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Oral Answers to Questions
(10 months ago)
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Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
Please may I take this opportunity, Mr Speaker, to pay tribute to Tony Lloyd? I worked with him very closely on the all-party groups on poverty and fair business banking. He was a thoroughly decent man. On behalf of myself and the Department, I pass on our deep condolences to his friends and family.
The Government work with the British Business Bank to improve access to finance for smaller businesses through targeted programmes, such as the £12.4 billion of finance that is backing more than 90,000 businesses across the UK and the £1 billion in start-up loans for 105,000 small businesses since 2012.
Peter Aldous
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply. Many SMEs and new businesses are finding it increasingly difficult to open a bank account and to then obtain the support and services that used to be available in the rapidly diminishing branch network. What steps is he taking to address those challenges that SMEs are facing?
Kevin Hollinrake
My hon. Friend raises an important point. Leading banks and alternative lenders are committed to the SME finance charter to help small businesses and start-ups. We continue to work with the UK finance and banking industry to make sure that SMEs have the support from banking services that they require. Many leading challenger banks, such as Metro, Aldermore and Starling, provide additional application support. Banking hubs are also available for those without a bank on their high street to offer face-to-face support. Thirty have already opened, and 70 more are in the pipeline.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for his response. There is a willingness to meet net zero commitments from businesses all over the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, so would the Minister be prepared to introduce a scheme whereby small businesses can access funding to implement infrastructure changes in their businesses to help them achieve net zero, and will this be available to all parts of this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?
Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Member raises a very important point. It is something that we look at all the time, and certainly we have had discussions on the matter. We already have programmes in place, including the £12.4 billion that we distribute through the British Business Bank that supports nations and regions funds. Some of that will certainly help businesses to access finance to decarbonise. We look at those measures all the time, and we are happy to work with him on future programmes that we might roll out.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
Small and medium-sized enterprises are a vital part of a thriving global economy, yet 49% of British SMEs say that they lack the time or resources to sell internationally. They are being hindered by complex regulation, insufficient access to funding and inadequate Government guidance. That is why Labour has launched the small business export taskforce with the Federation of Small Businesses to listen to business needs and address them head-on. What is the Minister doing to support hard-working SMEs in navigating the Government’s complex web of regulatory requirements and help unleash this untapped entrepreneurial potential?
Kevin Hollinrake
We agree with the hon. Gentleman on the ambition, but he is probably behind the game a little in terms of what we are actually doing, not least in the 73 free trade agreements that we have agreed, including the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership that is coming down the track. I hope that he will be supportive of that agreement. He has probably also never heard of the export support service, the international trade advisers and the export champions, all of which help our SMEs export to other parts of the word.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
May I take this opportunity to congratulate and thank the Secretary of State—[Interruption.] Sorry, Question 2.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
The Minister for Industry and Economic Security (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
My Secretary of State was so savvy that she brought in a science Minister and now, under her stewardship, science and technology is booming in the Department for Business and Trade. The UK has the No. 1 tech ecosystem in Europe, raising more venture capital than France and Germany combined. Science and tech is not just for fans; we have now mainstreamed it with the Office for Investment, which is reaching out to companies around the world to highlight the advantages of investing in the UK, bringing in over £5 billion of investment, as was announced at the global investment summit just last year.
George Freeman
Mr Speaker, you can see that I am using my freedom on the Back Benches to improve my fitness and to make myself as fit as the Department.
May I take this opportunity to thank and congratulate the Secretary of State and the team at the Department for Business and Trade on the work they are doing, particularly with the global investment summit? There is a wall of money out there globally to invest in UK science and tech—in life science, quantum, fusion and agritech—and we are beginning, finally, to attract that money. What plans does the Department have to make it easier for global investors to deploy money at scale in UK clusters?
Ms Ghani
My hon. Friend will know more than most, having had this brief previously. Of course, we are out there sourcing investment for the UK and, as I mentioned, we are already beating France and Germany. Further afield, the UK is the third country, behind the US and China, to reach the landmark of $1 trillion in value. We have the concierge service with the Office for Investment. We have also recently secured £4.5 billion through the advanced manufacturing plan. That, coupled with the research and development budget of around £39.8 billion between 2022-25, shows that we are ready to enable investment in the UK and to manufacture products in this area.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Secretary of State and her team pay much more attention to the science and innovation possibilities in the hydrogen sector—that is, hydrogen energy and power? This is something we are good at, and the research is there. We need to be there quickly before the Chinese dominate the market.
Ms Ghani
I gently say that the hon. Gentleman should pay attention to the hydrogen strategy, which shows we are leaning forward and ensuring that we can capture the investment, de-risk any of the testing and ensure that intellectual property can be commercialised here in the UK. We of course see hydrogen in the mix in our future energy spectrum.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
The Government have taken action to help SMEs deal with cost of living pressures, including freezing fuel duty, maintaining the 5p cut for a further year, introducing the energy bills discount scheme and reversing the national insurance rise. In the autumn statement, the Chancellor announced a substantial business rates package to support the UK’s small businesses worth £4.3 billion over the next five years.
Christine Jardine
Notwithstanding what the Minister says, I am still frequently being approached by small and medium-sized enterprises in Edinburgh West that are struggling to meet soaring energy costs, stave off inflation and deal with Brexit red tape. The number of Scottish SMEs in financial distress is up 10%, according to research, and those were formerly strong, stable and well-managed businesses. They have a huge impact on employment in tourism, which is one of our main industries. Will the Minister tell me what more the Department will do to reassure businesses in my constituency and elsewhere, and whether he will ask the Chancellor to do more in the forthcoming Budget to help them?
Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Lady raises important points. Of course, the Chancellor can do nothing if the Scottish Government do not pass on our support to Scotland, which they have not done for business rates. I know that that is out of her hands, but it is a point she may want to raise with the Scottish Government. The average pub in Scotland is £15,000 worse off a year than its English counterpart because they have not passed through that rates support. The average restaurant or guest house is £30,000 worse off than its English counterpart, and closure rates in Scotland are 30% higher than in England.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
Business closures now exceed new business openings, with 345,000 businesses across the UK closing in 2022—the highest since records began. This week, the Financial Times reported that more than 47,000 businesses are on the verge of collapse. Former Prime Minister Johnson used an expletive to describe his party’s commitment to business. His successor well and truly delivered on that commitment by crashing the economy. Is it not time the Government put businesses out of their misery by calling a general election, so that the country can get back to business?
Kevin Hollinrake
On this side of the House, we are for business because we are from business, and we understand the needs of businesses.
Kevin Hollinrake
That is an interesting point that the hon. Gentleman makes from a sedentary position. The actual numbers of closures—although of course we are concerned about increases—are below pre-pandemic averages, but nevertheless we have stepped in to help by freezing fuel duty, maintaining the 5p cut and announcing £4.3 billion of business rates support, all to help our SMEs. Closure rates are lower in England than in Labour- run Wales.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)
The UK is a leading advocate for human rights around the world. When we have concerns on human rights, they are raised directly with partner Governments, including at ministerial level, and that includes India. Trade negotiations with India are continuing, to build on our £38 billion trading relationship and get better access to 1.4 billion consumers.
Joanna Cherry
I thank the Minister for his answer, but an industry risk analysis dataset shows that India ranks among the worst performing countries for human rights abuses across a host of key industries. My question is a specific one and I would like an answer please: have the Government consulted human rights monitoring bodies and experts, and are the Government actively considering the impact of this deal on human rights abuses in India?
Greg Hands
I congratulate the hon. and learned Lady on her recent election as Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The UK engages regularly with the Indian Government and other Governments around the world, bilaterally and multilaterally. Where we have concerns on human rights, we raise them directly with the partner Government, including at ministerial level.
I must say, though, that I am not entirely sure that whatever we do on human rights will make any difference to whether the SNP will support this trade deal. It is not only fans of free trade agreements who have noticed; we have all noticed that the SNP has never supported any trade deal negotiated by either the EU or the UK. It has abstained on Japan and Singapore and has been against Canada, Australia and South Korea—and even against Ukraine. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Do not tempt me—you are doing well! I call the SNP spokesperson.
Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)
I would like to give the Minister another chance, because that was pretty dismal stuff even by his standards. India has one of the poorest human rights records in the world when it comes to child labour. To give the Minister an opportunity to get us to a position where we could potentially support a deal, will he explain how Ministers and the Government are engaging with negotiators in India to tackle child labour there and to ensure that the United Kingdom does not become complicit in that exploitation?
Greg Hands
Of course the UK has a very proud record on labour standards and on raising these issues with counterparts at all levels. Lord Ahmad was in India just a couple of weeks ago raising specific human rights issues, including a case that the SNP has raised frequently. The Government are proud of our record on labour protections and have been clear that an FTA with India does not come at the expense of labour standards. But may I refer the hon. Gentleman back to the rhetorical question: when will the SNP ever support a trade deal with anybody?
Mr Speaker
Minister, you know it is not your responsibility to ask the question. It is for others to ask you the questions. Come on—you know better than that as an ex-chair of the Conservative party.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
Nicola Richards (West Bromwich East) (Con)
The Minister for Industry and Economic Security (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
More than 15% of global shipping traffic passes through the Red sea, making it one of the most important strategic waterways in the world. Overall, a whopping 12% of global trade volumes use this trade route and my Department is monitoring the impact of events in the Red sea closely. I was previously the shipping Minister and now I am the Minister for advanced manufacturing, so I know that this is important to industry.
We are working to equip UK businesses with the tools they need to deal with global supply chain issues. Just last week, I published the world’s first ever critical imports and supply chains strategy in collaboration with industry. The strategy includes making the UK Government the centre of excellence for supply chain analysis and risk assessment, supporting our status as the world’s eighth largest manufacturer. This will help UK business to build secure and reliable supply chains, which are vital to the UK’s economy, national security and the delivery of our essential services.
Mr Speaker
I am sure the hon. Gentleman does not need to ask a question now, with all you have read out. Come on, Sir Michael!
Michael Fabricant
I will think of one, Mr Speaker. As my hon. Friend has said, we are the eighth largest manufacturer in the world—and where is the centre of manufacturing? It is, of course, the west midlands. What advice is my hon. Friend giving to people such as Andy Street about what can be done to support businesses in the west midlands to overcome what I hope is a temporary difficulty?
Ms Ghani
My hon. Friend has hit so many markers in that question. He is absolutely right that the west midlands, and Birmingham in particular, are the heart of advanced manufacturing. I suggest that the Mayor catches up on supply chain reporting. I am more than happy to sit down and talk to him about that. We have worked with industry, including in the automotive sector, to ensure that supply chains can be as flexible and resilient as possible. Of course there are concerns about extended routes from that part of the world into Europe, but, as I mentioned earlier, we are the first country in the world to produce a strategy, working with industry to ensure that the UK continues to provide the data that it needs—
Nicola Richards
At a time when we are beginning to see inflation fall, recent developments in the Red sea are extremely concerning, not just in terms of security, but because of the huge cost to shipping. My constituents do not want an increase in prices as a result of the terror attacks. Can the Minister build on the excellent answer she gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) by reassuring businesses in my constituency that we will do all we can to maintain the flow of goods to and from the UK?
Ms Ghani
Absolutely. The UK will always stand up for the freedom of navigation and the free flow of trade. We take threats to shipping vessels in the Red sea extremely seriously. My hon. Friend is right to note that, fundamentally, there has been an increase in cost potential, including a 124% increase in freight rates, which is why we have produced a strategy and why we have a council that will continue to work with industry to ensure that supply chains are resilient and the situation has the smallest possible impact on our economy.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
The Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kemi Badenoch)
The Government provide extensive business support for all businesses, including those in rural areas. As a Member of Parliament for a rural constituency, I am keenly aware of the difficulties that apply specifically to rural businesses because of their location. With other Departments, we focus on access to energy, and we work with the Department for Education on apprenticeships. We also have the British Business Bank’s recovery loan scheme, and the Start Up Loans company, which improves access to finance to help businesses to invest and grow. I believe that that package helps rural businesses.
Jamie Stone
The Secretary of State will be aware that the Sutherland spaceport could be a fantastic boost for local businesses. Equally, floating offshore wind in the North sea presents opportunities for the Wick and Scrabster harbours. To underpin that, we need the transport infrastructure. The public service obligation for Wick airport runs out in March this year, with no word from the Scottish Government on whether it will be continued—it would be a fatal blow if not—and then there is the abject failure to invest in the A9. Promise after promise after promise has been broken. What advice does she have for me?
Kemi Badenoch
I would ask the hon. Gentleman to speak to the SNP-led Scottish Government, who are responsible for much of that investment. It is a real shame that the SNP Government do not care about rural businesses or small businesses in Scotland. Office for National Statistics figures show that Scotland lost more than 20,000 businesses last year, and they were mainly the smallest businesses employing up to 50 people. However, I take his point about infrastructure. We have to look at that on a UK-wide basis, and I am prepared to look in a little more detail at what my Department can do to support him.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
I think that my right hon. Friend is doing a great job for rural businesses. However, the Met Office, which is under her stewardship, is responsible for providing wind forecasts, which are particularly important given that the Orwell bridge was closed recently. I would like there to be more transparency and, specifically, for the Met Office to publish the wind speed on its app so that there is transparency for all businesses and the bridge is not closed unnecessarily.
Kemi Badenoch
That sounds like a significant issue. However, I am pleased to say that the Met Office is the responsibility not of my Department but of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. We can raise the matter with DSIT colleagues to ensure that they look at it as quicky possible.
Mr Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Ind)
The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)
I regularly meet Ministers from the devolved Administrations through inter-ministerial fora to discuss a range of policy issues. SMEs across Wales have access to a range of UK Government services to help them to grow and thrive. The UK Government also recently announced that we will appoint new international trade advisers in Wales to provide tailored support for Welsh SME exporters to take advantage of new export opportunities.
Mr Roberts
The Labour Welsh Government are reducing rate relief for the hospitality sector from 75% to 40% in April. Following that announcement, Monmouthshire County Council, which is also Labour-run, called on its colleagues to maintain support at the same rate as in England. Business owners have criticised the Welsh Government, saying that it would be deeply unfair, but the outgoing First Minister has rejected their calls, and a number of hospitality businesses have already closed their doors this year. Will the Minister join me in urging the Welsh Government to maintain the 75% support that businesses need, instead of cutting their feet from under them just because Welsh Labour cannot manage a budget?
Greg Hands
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: the Welsh Labour Government need to start supporting businesses and to maintain the 75% relief rate, as we are in England. The Welsh Government have also cut the budget of Business Wales from £26.6 million to £21 million. Figures from UKHospitality show that the average pub in Wales will be £6,800 worse off as a result, compared with England; for the average restaurant, that figure will be £12,000; and for the average hotel, it will be £20,000. I do not know who will be in charge of Labour in Wales, but it is about time that it started to back Welsh business, as the UK Government do.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kemi Badenoch)
The Department for Business and Trade has done a lot to bring foreign direct investment into the UK. Just last November, we raised £30 billion at our global investment summit. Specifically for north Northamptonshire, my hon. Friend will be pleased to know that his constituents can take advantage of the DBT national and regional investment teams, which work with local partners to provide support for foreign investors who wish to invest and set up in the region.
Mr Hollobone
Recent inward investment into the Kettering constituency includes the Ball Corporation from the US building Europe’s largest and most modern aluminium drinks can manufacturing plant in Burton Latimer, creating 200 new jobs. Will my right hon. Friend congratulate and thank Ball for its confidence and investment in north Northamptonshire’s manufacturing economy, and encourage others to see Kettering—with its superb connectivity and motivated workforce—as an ideal location for further investment?
Kemi Badenoch
I am extremely pleased to be able to do so. I congratulate and thank Ball Corporation for placing its investment in Kettering. That is exactly the sort of investment that we want to see all around the UK: it is the levelling-up agenda writ large. I also thank all the officials in my Department, but especially my Ministers, who travel all around the world—including to the US—to promote the UK. We never talk this country down; we let people know that this is a great place to do business, and we are seeing the benefits of that strategy.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
On 10 January, we announced the Government’s intention to bring forward legislation within weeks to overturn the convictions of all those convicted in England or Wales on the basis of Post Office evidence during the Horizon scandal. I met the Justice Secretary only this week to make sure that those plans are on track, and we hope to bring forward that legislation as soon as possible.
Jeff Smith
Does the Minister have an estimate of how many convictions were made during the Horizon pilot? Will he confirm that those convictions will be included in the legislation, given that they were not made using Horizon data?
Kevin Hollinrake
We do not know that number yet, but we are very concerned about people who used the pilot version of Horizon and were potentially subject to similar abuses. We do believe they fall under similar compensation schemes, and there is no reason why they would not be covered by the legislation to overturn convictions.
Sir David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
For the legislation to work, postmasters have to come forward. When I asked one of my constituents this weekend why they had not come to me sooner, they said it was because they had signed a non-disclosure agreement, but also because they had had to sign the Official Secrets Act. I thought that was so bonkers that I did not believe it, until I read page 26 of Nick Wallis’s book, which says that postmasters do have to sign the Official Secrets Act. If that mad policy is still going on, will the Minister bring it to an end? Will he tell postmasters all over the country that they are completely at liberty to talk to their MPs about any aspect of the Post Office?
Kevin Hollinrake
I thank my right hon. Friend for all the work he has done in this area. I understand that the requirement to sign the Official Secrets Act relates to the confidentiality of mail; it does not relate to the confidentiality of issues regarding mistreatment by Post Office Ltd. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that point, and I will certainly raise it with Post Office Ltd, but I can confirm that that would not prevent somebody from speaking out, including to their Member of Parliament.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister knows that we are willing to work with the Government on a way to exonerate the sub-postmasters and get them compensation as quickly as possible. The proposals will have to be imperfect, but they represent a clear option for resolving this terrible issue. As a way to ensure safeguards against any potential future misuse of precedent, could cross-party agreement be established as an essential provision for the exercise of powers of this kind?
Kevin Hollinrake
I thank the hon. Gentleman for the constructive way he has engaged with us on this issue. I know that the Justice Secretary spoke to the Leader of the Opposition this week on this very matter, and we are very keen to engage with the hon. Gentleman too. He is right to say the solution is imperfect. We believe it is the least worst option, but of course we will engage with him and make sure that he feels the legislation is in the right place.
Jonathan Reynolds
I am grateful to the Minister for that answer, and I hope that exchange gives some reassurance to all colleagues in the House. Will he confirm that all prosecutions that arise from the Horizon pilot scheme will now also be included in the exonerations, given that, although people were technically prosecuted without official Horizon data, it is very much the same issue?
Kevin Hollinrake
Again, the hon. Gentleman raises a very important point, similar to one made earlier. The circumstances were similar, so we feel there is no reason to exclude people who have been convicted in similar circumstances. Again, I am happy to work with him on that issue.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)
The Government are committed to breaking down barriers to trade through our ambitious programme of free trade agreements. In August last year, the Government announced the border target operating model, which will simplify border processes for both imports and exports. These changes, based on smarter use of data and technology, will put in place new security and biosecurity controls while ensuring they are as simple as possible for businesses to comply with.
Daniel Zeichner
The five-times-delayed border checks will come into effect very soon, but those dealing with plant and animal health products are seriously worried about potential delays. Indeed, the chair of the Horticultural Trades Association has pointed out that the process of importing a petunia from the Netherlands has already increased from 19 to 59 steps, and he warns that the
“new border is a disaster waiting to happen”.
What is the Minister doing to ensure that we will have a plentiful supply of imported red roses for Valentine’s day, especially for all those Conservatives on the other side who love each other so much?
Greg Hands
I am feeling the hon. Gentleman’s love this morning, Mr Speaker.
We have consulted very widely on the border target operating model. We have put in a lot of time and effort, we have done a lot of consultation, we have been running webinars and putting out leaflets to make sure that businesses are aware, and the introduction of the model will of course be staged.
The hon. Gentleman needs to be careful about what Labour’s plan will be. This week, the EU ambassador to London revealed the fact that Labour’s desire for a food and veterinary agreement is likely to lead to closer dynamic alignment between London and Brussels in the future, which is directly against his party leader’s stated policy of no dynamic alignment.
Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
Over £153 million has been paid to 2,700 victims. We encourage anyone impacted to use the three compensation schemes available. We have already published the details of the up-front £75,000 fixed-sum offer for group litigation order postmasters on the gov.uk website, created a new claim form, and written to all eligible members of the GLO scheme to explain the offer further.
Jo Gideon
The Post Office Horizon scandal has shocked the nation. My constituent Kym Ledgar received a settlement under the historical shortfall scheme, which did not take into account the enormous stress, the extra work in trying to balance the books, the damage to her reputation and the price she and her family paid in lost income, having had to make up the shortfall herself. Does the Minister agree that we need to acknowledge the wider cost of the Post Office’s appalling behaviour? Will he meet me to discuss how those who accepted an offer under the historical shortfall scheme may now receive compensation that truly reflects the impact that the Post Office’s conduct over two decades has had on their lives?
Kevin Hollinrake
I apologise on behalf of the Government to Kym Ledgar for what she has been through. It is absolutely our intention that everybody gets full and fair compensation, and that is not only for financial losses but for non-pecuniary losses. We have taken a number of steps to ensure that the compensation is fair and delivered swiftly, including by establishing the independent advisory board, on which the noble Lord Arbuthnot sits. We will continue to work with the board and consider what further action is required, but yes, I would of course be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss these matters further.
Mary Robinson
The Post Office Horizon scandal has made clear to us all what happens when whistleblowers are ignored or silenced. Does my hon. Friend agree that as well as ensuring that victims are properly compensated, we need better legislation to protect whistleblowers? As the Government’s whistleblowing framework review draws to a close, will he meet me to discuss how the outcome of the review can be used to support the Whistleblowing Bill that I presented to the House yesterday?
