmation decisions from Ofcom relating to protecting children from harmful content. I hope that my noble friend will agree that it is making Ofcom’s job easier by providing clear consequences for the non-enforcement of such decisions.
It is a very good amendment, but there are some gaps, and I would like to address those. It is worrying that the government amendment does not cover duties related to tackling child sexual exploitation and abuse. As it stands, this amendment is a half-measure which fails to hold senior managers liable for the most severe abuse online. Child sexual abuse and exploitation offences are at a record high, as we heard earlier. NSPCC research shows that there has been an 84% rise in online grooming since 2017-18. Tech companies must be held accountable for playing their role in tackling this.
That is why the amendment in my name does the following: first, it increases the scope of the Government’s amendment to make individuals also responsible for confirmation decisions on illegal safety duties related to child sexual abuse and exploitation. Secondly, it brings search services into scope, including both categories of service providers, which is critical for ensuring that a culture of compliance is adopted throughout the sector.
Lord Curry of Kirkharle (CB)
My Lords, in view of the hour, I will be brief, and I have no interests to declare other than that I have grandchildren. I rise to speak to a number of amendments tabled in my name in this group: Amendments 216A to 216C, 218ZZA to 218ZD and 218BA to 218BC. I do not think I have ever achieved such a comprehensive view of the alphabet in a number of amendments.
These amendments carry a simple message: Ofcom must act decisively and quickly. I have tabled them out of a deep concern that the Bill does not specify timescales or obligations within which Ofcom is required to act. It leaves Ofcom, as the regulator, with huge flexibility and discretion as to when it must take action; some action, indeed, could go on for years.
Phrases such as
“OFCOM may vary a confirmation decision”
or it
“may apply to the court for an order”
are not strong enough, in my view. If unsuitable or harmful material is populating social media sites, the regulator must take action. There is no sense of urgency within the drafting of the Bill. If contravention is taking place, action needs to be taken very quickly. If Ofcom delays taking an action, the harmful influence will continue. If the providers of services know that the regulator will clamp down quickly and severely on those who contravene, they are more likely to comply in the first place.
I was very taken by the earlier comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, about putting additional burdens on Ofcom. These amendments are not designed to put additional burdens on Ofcom; indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Knight, referred to the fact that, for six years, I chaired the Better Regulation Executive. It was my experience that regulators that had a reputation for acting quickly and decisively, and being tough, had a much more compliant base as a consequence.
Noble Lords will be pleased to hear that I do not intend to go through each individual amendment. They all have a single purpose: to require the regulator—in this case, Ofcom—to act when necessary, as quickly as possible within specified timescales; and to toughen up the Bill to reduce the risk of continuous harmful content being promoted on social media.
I hope that the Minister will take these comments in the spirit in which they are intended. They are designed to help Ofcom and to help reduce the continuous adverse influence that many of these companies will propagate if they do not think they will be regulated severely.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I understand that, for legislation to have any meaning, it has to have some teeth and you have to be able to enforce it; otherwise, it is a waste of time, especially with something as important as the legislation that we are discussing here.
I am a bit troubled by a number of the themes in these amendments and I therefore want to ask some questions. I saw that the Government had tabled these amendments on senior manager liability, then I read amendments from both the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, and the Labour Party, the Opposition. It seemed to me that even more people would be held liable and responsible as a result. I suppose I have a dread that—even with the supply chain amendment—this means that lots of people are going to be sacked. It seems to me that this might spiral dangerously out of control and everybody could get caught up in a kind of blame game.
I appreciate that I might not have understood, so this is a genuine attempt to do so. I am concerned that these new amendments will force senior managers and, indeed, officers and staff to take an extremely risk-averse approach to content moderation. They now have not only to cover their own backs but to avoid jail. One of my concerns has always been that this will lead to the over-removal of legal speech, and more censorship, so that is a question I would like to ask.
I also want to know how noble Lords think this will lie in relation to the UK being a science and technology superpower. Understandably, some people have argued that these amendments are making the UK a hostile environment for digital investment, and there is something to be balanced up there. Is there a risk that this will lead to the withdrawal of services from the UK? Will it make working for these companies unattractive to British staff? We have already heard that Jimmy Wales has vowed that the Wikimedia foundation will not scrutinise posts in the way demanded by the Bill. Is he going to be thrown in prison, or will Wikipedia pull out? How do we get the balance right?