Kevin Hollinrake
I thank my hon. Friend for all her work. At one point we were co-chairs of the all-party group for whistleblowing, and she does a tremendous job in raising this issue time and again in the House. We are currently reviewing the effectiveness of the whistleblowing framework in meeting its intended objectives. Every scandal that I have talked about in this House over the years, from the Back Benches and the Front Benches, has come to light because of whistleblowers, who are hugely important. We are reviewing that frame- work. The research for the review is near completion, the Government will set out the next steps in due course, and yes, of course I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I, too, have a constituent who, although she was thankfully not prosecuted, was forced over a period of more than a decade to pay back thousands of pounds every year, and it amounts to a six-figure sum. As the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) said, this is not just about that pecuniary loss; this is about the impact on my constituent’s family—I will not go into her personal details, but they took a real hit and I wish she had come forward to me sooner. I met her a couple of weeks ago and it really has wrecked her life. She has not yet had any compensation through the shortfall scheme, so I urge the Minister to ensure that such people are properly compensated.
Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise that point. Yes, the compensation scheme is there to compensate and provide redress for financial loss, but also, quite rightly, for personal loss, loss of reputation, impact on health—those kinds of matters. There are two routes open to compensation: the £75,000 fixed-sum award, which is pretty much an immediate payment, or someone can go for a full assessment of losses, which takes into account all those matters. Interim payments are also available. We have paid out £153 million in total across the schemes. I am happy to help the hon. Lady with that specific case, and we are looking to try to expedite the payment of full and fair compensation to all individuals. I am working on a daily basis to try to do that.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
The Government are committed to tackling late payments. That is why we launched the prompt payment and cash flow review, which was published alongside the autumn statement. The review includes amending payment performance reporting requirements for large businesses, and providing the Small Business Commissioner with more powers to investigate late payments.
Debbie Abrahams
Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, but unfortunately late payments continue to blight the ability of small businesses to trade, with an average of £684 million a year being lost. Unfortunately, that is on the increase, with a 7% increase in 2023. I appreciate what the Minister said about another review— I think we had one a few years ago—but what specific actions are the Government taking to address this appalling abuse of power, which is contributing to 50,000 small businesses going under a year?
Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Lady is right to raise this issue, and earlier I set out specific actions such as giving the Small Business Commissioner more powers, and producing league tables. We work closely with the Good Business Pays campaign, which produces league tables on this issue, and naming and shaming the people responsible is important. The Government are leading the way, and from April 2024 firms bidding for Government contracts worth more than £5 million will have to demonstrate that they pay their invoices within an average of 55 days, tightening to 45 days in April 2025 and to 30 days in the coming years.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
The Minister for Industry and Economic Security (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
The Chancellor and I meet regularly, and obviously we know and recognise the importance of the steel sector in the UK economy. Our commitment to the sector is clear, and we will be investing more than £500 million in the Port Talbot site to ensure that steelmaking continues in the UK. Without that investment, the 8,000 jobs at the port and the 12,500 jobs in the supply chain would have been at risk.
We are working with Tata, and we have set up a transition board—the hon. Gentleman knows about that because we both serve on it—and we have provided more than £100 million of support for affected employees and the local economy. Last Friday, Tata announced that it will provide an additional £130 million of support for employees facing redundancy. The option was steel- making no longer continuing at Port Talbot, or the investment that we have provided.
Stephen Kinnock
Ministers keep spinning this line that Tata Steel was threatening to close down the Port Talbot works and walk away, but they know that was an empty bluff, because the costs of dismantling and remediating the Port Talbot steelworks were vast and utterly prohibitive. Against that backdrop, let us be clear: is it the case that no strings were attached to the £500 million of taxpayers’ money that has been given to Tata Steel? Was that £500 million given by the Prime Minister to Tata Steel with a green light to make 2,800 steelworkers redundant?
Ms Ghani
I would not want steelworkers to think that we are not working together, and the hon. Member and I work together and will be working together to ensure that steelworkers are protected as much as possible. I think it is extraordinary that the position he is now putting forward is that it would have been better to risk the absolute loss of steelmaking in the UK and then allow the taxpayer to pick up the cost to manage the site.
Mr Speaker
Order. It might be better that that conversation is carried on outside, rather than going on across the Benches while the Minister is replying.
Ms Ghani
At the heart of our decision was two things: continued steelmaking at Port Talbot and protecting steelworkers.
Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con)
We have recently heard from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence how the west is facing “a pre-war world”. Will the Minister ensure in her conversations with the Treasury that it understands the vital strategic importance of a virgin steelmaking capability here in the UK?
Ms Ghani
My hon. Friend has a huge amount of knowledge of the steel sector and is a huge champion for Scunthorpe. She knows that we are working incredibly hard with the company in her constituency, and we are waiting for it to respond to the business plans going forward. We know how important virgin steelmaking is, and we accept, because technology has moved on, that going forward 90% of all steel can be made in electric arc furnaces.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
Mr Speaker:
“The UK steel industry, the trade unions, and Labour are…proposing an industrial policy worthy of a serious industrial country.”
Those are not my words but those of the world economic editor of The Daily Telegraph writing yesterday. He also said that
“the Government’s minimalist plan…does just half the job, leaving the UK with a stunted second-tier industrial base, the only G20 country lacking a sovereign capability in ‘weapons grade’ primary steel.”
He is right, isn’t he?
Ms Ghani
The £28 billion that Labour is proposing has no plan behind it, and we are not told what hard workers across the country would have to pay to fill that black hole. Labour has asked for a transition to green steel. It would want us to protect steelworkers and obviously would want to protect advanced manufacturing in the UK. Customers want cleaner steel. Port Talbot could no longer function with its ageing blast furnaces, and our package will save 5,000 jobs at Port Talbot.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
This week, I spoke to a conference attended by building societies about how we can increase presence on the high street to help with access to cash and finance facilities. The Government provide extensive business support to all businesses, including social enterprises and co-operatives. The British Business Bank’s recovery loan scheme and start-up loans improve access to finance to help those kinds of businesses to invest and grow.
Rachael Maskell
Co-operatives and social enterprise businesses provide a fairer way of doing business, involve members in greater business decisions and provide economic growth for local areas. However, they are being held back by financial and regulatory constraints. Will the Government match the Labour party’s and the Co-operative party’s ambition of committing to address those challenges and doubling the size of the co-operatives sector?
Kevin Hollinrake
Personally, I am a big fan of co-operative movements and the regional mutual bank system in Germany, which I have spoken about many times in this place. Of course, the Government supported the Co-operatives, Mutuals and Friendly Societies Act 2023, which helps to maintain the status of co-operatives. Social enterprises and co-operatives can also access support via the business support helpline as well as help through our websites and our network of local growth hubs.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kemi Badenoch)
At the autumn statement, we announced the decision to extend the growth duty to Ofgem, Ofwat and Ofcom, alongside a series of reforms to the duty to hold regulators to account for delivering growth in the sectors they regulate. We are also currently consulting on proposals to strengthen the economic regulation of the energy, water and telecoms sectors.
Greg Smith
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that answer, but on retained EU law reform, in the June to December 2023 reporting period there were only two regulatory reforms of note, which were on wine marketing and working time calculations; the rest were technical corrections. What steps is she taking to speed up reform of retained EU law to ensure that regulation works for business and enables growth?
Kemi Badenoch
I am glad that my hon. Friend read the report that I sent out this week on what we have been doing. However, I disagree that only two reforms of note have been delivered. We have repealed or reformed more than 2,000 measures. The Port Services Regulations 2019, which were not designed with UK ports in mind, are an example. We have also passed the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 and the Procurement Act 2023. I remind him that that list is what we are using the schedule for, and there are many other mechanisms in the retained EU law programme to deliver on that road map so that we improve our economy and make it more competitive by making sure that our laws are tailored to our economy.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
In support of economic growth, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) cut £235 million from Environment Agency budgets when she was at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Rather than bringing economic growth, that served to bring sewage growth: sewage discharge doubled between 2016 and 2021. I was delighted to hear yesterday that the Government will adopt my Water Quality Monitoring Bill, but will they also restore some of the cut Environment Agency funding to bring back powers as well as duties?
Kemi Badenoch
A spending review, where we can look at these things, will be coming up shortly, but I really have to challenge much of what the hon. Gentleman said. It is a misrepresentation to say that the issues going on with sewage are to do with the actions of my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss). This Government have been taking reforms through the Environment Act 2021 to improve the situation throughout multiple Governments, including the one in which his party, the Liberal Democrats, participated during the coalition. So it is very wrong to make that case.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kemi Badenoch)
As Secretary of State for Business and Trade, I am committed to ensuring the resilience of the UK’s critical supply chains. Last week, the Government published the “Critical Imports and Supply Chains Strategy” to help UK businesses build secure and reliable supply chains. Our 18-point action plan will help businesses to deal better with global supply chain issues from overcoming bureaucratic barriers to dealing with severe shocks caused by events such as the pandemic, Russia’s war in Ukraine and the attacks on the Red sea that have threatened a key route for global trade. DBT led the development of the strategy, which was shaped by the experiences of UK businesses. I was delighted that representatives of industry as well as key international partners joined us at the strategy’s launch at Heathrow airport, which is, of course, the UK’s largest import hub by value.
Mr Carmichael
Mr Speaker, I wish you and the rest of the House a happy Burns night for this evening. Is it not a scandal that the only way to get the great chieftain o’ the puddin-race exported to the United States is by sending the vegetarian version? [Hon. Members: “Oh!”] Could not the Secretary of State put that into her 18-point action plan and get on and do something, or does she want to risk forever being known as a cowran, tim’rous beastie? [Laughter.]
Kemi Badenoch
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his esoteric question. We are continually removing barriers to US-UK trade, and we are trading with the US more than ever before. If he has a specific example that I can help with so that he can enjoy his Burns night, I would appreciate it if he wrote to me, and we will look at the matter in detail.
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his work on this matter, which he and I have discussed on many occasions. The limits are there to try to prevent money laundering, but it is important that the checks are proportionate. I have raised their impact on a number of occasions with the Financial Conduct Authority and UK Finance. There is more transparency now and they are working more effectively. I know that the wonderful Ingham’s fish and chip shop in Filey now experiences fewer problems when it pays in money at its local post office. There is a great opportunity not just for Inghams fish and chip shop but for the post office banking framework to make that relationship more lucrative.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
Postal workers are the bedrock of our communities, but they are being forced to work at unsustainable levels—something that, sadly, has not been recognised in Ofcom’s report on the future of universal service obligations. The input of postal workers is critical to a successful Royal Mail, so please can we have confirmation that their views will be considered in any future decisions?
Kevin Hollinrake
That would make perfect sense. We read the Ofcom report into the review of universal service obligations with interest. Our clear position is that we will retain a six-day service for our citizens and businesses, but those views will be taken into account.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
Kemi Badenoch
I cannot comment on the ongoing Northern Ireland political process, to which I am not a participant. However, it is clear that we retain the ability to diverge. I agree with my right hon. Friend that if we are to seize the benefits of Brexit, we need to find that comparative advantage over the EU in our regulations, otherwise there would be no point. I remind her that I was the Business Secretary who made sure that there was transparency, rather than an invisible bonfire, in what we were doing on EU regulations. I ended the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice on 1 January. We have a comprehensive deregulation programme, which I am pushing. I understand her concerns, and I will speak to colleagues across Departments to ensure that they are raised at the highest level.
Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)
Will the Secretary of State please confirm that this Government have no plans to alter the legislation on the marketing of infant formula and other breastmilk substitutes?
Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point. I am very happy to write to him about it.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Ind)
Royal Mail customers will have welcomed the Minister’s reassurance this week about ruling out a reduction to the current six day a week service. However, many customers already feel short changed by what is often an inadequate service in their area. Does the Minister agree that any proposed changes must protect the small businesses whose business models rely on the six-day service, and customers’ rights?
Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Gentleman is right to raise this issue. The service has not been satisfactory, and Royal Mail has been fined £5.6 million by Ofcom as a result. It has employed 3,000 more postal workers to address those problems, and we are seeing some improvement, but he is right to raise the point about our six-day service being vital to businesses, particularly those in the magazine and greeting card industries.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
Kevin Hollinrake
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. It is clearly up to businesses to decide if they want to trial a four-day week. We have made no assessment of any results. It is our belief that we should not run a Stalinist economy, where we tell private sector businesses how to operate their workforce and on what days of the week—he may differ on that particular perspective—but we have introduced important reforms that help businesses work more flexibly, including the flexible working changes that were introduced recently.
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
The Gosport branch of Asda is the first in the UK to ballot for strike action. Employees cite issues including low staffing levels, health and safety, and delayed equal pay claims. Considering Asda’s importance to the UK food chain and employment across the country, what powers does the Minister have to ensure that both workers and consumers are protected?
Kevin Hollinrake
My hon. Friend raises an very interesting point. We have looked at this particular situation with interest and will continue to monitor it. Clearly, Asda is a private company and it is up to it to decide how best to deploy its workforce, but I am very happy to continue our conversation and I appreciate her engagement on this issue.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
Kemi Badenoch
It is really important for us to not misrepresent what is happening on steel. Our steel industry is not disappearing; our steel industry is evolving. We will continue to have significant steelmaking capability in the UK, including producing materials for the industries the hon. Lady talks about. But we should also remember that the changes to Port Talbot are part of the decarbonisation that all Opposition Members have been asking for. This is the biggest single emitter of carbon in the UK and this House voted to reach net zero by 2050. Everything we are doing is to ensure that we do that in a sustainable and sensible way.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
Following on from the question by my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Holly Mumby-Croft), for the sake of clarity, can the Secretary of State confirm that it remains the Government’s position to ensure that the UK has the capacity to produce virgin steel here in the UK?
Kemi Badenoch
The Government maintain that we want to ensure that we keep steelmaking capability in the UK. At the moment, we import ore to make steel. When we talk about virgin steel many people assume there are no imports in the supply chain, but there still are, even now, and whatever changes we make will require some imports. However, we are making sure that our steel industry is more resilient than ever before, at a time when it faces oversupply from China and India. That is the real problem faced by the steel industry in all of western Europe. We do a lot with tariff measures, such as steel safeguards—
Mr Speaker
Please, do not do that. I called the next Member, so I expect you to sit down. It is topical questions, not free statements.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
Kevin Hollinrake
Yes, I would be very happy to meet. There are three compensation schemes and it depends on which one she falls into. If it is the group litigation order, an immediate award of £75,000 can be made; if it is an overturned conviction, the amount is £600,000. I am sure there will be one scheme that the hon. Lady’s constituent will fit into. I am very happy to meet her to help ensure she finds the right one.
Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
Mining is coming back to Cornwall. This week, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for critical minerals, I met industry leaders from around the country at a roundtable here in this place to talk about the challenges the critical minerals industry is facing. Will the Minister agree to come to a meeting to discuss the challenges facing the industry? Demand is going up exponentially, but it is a high risk industry and it needs her help.
The Minister for Industry and Economic Security (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Obviously it is important to secure investment in mining in Cornwall, particularly the mining of lithium, which will be critical for our car batteries. I certainly agree to be interrogated by the APPG, of which my hon. Friend is a powerful leader, and I congratulate her on securing that investment in Cornwall.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Mr Speaker
Order. The Secretary of State took advantage; I do not want the hon. Lady to do exactly the same.
Kemi Badenoch
I believe that this might be an issue for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, but if the hon. Lady will write to me, we can look at that specific case.
Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)
I am grateful to the Minister for working with me on the issue of button battery safety, and grateful for the ongoing commitment of the five working groups that were set up in 2022 following the tragic death of one of my constituents, Harper-Lee Fanthorpe, and the campaign for Harper-Lee’s law. Will the Minister meet me to discuss progress, and, in particular, how the guidelines drawn up by the Office for Product Safety and Standards can be made compulsory so that more deaths and injuries from button battery ingestion can be prevented?
Kevin Hollinrake
My hon. Friend has done a fantastic job with the campaign, and has made huge progress towards ensuring that best practice is followed by suppliers. Of course I shall be happy to meet her to see what more can be done.
Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)
Ms Ghani
I am more than happy to sit down with the hon. Member to discuss furthering his case, but the overriding fact, which he mentioned, is that the decision sits with the Scottish Government. In the UK we have the National Shipbuilding Office, which provides a wraparound service not only to secure contracts but to ensure that ships are built in UK shipyards.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)
Of course I shall be happy to meet the hon. Lady, but let me remind her of what I said earlier. The border operating model was introduced after extensive consultation with businesses, led by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs with the agrifood sector. There has been plenty of opportunity for feedback from businesses, but I shall be happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss specific cases.
Alistair Strathern (Mid Bedfordshire) (Lab)
I am sure that the Secretary of State shares my desire to revitalise our fantastic local high streets. Flitwick Town Council plans to do exactly that, but it needs support from the community ownership fund. May I urge the Secretary of State to look favourably on its forthcoming application?
Kemi Badenoch
It is good to see the hon. Gentleman working so hard for his community. The community ownership fund sits with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, but I am sure that if he makes representations to those in the Department, they will be able to give him a more substantive answer.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Secretary of State look at the impact assessments of universities? The traditional universities are failing to meet the standards of sustainable development research, and Manchester, Huddersfield and Newcastle Universities are doing much better. Will the Secretary of State look into that, and push the other universities to do better?
Kemi Badenoch
This is a matter that sits with the Department for Education, but of course my Department takes an interest in all the innovation research that is going on, because it will help to boost the UK economy. I am sure that officials in my Department have been looking at those assessments, and will be able to provide details if the hon. Gentleman has a more specific question.
Business of the House
(10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Penny Mordaunt)
The business for next week will include:
Monday 29 January—Second Reading of the Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Bill [Lords].
Tuesday 30 January—Remaining stages of the Media Bill.
Wednesday 31 January—Motion to approve the draft Electoral Commission strategy and policy statement, followed by a motion to approve the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2024, followed by a motion to approve the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2024.
Thursday 1 February—General debate on miners and mining communities, followed by debate on a motion on freedom and democracy in Iran. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 2 February—Private Members’ Bills.
The provisional business for the week commencing 5 February includes:
Monday 5 February—Remaining stages of the Finance Bill.
Lucy Powell
I thank the Leader of the House for the business.
I begin by paying tribute on the sad loss of Lord John Tomlinson, who served as an MP, MEP and peer for over six decades. He was a formidable force and an effective campaigner. Our thoughts are with his family.
With Holocaust Memorial Day this weekend, and ahead of this afternoon’s debate, more than ever we must never forget the horror of the holocaust and other genocides.
It has now been over a month since the publication of the House of Commons Commission’s proposals on the risk-based exclusion of Members of Parliament. I thank you, Mr Speaker, the Leader of the House, the Commission, staff and unions for all their work thus far. When will the Leader of the House table a motion on this important issue? It was first promised before last summer, and then before the end of 2023. The Commission is in agreement, the proposal has wide support across the House, and others are looking to us to take action on the culture in this place.
While we are on the topic of culture in Parliament, I am sure the Leader of the House will join me in welcoming the recommendations of the Jo Cox Foundation’s report on civility in politics. I know that some recent exchanges in this place have caused offence to others, as we did not model the good behaviour that we should. Will she join me in reminding Members of this, and that Parliament should be the exemplar of respectful and cordial debate?
We saw the House and politics at their best this week with the moving, heartfelt, cross-party tributes to Sir Tony Lloyd. He reminds us that we can have strongly held, differing views while remaining dignified and respectful.
The Procedure Committee has now published its report on Commons scrutiny of Secretaries of State in the House of Lords, which I welcome. I commend the Committee for its work, and we will shortly be hearing from its Chair, the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley). The Leader of the House has reassured us many times since Lord Cameron’s appointment that he will be “forward-leaning”, and she promised:
“When the Procedure Committee brings forward measures…those measures will be put in place.”—[Official Report, 30 November 2023; Vol. 741, c. 1061.]
Can she confirm that she will table a motion forthwith to ensure that Lord Cameron comes to the Bar of the House to answer questions and statements, as the Committee recommends? The next Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office questions are on Wednesday, so the motion should be tabled before then.
Despite war in the middle east, conflict in the Red sea, Russia’s ongoing illegal war in Ukraine and the Venezuelan threat to Guyana, the Foreign Office has failed to meaningfully update Parliament on these international flashpoints. It has offered only two statements since November, with Mr Speaker having to grant 10 urgent questions on these matters instead. It is just not good enough.
We have had three weeks of ad hoc business statements to bring in emergency and urgent legislation. The King’s Speech legislative programme, announced just two months ago, has almost run out. With all the unused parliamentary time, there is no excuse for Ministers not coming to Parliament or getting on with their day job. We have had another week of ministerial failure, with Secretaries of State failing to show up. There was no Secretary of State to speak about steel, either today or during the week, which is insulting to the steelworkers who face redundancy.
The Secretary of State for Education did not show up either. She has had no legislation for months, yet the reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete in schools shambles drags on, and now we understand that the much-needed flagship childcare policy is in chaos. Can the Leader of the House shed more light on this? How many parents of two-year-olds who qualify and want to take up the offer of free childcare in April will not be able to access it? And will the roll-out to nine-month-old babies go ahead in September, as promised? Ministers seem unable to give those assurances, and providers are clear that the Government’s flagship roll-out is a sham.
Another week goes by with a failing Government who have run out of road, are out of ideas and are failing to deliver on their basic promises. That is now the verdict of Conservatives as well , with the Prime Minister’s own pollster having concluded that they are not
“providing the bold, decisive action required”
and that
“the Conservatives are heading for the most almighty of defeats.”
Those are his words, not mine, and many agree. So can they just put everyone out of their misery, and get on and call a general election?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank all colleagues who will be marking Holocaust Memorial Day this week and, in particular, those taking part in the debate later. Clearly, it has additional significance this year.
I join the hon. Lady in paying tribute to Lord John Tomlinson, and I thank her for her tribute. I also send my deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Sir Graham Bright, the former Member for Luton East and for Luton South. He served this House and his constituents for 18 years, and this included being John Major’s Parliamentary Private Secretary. He is perhaps best known for his private Member’s Bill that became the Video Recordings Act 1984, which required all commercial video recordings offered for sale or hire within the UK to carry a classification. Legend has it that during the passage of the Bill he had to explain to the Prime Minister of the day what particular acts performed on camera warranted particular ratings. Given that that Prime Minister was Margaret Thatcher, that alone would have warranted his knighthood. Many colleagues have spoken very fondly of him over the past few days, and he will be much missed.
Let me also thank two delegations to Parliament this week: the families of Liri Elbag, Eliya Cohen, Idan Shtivi, and Ziv and Gali Berman, who are five of the many hostages still held in Gaza—we must not rest until they are all home—and the Ukrainian delegation, to whom I conveyed our deepest respect and solidarity for all they are doing to protect our freedom. I wish President Zelensky, “Z dnem narodzhennya” and all in the House a happy Burns night.
Let me turn to the hon. Lady’s points. She spoke about the work the House of Commons Commission, on which we both serve, has been doing on the exclusion of Members of Parliament who are considered to be a risk to others on the estate. She will know, because she is on the Commission, that we agree with the proposal that has been brought forward. We were waiting for a motion to be brought to us by the House. That happened late last week, and we will shortly table that motion for Members to see and then bring it forward.
The hon. Lady mentioned the work that the Procedure Committee has done on Lord Cameron, the Foreign Secretary. I thank its members for their work and the hon. Lady for the evidence she gave to that inquiry. We have received that report this week and will shortly be responding to it. I hear her plea to act before next Wednesday, but she should have said next Tuesday, because that is when the next FCDO questions are.
I join in what the hon. Lady says about the work that the Jo Cox Foundation has done through the Commission. It is very important that we protect democracy. We all know that democracy is under attack, and civility in politics is incredibly important, as was demonstrated, as she said, in the form of the late Sir Tony Lloyd.
In that spirit of the Commission’s recommendations, let me deal with the charges that the hon. Lady has made against our record and that Labour has levelled against our Prime Minister. Our Prime Minister is a man whose migrant parents made sacrifices to ensure that he could have a good start in life. He worked hard to make the best use of every opportunity he was afforded—he studied hard, he pushed himself. He had many career options, but he chose a life in public service representing God’s own country. He protected this nation and livelihoods from the greatest financial and health crisis since the second world war. He has risen through hard work, courage and determination to be this country’s first British-Asian Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister has shown global leadership on many challenges facing this country. He is a wonderful dad. He gives quietly to charities. He runs for his local hospice. He is a cricket fanatic. He still attends home games at the football club he supports, despite being Prime Minister and despite it being Southampton. He is a shareholder in three community pubs and patron of the Leyburn brass band. He does not just get Britain; he represents the best of Great Britain—the greatest things we have to offer the world, including our values of hard work, enterprise, taking personal responsibility and helping others.
He is in no way confused about where his duty lies. People will not find him taxing education or denying others the opportunities he has had; voting against strengthening our borders; siding with militant trade unions against the public; compromising our energy security or nuclear deterrent; opposing the deportation of foreign criminals; scratching his head about the monarchy; ducking difficult issues; or supporting the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). If the Leader of the Opposition is a weathervane, our Prime Minister is a signpost. He knows what he stands for, he knows where the country needs to go, he has a plan to get us there and that plan is working.
Further business will be announced in the usual way.
Mr Speaker
That brings me to a slightly difficult problem. Bob Blackman is meant to be representing the Backbench Business Committee, to tell us about its business, but unfortunately he is not here, so I now call the spokesperson for the Scottish National party.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
I associate myself with the remarks about Holocaust Memorial Day. I ask the House to note that tonight is Burns night, when we celebrate the work of Scotland’s great national bard.
A new year, a new Tory civil war—just what the UK needs—with talk of doom loops, massacres and extinctions. If only Members of the Leader of the House’s party had listened to her the last time she wooed them for leadership. She warned them that if they voted for the former Chancellor as leader it would “murder the party”. I know that the Leader of the House is furiously busy with all her “Minister for clickbait” responsibilities—those anti-Scottish articles and sneering videos do not write themselves—but as her Government grind, punch-drunk and exhausted, to an election, should we not debate some of the key legacies of the last 14 years of Tory rule?
Where should we start? There are still the scandalously unresolved scandals, such as infected blood, the WASPI women—Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign—and Post Office Horizon, to name a very few, but has the Leader of the House had time to reflect on recent comments from Sir Michael Marmot, professor of public health at University College London? He said that Britain in 2024 is starting to suffer from Victorian diseases again, and that
“Britain has become a poor country with a few rich people…it’s worse to be poor in Britain than in most other European countries…. Poor people in Britain have a lower income than Slovenia.”
Perhaps the Leader of the House will cast her eye over the latest Joseph Rowntree Foundation report, which says that more than one in five people were in poverty in 2021-22, with about 6 million in “very deep poverty” that same year. Has she not managed to look at that yet? That is unsurprising, as the Tories seem genuinely untroubled by poverty in the UK. My colleagues and I have asked them about it many times, but their eyes just glaze over—comfortable, I guess, with the choices they have made, as the PM has said.
Perhaps we should start our Tory legacy debates with an emerging threat. The Electoral Commission chair warned recently that the Government’s strict new rules on voter ID risk excluding certain voter groups and leave the Conservative party open to the charge of bias. I and many others have thought for some time that this was simply an attempt at voter suppression from the Government, so does the Leader of the House agree with an erstwhile Cabinet colleague that the new Tory rules are simply, as he put it, an attempt at “gerrymandering”? Will she bring a debate on this important issue to the House before the next general election?
Penny Mordaunt
What a bunch of rotters we are, with our anti-Scottish articles. It appears that the hon. Lady is planning to follow in the footsteps of many a great antipodean election guru by using a brilliant new strategy of equating criticism of the SNP’s performance with criticism of Scotland itself. The latter is a landmass of approximately 30,000 square miles, populated by brilliant, creative, stoic people; the former is a ramshackle separatist movement, full of people who have turned maladministration into an art form.
There is one tiny flaw in this new political tactic from the SNP: if we Conservatives dislike Scotland so much, for some reason the hon. Lady never gets round to explaining, why on earth would we strive so hard to keep it part of the Union of the United Kingdom? Why would this Conservative Government give Scotland the largest funding settlement it has ever had? Why would we have offered its citizens who were waiting for NHS treatment additional help and options, which the Scottish Government turned down?
If I wanted to do Scotland down, I would join, donate and campaign for the SNP, to whose members I would point out that the trailblazer for bringing back Victorian diseases to Britain is Glasgow. Watching the hon. Lady’s inaction, and that of her party, is like watching your much-loved neighbourhood being clobbered by a bunch of gangsters—let us call them the “hole in the budget” gang—hitting businesses, taking your cash, making your life a misery and keeping the local police force very busy. This new political strategy from the SNP, like everything else that it does, will fail.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to make a statement next week on the instructions to the advocate for his Department at the Holocaust Memorial Bill Select Committee? Yesterday, on a number of occasions, the lead advocate said that the design had not been awarded to Sir David Adjaye, or that he was not the architect.
I refer the Leader of the House to the press notice on 24 October 2017, in which the Department and the Cabinet Office said that Sir David and his team would design the memorial; the then Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sir Sajid Javid), and the Mayor of London congratulated Sir David; and Sir David was quoted as saying that it was “architecture as emotion”.
I believe that the advocate may have inadvertently told the Committee things that are clearly contradicted by the facts six years ago, and by every other quotation until Sir David Adjaye became a name that could not be mentioned.
Will the Leader of the House please ask the Secretary of State to consider making a statement to correct what was said to the Committee yesterday, and perhaps acknowledge the four holocaust survivors who gave evidence, and look at what they said?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank my hon. Friend for again diligently raising this important issue; I understand that the forums in which he can do so are limited, which is why he brings it to the Floor of the House each week. He has put those points on the record, as well as his thanks to those survivors for their important intervention. As the Secretary of State will not take questions until 4 March, I will again ensure that he has heard what my hon. Friend has said.
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
Stratford market village in my constituency has provided space for more than 60 much-loved independent local businesses to ply their trade since about 1974. They are the kinds of businesses that reflect the entrepreneurship, drive and diversity in Newham, but on 10 January, with no warning at all, the traders received an email telling them that the market village was closed with immediate effect. The company that owns it is going into administration, leaving viable, much-loved businesses in limbo, out of pocket and without a home. I thank our Assembly Member Unmesh Desai and Newham Council for their work on the matter so far, and I hope that it bears fruit, but I know that many similar communities have faced similar problems. May we have a debate in Government time on whether our councils have the resources and powers they need to effectively step in and save much-loved local spaces and businesses when this kind of thing happens?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank the hon. Lady for her helpful suggestion of a debate. I am sorry to hear about the situation in her constituency. Such markets are often a stepping stone for many businesses to getting additional premises of their own. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and its high streets team have been collecting good practice about where other people have faced such situations. There are some good examples of what local authorities and other groups can do to ensure that continuity. As the next question time is a little way off, I will ask officials in the Department to contact the hon. Lady to see what more can be done to assist.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
May we have a debate on the Government’s massive expansion of free childcare so that we can really scrutinise progress on delivering it, in order to ensure that people can access it, that we tackle workforce shortages, and that the initial stages of implementation go as smoothly as possible in April and September?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank my right hon. Friend for her question and remind the House that we had an urgent question on that matter on Monday. We are rolling out the single largest expansion in childcare in England’s history, ensuring that working parents receive 30 hours of free childcare a week, starting at nine months and going all the way up to their child starting school. She will know that we have increased hourly funding rates with a £204 million cash boost this year and more than £400 million next year to support the childcare sector to deliver this, but I know that hon. Members will want to follow that progress very carefully.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
On 5 January, Bath received a red flood alert warning, the highest alert warning, which means risk to life. Fortunately, thanks to good management by local agencies and the council, no life was lost, but the damage was still substantial. Yet my council was told that it was not eligible for funding through the flood recovery framework, because not enough properties were flooded internally. That is no comfort to flood victims or to the council, because the clean-up operation and the repair to external damage are still very substantial. My council has still not received any information from the Government. May we have a statement on why certain council areas are excluded from the funding through the framework, what the thinking is behind that, how they can be supported, and what else the Government can do to help councils that have been substantially damaged by flooding?
Penny Mordaunt
The hon. Lady’s question affords me the opportunity, on behalf of us all, to thank all those emergency services and others who have been working to protect our communities through snow, floods and high winds in the past few weeks. I am sorry to hear that she has not had information through from the relevant Department. I did write last week on a similar matter about eligibility criteria, and I will make sure that she gets a copy of that answer from the Department. As departmental questions are a couple of months away, I will raise the issue with the Secretary of State.
Sir Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
Could we want for any better evidence that the mandate for the covid inquiry is already out of date than hearing that the evidence of serving and former Cabinet Ministers, and of the former Prime Minister, about the origin of the covid virus has been ruled out of order? Let us have a statement from the Government about updating the mandate for the covid inquiry two years on from when it was set up, so that it can properly deal with the origins of the disease, the efficacy of both the vaccines and the lockdowns, and the huge number of NHS excess deaths. This is an inquiry that must serve the people of this country and the victims of this terrible disease, and it is already out of date.
Penny Mordaunt
My right hon. Friend raises an extremely important matter. Some of the issues that he raises were not in the original terms of the inquiry. Even if they sit outside the work of that inquiry, the questions that he raises are legitimate, particularly for our national security. Although it may not be possible to change the terms of the current inquiry, which is looking particularly at the Government’s response to that situation, I will certainly alert the Cabinet to the issues that he raises, which are related to national security.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
It is Thursday, so we have another question on contaminated blood. As the Government had Sir Brian’s recommendations on what compensation should be paid in April 2023, and we were repeatedly told that the Government were working at pace to be ready for the original November announcement of the final report, can we now please have a statement from the Minister about what progress has been made since last April to update the House, so that we can see that the work at pace is actually happening?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank the right hon. Lady for again diligently raising this matter. I met the Paymaster General yesterday to get an update on progress. Progress is being made, and I know that the Paymaster General will want to come to the House to make a statement on that. I know that he will do so as soon as he has something substantial to say, but I can assure the House, which I hope knows my interest in this area, that he is working to ensure that justice is served as swiftly as possible.
Sir David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
Some time ago, the Scottish Government refused an instruction from the Information Commissioner to publish written evidence from the Hamilton inquiry into the conduct of the former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. Last month, I attended the Court of Session hearing at which the Scottish Government were humiliated, at great public expense, in their attempt to reject the request. Despite a unanimous ruling against them by the highest civil court in Scotland, the Scottish Government still refuse to release that information. That extraordinary behaviour would appear to be in breach of the ministerial code, the civil service code and, indeed, the rule of law. May I ask the Leader of the House whether the rule of law in Scotland is at risk and whether we can have a debate and a statement on this matter?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank my right hon. Friend for raising this matter and the disturbing issues surrounding it. Although there is a debate about whether the court decision is binding or is binding in a particular way, we consider it to be a matter of accountability to the Scottish Parliament. I am sure that the Scottish Parliament will be asking questions of their Government in relation to those very serious matters, which my right hon. Friend has raised today.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
May I inform the Leader of the House that we already have a holocaust memorial centre at the University of Huddersfield at the heart of Huddersfield? All Members hope that the new holocaust memorial centre at the heart of Westminster will happen soon. Am I right in believing that an illustrious ancestor of hers—Raymond Postgate—wrote a book called, “The Common People”? Is she aware that common people in my constituency and up and down the country are being dreadfully exploited via Rachmanite landlords? They are being given a miserable life, with rack-renting or letting every room in the house as a bedroom. What is going on in the rented sector is a scandal. May we have a debate on that?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank the hon. Gentleman. I learn something new every session. I shall have to investigate the first half of his question, but he is absolutely right to raise the plight of tenants who either are in unsuitable accommodation or are being exploited by their landlords. The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has done an enormous amount of work on that issue, both on building quality and ensuring that tenants are protected, and I shall ensure that he has heard what the hon. Gentleman has said.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
Energy national policy statements have a significant impact on my constituents. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend’s officials and her Parliamentary Private Secretary for finding some information in advance; I know that the statements were laid before Parliament on 22 November, and it was then declared in a written ministerial statement that they had been approved by Parliament. Although I have returned to the Back Benches after many years, I remember that the Government in the past laid a resolution before the House, and I participated in that debate on 18 July 2011. I do not believe we have had a debate on these particular statements, so I would be grateful, even if we have gone past the legal deadline, if my right hon. Friend found time for one.
Penny Mordaunt
I thank my right hon. Friend for raising that question. The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero made a written ministerial statement on 22 November presenting the five revised energy national policy statements for parliamentary approval. She deposited copies of all those documents in the Libraries of both Houses, and they were available on gov.uk. She also sent a letter to all hon. Members on 9 January highlighting the scrutiny period of the NPS. Following the expiry period of 21 days, no objections were received, and the Secretary of State designated them on 17 January. I fully appreciate that while all the i’s have been dotted and the t’s crossed, my right hon. Friend and other Members may feel they have not had the chance to discuss or offer their opinions on them. She knows how to apply for a debate, but I will certainly ensure that the Secretary of State has heard her concerns.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
I was pleased to hear this week that the UK Government have recognised the funding pressure on local councils in England and confirmed that there will be Barnett consequentials. However, we in Scotland can only hope—and as a keen follower of the problems that we have with the Scottish Government, the Leader of the House will be aware that it is probably a forlorn hope—that the Scottish Government will use the consequentials to cover funding gaps in our local councils and speed up repairs to mould and damp in social housing, which is becoming a critical problem. In Edinburgh we have a housing crisis, and even as we speak my council and others across Scotland are trying to figure out how to fill the gaps that the Scottish Government have left. I was, however, disappointed that there was no clear mention in the statement about how the UK Government would enforce measures in Awaab’s law to improve social housing. May we have a statement on the steps the Government are taking to enforce those new rules, if only to provide a template for the Scottish Government on how one can support local councils?
Penny Mordaunt
I think the hon. Lady for her question. At the last oral questions, the Levelling Up Secretary highlighted that local authorities have been given the chance to take 100% of the receipts from right to buy and invest them in social housing. We have provided a very good funding settlement to the Scottish Government— at least 20% more funding per head than the UK Government spend on the same things in other parts of the UK—but more often than not the Scottish Government do not pass that funding either to local authorities or, in the case of support for businesses, to those businesses. That is a very sorry state of affairs; if it could be rectified, we would have a much better chance of dealing with the issues she raises.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
As T. S. Eliot opined, time present and time past are inseparable, for we are what we remember—who we have known, where we have been, what we have done. When dementia robs people of those precious memories, as it does for 850,000 people, their lives are diminished. That often happens with age, and with age come other conditions such as arthritis, which affects one in six people, or diabetes. Can we have a statement on the Government’s major conditions strategy to ensure that that strategy is holistic and takes account of the fact that many people suffer from multiple conditions?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank my right hon. Friend for raising this very important matter. The Health Secretary will not be answering questions until 5 March, so I shall relay to her his interest in this area. We can combat those particular major conditions partly through research. As he will know, several research missions in dementia care since 2010 have arrived not just at fantastic new drugs but made connections between dementia and those other conditions that he outlines.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I was recently contacted by a constituent who had been unfortunately caught out by an online scam involving Google gift cards. Fortunately, they got their money back, but Action Fraud decided not to investigate. On further investigation, it turns out that, at a time when online fraud is rapidly increasing, the number of fraud cases being investigated has gone down by a third. May we have a debate on what more we can do to make sure that the online world is safe from these scamsters and fraudsters?
Penny Mordaunt
I am sorry to hear what the hon. Gentleman’s constituent went through, but very pleased that they managed to get their money back. This morning we had the latest figures from the crime survey of England and Wales, and I am pleased to report to the House that fraud has decreased by 13% with notable reductions of 33% in advance fee fraud and 40% in other fraud. The actions that the police and the other agencies that support them on this matter are taking are having an effect. We have a plan and it is working.
Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)
May I, too, send my condolences to the family of Sir Graham Bright, who was incredibly kind to me when I was a candidate and gave great support and advice over many years?
I have been robustly raising the concerns of residents of Kytes Drive in Watford regarding a planning application, including bringing a petition to Parliament about the long-term use of the site, to ensure that it would be suitable and used only for people who were veterans, those with disabilities and older people. I am pleased to say that, by ensuring that the chief executive of Anchor heard residents’ concerns, I have had a small long-term win: Anchor has agreed to pursue a local authority lettings agreement prioritising the housing needs of people with disabilities, veterans and other vulnerable people.
Dean Russell
Although I appreciate that my right hon. Friend may not be able to comment on planning specifically, can she advise me on how I can best encourage the council to take up that offer?
Penny Mordaunt
That was a lengthy question, Madam Deputy Speaker—I could hear you coughing—but the answer will be short. My hon. Friend has provided his own answer and got it on the record. We all encourage the council to act as he wishes.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
The Government’s flagship policy for a generational ban on tobacco sales has many health benefits, of which the Leader of the House will no doubt be aware, but is she alarmed that it will not apply in Northern Ireland, where it will be frustrated by the EU tobacco products directive? Even if a Northern Ireland Assembly were in place, it could not trump that directive. Will she ask for a statement to be made on what is more important: the health of all the people of the United Kingdom or tobacco policy outlined by the EU?
Penny Mordaunt
The hon. Gentleman will know that one reason we want to get the Executive re-established is to ensure that the people of Northern Ireland are able to make decisions relating to themselves, and that principle also applies to the point that he raises. I will ensure that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has heard his concerns. The UK Government have previously stepped in and made interventions in the health space. Although I note that there would be difficulties with regard to that particular EU directive, I think this is something that the UK Government should think long and hard about.
Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will know that we had a debate on steel this week in which Members on both sides of the House raised concerns and questions, particularly in relation to the UK’s ongoing ability to make its own virgin steel. That is an incredibly important issue on which there is much more to say. Will she support a debate in Government time so that we can discuss it further?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank my hon. Friend again for her diligent work in speaking up not just for steel producers but for the users of those products. It is incredibly important that we retain those sovereign capabilities. I know that she takes every opportunity in this Chamber to champion those issues. I am sure that she will apply for another debate on the matter, and my office stands ready to assist her.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
I draw the House’s attention to early-day motion 204 and my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The industrial dispute in the Pensions Regulator has now reached its 50th day because the regulator is offering a pay rise lower than the UK Government’s pay guidance. May we have a statement or a debate on the Government’s pay review guidance and what actions can be taken against agencies that do not comply with it?
Penny Mordaunt
The hon. Gentleman will know that the next chance to question the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on this issue will be on 5 February. I encourage him to attend those questions.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I bring good news from Kettering, where 16 mature street trees have been saved from the chop. Gipsy Lane is one of the older and most attractive roads in Kettering, but there is going to be a 340-house development at the end of it, and under the original planning application, 21 very mature trees were to be chopped down to facilitate access. However, thanks to the proactive engagement of Councillor Jason Smithers, the leader of North Northamptonshire Council, and of the developer Places for People, the good news is that 16 of those trees will be saved. May we have a Government statement on the importance of keeping mature street trees wherever possible—they are attractive and good for the environment—and will my right hon. Friend praise the leader of the council and Places for People for the decision that they have taken?