What is the criminal offence that has a threat of a prison sentence? I might have misunderstood, but a technology company manager could fail to prevent a child or young person encountering legal but none the less allegedly harmful speech, be considered in breach of these amendments and get sent to prison. We have to be very careful that we understand what this harmful speech is, as we discussed previously. The threshold for harm, which encompasses physical and psychological harm, is vast and could mean people going to prison without the precise criminal offence being clear. We talked previously about VPNs. If a tech savvy 17-year-old uses a VPN and accesses some of this harmful material, will someone potentially be criminally liable for that young person getting around the law, find themselves accused of dereliction of duty and become a criminal?
My final question is on penalties. When I was looking at this Bill originally and heard about the eye-watering fines that some Silicon Valley companies might face, I thought, “That will destroy them”. Of course, to them it is the mere blink of an eye, and I do get that. This indicates to me, given the endless conversations we have had on whether size matters, that in this instance size does matter. The same kind of liabilities will be imposed not just on the big Silicon Valley monsters that can bear these fines, but on Mumsnet—or am I missing something? Mumsnet might not be the correct example, but could not smaller platforms face similar liabilities if a young person inadvertently encounters harmful material? It is not all malign people trying to do this; my unintended consequence argument is that I do not want to create criminals when a crime is not really being committed. It is a moral dilemma, and I do understand the issue of enforcement.
Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)
I rise very much to support the comments of my noble friend Lord Bethell and, like him, to thank the Minister for bringing forward the government amendments. I will try to address some of the comments the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, has just made.
One must view this as an exercise in working out how one drives culture change in some of the biggest and most powerful organisations in the world. Culture change is really hard. It is hard enough in a company of 10 people, let alone in a company with hundreds of thousands of employees across the world that has more money than a single country. That is what this Bill requires these enormous companies to do: to change the way they operate when they are looking at an inevitably congested, contested technology pipeline, by which I mean—to translate that out of tech speak—they have more work to do than even they can cope with. Every technology company, big or small, always has this problem: more good ideas than their technologists can cope with. They have to prioritise what to fix and what to implement. For the last 15 years, digital companies have prioritised things that drive income, but not the safety of our children. That requires a culture change from the top of the company.
Baroness Kidron (CB)
My Lords, I support something between the amendments of the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Bethell, and the Government. I welcome all three and put on record my thanks to the Government for making a move on this issue.
There are three members of the pre-legislative committee still in the Chamber at this late hour, and I am sure I am not the only one of those three who remembers the excruciating detail in which Suzanne Webb MP, during evidence given with Meta’s head of child safety, established that there was nowhere to report harm, but nowhere—not up a bit, not sideways, not to the C-suite. It was stunning. I have used that clip from the committee’s proceedings several times in schools to show what we do in the House of Lords, because it was fascinating. That fact was also made abundantly clear by Frances Haugen. When we asked her why she took the risk of copying things and walking them out, she said, “There was nowhere to go and no one to talk to”.
Turning to the amendments, like the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, I am concerned about whether we have properly dealt with C-suite reporting and accountability, but I am a hugely enthusiastic supporter of that accountability being in the system. I will be interested to hear the Minister speak to the Government’s amendment, but also to some of the other issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Knight.
I will comment very briefly on the supply chain and Amendment 219. Doing so, I go back again to Amendment 2, debated last week, which sought to add services not covered by the current scope but which clearly promoted and enabled access to harm and which were also likely to be accessed by children. I have a long quote from the Minister but, because of the hour, I will not read it out. In effect, and to paraphrase, he said, “Don’t worry, they will be caught by the other guys—the search and user-to-user platforms”. If the structure of the Bill means that it is mandatory that the user-to-user and search platforms catch the people in the supply chain, surely it would be a great idea to put that in the Bill absolutely explicitly.
Finally, while I share some of the concerns raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, I repeat my constant reprise of “risk not size”. The size of the fine is related to the turnover of the company, so it is actually proportionate.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, this has been a really interesting debate. I started out thinking that we were developing quite a lot of clarity. The Government have moved quite a long way since we first started debating senior manager liability, but there is still a bit of fog that needs dispelling—the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Harding, have demonstrated that we are not there yet.