Penny Mordaunt
Good on my hon. Friend, good on Jason, and good on all the residents who supported their campaign. I will certainly make sure that the Secretary of State has heard that my hon. Friend’s work has been triumphant and encourage him to make a statement, as my hon. Friend suggests.
Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
The permanent secretary of the Department for Work and Pensions claims that his Department is “making good progress” in dealing with its staffing crisis. However, the PCS union has obtained figures for the year up to last November showing that while the Department recruited 8,495 new staff, there were also 8,031 leavers in that year—far short of the aspiration to recruit 5,000 staff per quarter. Will the Leader of the House seek clarification as to the true state of the staffing crisis at the Department and what action is being taken to accelerate the recruitment drive?
Penny Mordaunt
I am always here to assist the House and hon. Members, but the hon. Lady can raise that matter directly with the Secretary of State on 5 February.
Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)
At my most recent constituency surgery, I had the pleasure of meeting Southend’s outgoing Member of the Youth Parliament, the amazing Madi Faulkner-Hatt. Madi raised with me the alarming statistic that the number of eligible pupils claiming free school meals drops by 26 percentage points when those pupils leave primary school, from 77% down to 51%. Given that figures from the House of Commons Library confirm that the number of eligible pupils, of course, remains the same, may we please have a debate in Government time on what more can be done to make sure that every eligible pupil is encouraged to take up their free school meal at all stages of their education?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank my hon. Friend for taking the time to meet Madi, and I thank the Youth Parliament, which has made that issue its campaign focus for this year. My hon. Friend will know that around 2 million pupils currently have free school meals, but we are also doing much more outside of term time through our holiday activities and food programme—about £200 million is invested in that every year. I thank my hon. Friend for raising this matter. She will know that the next Education questions are on the 29th.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
At the beginning of the month, I had a meeting with a veteran who came to my advice surgery, who was gay. In what was a genuinely upsetting and moving meeting, he described the profound impact on his life of having lived in fear of being convicted and of the genuinely horrifying, homophobic environment at his work. We have had a statement and an apology in the House, which is welcome, but we have not had a debate in which the voices of LGBT veterans can be heard and their compensation scrutinised, so please may we have that debate in Government time? This is a very important issue.
Penny Mordaunt
I thank the hon. Lady for raising this matter. I am sure that many Members would want to attend such a debate—she will know how to secure one. Last week, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) raised the issue of those serving in particular parts of our armed forces or our intelligence agencies who were unable to give evidence to that investigation because of the nature of the work they were doing, so there are still some unresolved matters that need an airing, and I encourage the hon. Lady to apply for that debate.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
The Government have rightly given local authorities additional money this year to fix potholes, which are dangerous to cyclists, can cause really expensive bills for motorists and make neighbourhoods look unsightly. Will the Government consider requiring councils to publish information each month about what repairs they have done and on which roads, in an easily accessible format, to aid scrutiny and accountability so that residents can see what is being done with their money?
Penny Mordaunt
My hon. Friend raises a very important point and makes a very good suggestion. The waters are often further muddied by the local authority working with contractors: it passes the money to those contractors, and it is then hard to keep tabs on how it is being spent. We know that in certain parts of the country, potholes are not being filled in, despite the local authorities being given money to do so. By 15 March this year, the Government will require local authorities to publish a plan of how that extra money is being spent and, thereafter, quarterly reports summarising which roads have been resurfaced. My hon. Friend reminds us that that plan needs to be in an accessible form, because hon. Members need to be able to see it, and our residents need to see it too.
Alistair Strathern (Mid Bedfordshire) (Lab)
Residents in the new town of Wixams have been waiting nearly 15 years for a GP surgery. Despite 3,000 families having moved into the town, there is still no sign of one, with many having to drive over 14 miles for routine or emergency appointments. Sadly, they are far from alone across the country in facing this challenge. Will a Health Minister make a statement on how we can do more to get much needed primary care provision into areas of high housing growth and how we can reform the system to make sure that these types of challenges cannot happen again?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this matter, and I would encourage him to raise it with his local commissioners as well, if he has not already done so. They will be responsible for those capital plans. I will make sure that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has heard what he has said, given that her next questions are not until 5 March.
Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)
This week, the Diana, Princess of Wales Hospital in my constituency opened its new accident and emergency facilities, which will enable patients to get to expert clinicians sooner than they have been able to do until recently. The building was backed by £4.4 million of Government funding. Would the Leader of the House agree to our having a debate on the amount of infrastructure that the NHS has built since the last election to recognise the scale of the investment and the beneficial effect it is having on patients?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank my hon. Friend and congratulate her on what she has helped to secure for her constituents. The Government are investing record sums to upgrade and modernise NHS buildings so that staff have the facilities needed to provide world-class care for patients, including over £9 billion in this financial year, and totalling over £25 billion over the spending review period. These are incredibly important investments that often not only increase the capacity in places such as her A&E department, but are designed with the staff who will be working in them so that they are set out in the best way for them to deliver good care. I have to say that—in some cases for the first time—this includes facilities for members of staff to enjoy a break and a sleep when they need it.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
In response to my question on 11 January, the Leader of the House told the House about
“people in England paying lower tax than people in Scotland”.—[Official Report, 11 January 2024; Vol. 743, c. 455.]
She also said that her Government had delivered a “balanced budget”. Last week, I asked the Leader of the House to correct the record since both those things are untrue, which she refused to do.
The House of Commons Library has now confirmed that no UK Government have delivered a balanced budget since 2000-01 and that this Government do indeed pay the equivalent of £318 million every day in debt interest, while the Scottish Government must by law deliver a balanced budget every year. It has also confirmed that the majority of people in Scotland—the majority—pay less tax, including council tax, than they would if they lived in England. I can share this information with the Leader of the House if she wishes to see it. So I ask again: will the Leader of the House make a statement correcting the hugely inaccurate information that she gave to this House on 11 January?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I was very careful in the figures that I gave the hon. Lady, and I stand by them. They are completely true and factual. In addition to having the Office for Budget Responsibility, we are very open and do not mark our own homework on this front. Perhaps before next week, the hon. Lady might like to read what Audit Scotland has said about her own Government’s performance.
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
As many as 2 million grandparents do not have contact with their grandchildren. Conversely, the number of children who do not have contact with their grandparents is even higher. Given those large figures, it is likely that the constituency of every single Member in this House has someone suffering from this condition. Next week, there is an exhibition in the Upper Waiting Hall with a quilt of love and hope made by grandparents who are estranged from their grandchildren. Can we have a statement from a Minister on whether the Government will consider amending the Children Act 1989 to give grandchildren the right to a relationship with their grandparents when they are blocked from contact, which mainly happens as a result of breakdowns in parental relationships?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that important issue. Not being able to see a grandchild can often be heartbreaking for grandparents and it is also an experience that the child misses out on, as we know the incredible value that grandparents can bring to their lives and upbringing. Although grandparents do not have an automatic legal right to see their grand- children, they can try to secure access through an informal arrangement or via a court order. My hon. Friend might consider raising his questions and helpful suggestion with the Secretary of State for Justice on 20 February.
Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)
Last Friday marked a full year since the Joint Committee on the Draft Mental Health Bill published its report, setting out a series of important recommendations to improve the rights of people with mental health problems detained under the Mental Health Act 1983. In that time, there have been 51,312 detentions under the Act, according to NHS statistics published this morning. Despite repeated promises, we have still not had a response from the Government, who will say only that we will get an opportunity to debate any Bill when parliamentary time allows. Will the Leader of the House please allow parliamentary time for that vital legislation as an urgent priority, to protect some of our most vulnerable constituents?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank the hon. Lady for raising another important matter. She will know that we have a draft Bill, and although it was not in the King’s Speech, when parliamentary time and the legislative programme allow, we will consider bringing that forward to the House. I shall ensure that the Secretary of State has heard what she has said, and she may be interested to know that I have also been speaking to the legislative team at No.10, and with officials at the Department of Health and Social Care, about measures that the Bill would have helped.
We still have a number of people in inappropriate care settings, and subsequent reviews have been initiated by this Government—starting with Sir Stephen Bubb’s Winterbourne report, to mention just one—about people with mental, learning or behavioural disabilities. Everyone ought to be in the right setting and be looked after, and if we are not able to bring forward legislation, I know that the Secretary of State will be looking at practical ways that we can make that happen.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
This Government have done more than any in history to bring jobs and opportunities, especially manufacturing opportunities, to areas such as mine, so much so that unemployment in Rother Valley is now only 2.8%. The Leader of the House will know that South Yorkshire now has the UK’s first investment zone, which will bring 8,000 new jobs—many of them high quality manufacturing jobs—and leverage £1.2 billion of investment to Rother Valley’s doorstep. To celebrate the opportunities and wealth this brings for everyone in the country, and the increase in manufacturing jobs in Rother Valley, may we have a debate in Government time on that massive uptick for local economies?
Penny Mordaunt
I congratulate my hon. Friend on all the work and success that he has been having in his constituency—it is very good news indeed—as well as all the employers, the business community and everyone else who has helped to deliver that incredible progress. I am sure he knows how to apply for a debate, and I hope that many other Members across the House would have similar good news stories to tell if such a debate were to take place. g
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
In the market town of Honiton that I represent, youth sports groups have been struggling because of inadequate sports facilities. That is true of at least three clubs—football, gymnastics and rugby clubs—that I have visited. Ensuring that we have healthy, active children is not just the responsibility of schools, so may we please have a debate to discuss how local authorities can be encouraged to identify space for young people’s sport?
Penny Mordaunt
This is a very important matter—it is important for health, for mental health, and often for the economic regeneration of particular areas. The hon. Gentleman will know that the next opportunity to ask questions to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport will be on 22 February. I shall ensure that she has heard his concerns, and ask her to get her officials to contact him to offer some advice.
Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)
The Leader of the House will be aware that despite being bailed out with more than £6 billion by the Government, the Mayor of London has continued to plead poverty at every opportunity and seeks to deflect blame to the Government for his many appalling failures to keep Londoners safe and to keep London moving over the past eight years. Given that the Labour Mayor of London has now suddenly found more than £500 million behind his sofa for pre-election giveaways, will the Leader of the House please confirm how Members can have a debate on the powers of the Mayor of London and how we can seek an audit of his financial mismanagement of Government and taxpayers’ money?
Penny Mordaunt
I understand my hon. Friend’s concern and why he raises it. I notice from the BBC London news this morning that the Mayor of London is now going back to the Government to ask them to bail out the black hole that was discovered last week in the Met’s budget. That is despite a £6 billion bail-out being given to the Mayor, plus his increasing the Mayor’s part of council tax by 71% since he came to office.
In that debate, we might like to consider the Mayor’s spending plans, which have seen £30 million given to unions to avoid the 140th strike on the transport network on his watch. A similar amount was spent on increasing staffing costs. There has been a 57% rise in mayoral office costs and a 33% increase in press spending. There was £10 million for the Metropolitan police to determine their personality type, £1 million-worth of free advertising for lingerie and vaginal moisturiser—believe it or not—and £5,000 of taxpayers’ cash for Transport for London’s staff’s junk food, despite the banning of junk food adverts on the tube. That is what Labour do in power, and we all know what we need to do if we do not want it to continue.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
I learned to swim at Withington baths—
Jeff Smith
Indeed, the shadow Leader of the House also learned to swim there. It is a lovely Edwardian building in the heart of Withington. When the coalition cuts hit Manchester so hard around 10 years ago, the council was forced to transfer ownership to a community group. Under its leadership, the leisure centre has gone from strength to strength, and last week it celebrated the completion of a highly successful heritage refurbish project. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating the board and volunteers at Withington leisure centre? Perhaps we could have a debate in the House to recognise the work of volunteers and community groups in running local facilities.
Penny Mordaunt
What a fabulous good news story. I join the hon. Gentleman in congratulating them all. Members will know that this is a subject close to my heart. I have gone above and beyond to save my local lido, which will this year undergo a huge heritage refurbishment, thanks to the levelling-up fund. These things would not be possible without an army of volunteers, first standing to ensure that the community asset transfer occurs, and then also helping to run the facilities and to engage the community. What a wonderful story. If the hon. Gentleman manages to secure a debate, I will come and listen.
Mr Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Ind)
It will shortly be 25 years since the establishment of the Welsh Assembly, so we have had 25 years of 60 Senedd Members stealing a living from the taxpayer while delivering zero identifiable benefits for the people of Wales to explain their existence. At the Welsh Affairs Committee recently, the Secretary of State for Wales was unable to name even three benefits of devolution when I questioned him. In 1997, the Labour Secretary of State for Wales in this place said that devolution was “a process”, “not an event” and should be continuously reviewed—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I think the hon. Gentleman needs to be careful with his language when he uses the word “stealing”. He might want to reconsider that.
Mr Roberts
I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Members of the Senedd may be questionably obtaining a salary for not doing a great deal of work—that may be a better way of putting it.
Will the Leader of the House confirm which Department should be reviewing devolution and when the last review was? Can we have a debate on whether the people of Wales are happy with having devolution at all?
Penny Mordaunt
The answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question is that it is the Minister with responsibility for the constitution whose remit will cover such matters. The problems he raises relate to the performance of the Welsh Labour Government. I think it is the longest period of time that Labour has been in power, and we can really see, given the state of the NHS and the other things that it looks after, what a blueprint for a Labour Government looks like.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to bring issues to the attention of the Leader of the House, and the House. This time, it is a good news story. In the light of recent progress in Pakistan on religious education, our heartfelt thanks should be given to the Minister for Federal Education and Professional Training for developing the inclusive religious education curriculum for grades 1 to 12 for minority religions in Pakistan. Will the Leader of the House enable the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to monitor the situation as it unfolds?
Unfortunately, not all is good news. I bring the spotlight back to the situation in Tibet, where Chinese repression continues to be applied, with human rights violations committed especially against Buddhists in Tibet. Will the Leader of the House join me in condemning China’s repression of Buddhists in Tibet, who have a right to hold their religious views?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank the hon. Gentleman for again bringing to the House’s attention these important matters, which would not otherwise get much airtime. It is nice to have some good news, and it shows the difference that particular Ministers can make under difficult circumstances. I am sure the whole House will join him in congratulating that particular gentleman.
I join the hon. Gentleman in condemning China’s repression of Buddhists in Tibet. The Foreign Office will monitor both those situations closely. I thank him again for raising them.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Ind)
It is sadly impossible for new patients to find an NHS dentist in Blackpool. It is estimated that 40% of my constituents— some 35,000 people—cannot currently access NHS treatment. Every single week, I have constituents attending my surgeries pleading with me to get them the treatment they so badly need. Only last week, a mother attended my surgery who had had to remove the teeth of her six-year-old daughter with pliers because she was in so much pain and could not access the treatment her family needed. As the NHS dentistry recovery plan is long overdue, would it be in order for the House to receive a ministerial statement on when we may finally see some progress on this issue?
Penny Mordaunt
I am sorry to hear about the situation in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. I happen to know from recent meetings with the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom), who is responsible for this policy area, that she is doing a lot of work, which she will be keen to bring to the House’s attention in short order.
The hon. Gentleman will know that the Government have given a considerable uplift to local commissioners to ensure that providers are in place. From memory, I think £50 million was given at the start of last year. I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister is interested in what commissioners have done with that money as it was flexibly given—it was not ringfenced—although it was specifically given for dentist treatment. She is looking into that matter, and I will be interested to see what the answer is in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency.
Secretaries of State in the House of Lords: Commons Scrutiny
Procedure Committee
(10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
We now come to the Select Committee statement on behalf of the Procedure Committee. Dame Karen Bradley will speak for up to 10 minutes, during which no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of her statement, I will call Members to ask questions on the subject of the statement. These should be brief questions, not full speeches. May I emphasise that questions should be directed to the Select Committee Chair and not to the relevant Government Minister? Front Benchers may take part in questioning.
Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)
With permission, I would like to make a statement on the Procedure Committee report “Commons scrutiny of Secretaries of State in the House of Lords”, which was published yesterday. I thank both the Backbench Business Committee for finding time for the statement and the Clerks of the Committee, who put the report together in very short order to ensure that we could report as soon as possible in the new year on this important matter.
You will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that Mr Speaker asked the Committee to examine this issue after the appointment of Lord Cameron as Foreign Secretary. He asked us whether any historical precedent could be adapted to allow non-Members to participate in Commons proceedings, and whether options for scrutiny should extend beyond departmental questions to statements, urgent questions and debates.
I would like to thank the 131 colleagues who responded to our survey, and those who submitted evidence to our inquiry. Almost nine in 10 of those who responded to our survey wanted to see more direct accountability of Lords Secretaries of State in the Commons. Around 85% thought it should include departmental question times, urgent questions and statements. Almost two thirds thought it should take place in the Chamber.
Some colleagues raised concerns that changing our procedure to facilitate scrutiny would legitimise the appointment of more senior Ministers in the Lords. The constitutional question of the House in which senior Ministers sit is not in the Procedure Committee’s remit, but our clear preference as MPs—the elected representatives of our constituents—is that Secretaries of State should sit in the Commons. That is why our recommendations are limited to this Parliament, to deal with the issues that the House faces now. They should not set a precedent for the future.
We have great respect for the work of the House of Lords in its scrutiny of the Government. The other place has great expertise and experience of foreign policy and international affairs among its Members. The Foreign Affairs and International Development Committees do excellent work holding the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to account, and I support their calls for Lord Cameron to appear regularly before them, as Secretaries of State in the Commons appear regularly before their departmental Committees. But their work complements scrutiny in this Chamber— it does not replace it.
As the Chair of the International Development Committee, the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), told us, Select Committees and the Chamber have unique mandates, functions and purposes. They are not synonymous. Scrutiny by elected MPs on behalf of their constituents is a fundamental part of our democratic system, as is debate across the Dispatch Boxes between Ministers and the Opposition. Therefore, every MP should have the ability to directly question the Foreign Secretary.
The Minister for Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), and his ministerial colleagues do an excellent job, but the Foreign Secretary is ultimately accountable for the FCDO. As the Leader of the House acknowledged in her evidence to us, there will always be some issues that the House and our constituents would expect the Foreign Secretary to answer for.
We considered proposals for using Westminster Hall or Committee Room 14 instead of the Chamber, but they would restrict participation to a fraction of the House. We do not believe that is acceptable or practical. That is why we have recommended that, for the rest of this Parliament, Secretaries of State who sit in the Lords should appear at departmental question times, make ministerial statements and answer urgent questions that a Secretary of State in the Commons would normally do. They should speak from the Bar of the House, not the Dispatch Box, which should continue to be reserved for Members of this House.
Such an arrangement will rightly require the agreement of the House of Lords. We are confident that the Lords will agree that in the modern age, and at a time of growing global tensions, it is not tenable for the Foreign Secretary not to be scrutinised by elected MPs on behalf of our constituents. I therefore urge the Government to bring forward the necessary motion as quickly as possible.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
Following yesterday's debate on the situation in the Red sea, there was no retrospective vote on UK military action. The debate was responded to by the Minister of State from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), who is a brilliant Minister and answered expertly. In the light of the work of the right hon. Lady’s Select Committee on accountability for Secretaries of State in the House of Lords, does she think that another precedent is Lord Carrington? He resigned during the Falklands war for not having anticipated the Argentinian invasion, despite warnings from Members of this House.
Dame Karen Bradley
The question of whether a vote is required for military action is not a matter that the Procedure Committee deals with, but I am sure colleagues on the Front Bench heard that point.
On the matter of Lord Carrington, the hon. Gentleman will recall that at that time the Prime Minister appointed a deputy Foreign Secretary to sit in this House, so there was somebody with the ability to answer for the whole Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as it then was, in this Chamber. However, the hon. Gentleman makes a pertinent point.
Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for ably chairing the Procedure Committee in its deliberations and for compiling this topical and timely report. Will she assure Members such as myself, who can perhaps be regarded as sceptical of innovations in this House, that the proposals contained within this excellent report are deeply wedded in tradition? Indeed, it was the case that, in 1814, the Duke of Wellington came to the Bar of the House to answer questions from MPs. Now, while the Duke of Wellington and Lord Cameron may have enjoyed rather different campaigns in Europe, it is none the less deeply wedded in tradition.
Dame Karen Bradley
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. I know he is very, very concerned with matters of the constitution, and with ensuring that we look at precedents. I can assure him that, as Mr Speaker asked us to, we started from historic precedent. He rightly cites the example of the Duke of Wellington in 1814, who I believe received the plaudits of Members while at the Bar of the House. I think a painting of such can be seen in the National Portrait Gallery.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
I congratulate the right hon. Lady and her Committee on an excellent report. I very much agree with its recommendations. The Leader of the House said that the Government would respond shortly. Has she had any indication from the Government that they will accept the Committee’s recommendations? She said that it needs the agreement of the Lords. What sort of timescale is there for how quickly that process can be agreed?
Dame Karen Bradley
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question and for his comments about the report. The report was published only yesterday, so I would not expect to have heard any response from the Government yet. I am sure that the Leader of the House will ensure that a response is forthcoming shortly. He is absolutely right. We have to bear in mind that the other place is an independent body and its Members are governed by its rules, which say that Members should not appear before this House without explicit permission from the other place. That includes appearances in front of Select Committees, Bill Committees and so on. We will wait to see how long such matters might take, but I hope that the other place will recognise and acknowledge the real concerns in this place that we should be able to properly scrutinise. We have to remember that in this House we represent the people who sent us here. The other place has great expertise and contains some great minds, but it does not speak on behalf of constituents in the way that we have to as elected Members. That is an important distinction.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Chair of the Procedure Committee for her statement, and for her very succinct and helpful answers. We all know Lord Cameron and recognise his ability and qualities to do the job that we need. I am very conscious that we live in a very dangerous world, where there are wars and rumours of wars, to cite the Bible. With the Foreign Secretary in the other place, that leaves a gap in accountability. Today, I believe that that accountability gap has been addressed. Does the Committee believe that accountability in this House is the priority and that our constituents deserve that as well?
Dame Karen Bradley
I thank the hon. Gentleman, and hon. Friend, for his comments. I would have been disappointed if he had not contributed, so I am very grateful he stayed to take part. He is absolutely right. This is the concern that the Committee has had throughout: that there is a democratic deficit if we cannot raise concerns on behalf of our constituents. We are in our constituencies hearing what our constituents are concerned about, so we know what people on the ground are feeling. That is no criticism of any Member in the other place, but they simply do not have that day-to-day contact with constituents. That is why we felt that it was so important, particularly in the world that we see today, that we were able to scrutinise properly the work of the FCDO and the Secretary of State. We are not suggesting that the Secretary of State should take part in debates—we accept that debates are a different matter—but there will always be statements, and some urgent questions, to which it is appropriate for a Secretary of State rather than a Minister to respond. Again, this is no criticism whatsoever of the excellent Ministers in the FCDO, but at times a Secretary of State has to be the one who responds, and that is what we have put in our report.
Backbench Business
Holocaust Memorial Day
(10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Holocaust Memorial Day.
I thank the right hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi)—who is not in the Chamber—the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) and the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for co-sponsoring the debate. Let me also pay tribute to two organisations, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and the Holocaust Educational Trust, both of which devote much energy and time to organising the events that help us to commemorate the holocaust. Without their excellent work, we would not keep alive the memory of those who lost their lives in the Nazi death camps, or indeed those who were killed in other genocides from Rwanda to Cambodia and from Bosnia to Darfur. Without them, our efforts to learn the lessons of history would weaken and fade away.
This is the last time I shall have the privilege of participating in this important debate, but it could not be a more difficult and depressing time to do so. I have just returned from a short visit to Israel. We went to support the people who lived on Kfar Azar, a kibbutz that we had visited in February last year. Many of those living on the kibbutz were people committed to peaceful co-existence with their neighbours in Gaza, but tragically many were killed on 7 October, many who survived are distraught because their loved ones were captured as hostages, and many, especially the women, were treated with the utmost abominable, sadistic cruelty, sexually assaulted in utterly inhumane ways, and then murdered. Israel and its people are experiencing a national trauma and a real, existential fear for their survival, with memories of the holocaust at the heart of their minds; and the same is true in Gaza, with innocent civilians experiencing a similar national trauma, an identical existential fear and a comparable terror of genocide as they live with bombardment, death, injury, displacement, and a lack of humanitarian aid.
So we meet at a deeply depressing time to reflect on the holocaust, with many asking themselves, “When will the world ever, ever, really learn from our past?” But the truth is that we must keep trying. This year’s focus for Holocaust Memorial Day is the fragility of freedom. That theme allows us to reflect on how, by better understanding the past and better understanding how easily freedom can be eroded, we can act today to make the world a better place for those fleeing persecution today.
I want to raise these matters in the context of my own family’s experience. Like others, I lost close relatives in the holocaust: my grandmother, whose last written words to her son, my uncle, were “Don’t forget me completely”, and my uncle, whose wife wrote in a letter pleading for his release, “He’s only a number to you. He’s everything to me.” But I had other relatives who escaped days before the start of the war, and were dispersed across the diaspora as they sought safety. They too were victims of the assault on Jews, they too suffered hugely, and they too should be the focus of our concerns as we commit ourselves to its never happening again.
My grandfather came to England on 29 March 1939. He was 66 and had just recovered from a prostate operation and an embolism in his leg. We have a powerful account of his experiences and emotions in the diary that he kept. He described his last visit to his parents’ graves in Vienna, in tears because he would never visit those graves again. He recalled how his parents, my great-grandparents, visited the graves of their own parents, my great-great-grandparents, in Poland, in tears because they were driven out of their homes by pogroms—a never-ending cycle of violence.
My grandfather described his feelings a few days after arriving in England:
“Because of the lack of language skills very lonely, depressed, cannot memorise, miserable pronunciation. Living like a recluse.”
Even six months later, he said that those who stayed in Vienna
“may have saved themselves from all the horrors and all the difficulties of emigrating.”
He talked about antisemitism in Britain and how it reached up into the Government, when the only Jew in the Cabinet was sacked by Neville Chamberlain. On his arrival in Britain, my Jewish refugee grandfather was classified as an “enemy alien.” That was later changed to “friendly,” but he was still an alien.
At 8.30 am on 27 June 1940, in the middle of a war that led to the death of 6 million Jews, my grandfather was in his bath and there was a knock on the door. He was arrested, removed from his home and interned. He tried to ring his doctor to certify his illnesses but then, as today, no doctor picked up the phone. He was taken to Huyton, in Liverpool, and given a number: “Group number 28/2, number 1428.” He was housed in overcrowded conditions with a rubber sheet, straw and blankets. In the early days, he was not allowed to write or receive letters. The sanitary conditions were dreadful, and the German Jews found themselves housed with German Nazis. His freedom was indeed fragile. Our treatment of Jewish refugees was unconscionable.
Fast forward to my own experience. I came to the UK from Egypt, stateless, in 1949. After the creation of Israel, Egypt became an increasingly hostile environment for Jews. My father had a stone thrown through the window of his office and, with the memory of the holocaust still raw in his mind, he decided to get the family out of Egypt. We were rejected by three English-speaking countries, and the UK finally, to my father’s eternal gratitude, gave our family of six entry visas to this country. My father’s freedom was indeed fragile.
Five years later, we were still stateless and my father applied for British nationality. At that time, my mother was dying in hospital and my older sister and brother were away at school and university, so I was at home with my younger sister. She was six and I was nine. A Home Office inspector came to tea. I remember that occasion vividly as, instead of our usual boiled eggs and toast, we had to eat cucumber sandwiches and fruit cake, which I absolutely hated, having grown up on succulent fresh fruit in the middle east. Worst of all, we were interrogated —two young girls on their own—for a full hour on who our friends were, what books we read and what games we played. My freedom was indeed fragile, dealing with a hostile, not friendly, environment that remains forever locked in my memory.
What do all these stories tell us? My family know, and indeed the families of millions of refugees know, that freedom is never guaranteed. We should understand that how we treat those who escape persecution and genocide is central to our reputation as a country that boasts a humanitarian approach to genocide and the holocaust.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the right hon. Lady for securing this debate and for the tone of her speech. Most of us are proud friends of Israel. I think of what the nation of Israel was put through because so many people would not speak out, and we saw the result in the horrific atrocity that is remembered today. Does she agree that we remember not out of a sense of morbidity, but out of the absolute necessity to ensure that the lessons taught by the slaughter of the Jewish people are learned by people of all faiths, so that it is never permitted to happen again?
Dame Margaret Hodge
I completely share that sentiment expressed by the hon. Gentleman.
As I was saying, we are not as good as we proclaim to be. My grandfather did not feel welcome and I did not feel wanted as a nine-year-old girl. The asylum seekers who try to come here today face a similar hostile environment. They are told by leading Government politicians that they pose an “existential threat” to the west’s way of life, that they are part of a “hurricane” of mass migration, that MPs feel “besieged by asylum seekers” and that asylum seekers are “invading” Britain. We should reflect on what we say and what we do today before we exercise any moral entitlement to condemn the atrocities of the past.
The language we use today matters; the laws and practices of today designed to exclude many of those seeking freedom from persecution, which make a mockery of our commitment to the victims of genocide, matter; the fees we charge for visas today matter; and our refusal today to allow those seeking asylum to work matters. The hostility my grandfather faced in 1938 and the trepidation I felt when subjected to questioning in 1954 echo through the generations. All of this contributes to our credibility in the debate on the holocaust and subsequent genocides.
So before we applaud ourselves for keeping alive the memory of the holocaust, we should think about how fragile freedom was then for those who sought to escape death and how fragile it remains today. We must take responsibility and stand up to genocide wherever it rears its ugly head, and we must protect those who seek refuge in Britain. If we stand by while genocides unfold, or fail to protect those who need it the most, the horrors the likes of which my grandfather, father and even myself experienced will have all been for nothing. Freedom is one of our basic values, so surely we owe it to our children and our children’s children to be able to stand up and really mean it when we say, “Never again.”.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Father of the House.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I apologise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) for missing the first minute of her speech. I was trying to get a transcript of the hearing yesterday at the Select Committee on the Holocaust Memorial Bill, when four of the witnesses were Joanna Millan, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, Dr Martin Stern and Dr Lydia Tischler, each of whom is a holocaust survivor.
Some in the House will also have been present at the holocaust memorial commemoration when the holocaust candles were lit—five of them were lit; I was asked to stand in for someone who had had a transport difficulty; I did the one for those who had suffered at Darfur.
We have been given a good introduction to this debate with the moving speech we have just heard. I hope it will be possible to put on wider record the experience of the four people I have cited, who came as witnesses to the Committee having been produced by Baroness Ruth Deech, who herself talked about how her family had been destroyed in the Nazi holocaust.
We have rightly been reminded that our hands are not clean. It would have been possible for the state of Israel to have been created in the 1930s, and possibly 6 million people would have thus survived. Three quarters of the Jews in Europe died.
I have said in the past how much I welcomed the emphasis that the Holocaust Commission has put on education, which has been followed up by words from the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation. I have said that I had had a vague idea that perhaps 10 of my grandfather’s extended family had died, but we now know that the real figure is more than 110 and possibly more than 120. That kind of education matters. I do not claim to have had the family experience that the right hon. Member for Barking has had, but I think that more of us will know and understand more if we have a personal connection of some kind.
I have spoken in the past about my first cousin once removed, George Woodwark, who was one of the Westminster medical students who thought they were going to help people suffering from malnutrition in the Netherlands, but were diverted to Bergen-Belsen, where they helped to save the lives of two thirds of those who were still breathing at the time of liberation.
On another occasion, we should have a further debate about the controversial proposals for a memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens, but I do not want to disturb this debate by going into too much detail about that now. What I will say is that if people get the chance, they should go to the Holocaust Galleries at the Imperial War Museum and, if possible, read a copy of the book “The Holocaust” produced two years ago by James Bulgin, which describes how things grew.
I will quote a paragraph from the book about Adolf Hitler:
“Hitler’s early years of adulthood were spent pursuing an unsuccessful career as an artist in Vienna. Service in the First World War changed his life, however, giving his aimless existence a new sense of purpose and direction. Radicalised by the shock of defeat, he became convinced that Jews had conspired to ensure Germany’s downfall. These ideas were first introduced to him by soldiers he was convalescing with after being injured during the war. After the war, he was sent to spy on a Nazi meeting, but became enraptured by the message of the movement—by 1921, he had become the leader of the Nazi Party. In 1923 Hitler led an ill-fated attempt to overthrow the government which became known as the Munich Putsch. He planned to take control of the Bavarian state government and then march on Berlin. The uprising was quickly suppressed and Hitler was arrested. He was sentenced to five years in prison for treason, but was released after just eight months.”
That was a decade before Hitler took his National Socialist party—the Nazi party—from doing pretty badly in the last elections in the 1920s to doing reasonably well in the proportional representation elections in 1933. The people who thought they had control of Germany thought they would make him Chancellor as a way of controlling him; they were wrong.
In any education associated with the holocaust—or whatever name people choose to call it, because “the holocaust” is a relatively recent name for the horrors, the terrors and the intended annihilation of a whole people—we need to understand that people can come up in the way that Adolf Hitler did. They may have gone to a meeting, found a small group, turned it into a more powerful one, recruited a private army and started marching around with the aim of taking control. If that sounds familiar from recent events in other countries, so be it.
We have to beware of private militias. We have to give the state a monopoly on resisting the potential of violence, so that it can resist by force those who are behaving dangerously badly. We have to ensure that message is not known just in this country, but in other countries as well.
When I first stood for election, there were about 40 countries around the world that had reasonably democratic political systems, in which people who lost elections accepted the fact they had lost. That number increased to about 80 or 90, while the number of countries in the world rose from about 190 to 210. We are now, I think, going backwards. More people may have a better standard of life, but I do not think they have a better standard of democracy.
The flexibility of people who are willing to use elections as a way of accepting defeat, not a way of guaranteeing victory, matters. We have to have a way of controlling, and if necessary confronting with force, those who would use force to subvert our country or any country, or would try to launch a genocidal attack on a whole group of people defined by their race or religion—or, for those who are Jewish, the overlap of the two.
When there was the attack on 7 October in Israel, on Israelis, someone wrote to me saying, “Why do they keep picking on us?” There are 16 million Jews around the world, but the number would probably be three times higher if it had not been for the holocaust. We have a responsibility to get better education about the holocaust going. We ought to ensure that people do not just get the chance to see an exhibition, but that in virtually all parts of their life, whether geography, history, current affairs or international relations, they understand how people rose to take control of their countries. People should be able take part in something that is different and an alternative.
I understand that I will not always get my way—within my own party, within Parliament, and within the country. I might not always be re-elected. It is important that we learn the lesson that democracy is about trying to achieve a good purpose but being willing to be defeated and to try again, without taking to the streets with guns or going into exile. Even more importantly, we have to ensure that people do not find themselves dead because of other people’s prejudices and very cruel behaviours.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
I, too, thank the Backbench Business Committee for making time for the debate. I am grateful for the way in which the application was dealt with. When we went to the Committee, I felt that we were pushing at an open door. Its willingness to find time in the Chamber was exceptionally welcome, because this year of all years it is important that the debate take place right at the heart of Parliament. It would have been no less powerful in Westminster Hall, but it really matters that it is here. I pay tribute to my co-sponsor, the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge). Her speech was one of the finest I have heard in my 22 years in Parliament. It would have been powerful just for her to share her family experience, but for her then to take that experience and draw parallels and lessons for the world today made it a wholly exceptional contribution. She will be remembered and missed in future Holocaust Memorial Day debates.
Next year, it will be 80 years since the end of the second world war. With every year that passes, the act of memorial becomes more and more important. Members can do the maths for themselves: I was born in 1965, 20 years after the end of the second world war. I was born into a world where many of the older people in my community had lived experience of it. They had fought in different parts of the world, or made a contribution on the home front. I grew up reading comics that were rooted in the second world war—The Victor, The Hotspur and Warlord—so even in that way there was a context that I understood, which was unavailable to my children, who grew up with comics full of Japanese anime or whatever. If they have children, they will doubtless look at me blankly and say, “Comics? What are you talking about?”
As we get further from the lived experience, and those who survived the holocaust or served in the second world war become rarer, moments such as this become more important. As the right hon. Lady said, the work of organisations such as the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and the Holocaust Educational Trust—I pay particular tribute to the work of Karen Pollock—becomes more important too.
In the community that I represent in Shetland, we have our own story to tell on Holocaust Memorial Day. The Shetland bus was a fleet, or progression, of small fishing boats that went from Lunna and Scalloway in Shetland to bring those who were fleeing persecution and whose lives were at risk in Nazi-occupied Norway to safety—in Shetland, and then in the United Kingdom mainland. When we talk about the Shetland bus, we talk mostly about the work that it did in bringing downed airmen and others to safety, but it should be remembered that no fewer than 350 refugees came to Britain through that route. They were fugitives of the Gestapo. They were not all Jews, but many were. Indeed, I came across an article in The Jewish Chronicle from 2018 that highlighted an episode that I had never heard of. I share it with the House because it is remarkably potent to think of the contribution that my small community, right at the very north of this country, closer to Norway than to London, was able to make in that struggle. It records:
“Individual stories from individual sailings bring a human face to a brave, secret expedition. Just one example is the Bus’ first loss, Nils Johansen Nesse.
After dropping an agent in Bømlo, Norway, Nesse’s fishing boat Siglaos started the return journey to Shetland in dreadful conditions. Aboard were seven passengers rescued from Norway, including three children.
After several hours at sea battling the weather, the Siglaos was attacked by enemy aircraft. Nesse, who held his position at the steering wheel, sustained injuries to the leg and the head.
The boat returned safely to Shetland, but Nesse lost the fight for life, aged 23. Today, on a calm day in this picturesque, close-knit harbour town, it’s hard to imagine such heroic endeavours taking place.”
Imagine them we must, because it is part of history, and part of what brings us here today.
We have to recognise the context of today’s debate: what is happening in the world, and what is happening in Israel and Gaza as we speak. Apart from anything else, we know that the Jewish communities in this country feel so much more at risk and vulnerable than ever, as a consequence of what happened on 7 October. There is a balance to be struck. The focus has to be on what happened—otherwise, we risk disrespecting those who perished and those who survived it, and the families for whom it is a lived experience—but surely the whole point, as others have said, must be to ensure that it does not happen again. That is why when I read stories about a restaurant opening in Jordan called “October 7”, frankly I despair. It is something that has to be called out and dealt with wherever it happens.
As somebody who has massive reservations about what Netanyahu is doing in Gaza—and we can debate that another day—I look with horror at the incipient antisemitism that is creeping up in so many different ways. Let us not forget that antisemitism—something that is wholly irrational but that we never seem to eradicate —was at the root of what happened in the holocaust. The price of it not happening again is that those of us who care about what happened in the past have to be honest, open and courageous in calling it out when we see it starting again. If we wait until it has taken hold, it will be too late.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Ind)
I am going to talk to the House about my own personal experience of genocide: Bosnia in 1992-93. I was in Germany commanding an infantry battalion in 1992 when I rang my mother. I said, “Mum, my camp is beside this ghastly place called Bergen-Belsen. Do you know, Mum, it has rectangular mounds with signs that say, ‘Here lie 3,000 bodies.’ It’s heathland. It’s a foul place.” She said, “I know, Robert.” I said, “How would you know, Mum? You’ve never been here with me.” She said, “I went there in 1945.”
In 1945 my mother was a member of the Special Operations Executive, in something called the FANY—the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. It was the uniform they put spies into. She had gone there to try to find women who had been caught by the Germans and put into concentration camps. Seventeen SOE women had been killed—they were murdered, not executed. I asked my mother, “Why the heck haven’t you told me this before?” She had only told me that she was SOE a couple of years before that. She said, “Because I was ashamed.” I asked, “What do you mean you were ashamed? As soon as you could, you joined up, you learned to parachute and you learned to fight the Germans. You did your bit.” And she said, “You don’t understand; I was ashamed because genocide had occurred in my generation and we are all responsible.” That is what this is all about. We are all responsible for what happens in this world, and genocide happens so easily.
I did not understand what my mother was talking about until a few months later, when I went to Bosnia as the British United Nations commander. There was one hell of a lot of killing around us. I was appalled. To be honest, I went into a bit of a funk about it. I could not believe what I was seeing. I will not repeat some of the stuff that I saw, but how about crucifixions on barn doors; people scalped; people’s eyes pulled out with implements that are designed just to do that; and women in trees, because they had been raped and had then hanged themselves—they were mainly Bosnian Muslims. I was horrified, and then I felt what my mother had told me about: shame. Why had I not been able to stop this? I had soldiers and arms, and I was representing the great, mighty world forum of opinion, the United Nations. Yet near me, women, children and men were being murdered, stupidly. They were all South Slavs; they just had different religions.
Things got worse. Let me give the example of Ahmići. On 22 April 1993, the European Commission ambassador asked me to try to stop the battles, and I asked how. He said, “I’ll deal with the politics; you deal with the front- lines.” I thought, “You’ve got the good deal, mate.” Anyway, I went to the frontlines. As I went to the Bosnian Muslim frontline up on the hills, above the Lašva valley, a commander said to me, “We are not stopping this battle.” I was trying to stop the battles and bring about a ceasefire. “We are not stopping this”, the commander said, “because at Ahmići village, women, children and men are being massacred.” And I said, “No, that cannot be happening”. I did not think that could actually happen in this day and age. So I said, “Look, if I go there with my men and I discover you are wrong and I come back, will you stop fighting?” He said yes. I came off the hills and went down into the valley. I was with my platoon—about 30 men—and had four armoured vehicles. We were attacked as we drove along the valley by the jokers—Bosnian Croat special forces—but we just ignored them as their attacks bounced off.
As I went into Ahmići, the first thing I saw was the minaret, crippled and broken. It had been brought down. Then I went all the way through the village—it was a linear village about a mile long. When I took my men all the way to the top, I said to Alex Watts, my platoon commander, “Put a section on either side of the road in a sweep position. Let’s go down and find out what’s happened.” I walked down the road with my platoon commander in front of me. We started finding houses that had been destroyed. And then, at one house, the soldiers called me over and asked me to take a look. In the doorway was a man and a teenage boy. They were dead; they had been burned.
Around the back of that house, the men found a cellar. When I went in, I was hit first by the smell. Then my eyes focused and I saw what was in there—it looked like bodies. There were bones and heads—there was a head bent back, and I saw the eyes. I rushed outside and was sick. I thought, “God, how can this happen?” And I was there, with this great UN, the people who are meant to police the world, and I had failed.
I then had to make a decision. My instructions from the British Government—the Ministry of Defence; the politicians—were that I was neutral and was not to get involved; this was not my war. I was there purely to deliver aid. I thought that was appalling. The whole point of the United Nations, I thought, was to stop people dying. So I extended that role a bit. I escorted aid, but if people attacked me, I responded pretty robustly—not me, but my men. My men were great.
Do you know how we had to clear up that village? Do you know what genocide means? It means some poor devils with shovels having to clean it up—in this case they were my bandsmen, who were actually medics. Why did I choose the band to do that? It was because they were slightly older than most of my men. For some reason—I am sure that people will understand this— I felt that 18-year-olds should not be involved in clearing up bodies. I thought that a chap in his mid-20s, perhaps married, with some sort of sanity, should do it, rather than an 18-year-old lunatic—I don’t mean lunatic; I mean a boy, with all the testosterone in him. I also had girls —sorry, that is the wrong term; it’s women these days. You cannot be a girl if you are over 14, as I was told on the course I went on.