I started off by saying yes to this group, before I got to grips with the government amendments. I broadly thought that Amendment 33, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and Amendment 182, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, were heading in the right direction. However, I was stopped short by Trustpilot’s briefing, which talked about a stepped approach regarding breaches and so on—that is a very strong point. It says that it is important to recognise that not all breaches should carry the same weight. In fact, it is even more than that: certain things should not even be an offence, unless you have been persistent or negligent. We have to be quite mindful as to how you formulate criminal offences.
I very much liked what the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, had to say about the tech view of its own liability. We have all seen articles about tech exceptionalism, and, for some reason, that seems to have taken quite a hold—so we have to dispel that as well. That is why I very much liked what the noble Lord, Lord Curry, said. It seemed to me that that was very much part of a stepped approach, while also being transparent to the object of the exercise and the company involved. That fits very well with the architecture of the Bill.
The noble Baroness, Lady Harding, put her finger on it: the Bill is not absolutely clear. In the Government’s response to the Joint Committee’s report, we were promised that, within three to six months, we would get that senior manager liability. On reading the Bill, I am certainly still a bit foggy about it, and it is quite reassuring that the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, is foggy about it too. Is that senior manager liability definitely there? Will it be there?
The Joint Committee made two other recommendations which I thought made a lot of sense: the obligation to report on risk assessment to the main board of a company, and the appointment of a safety controller, which the noble Lord, Lord Knight, mentioned. Such a controller would make it very clear—as with GDPR, you would have a senior manager who you can fix the duty on.
Like the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, I would very much like to hear from the Minister on the question of personal liability, as well as about Ofcom. It is important that any criminal prosecution is mediated by Ofcom; that is cardinal. You cannot just create criminal offences where you can have a prosecution without the intervention of Ofcom. That is extraordinarily important.
I have just a couple of final points. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, comes back quite often to this point about regulation being the enemy of innovation. It very much depends what kind of innovation we are talking about. Technology is not necessarily neutral. It depends how the humans who deploy it operate it. In circumstances such as this, where we are talking about children and about smaller platforms that can do harm, I have no qualms about having regulation or indeed criminal liability. That is a really important factor. We are talking about a really important area.
I very strongly support Amendment 219. It deals with a really important aspect which is completely missing from the Bill. I have a splendid briefing here, which I am not going to read out, but it is all about Mastodon being one example of a new style of federated platform in which the app or hub for a network may be category 1 owing to the size of its user base but individual subdomains or networks sitting below it could fall under category 2 status. I am very happy to give a copy of the briefing to the Minister; it is a really well-written brief, and demonstrates entirely some of the issues we are talking about here.
I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Knight, that I think the amendment is very well drafted. It is really quite cunning in the way that it is done.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)
My Lords, I wonder whether I can make a brief intervention—I am sorry to do so after the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, but I want to intervene before my noble friend the Minister stands up, unless the Labour Benches are about to speak.
I have been pondering this debate and have had a couple of thoughts. Listening to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, I am reminded of something which was always very much a guiding light for me when I chaired the Charity Commission, and therefore working in a regulatory space: regulation is never an end in itself; you regulate for a reason.
I was struck by the first debate we had on day one of Committee about the purpose of the Bill. If noble Lords recall, I said in that debate that, for me, the Bill at its heart was about enhancing the accountability of the platforms and the social media businesses. I felt that the contribution from my noble friend Lady Harding was incredibly important. What we are trying to do here is to use enforcement to drive culture change, and to force the organisations not to never think about profit but to move away from profit-making to focusing on child safety in the way in which they go about their work. That is really important when we start to consider the whole issue of enforcement.
It struck me at the start of this discussion that we have to be clear what our general approach and mindset is about this part of our economy that we are seeking to regulate. We have to be clear about the crimes we think are being committed or the offences that need to be dealt with. We need to make sure that Ofcom has the powers to tackle those offences and that it can do so in a way that meets Parliament’s and the public’s expectations of us having legislated to make things better.
I am really asking my noble friend the Minister, when he comes to respond on this, to give us a sense of clarity on the whole question of enforcement. At the moment, it is insufficiently clear. Even if we do not get that level of clarity today, when we come back later on and look at enforcement, it is really important that we know what we are trying to tackle here.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, I will endeavour to give that clarity, but it may be clearer still if I flesh some points out in writing in addition to what I say now.