I remember this corporal in the band shovelling up the remains of a body, and saying, “Sir, this is Europe in 1993, not Europe in 1943. This is appalling.” I said, “Gosh, yes. Yes.” The next day I found a whole family—father, mother, boy and girl. The little girl, who was about seven, was holding a puppy. They were all dead. They were all in a line, where they had been shot. I said, “Oh, gosh. Pick them up. Take them to the morgue.” We did that. We took them to a morgue. It was horrific. Can you imagine what it is like for our soldiers to see that? All they see is their own family—their sisters. We took this family to the morgue, and I thought, “Well, that’s it. Done.” The next day, I went down that road again. Guess what? The family were back in front of their house. Guess what else? Wrong morgue. They were Muslims; I had taken them to the Croat morgue. I just could not believe it.
We then had the problem of what to do with the bodies. No one was going to deal with them. It was nothing to do with me—I was not meant to get involved in the war—but I had to deal with them, because of the disease, the smell. I got my Royal Engineers—lovely blokes—to dig a big pit, and we made a mass grave. We put about 100 bodies into that pit. Even then, we got it wrong—no one had taught me how to make mass graves—because we put them into the pit in plastic bags, until the International Committee of the Red Cross delegate, who happens now to be my wife, came along and said, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I said, “I’m burying people.” She said, “You’re not burying them in plastic bags. That’s not how you do it, ” so she led and my men emptied the bodies out—horrendous.
That happened in Europe and, as the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) said, watch out because it happens elsewhere. This happened in Europe, and we could not understand it. When we talk about the holocaust memorial theme being fragility, I call it the fragility of decency. People’s decency can rapidly be shattered. After all, all those people I saw were normal human beings. I thought—I don’t know why—“To hell with this!”, picked up my satellite phone and rang the Security Council of the United Nations from Bosnia. I got through to the operations room and said, “The Security Council is visiting Bosnia next week. Come and see what is happening out in my area.” I didn’t think anything of it, but next week I was told, “The Security Council of the United Nations is coming to visit you.” I thought, “My God, I must be important” —of course I wasn’t. They came, and I remember saying to the Argentinian Security Council member, “Look, sir, we have to do something about this. This is genocide.” They refused to accept it as genocide for several years. I always called it genocide; it was called crimes against humanity. The definition of genocide is simple, fundamentally: trying to eliminate a group of people for being a group of people that is separate. He said, “I totally agree.”
The Security Council of the United Nations set up the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia within a month. I have given evidence in four trials at the ICTY, and I have given evidence that was difficult. My men found it difficult—your soldiers find it difficult.
If there is a theme this year, it is one that has run along the same lines forever. Genocide occurred not just in the second world war by the way; it extended back well into the ’20s and has occurred repeatedly since. Our job is to highlight the fact that it has occurred. Our job is to make sure that we shout loudly that genocide has occurred in the past, and we like to think that it will not occur in the future, but it damn well will. Let us try to lessen incidents of genocide by shouting as loudly as we can, “Never again”.
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
What an honour and privilege it is to follow the right hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). I know he takes this opportunity every year to remind us that the kind of barbarity he saw is ever present in our world and that the only thing to do is to try to bring attention to it and to stop it from happening again. I am truly grateful to him for his personal testimony. I also thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge). What a privilege it was to listen to her speech, too. I am so grateful to her for talking to us about her experiences and the lessons that she and we must draw from them. There was so much she said that was absolutely spot on, and she is absolutely spot on that the language we use today truly matters.
I join colleagues in expressing my gratitude to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and the Holocaust Educational Trust for the amazing, extraordinary and dedicated work they do. At a time when hatred and mistrust are surging, this work is more important than ever. When I reflect on the holocaust, I simply marvel with horror at how ordinary people could herd children, toddlers, babes in arms, women, elderly people and the infirm into a gas chamber to kill them: the industrial slaughter of human beings. They were vulnerable human beings, including tots, who, in the normal course of the world, we would do our utmost to protect, whether they were ours or not. I just fail to comprehend what made ordinary people act in that way, and I fail to comprehend the scale and depravity of the holocaust.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda, so if hon. Members will allow, I shall give a voice to the testimony of Daphrosa, one of the survivors of that atrocity, and put it on the parliamentary record. Before the genocide, Daphrosa lived with her husband and five children. Her husband had a good job as a customs officer, and she had opened her own business, running a bar from the side of their home. They were happy. Her husband would always come home with presents for the children, and they would go out together to the lake—they had fun. They weren’t rich, but they were happy.
For years before the genocide, though, hatred and suspicion—words—had been growing, fuelled by divisive politicians and media incitement. Daphrosa heard the rumours being spread and rumours that her husband was a supporter of the rebels. Discrimination and segregation started to take hold, with shops refusing to serve Tutsis and even some churches refusing to offer the Eucharist to Tutsis. Her husband was scared, but even when trouble was being stirred up in the years before 1994, Daphrosa felt protected. Her Hutu neighbours sometimes drank at her bar, ate her praised chicken and called her grandma. Daphrosa’s Hutu housekeeper promised to protect her. But prejudice against Tutsi people was strong, and the dehumanising bile spread over the radio was powerful enough to turn those same neighbours into killers, rapists and torturers.
When the genocide began, Daphrosa tried to continue with her normal life. On the third day of the genocide, she and her children fled, but her husband was captured and beaten, and she was forced to return home. Her injured husband was sat in a chair in the living room. Daphrosa and her daughters were forced to take off their clothes. The housekeeper who had promised to protect them was the first to take part in their rape.
Daphrosa’s eldest son was called Allan. She remembers him as the model child, clever, with a great future in front of him. Allan tried to stop the rape, but the men beat and slashed him until he died and then threw him behind the chair. They raped Daphrosa and then her daughters. They slashed her breast and they mutilated her. Her husband was forced to watch the nightmare, terribly injured from blows with hammers and nailed clubs. He did not die until the next day.
On the third day of their torment, the militia brought a community officer with them. She took away the children, supposedly for protection, but Daphrosa heard the men joking that the girls would soon become their wives. Daphrosa was left in a home that had become a living hell, with the corpses of her husband and her son. Neighbours coming to the house to loot it simply ignored her plight, stepping over her and even stepping on her.
Miraculously, Daphrosa’s four younger children survived. The two youngest, Innocente and Eric, were taken in and hidden by a neighbour after being removed from the house. The older girls, Aline and Tina, were found alive in the capital Kigali after the war. However, as we know, survival does not mean an end to suffering. Daphrosa, Aline and Tina all fell pregnant as a result of the rape they were subjected to, and they were infected with HIV at a time when medicine was extremely scarce.
Aline’s own testimony tells how she was raped countless times after being taken away from her mother and their home. Not only that, but, after their return, as the only surviving Tutsis from their village, Aline endured further torment from the taunts of neighbours, who spread rumours about how she had been infected. At the time of the genocide, Aline was 14 years old. When she told her story years later, at the age of 25, she was living in despair while her rapists now lived happily with families and children. In her words:
“I have no future. I have no life...”
To be honest, I struggle to imagine how anybody could endure such trauma, and cope with the mental and physical scars of that ordeal. As we know, so many others endured these same terrible experiences, and as many as 1 million Rwandans were murdered in less than 100 days. The scale is truly shocking.
There are many appalling echoes of the holocaust in what was done to Daphrosa, her family and the hundreds of thousands of others. Of course there are differences, but, like the holocaust, the Rwandan genocide was built on decades of institutionalised racism. Like the holocaust, it was fuelled by dehumanising propaganda. Like the holocaust, it was organised and systematic in its brutality and, like the holocaust, the genocide in Rwanda was perpetrated, collaborated with—and resisted by—ordinary people: ordinary people such as Daphrosa’s neighbours who saw what was happening and made horrifying choices about how to respond.
Unlike the holocaust, the Rwandan genocide happened in most of our lifetimes, just 30 years ago. “Never again” rang hollow in 1994. In truth, I fear it rings hollow again today.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown), who reminds us of the importance of the experiences in Rwanda. Just as there were echoes of the holocaust in Rwanda, as she shared with us the testimony of that particular family in Rwanda there were echoes of what happened to some of the people in the 7 October attacks: breasts slashed, people raped and brutality taking place in front of families. I thank her for sharing that.
When I used to deliver holocaust education as a secondary school history teacher, I used to put up pictures for my students of the holocaust and those appalling scenes that we all know too well. We used to show the video footage and the pictures of the gas chambers and of the bodies of murdered Jews piled high. Never did I think that I would have the experience in my lifetime of visiting the site of a pogrom and smelling the rotting flesh of Jewish people who had been murdered. That happened for me three and a half weeks after 7 October, when I visited Israel with my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord). That is a memory and a trip that will live with us all.
Although in my 14 years in Parliament I have taken a number of parliamentary trips, I have never undertaken a visit that has been more important to me—and important to me in my lifetime, not just as a Member of Parliament. We visited Kfar Aza, the kibbutz that the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) spoke about. It was founded by peaceniks and led by a peace-loving leader, who was also the chair of the regional council and who was picked out and shot by Hamas fighters on his own doorstep specifically because of his leadership of that peaceful group.
At the time of our visit we could still smell the blood and the flesh that was still rotting in that community. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon will attest, we also visited the base where the bodies—or should I say the body parts—were being identified. I do not think either of us will forget the emotions we felt when the doors were opened to where the bodies were being kept in the refrigerators. The wave of smell coming towards us was truly shocking. Having delivered education on the holocaust, I never thought that in my time I would bear testimony and see the bodies and smell murdered Jews. It was a truly horrendous visit, but one I am very proud to have made, and I am pleased to come back here and at least share that experience.
When I delivered that education on the holocaust to year 9 students, what did I teach? I taught them about boycotts and how people were told not to buy Jewish goods and products. I taught them about Jewish community facilities and synagogues being attacked. I taught them about how Jews used to huddle in dark spaces, about how they were held in captivity against their will and about the people shouting on the streets for the death of Jews. I taught them about how children were indoctrinated with hate against the children of Israel.
I am afraid all that is what we are seeing today across large parts of our own country and, indeed, across the west. We now see Jewish products in shops attacked. We have seen Jewish schools in Canada shot at, not on one occasion but on two occasions. We have seen Jewish businesses torched in other parts of the west and, of course, we have had marches on our own streets where people have called for the death of Jews.
It is the same message but in a different era. It is not the brownshirts of the Nazis on our streets or the streets of Europe, parading through screaming and shouting that society needs to be cleansed of Jews. They have been replaced, I am afraid to say, by hard-left activists and associated useful idiots—“useful idiots” is a polite way of describing them—calling for a socialist intifada. They are joined by progressives, LGBT groups and feminists, who would not last a second in Hamas-controlled Gaza.
The cries of, “The Jews are our misfortune” have been replaced on our streets by calls for jihad, calls for an intifada and demands for Muslim armies to rise up and fight Israel. It is no longer Nazis crossing international borders to murder and round up Jews; it is Islamist extremists in Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and, of course, in Hezbollah if it had its way. Those groups are as clear in their intentions to commit a genocide against the Jewish people as Adolf Hitler was in his ramblings. That is not to say that we do not still have a problem with far-right antisemitism and racism—of course we do—but it has now been joined by those sinister groups and alliances of Islamist extremists and hard-left activists.
What was the response to the atrocities on 7 October by some of those people? It was not to come out in sympathy after the events of that pogrom; it was to stand outside the Israeli embassy within hours demanding boycotts of the state of Israel. As I have called out before, I am afraid that even in this place some people have spent a lot of time on their feet criticising the response to the atrocities of 7 October and not a lot of time condemning those actions. We have seen that in the media and civil society. Football pundits and actors who have never uttered a word about Yemen or the 85,000 children killed there, or about Sudan and the millions of people displaced, find time to add their voices and offer us commentary on Israel, sometimes promoting ancient blood libels.
We have even had Members of this place tweeting about an attack on a hospital that never took place. A blood libel; Jewish bloodlust—that is what that feeds into. Some of them never apologised for that, of course. Yesterday, we even had somebody accusing the Prime Minister of having blood on his hands. Who has blood on their hands for 7 October? It is Hamas, and the thousands of civilians who followed those fighters into Kibbutz Kfar Aza, Kibbutz Be’eri and other communities and stepped over the bodies of murdered Jews to loot and pillage their homes. That is who has blood on their hands. Some people in this place would do well to remember that.
I have been attacked for daring to call people out for giving a free pass. I will continue to do that—the bile and hate for me that came up as a result does not bother me, including from people targeting my post on Holocaust Memorial Day with words such as “Zionist scum”. I am a proud Zionist. I have never been prouder to be a Jew or a Zionist. People attack my Facebook page and tell me about the “Zionist rat hostages” and that “Nobody cares about the Jews”—all because I dared to say freely, as I thought I had a right to do in this Chamber, that I thought some people were not contextualising the response of Israel with the events of 7 October and were giving a free pass to terrorists. I will go on doing that, because I will not be silenced by those who seek to bully me.
And from members of the community who would otherwise be screaming and shouting about the gender-based violence that took place on 7 October? Not a peep. Not a word. Why not? Is it just the pressure of people’s inboxes? Is it something deeper and more sinister? I do not know, but I find it hard to understand how that is not called out. Why is that gender-based violence not acknowledged? Why do we not have young people on the streets of this country marching against what happened to those young Jewish women on 7 October? The most brutal rapes, breasts sliced off, people shot and then raped—necrophilia—and under-age girls subjected to the most appalling abuse.
Look at our streets. What do we have? Nazi and Soviet-era propaganda marching down our streets, and it is not being tackled. The police stand by as people call for jihad. They say that it is about context. The anti-Zionist stuff on our streets is directly out of the Soviet propaganda playbook, which itself drew heavily from Nazi propaganda.
Look at what is happening in our schools. Just a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned at Prime Minister’s questions the letters being produced by pupils in our schools that included such phrases as, “I do not believe all Jews are bad”, and a phrase challenging a Member of Parliament on why they believed the western media narrative that Hamas were a terrorist organisation. Where is that coming from? It is coming not from the school but from within communities in this country.
In Jewish areas in this country, we have flags put up illegally that will not be brought down. I, like many hon. Members, have watched the 47-minute video of the slaughter of people on 7 October, and the same flag was proudly displayed on the breasts and lapels of Hamas fighters. That flag is not being removed in Jewish areas because people are scared. Councils are scared to remove them and cannot guarantee the safety of people who take them down. Imagine if we had swastikas up. How long would they last? I am not comparing the two flags—of course not—but in a Jewish area where concerns have been raised about these triggering incidents, something that would be so triggering in a different way would be dealt with very quickly. We have seen that across the west.
What do I want from my Government? What do I want from this country? I want it to stand up for the values that I thought it stood for. I want the right to have a different view without being subjected to threats of violence. I know that many Members of Parliament who have a different view on this have had their offices and inboxes targeted, and have been threatened. Those are not the values of Britain. The values of Britain are that we allow and respect people’s right to have a different view. That is what I want my Government to protect.
I want to feel safe on the streets. I want Jewish people in this country to feel safe coming into central London on a weekend, which they do not at the present time. I want our democratic values to be defended. I want to live in a country in which children are not brainwashed with hate—be it hate against Jews, hate against members of the Muslim community, or any other hate. I want a Government and institutions that stand up and say, “That is not acceptable and we will do something about it”—not just standing up and saying, “We all condemn it,” but actually doing something about it.
I leave Parliament this year. I have never felt more ashamed or sadder about the state of some of our institutions, about our democracy and about people’s right to express their views freely without fear of being subject to violence or threats of violence. That is what is currently happening on our streets—it has happened on other issues as well—and it is dangerous.
In the time that I have, I want to refer to two holocaust survivors I met this week. One is Eve Kugler, who spoke at the Foreign Office event this week. She gave us examples, which are all too familiar today, of growing up in Germany and of experiencing Kristallnacht. Her father was taken off to Buchenwald but, fortunately, the whole family were eventually able to escape. So much of her story and testimony rings true today with regard to boycotts, the smashing of Jewish businesses and all the rest.
I also want to mention briefly John Hajdu, another survivor I met this week. He was born into a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary, in 1937. He shared with me his experience of being hidden in a cupboard by a non-Jewish neighbour. Again, that rings true with 7 October, when Jewish children on those kibbutzim were hidden in cupboards—it did not save some of them, of course. After hiding, John was eventually forced to live in the ghetto. Those who were not taken to concentration camps were forced into about 290 buildings, where at least 20 people lived in each overcrowded flat. He described the situation there as pretty grim, as Members would imagine; his experience was horrific, but fortunately during the liberation of Budapest, he was freed, minutes before the ghetto was about to be blown up
As I recounted those two stories, they made me think that John and Eve at least have one fortunate thing that some of the people who were affected by 7 October do not have: they lived to tell their story. Right now in Gaza, there are Jewish people who do not have a voice—who cannot tell their story. Those are the 136 hostages who remain, and in the brief time I have, I would like to name just a few of them. I would like to name all of them, but I appreciate that that is not going to be possible today.
I think particularly of Liri Albag, Karina Ariev and Noa Argamani—who, as Members will remember, was the young girl on the motorbike, seen pleading to her boyfriend as she was whisked away into Gaza. Her mother is dying and wants her daughter home, but Hamas refuse to release her. I think of Romi Gonen, Carmel Gat, Inbar Haiman, Judi Weinstein, Arbel Yehud, Maya Goren and Doron Steinbrecher. I think of Daniela Gilboa, 19 years old, Naama Levy, 19 years old, and Agam Berger, 19 years old—all women held currently by Hamas. I think of the Bibas family, the ginger-haired family; Members might remember the little baby who turned a year old in captivity, his parents, and of course his brother Ariel.
I think of Omer Shem Tov, the 21-year-old Israeli at the Nova music festival. I met his mother in early November: she was desperate for news about her son and utterly distraught. Of course, he has no voice today in this place, and neither do so many others. I think of Amiram Cooper, 85 years old; Oded Lifshitz, 83; Gadi Moses, 79; and Shlomo Mantzur, 85—people who are not too different from my parents’ ages. They should be at home with their families, enjoying the peaceful life of their retirement and their dotage. Of course, it is not just Israelis who are held: Bipin Joshi is a Nepalese citizen, and Avera Mangisto is a Tanzanian. There are so many other names I wish I could mention—Shlomi Ziv, Tsachi Idan, Matan Zangauker, Andrey Kozlov, Ohad Ben Ami, Sahar Baruch, Uriel Baruch, Ziv Berman, Gali Berman, Rom Braslavski—but of course, I cannot name them all today.
As I end my contribution, those are the people I will be thinking about: the Jews who do not have a voice, who again are being held as Jews were held 80 or 90 years ago, in dark tunnels, in cupboards and in cages, as we have heard. How is this happening again? It is now 2024, and here we are again: Jew hate, which never really went away, is manifesting itself for all to see in all of its gory, disgusting detail.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy). I thank the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for securing today’s debate and allowing us to talk about something that has always been important in this House—Holocaust Memorial Day has always been the day on which we remember and recommit ourselves to ensuring that the holocaust does not happen again—but this year, it is particularly important that we are aware of it.
Two things have happened to me personally since the last time I spoke in one of these debates. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland, I am of that generation for whom the holocaust was always history. We were told about it by our parents who had been children during the war and had heard about it. We had no personal experience of it, but information and knowledge about it was everywhere. It was in comics, in the films that we saw and the books that we read, everything from “The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank to “Schindler’s List”. We were aware of it, but we did not actually believe that it would or could ever happen again, because we would not let it happen again—it would never have happened in this country anyway, because we would not let it happen. However, since 7 October, I have become increasingly worried that we in this country are just a fraction complacent about the danger that anything like the holocaust, Darfur or Cambodia could happen here.
Just over a year ago, I went to see “Good” with David Tennant in the west end. It is an absolutely wonderful play: it is about a good, liberally minded academic whose best friend is Jewish and who lives in pre-war Germany. He becomes complacent about the Nazis and what they are doing, he gradually becomes seduced and involved, and it has a cataclysmic ending. The other thing that happened was hearing the first reports of what was happening in Israel on 7 October. I was in a taxi on my way to the airport to fly out to a friend’s wedding in Spain, and I remember thinking, “Oh my God, what’s happening? This is horrific.” I had no idea of what was to follow.
A few weeks ago, I was speaking to a handful of students at the University of Glasgow, and we were talking about various issues on campus. They told me that they had been to a debate about an international chain of coffee shops that happened to have an outlet just off campus. It was all very civilised—a chat and a strong debate—and then one of the students, who was Jewish, told me that one of the other students had said, “But it’s only Jews that go there anyway.” I was utterly horrified that a comment like that could be made in a meeting of young people in this country.
That is not the only example. I visited the synagogue in Edinburgh recently, where I heard the concern of ordinary people about what they are experiencing every day. The Jewish students’ association at Edinburgh University is one of the largest and fastest growing in the country, but its members feel completely isolated. Jewish students have written to associations across the country—to every university—asking for support against the antisemitism that they see creeping into their daily lives, and only a handful replied.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the answer is for people to engage with the lived experience of Jewish people and to understand the profound effect that it has on their lives? My constituent Natalie Cumming has written about the experience of her family fleeing persecution, both in Russia and the horrifying experience of her sister, who survived Auschwitz and whose story she retells in her book. That book was one of the most difficult reads of my life and I think that people need to engage with those stories and understand, so that they do not repeat that kind of prejudice going forward.
Christine Jardine
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is about listening to, hearing and engaging with the experiences of holocaust survivors. It is about hearing the direct relating of tales, as we did at Mr Speaker’s ceremony earlier this week, because surveys in America have discovered that 20% of young Americans do not believe that the holocaust actually happened, and something like another 30% believe that the holocaust is exaggerated —that it was a minor event. We are in a very dangerous position at the moment. Antisemitism is creeping in everywhere: we hear of it every day, from people who are finding that it is becoming part of their daily experience, and we are not aware of it. We are all good, liberally minded, intelligent people; how easy it would be for us to get drawn in and not realise what is happening around us—to let it happen. By the time we notice, it would be too late.
A few years ago, I visited Yad Vashem, the holocaust memorial in Israel, and one of the things that struck me is that it is built on a hillside. It is dark, scary and depressing. We hear the tales, we see the remnants of people’s lives that were destroyed by the holocaust and it has an oppressive feel to it. However, as we move towards the end, we see the light at the end of the tunnel, and we come out to a breathtaking view of Israel. At the moment, I feel that we are truly in such a dark spot, and we have to make sure that we do not get trapped and pulled further into antisemitism becoming accepted in this country. We have to remember the light is at the end of the tunnel, and strive for that.
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
I absolutely and totally agree with the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine), and I am a bit shocked by this, because it has come up on me. As a teenager, I lived in a little village in a prosperous agricultural area in the north of the South Island in New Zealand. It was a mecca for European immigrants, who flooded into the area, and the schools were co-educational and multiracial. There were plenty of schoolboy spats, especially on the rugby field, as Members can imagine, but I do not remember any racial aggravation at all.
Most of the men of my parents’ generation were involved in the second world war. Almost all of them served overseas from New Zealand, and when they came back they told stories, including some of the horrific ones we have heard today. Like a typical teenage boy, I got fascinated, and I haunted the village library for appropriate books. Inevitably, in reading them, I read the books on the Nuremberg trials and associated books, and to say I was morbidly horrified would be one of the biggest understatements ever. That was probably capped in 1982 when I saw, at a full-screen cinema, the film “Sophie's Choice”. As a father, that scene of the Gestapo officer walking the wee girl away was the stuff of nightmares, and it would have scarred any parent.
The United Kingdom medical and dental profession is very multiracial. There are a lot of people from the middle east, but also many Jewish people, some of whom I rank not just as colleagues, but as friends. Many are among the best of the profession, with lists of achievements to their name that go across the whole page. Most of them live in north London, and periodically they have made me aware of the progressive rise of what I saw as irrational antisemitic abuse, sometimes associated with violent activity. This activity and violence increased in the run-up to the last election, and then seemed to dull down a bit. To me, however, the Hamas outrage on 7 October—12,000 women, men and children raped, tortured, murdered and beheaded, and some 240 hostages—lit the fire again, as I have seen.
For many of us, this is the stuff of horror, but it has been submerged in the rise of these attacks on Jewish people, including the professional Jewish people in our community. These people have nothing to do with what Israel does to Hamas and no say in that, and what is happening to them is a complete disgrace, with hints of the early days of the Nazis in Germany. The attacks are frightening, and the most vicious, as I had explained to me by a very senior, top-notch dental practitioner, who is an expert on a number of key things and who is treating children—she had tears in her eyes as she was telling me this on Tuesday night—are the attacks on social media. Those attacks are coming on special social media for the profession, so we would assume that every single person writing on it was intelligent and educated, yet the vile abuse on it is ghastly. We are being asked to reflect—and I hope that we do—on whether, as many have said, this could be the thin edge of the wedge. It must not happen again.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I grew up in a household where it was common to hear family members discuss world war two. I knew about Hitler, the Sudetenland, Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill, and I had heard about Barnes Wallis and the Dambusters. To my shame, however, I have to say that I was an adult in full-time employment before I began to understand the meaning of the holocaust. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) for securing today’s debate and for her personal testimony. I also want to commend the other speeches we have heard, particularly the contribution of the right hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart).
My education has been assisted by a few very specific things. One is the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust. I will never forget going with a group of sixth-formers from a local school to Auschwitz one bitter cold February morning. I do not know who was more distraught by what we encountered, these young sixth-formers or me, but it was a total education and it left an impression on me that I will never forget. I am also extremely grateful to Scott Saunders, the chairman and founder of March of the Living, who has done so much to help inform and educate people, particularly about the events in Poland, but also about what happened in the concentration camps. I am indebted to him for helping me to learn that, before the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, there were 3.3 million Jews living in Poland, but by the end of the war, less than 400,000 of them had survived.
Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, including in highlighting the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust.
Mine was one of those families in Poland. There are now very few survivors left, and I think it is important that we recognise the experience of my father’s generation, or the baby-boomer generation—I went with him and my own children to Auschwitz last year—but also the work of independent researchers and organisations such as the Wiener Holocaust Library in bringing home to us what happened. We have the very last of that living testimony, so we need to encourage all those in the second generation and those research bodies to keep holocaust education alive.
Steve McCabe
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is something of a theme today that we must do everything to remember and to preserve that memory so that people do not forget.
As I have said, Scott Saunders was one of those who assisted me. I also read fairly recently a book about Witold Pilecki. There have been lots of excellent books about the holocaust and about certain aspects of it, but he was the Polish resistance fighter who actually volunteered to go into Auschwitz to gather information about what was happening. That was then given to the allies, and we chose not to act on it. We heard earlier in the debate how we maybe should not always feel so proud of our own record, and I think that is another example of where—with hindsight, admittedly—we should have done better.
Going back to my hon. Friend’s point, the other thing that has really helped me has of course been listening to the testimonies of holocaust survivors. They are all amazing people, but two in particular have had an impact on me: Mindu Hornick MBE, who lives near Birmingham, who was sent to Auschwitz when she was 12 years of age and never saw her mother or her brothers again; and Harry Olmer MBE, who is just an incredible man and an inspiration to anyone who meets him.
When I hear protests about current events in Gaza, I wonder what we have learned. I deplore the killing and the suffering we are seeing there. I want a ceasefire and an end to the killing, an enduring peace and a two-state solution, with Palestinians and Israelis living side by side in recognised and secure independent states. I want that as much as anyone else. But I struggle when I hear marchers, demonstrators and protesters chant “Ceasefire now” in one breath, and “From the river to the sea” in the next. What are they saying? What have they learned, and what are they advocating? Some know well what they are doing, but others need to stop and spend a little more time learning the lessons of the past. They need to reflect on how little their behaviour shows a desire for peace, and how much it is encouraging division and hatred.
I also wonder at the genuinely concerned people who contact me about the deaths and suffering in Gaza but skip over the 7 October attack, and who use with ease terms such as “war crimes” and “genocide” to condemn Israel and the Israelis, but seem to have overlooked an attack on Israeli civilians that was based on torture, mutilation, rape, murder and hostage taking. Some even tell me that the Hamas attack needs to be understood because of Israel’s previous behaviour. They usually show little knowledge that Israel pulled out of Gaza and removed all its settlements there in 2005, in accordance with the peace accords, and was promised in return a demilitarised Gaza that could become something like a Singapore of the middle east. Two years later, Hamas took over Gaza, and it has been a launch pad for attacks on Israel ever since.
The Nazis took people in. They used excuses and demands. They talked about the suffering of the German people. They blamed the Jews. They offered seemingly plausible explanations for their actions, and they lied about their intentions, while laying plans to exterminate 6 million people.
I am, and I always will be, a friend of Israel and the Israeli people. I am not a fan of the current Prime Minister, and I totally disagree with him and others who oppose a two-state solution. I believe such views are an obstacle to peace, and that such attitudes and behaviour risk giving succour to those who oppose the very existence of the Jewish state. But I will not accept the blaming of the entirety of the Jewish people for things I dislike, and I will not demand higher standards of the world’s only Jewish state than we do of any other nation. We need to remember the holocaust, and the way that seemingly decent people resorted to cowardly, wicked and savage behaviour, designed to wipe out the Jewish people. Those who shout for peace and ceasefires but not for peace and reconciliation have not learned those lessons. Their shrill cries and disruption of meetings and events organised by those who will not support them are dishonest and irrational, and show how much more we need to strive to learn the lessons of history, and why we cannot ever afford to ignore real genocide and the events of the holocaust.
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Holocaust Memorial Day
(10 months ago)
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Nicola Richards (West Bromwich East) (Con)
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), and I thank him for his commitment to the Jewish community in Birmingham and to Israel. It is deeply appreciated.
I have sometimes thought that I struggled to grasp the scale of the holocaust, because every time we hear someone’s testimony, we think we understand what the holocaust was, yet it is always only a tiny fraction of it. Every story in the holocaust is completely unique. Differing factors and testimonies include the country someone was born in, where they were made to move when tensions started to rise in Europe, where or how they managed to hide, how they were rounded up, and what happened to their friends and family. Then stories differ in how people watched their parents being murdered, how they cared for younger loved ones, how they got by, and how snap decisions they made saved their lives or those of others.
The holocaust was the murder of 6 million Jewish men, women and children, but it was so much more than that. The number 6 million is huge, but on its own it does not encompass the true scale of suffering. It is millions of people who did not get the opportunity to wake up in the morning in their homes and feel safe; millions of people who did not have the privilege of making normal, everyday decisions to get married, start a family, go to school, or have a career. It tore humanity apart, and stole the future from 6 million Jews and their future families.
The seventh of October was not on the same scale. It was not over the same long period of time, and it was not carried out by the same perpetrators. It was not even on the same continent. But 7 October was the biggest loss of Jewish life in a single day since the holocaust. On Tuesday I met a delegation of family members of hostages with the Leader of the House. A brave 23-year-old told us that she lost 60 friends on 7 October. Can anyone imagine losing 60 friends in one day? Sadly, many Jewish families know what that feels like.
I have really struggled with this, Mr Deputy Speaker. Accusations of genocide are thrown around too frequently, and I am the last person who would ever wish to draw comparisons with the holocaust. As Lord Pickles said earlier this week, there can be no comparison with the holocaust. We now have the Jewish state, and that was designed to ensure that history does not repeat itself. It was born out of the need to do just that. However, it is true that 7 October was the largest murder of Jewish people since the holocaust, and sadly the comparisons do not end there.
I visited Israel at the beginning of the year. I had the chance to visit the exhibition that survivors of the Nova festival have created. It was heartbreaking. On tables lay shoes, clothing and other items of ordinary festival goers who just went to dance. I could not help but see the table of shoes and be reminded of the pile of shoes in Auschwitz. Lying next to this table of clothes and shoes was make-up—the kind of make-up I use. In Auschwitz you see personal items that make you wonder what that person might have looked like or how they might have lived. When I saw brands such as L’Oréal, I did not have to think about that. I know exactly how they looked and how they might have lived. I know exactly what they were doing on that fateful day when their life ended. I know that they were not any different from me: young women in their 20s or 30s. They were doing what normal young people around the world should do—they were dancing.
I had hoped my visit would help me to understand how the attack happened, and perhaps the true motives. I think it is probably part of the natural human mind and reaction to try to make something so huge and terrifying make more sense. I heard stories about families murdered in a kibbutz. We visited Kfar Aza. We heard about a mayor who will never stand for re-election, because he bravely tried to defend his community, and about the young couple who were going to get engaged and how they texted their parents in the last moments of their lives before being slaughtered. I heard about a teacher set on fire in her house
I watched 47 minutes of this footage. Until then, some of the most disturbing images I had ever seen were of the holocaust and images of bodies strewn across Bergen-Belsen upon the liberation, but I had never known what a body looks like after being tortured, shot in the head, or burned until the only thing left is their teeth. I have seen footage of two young boys witnessing the brutal death of their father. I wondered how they survived. Why did the terrorists so calmly help themselves to a drink from their fridge while they screamed? Why were they not taken as hostages? Why were other children taken hostage? Why were other children and babies murdered without a chance?
The events on 7 October started with rockets, followed by a massacre at a music festival. They slaughtered people one by one, setting cars alight, raping women and girls and throwing grenades into bomb shelters. It did not end there. They went hunting for soldiers in military bases, raped more women, murdered more people and took more hostages. They went house to house, having already identified who lived where. Hamas enjoyed every second of it, even boasting in calls to parents that they had killed at least 10 Jews.
No two stories from 7 October are the same. I felt completely overwhelmed trying to grasp the scale of it, and the scale of the fear. If I am confused now, how must they have felt on that day and every day since? I never believed I would use today as an opportunity to talk about something other than the holocaust. I firmly believe that is what today is for; there are 364 other days in the year to talk about everything else, but I also know what holocaust survivors today are thinking, and I can only begin to imagine how they are feeling. They have dedicated their lives to telling their stories, much like the survivors of 7 October are now doing. They are furious that 7 October happened. It was never meant to happen again. Every year we stand here and say “Never again.”
We rightly label those who seek to distort or deny the holocaust ever happened as antisemites. They have the evidence, and plenty of it, but to them facts do not matter, because they believe they have a deeper understanding, borne of their hatred for Jews. Holocaust denial is antisemitic, so what about those thousands who do not believe that 7 October happened? They do not believe women were raped. They argue about how many babies’ heads were cut off, or if they were at all. Some, who have kindly written to me, tell me that 7 October, if it happened at all, was actually carried out by Israel. Recounting how I have witnessing 47 minutes of death and destruction makes no difference to their view.
One theory within holocaust denial is that the holocaust was carried out by European Jews. Some believe that Nazis and Zionists worked together in partnership and that, as a result of having scammed the world, the state of Israel was born. That theory features in a book called “The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism”, written by President Mahmoud Abbas in 1984. The same theory, but set in 2023, is now gaining traction on social media, particularly among young people. They believe that 7 October was carried out by Israel to legitimise military action against Hamas, or that Israel has been funding Hamas, or that Israel is exaggerating claims of the death and destruction at the hands of Hamas. What is this theory at its core? You tell me.
I will not even ask that we say “never again” one final time in this place before we make it a reality. Instead, people should understand what has happened to the Jewish people in October last year and since. We have the largest increase in antisemitic incidents on record, in response to the largest murder of Jewish people since the holocaust. The Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, last week made an important intervention. He said that claiming Israel is carrying out a genocide
“is a moral inversion, which undermines the memory of the worst crimes in human history.”
He said:
“It is a term deployed not only to eradicate any notion that Israel has a responsibility to protect its citizens, but also to tear open the still gaping wound of the Holocaust, knowing that it will inflict more pain than any other accusation”.
I will finish by quoting holocaust survivor Manfred Goldberg, who selflessly has spent so many years educating young people here in the UK with his testimony. He said:
“The majority of people in this country are not Jew haters, but they are often our silent supporters. And all that it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to stay silent.”
On this Holocaust Memorial Day—the day we remember the 6 million Jewish men, women and children murdered by Nazis—let us also think carefully about the current rise in antisemitism and what we, as individuals, are going to do about it. If 7 October was a fresh warning to the world about where antisemitism can lead, let us remember that it is against that backdrop that we are seeing record increases in antisemitism. None of us can afford to stay silent.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Nicola Richards), who gave such testimony of what has happened. I thank the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) for opening the debate in her customary fashion, telling us the story of her relatives and what they suffered, and reminding us that we should not be comfortable about what happened in the United Kingdom when Jewish survivors arrived. Indeed, it is even more important today that we recognise the atrocities that were directed towards the Jewish community before the second world war, and that continue today.
I declare my interest as co-chairman of the all-party Britain-Israel parliamentary group and the all-party parliamentary group on holocaust memorial, which we hope will be erected alongside this place. Some 79 years on from the end of the holocaust, we still have people persecuting and attacking people based solely on their religion. It is unacceptable, and I am proud that the Government are committed and steadfast in their support for Israel and the wider Jewish diaspora.
The theme of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day is “fragility of freedom.” That is particularly fitting, given the unstable position we find ourselves in today all over the globe. Although there will always be mild tensions between communities, we have to remember that there is a war raging in Europe, a terror war raging in Israel and Gaza, attacks in the Red sea, the Sudan war and growing concerns on the Asian continent. I have never felt more grateful to live in this country and to work in the heart of a thriving, free and fair democracy.
We often take for granted the privileged position of being able to get up in the morning, work in a career of our choosing, and be confident that we are being represented by elected individuals looking to represent our views. We do not fear for our lives every moment of the day, and we are not on constant alert for potential rockets. Sadly, that cannot be said for the rest of the world’s population, or even the Jewish population in this country, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) referred to.
Each year the remarkable survivors of the holocaust grow older, and sadly year by year their numbers decrease. It is therefore vital that we make a continued, conscious effort to learn their stories and the true history of the holocaust, so that we not only let them live on, but educate each other to ensure that we never allow the same atrocities to occur. I have had the privilege of visiting many of the holocaust sites across Europe and in Israel over my years in Parliament. Each time, I find the most remarkably striking thing to be that despite the abominable and unimaginable conditions that Jewish prisoners had to live through, somehow they maintained hope that liberation would occur.
Hope is one of the strongest, most determined and powerful attributes a person can possess. Many interviews with liberated prisoners from the Nazi concentration camps describe their fellow inmates losing hope and thus sadly passing quickly thereafter. Without hope, they lost purpose and died. I remember from a book I read that there was a rumour around one of the camps that they would be released on a specific date in 1942. The prisoners held on to that bit of hope for several years, until, several days before the alleged release date, they realised it was a malicious lie from the Nazis. A prisoner recounts how, almost instantaneously, many of those disheartened people died. For them, their hope was over and they could no longer hang on.
Last week, the temperatures around London plummeted. When I left home, my car thermometer was regularly reading minus 1° or even lower. I was lucky to be wrapped up in my hat, scarf and coat, but I could still feel the bitter cold. That puts into perspective how harsh the conditions were for the people in the camps, where temperatures frequently reached minus 10° and below, and blankets of snow covered the camps. Imagine that with minimal clothing, bare feet and bodies of skin and bone—it must have been unbearable. With people then physically and psychologically tortured on a daily basis, it astounds me how they never gave up and remained hopeful that one day they would be free.
I have an overwhelming amount of respect for the survivors of the holocaust, who so importantly and bravely share and recount their stories over and over for the benefit of others. To live through those circumstances and then be brave enough to share them continuously with others is a phenomenal feat, but it is crucial.
Antisemitism is not new, and it did not originate with Hitler. Throughout Europe, Jewish people have been subjected to antisemitism since the middle ages. The hatred escalated significantly after the great war, when the reparations placed on Germany and its allies were extreme. We had the Wall Street crash, followed by the depression, leading in turn to rampant inflation in Germany and the collapse of the Weimar republic.
Last year, I related some of the challenges faced between the wars in this country, particularly on the growth of antisemitism, but we should remember that the same thing happened in the United States, growing from the traditional hostilities of Christianity towards Judaism. Jews have been targeted since the middle ages. America was rife with antisemitism from the early colonial days. However, as Jews represented only a small part of American society, it remained dormant. Antisemitism flourished in the 1880s with the arrival of 2 million Jewish immigrants fleeing eastern Europe, particularly from parts of the Russian empire, where persecution was frequent.
Towards the end of the 19th century, conditions for Jews worsened with the passage of ever more restrictive legislation and recurring Government-initiated violent attacks against Jewish communities, commonly known as pogroms. Consequently, Jews began fleeing in great numbers to the United States. Many Americans, who originated traditionally from north-west Europe or Scandinavia, grew increasingly anxious about the arrival of mass immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, whom they considered to belong to inferior races, and they frequently questioned their religious beliefs.
We rarely talk about the antisemitic movement in America—more often than not, we concentrate wholly on Nazi Germany—but it was a grave situation across Europe, and also specifically in the States. Antisemitism became ever more common in almost every aspect of American culture.
Bob Stewart
What I struggle with is this: what is it that people hate about Jews? Is it about religion? What is it that has come across the ages? I just do not get it.
Bob Blackman
I thank my right hon. and gallant Friend for that intervention. It is hard to understand blind prejudice, but that is what it is. People are possibly fearful of the success of those who strive to do better for themselves, their children and their children’s children. That is the only reason I can think of: that people are jealous of what Jewish people have been able to do, solely through their own efforts.
I turn back to what happened in the United States. Newspapers and magazines were commonly printing antisemitic attacks. There were racist cartoons. Antisemites represented high positions in the federal Government. There was Jewish exclusion from social clubs and discrimination in employment opportunities. Many towns adopted zoning regulations to prevent the sale of land and houses to Jews. From 1922, following the example set by the leading University of Harvard, many prominent educational institutions imposed strict quotas on the number of Jews they allowed to study.
Throughout the 1920s, renowned car producer Henry Ford published a weekly newspaper called The Dearborn Independent, which attracted an audience of over 700,000 people. He launched a vicious and persistent campaign against “The International Jew”. He blamed the Jewish community for all that was wrong with society, from threatening the capitalist system to undermining the moral values of the nation. Notably, he even blamed them for the great war.
Many miles across the globe, that narrative was gaining traction in Germany with the rapid rise of the Nazi party under Adolf Hitler. Hitler, of course, was a prominent member of the German Workers’ party following the establishment of the Weimar republic, and often a firm favourite in the party for his engaging and passionate speeches. Throughout the 1920s, Hitler would ferociously campaign across Germany, promoting his party’s values of anti-communism, antisemitism and ultra-nationalism, appealing to both the left and right of the political spectrum and gaining considerable momentum as a result.
The political landscape in Germany took a sharp turn following the Wall Street crash in 1929. The economy slammed to a halt, and the USA loans that were helping repay the great war reparations soon dried up. The Nazis used that polarising landscape to exploit the crisis and loudly condemn the ruling Government. Slowly but surely, the Nazi party was gaining more and more support.