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
My Lords, this discussion has been very useful. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, as ever, made an interesting and thoughtful philosophical rumination. I hope that what she has just heard from the Minister around it applying to quite specific child safety duties gave her some comfort that this was not some kind of sweep-all measure that would result in lots of people being banged up.
The government amendments are tighter than those in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bethell. In the end, that is the judgment that we all have to make between now and when we finish our consideration of the Bill. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, that there are dangers attached to this: that platforms will choose just to exclude children altogether and that that may infringe on some of their rights. That is why we have to get this balance right. It ultimately has to be proportionate.
We have to develop trust in Ofcom to use its powers flexibly and proportionately. I have previously said some of the things that I think are needed in order to build our trust in Ofcom, in respect of transparency and parliamentary scrutiny and so on. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Curry, is right, from his experience, that the noble Lord, Lord Grade, and his colleagues will need to be quick, decisive and tough in using those powers proportionately in order to make these platforms, particularly the large, well-resourced and powerful ones, respond. Listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, I reflected on when I was a senior executive of a largeish corporation a few years ago. I was in post when the anti-bribery and corruption Act, the Data Protection Act and the gender pay gap regulations all came in, and they made the senior executives—of the company I was in, anyway—sit up, take notice and change some behaviours. These things allow corporations to act according to the public interest and to adjust behaviour, but without it being proportionate.
I say to the Minister that the fact that, for example, under the Bribery Act you could be imprisoned on the basis of decisions made in your supply chain was significant. We had to be mindful of our whole supply chain to ensure that there was no corruption going on throughout, which is very different to the judgment the Minister is making on the supply chain in this system. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for reminding us of the masterful Mastodon briefing; the way in which that technology is showing different ways in which things can be done to avoid aspects of regulation is another reason to think further about the spirit of Amendment 219 as we move to Report.
Lord McNally
“Adult risk assessment duties
(1) This section sets out the duties about adult risk assessments which apply in relation to all Category 1 services.(2) A duty to carry out a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risk of an adult user encountering by means of the service content which is harmful to adults taking into account any relevant risk profile and to keep that assessment up to date, including when OFCOM make any significant change to a risk profile that relates to services of the kind in question, or before making any significant change to any aspect of a service’s design or operation including changes to any user empowerment tools.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires Category 1 services to assess the risk of harm to adults arising from the operation of their services.
Lord McNally (LD)
My Lords, as a former Deputy Leader of this House, if I were sitting on the Front Bench, I would have more gumption than to try to start a debate only 10 minutes before closing time. But I realise that the wheels grind on—perhaps things are no longer as flexible as they were in my day—so noble Lords will get my speech. The noble Lord, Lord Grade, who is at his post—it is very encouraging to see the chair of Ofcom listening to this debate—and I share a love of music hall. He will remember Eric Morecambe saying that one slot was like the last slot at the Glasgow Empire on a Friday night. That is how I feel now.
A number of references have been made to those who served on the Joint Committee and what an important factor it has been in their thinking. I have said on many occasions that one of the most fulfilling times of my parliamentary life was serving on the Joint Committee for the Communications Act 2003. The interesting thing was that we had no real idea of what was coming down the track as far as the internet was concerned, but we did set up Ofcom. At that time, a lot of the pundits and observers were saying, “Murdoch’s lawyers will have these government regulators for breakfast”. Well, they did not. Ofcom has turned into a regulator for which—at some stages this has slightly worried me—for almost any problem facing the Government, they say, “We’ll give it to Ofcom”. It has certainly proved that it can regulate across a vast area and with great skill. I have every confidence that the noble Lord, Lord Grade, will take that forward.
Perhaps it is to do with the generation I come from, but I do not have this fear of regulation or government intervention. In some ways, the story of my life is that of government intervention. If I am anybody’s child, I am Attlee’s child—not just because of the reforms of the Labour Party, but the reforms of the coalition Government, the Butler Education Act and the bringing in of the welfare state. So I am not afraid of government and Parliament taking responsibility in addressing real dangers.
In bringing forward this amendment, along with my colleague the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, who cannot be here today, I am referring to legislation that is 20 years old. That is a warning to newcomers; it could be another 20 years before parliamentary time is found for a Bill of this complexity, so we want to be sure that we get its scope right.
The Minister said recently that the Bill is primarily a child safety Bill, but it did not start off that way. Five years ago, the online harms White Paper was seen as a pathfinder and trailblazer for broader legislation. Before we accept the argument that the Bill is now narrowed down to more specific terms, we should think about whether there are other areas that still need to be covered.
These amendments are in the same spirit as those in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Stowell, Lady Bull, and Lady Featherstone. We seek to reinstate an adult risk assessment duty because we fear that the change in title signals a reduction in scope and a retreat from the protections which earlier versions of the Bill intended to provide.
It was in this spirit, and to enable us to get ahead of the game, that in 2016 I proposed a Private Member’s Bill on this subject: the Online Harms Reduction Regulator (Report) Bill, which asked Ofcom to publish, in advance of the anticipated legislation, assessments of what action was needed to reduce harm to users and wider society from social networks. I think we can all agree that, if that work had been done in advance of the main legislation, such evidence would be very useful now.
I am well aware that there are those who, in the cause of some absolute concepts of freedom, believe that to seek to broaden the scope of the Bill takes us into the realms of the nanny state. But part of the social contract which enables us to survive in this increasingly complex world is that the ordinary citizen, who is busy struggling with the day-to-day challenges of normal life, does trust his Government and Parliament to keep an anticipatory weather eye on what is coming down the track and what dangers lie therein for the ordinary citizen.
When there have been game-changing advances in technology in the past, it has often taken a long time for societies to adapt and adjust. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, referred to the invention of the printing press. That caused the Reformation, the Industrial Revolution and around 300 years of war, so we have to be careful how we handle these technological changes. Instagram was founded in 2010, and the iPhone 4 was released then too. One eminent social psychologist wrote:
“The arrival of smartphones rewired social life.”
It is not surprising that liberal democracies, with their essentially 18th-century construct of democracy, struggle to keep up.
The record of big tech in the last 20 years has, yes, been an amazing leap in access to information. However, that quantum leap has come with a social cost in almost every aspect of our lives. Nevertheless, I refuse to accept the premise that these technologies are too global and too powerful in their operation for them not to come within the reach of any single jurisdiction or the rule of law. I am more impressed by efforts by big tech companies to identify and deal with real harms than I am by threats to quit this or that jurisdiction if they do not get the light-touch regulation they want so as to be able to profit maximise.
We know by their actions that some companies and individuals simply do not care about their social responsibilities or the impact of what they sell and how they sell it on individuals and society as a whole. That is why the social contract in our liberal democracies means a central role for Parliament and government in bringing order and accountability into what would otherwise become a jungle. That is why, over the last 200 years, Parliament has protected its citizens from the bad behaviour of employers, banks, loan sharks, dodgy salesmen, insanitary food, danger at work and so on. In this new age, we know that companies large and small, British and foreign, can, through negligence, indifference or malice, drive innocent people into harmful situations. The risks that people face are complex and interlocking; they cannot be reduced to a simple list, as the Government seek to do in Clause 12.
When I sat on the pre-legislative committee in 2003, we could be forgiven for not fully anticipating the tsunami of change that the internet, the world wide web and the iPhone were about to bring to our societies. That legislation did, as I said, establish Ofcom with a responsibility to promote media literacy, which it has only belatedly begun to take seriously. We now have no excuse for inaction or for drawing up legislation so narrowly that it fails to deal with the wide risks that might befall adults in the synthetic world of social media.
We have tabled our amendments not because they will solve every problem or avert every danger but because they would be a step in the right direction and so make this a better Bill.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)
I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for namechecking me and the amendments I have tabled with the support of the noble Baronesses, Lady Featherstone and Lady Bull, although I regret to inform him that they are not in this group. I understand where the confusion has come from. They were originally in this group, but as it developed I felt that my amendments were no longer in the right place. They are now in the freedom of expression group, which we will get to next week. What he has just said has helped, because the amendments I am bringing forward are not similar to the ones he has tabled. They have a very different purpose. I will not pre-empt the debate we will have when we get to freedom of expression, but I think it is only proper that I make that clear. I am very grateful to the noble Lord for the trail.