In 1932, Hitler ran for the presidency but faced defeat to the incumbent Paul von Hindenburg. The Nazi party became the largest party in the Reichstag, but it was still short of an absolute majority. Despite initial hesitations from Hindenburg, Hitler was appointed Chancellor in 1933. Although not yet a dictator, that was a pivotal moment for Hitler and his party. Soon after, the Reichstag was set on fire. Hitler was quick to hold the communists accountable for such actions and persuaded Hindenburg to pass the Reichstag Fire Decree, which severely curtailed all liberties and rights of German citizens. Hitler began to use that to eliminate political opponents and then all those who opposed him. With the groundwork for a dictatorship firmly in place, in 1934, following the death of President von Hindenburg, Hitler merged the chancellery with the presidency and became Führer, the sole leader of Germany.
The Nazi persecution of the Jewish community continued: subtly at first, then more and more discriminative, until in 1938 it took an exponential and unignorable turn. The night of Kristallnacht was a significant moment in the persecution of Jews in Germany. Until that point, although still despicable, the repressive policies had been largely non-violent. However, on the night of Kristallnacht, the Nazis torched synagogues, vandalised Jewish homes, schools and businesses, and murdered over 100 Jews. In the aftermath, some 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to the concentration camps. After Kristallnacht, the conditions for German Jews grew increasingly and drastically worse. As we know, by the end of the holocaust, some 6 million Jews had lost their lives—a truly shocking figure.
It saddens me that, almost 80 years later, the Jewish community is again being unjustly marginalised. The conflict in Gaza following the horrific terror attacks on Israel by the Hamas terror group on 7 October is a terrifying example of religion-based hatred still occurring today. The repercussions include a huge surge in antisemitic hate in the United Kingdom. It is truly appalling that in this country today schoolchildren have to hide their uniforms on the bus to protect themselves just because they show them to be Jewish.
My constituency of Harrow East boasts a large number of Jewish communities. The cultural, economic and diverse contributions that they bring are invaluable, and we should celebrate, not condemn, what they have brought to our society. It is at times like this in this country that we need to come together as one to fight hatred, not ignite further cultural wars. Israel is a small country, and it is highly likely that Jewish people in the UK will have family, friends or connections who are suffering from the deadly attacks that Hamas are inflicting on the state of Israel every single day. I urge hon. Members to reach out to friends or local people and offer their thoughts, prayers and support at this undoubtedly difficult time.
We must always remember the great struggle of the Jewish community, and learn from the holocaust to ensure that never again will such grave actions take place. We must do so for the sake of not just our generation but future ones to come, and out of respect for all those who sadly lost their lives during the holocaust. I will end with an important point from Zigi Shipper: “do not hate”.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
I feel humbled and privileged to take part in this solemn debate. This year, as in past years, it is an opportunity to show the House of Commons at its best. It is an honour to follow the powerful interventions by the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), the right hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) and others.
Every year in preparing for Holocaust Memorial Day, I struggle all over again to comprehend how a well-educated, highly cultured and seemingly civilised society in Germany could turn on its Jewish citizens with such cold-hearted barbarism. Those Jewish communities had been part of central and eastern Europe for centuries, and were so dehumanised by hate-filled Nazi propaganda that most people just stood by when their Jewish neighbours were herded in ghettos and then on to trucks and trains bound for the death camps.
Holocaust Memorial Day is an opportunity to remember a series of genocidal crimes, including the holodomor perpetrated on the Ukrainian people, about which I have spoken in past debates. But it is hard to think of anything that can match the sheer scale of the evil perpetrated by the Nazis in carrying out murder on an industrial scale, brutally cutting short the lives of six million Jewish men, women and children, and millions of others just because they were gay, Roma, Sinti, disabled or because they were brave enough to resist the Nazis. We need to remember the heroes who stepped up and saved people, sometimes putting their own lives at risk. There were heroes here who organised the Kindertransport and saved many lives.
We also need to reflect on this country’s approach to its mandate in Palestine and its decision to seek to reduce Jewish migration there in the 1930s, just when so many were trying to flee attacks in Europe. It is possible that many more could have escaped the Nazis if the British mandate authorities had taken a different approach. Even after the savagery of the holocaust was fully revealed, British resistance to Jewish migration to the Holy Land continued. Those Jewish people trying to make a new life for themselves in the Jewish state that had been promised were turned away and left in displaced persons camps. Some were even sent back to Germany, from where they had come.
As everyone has said, it is crucial that we remember the victims of the holocaust at a time when antisemitism is rising again in a way that is utterly unacceptable in any civilised society. The coming days are an opportunity once again to warn younger generations of the appalling consequences of antisemitism and where it can lead. I would recommend that anyone wishing to understand what happened visit Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. It is the only museum that has reduced me to tears. One of the most powerful exhibits is the display of shoes taken from holocaust victims at the concentration camps. These personal possessions—suitcases, glasses and shoes —provide one of the defining images of holocaust remembrance.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Nicola Richards), I felt a palpable sense of shock a few weeks ago when I saw another collection of shoes and belongings forever lost to the Jewish people who owned them. I saw that in an exhibition in Tel Aviv on the Hamas terror attack on the Nova music festival. The items had been retrieved from the Nova site and provided a truly chilling and harrowing reminder of the Yad Vashem display. I saw the Nova exhibition as a part of a trip to Israel declared in my Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
During that visit, I, too, saw the chilling 47-minute film of footage from the 7 October attacks. I did not want to see the film, but I felt I ought to. The horror of that footage stays with me in my nightmares, and I mean that literally—it haunts my sleeping hours. Once you see it, you cannot ever unsee it. I do not want to dwell on the horrors that the film contained, but I was struck by the brief clip shown of young people hiding in portaloos or seemingly in a rubbish skip at the festival. Those scenes are painfully reminiscent of the holocaust and of scenes portrayed in films such as “Schindler’s List” of children desperately trying to find any hiding place to escape the liquidation of the ghetto and deportation. It was a horror to see those scenes replayed just over 100 days ago. We should be in no doubt in this House of the genocidal intentions of Hamas towards Israel and all Jewish people—intentions in their founding charter, and which they have reiterated many times since the 7 October atrocity.
I want to conclude with a reflection on the recent brave article by Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, responding to those who accuse Israel of genocide. We should heed his words that misappropriation of the word “genocide” is an affront to the victims of the unspeakable crimes that we remember today. As he said, its use in this context is the ultimate demonisation of the Jewish state. It is a moral inversion that undermines the memory of the worst crimes in human history. As we say, “Never again”, on Holocaust Memorial Day, and we renew our commitment to combating antisemitism and racism, let us remember the November march in London, where hundreds of thousands turned out to support Israel and the Jewish community, many with placards telling us, “Never again is now”. Our vigilance against anti-Jewish hatred must never cease, wherever and however it manifests itself.
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
It is 22 years since I attended my first Holocaust Memorial Day event in Hendon. I would have thought that after all these years there was nothing left to say, but today’s contributions show that there is ever more to say, which in many ways is a great disappointment.
The first event was held in a marquee in Hendon park. I welcomed the idea of Holocaust Memorial Day, but I did question the sustainability of such an event and whether it would continue in the longer term. In 2002, antisemitism was not the issue that it is today, and certainly not as it was leading up to and including the holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis. The first event was well attended by many people. Many were Jewish, which is not surprising, because many of my constituents are of the Jewish faith. Holocaust survivors also attended, such as my good friend Renee Salt, and I was as pleased to see her then as I am each year.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) said, over the years I have welcomed attending the event—I never say that I am pleased to attend, because that is not appropriate. I value attending it. Over the years, Barnet Council has acknowledged more than the shoah—the name that Jewish people use to describe the holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis. Past speakers have included not just survivors of the Nazis and their relatives—some of them even elected councillors in Barnet—but people who survived the Bosnian massacres, the Rwandan genocide and the purge in Cambodia.
For many years, I have been interested in the holocaust. I was interested in how it happened, how it came about, why no one spoke out against it, why ordinary decent middle class Germans either did not know about it or refused to accept that it happened, and what consequences remain today. I remember reading Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” books when I was a teenager. He brought the horrors of the holocaust to me, from the third generation since the war, in the late 1980s. It should be remembered, as the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) reminded us, that it was just 40 years since the end of the second world war at that time. For people who had experienced the 1939-1945 war, such perceptions of events would be the same as the ones I have of the Falklands conflict in 1982.
Spiegelman’s book ends with his father’s emigration to America, so it has been left to other authors, such as Leon Uris in his book “Exodus”, to describe what really happened to most displaced Jewish people after the war. It has been acknowledged and is not disputed that the UK refused to take refugees from Jewish communities after the second world war. Many other countries in Europe also refused. Some populations took part in the murder of Jews alongside the Nazis. Others had simply misappropriated Jewish lands and property, and were not giving it back. Jewish people had nowhere to go and it was vital that a homeland was provided for the survivors. Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and it was the right course of action to re-establish the country on 14 May 1948. Almost half of all Jewish survivors of the holocaust, 49%, today live in Israel. About 18% live in north America and about 18% in western Europe. Approximately 1,200 survivors live in Britain, many of them in the Hendon constituency.
As Lord Blencathra told the Holocaust Memorial Bill Committee this week, the way different generations discover our history has changed. Many now read information from the internet. We all know that not everything that appears online is entirely accurate. But this has an impact on what people learn and their perceptions of past and current conflicts. For many people around the country, the holocaust is something they know happened but it does not impact them. But that is not the experience of many people in my constituency.
Yesterday, I spoke to a neighbour of mine, who told me about her daughter’s university experience at University College London. As she said, they are a liberal Jewish family who have a Jewish faith but are not orthodox. You would not know by looking at them that they are Jewish. Unless my constituent’s daughter told you she was Jewish, it would not be apparent. But what her daughter has heard in lectures and in the university itself are things she refuses to leave unchallenged. I have known her for many years and she is not a belligerent person, but students have told her that there are no Arabs in Israel, all Jews are wealthy and Jews control the world—all the usual tropes that we are now hearing more and more. She has pushed back but has been shunned by the other pupils, who refuse to sit next to her in lectures. Another student complained that there is an antisemitism tsar at UCL. My constituent’s daughter said that it was not a competition or even a privilege to have such a tsar, but that explanation was rejected and a demand was subsequently made for an anti-Islamophobia tsar, for no other reason than there is an antisemitism tsar. Young people in my constituency are now fearful of attending university and it is obvious why. Jewish students are held responsible for the actions of the Israeli Government, and the same is now steadily creeping into our schools.
There is a clear link between these attitudes and the terrorist attacks in Israel on 7 October. Those attacks were no different from what the Nazis were doing. Their intention was to kill as many Jews as possible and it remains a real concern to many of my constituents. Just like the holocaust deniers, there are deniers of what happened in Israel on 7 October. I will struggle a bit at this point, Mr Deputy Speaker. I cannot turn around and look at my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy). We did visit Israel a few weeks after the attacks and we did see things that I certainly never expected to see. And I did warn my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet not to watch the 47-minute video. We saw not only that video, but another video.
When we were at the Shura base, the colonel, I believe it was, in charge opened the mortuary. Just like my right hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), what I remember is the smell. It was the smell not only of blood and death, which I have smelt before, but formaldehyde, some kind of chemical used to preserve the bodies. Many of the bodies, approximately 200, were left there because they could not be identified. The reason they could not be identified is that some were headless, some were just a head, some were limbs and some were bodies fused together by fire. What really upset me and my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole was when the colonel whipped his phone from his pocket and showed us a video. I will not even mention what was on it. I do not talk to my staff or my family about what was there, but it was something that is not in the 47-minute video and it is not something that can be forgotten.
The events of 7 October are also quite personal due to the fact that Nathanel Young was one of the first to be killed. He was a student in my area at Beit Shvidler School. I recently visited the school and was upset when I saw his photo on the wall. The photo showed him with me and Lord Cameron at the 2013 Chanukah event at No. 10—he was part of the choir. I remember him distinctly because of his exuberance and vitality.
In the weeks since 7 October, I have received several emails from constituents. This has been touched on by hon. Members today and it is important to outline some of what people have said to me. One email said:
“I am writing to you today as a concerned member of your constituency and, more importantly, as a British Jew who is increasingly fearful for the safety of my family, friends, and community. Recent events have compelled me to express my deep concerns about the rise of antisemitic incidents and the apparent inadequacy of the response from law enforcement. Following the advice from the police on October 7th, instructing our sons to conceal their Jewish symbols while traveling to school, my family and I were already grappling with a heightened sense of vulnerability. As a community, we have observed instances where the police seemed to turn a blind eye to chants and unpleasant behaviour during weekly marches, fostering an environment where antisemitic sentiments are allowed to flourish unchecked. Recent events have left me questioning the assurances we once held that if these protests were to turn violent, the police would intervene decisively.”
She goes on to mention the alleged assault on a group of Israelis in Leicester Square on 20 January. She concludes by saying that she feels that she cannot allow her son
“to use any Hebrew or Jewish-sounding words when traveling, out of fear that he may become a target for senseless violence. It is deeply disheartening to realize that, in London 2024, Jewish people feel compelled to hide their identity and censor their innocent language for their own safety.”
Antisemitism is not restricted to my constituents. I have been subjected to two incidents in recent weeks, the second of which remains under consideration for prosecution, so I cannot say any more.
In conclusion, I will be attending Holocaust Memorial Day this year in Hendon. I will value it as much as ever. There will be a day when the Shoah will be an ancient historical tragedy, but unfortunately that will not be for many more years yet.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting the time for this debate. I was very happy to be a co-sponsor of it. I am very grateful to the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) for the way in which she opened the debate. It is very important that we have this debate every year in the Chamber and this year it is all the more pressing. Like others, I would like to put on record my thanks to the Holocaust Educational Trust and the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust for their year-round work, as well as their support at this time of year.
It is Burns Night tonight and his famous line:
“Man’s inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!”
well stands the test of time when we look at the world today, and when we look to the holocaust and the continued impact down the generations. Like the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), I am often frustrated by the increasing polarisation of politics and views. There are far more shades than black and white, and public discourse is always the better for appreciating that, and trying to at least understand the spectrum of views that are different from one’s own.
On this particular issue—perhaps it is the exception that proves the rule—the importance of holocaust remembrance and understanding why it matters is something black and white: there is one clear way in which to look at these issues. In an age of increased tension, global flux and the growing influence of those whose very purpose is to foster hatred for others, we need to be ever more clear about the need for “never again” to mean exactly that; but it will not happen without specific and concerted effort.
The theme of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day is “fragility of freedom”. To me things seem that bit more fragile and that bit more strained, and I was struck by hearing the same point made earlier this week by Rabbi Rubin, the Senior Rabbi of Scotland. I often speak in this place about the importance of freedom to follow the religion of one’s choice or to follow no religion, and across the globe that freedom is increasingly under threat. We are witnessing eye-watering spikes in antisemitism and Islamophobia. We need to mean what we say and stand up against that hatred—against the misinformation and disinformation, the tropes and the trolls, and the plain holocaust deniers. The hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) made a good point about the significant challenges in the online space.
We also need to be vigilant, and face hard truths. Intolerance and hatred are increasing, and those who peddle hatred, here and throughout the world, do feel empowered. The hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) spoke powerfully about the huge dangers posed by people spreading conspiracies, and the efforts to erode and deny democracy. We need to remember that genocides do not just suddenly happen in faraway places. They are always the product of the gradual and deliberate “othering”, demeaning, dehumanising and diminishing of people simply because of their identity. As was pointed out by the hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown), they are fuelled by ordinary people acting in extraordinarily awful ways, empowered by the encouraging and normalising of hatred. That leads to the industrial-scale evil described by the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers).
I was fortunate to attend my local holocaust memorial event at the start of the week, as I do every year. These events have been, without exception, profoundly moving, and this year’s was no different. I am grateful to East Renfrewshire Council and the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, especially Kirsty Robson, for putting it together so effectively. Our young people were at the heart of that event, and I applaud them all for their efforts. Students from all our local schools were there, notably Christopher James and Sarah Bone from St Ninian’s High School, who spoke about their involvement as Holocaust Educational Trust ambassadors, and Lexie Davidson from Mearns Castle High School, who has been working with the Anne Frank Trust. Kaela-Kaliza Molina, a young woman whose mother was caught up in the Rwanda genocide, read us a poem that she had written about the experience of her mother and so many others. It was entitled “We all bleed the same”, and you could have heard a pin drop.
The point that that young woman made—that point about the fragility of freedom—is illustrated very effectively by individual histories. The right hon. Member for Barking talked about her own family’s journey, much of which seemed to have been highly dependent on chance: it struck me that it could have been a very different story. We need to remember that we are talking about people and families, not just about the unfathomable number that we think about so often when reflecting on the holocaust while neglecting the individuals who perished.
At the event we also heard from Geraldine Shenkin, who spoke powerfully about her lovely mum, Marianne Grant, whose story has been captured in materials used in Scottish schools thanks to the work of Vision Schools Scotland, as well as in a beautiful book of her mum’s art which is now on permanent display in Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. Geraldine was exceptionally brave in telling that story, and I know that in doing so she spared us some detail because she was aware of the number of schoolchildren who were in the audience. Suffice it to say that her mum endured the most terrifying, inhumane and shocking treatment as she survived Theresienstadt and Auschwitz before her liberation from Bergen-Belsen.
Marianne Grant was an artist, and while in Auschwitz she was forced to draw for Dr Mengele, known as the Angel of Death, whom she recalled walking back and forth in front of her nose in his black uniform as she drew, “like a clock pendulum”. The horrors that she experienced are beyond our imaginings, but of course they would have been unimaginable to her too until her life was turned upside down in that most horrific way.
The same can be said of the lives of Henry and the late Ingrid Wuga, Kindertransport children who escaped and later met, married and made their home in my constituency. They have changed countless lives with their work telling our young people about the reality of the Holocaust, and we owe them both a huge debt of gratitude for that. Henry Wuga is about to turn 100, and I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in sending him our very best wishes.
The importance of that kind of work, sharing the truth about the Holocaust, is ever greater. I met Gathering the Voices again this week, and heard more about Martin Anson, whose story is so important. He talked about the growing anti-Jewish sentiment in his Bavarian home town in the early 1920s, his activities in the anti-Nazi movement, stormtroopers assaulting his family on Kristallnacht, and his imprisonment in Dachau before he managed to emigrate to Scotland just before the outbreak of the war. His son Steven told me about a trip that he made last year to his father’s former home, where a stone called a stolperstein had been laid down in the ground—unusually, to record that someone who had lived there had survived; usually the stones record those who have been lost. On that visit, Steven was struck by the warm welcome that he received from the family who were currently living in the house. It was an incredible story to hear, and the generosity of spirit of the current occupants is, I think, a ray of hope in a very harrowing history.
It would not be a Holocaust Memorial Day debate for me without my touching on another ray of hope, offered in the person of Jane Haining, the Scottish matron in a Budapest school who refused to leave her young Jewish charges despite knowing what the dangers were, and who paid for that decision with her life. She said:
“If these children need me in days of sunshine, how much more do they need me in days of darkness?”
That sentiment is one worth holding to at a time when everything seems a bit more fragile and less certain than the circumstances that we have, perhaps, become comfortably used to. Jane Haining is the only Scot to be named as Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem.
It will take all of us—all of here, but all of us in our communities too—to say that we will not tolerate anti- semitism, we will not accept hatred, and we will not accept people’s being othered and demeaned because of their identity. Freedom really is fragile, and all of us together are the key to sustaining and strengthening it. Let us try to heed the terrible lessons of the past. Let us try to work hard together to keep alive the voices of those who survived, so that those who come after us can hear their testimony too, and can protect that fragile freedom.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
It is a great honour to respond to this important debate on behalf of the Opposition. I commend my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) for introducing it, and the Backbench Business Committee for allowing the time.
My right hon. Friend told us about her family’s personal experiences during the war and immediately after it. She spoke about the fact that freedom is fragile, and that has certainly been apparent in the debate. She also asked, “When will we ever learn?”, a question that has been repeated by many Members on both sides of the House.
As we have heard, this Saturday, 27 January, is Holocaust Memorial Day and the 79th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is an opportunity for us to come together to remember the 6 million Jewish victims murdered by the Nazi regime, as well as the millions of lives lost to genocidal violence in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Ms Brown) mentioned the testimony of Daphrosa on the horrors of the Rwandan genocide. This year’s Holocaust Memorial Day marks the 30th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide and the murder of up to 1 million Tutsis in just 100 days by violent Hutu extremists.
We remember the families, communities, cultures and traditions lost forever to hatred and persecution, and we pay tribute to the survivors. Their lives irrevocably altered by devastating violence, we owe them great gratitude for sharing their testimonies and exposing the true horrors they experienced, in order that we can all bear witness.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) said that, as a child, he heard about some of the events of world war two, but that he was an adult when he learned about the atrocities that were committed. He stressed the need for us to continue to educate people.
Recalling his return to the site of Auschwitz-Birkenau, holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel said:
“It has swallowed an entire people…a people with hopes and memories.”
This week we honour those hopes and memories and the rich individual lives that lie behind the dreadful statistics that have been referenced across the House throughout this debate.
We also remember the many others killed by the Nazi regime, including more than a quarter of a million disabled people, up to half a million Roma and Sinti people, and thousands of LGBT people, many of whom have had to fight to be recognised as victims. These crimes were the most terrifying consequences of identity-based persecution.
Today, people around the world, and here in the UK, continue to face deep hostility because of who they are. Over the past decade, we have seen rises in hate crime of every category. Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities face persistent discrimination. Many LGBT+ people continue to face hostile environments. And in the months since 7 October, as we have heard today, we have seen an unprecedented rise in incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia. This Holocaust Memorial Day, we must all remember our common humanity. We must remember, too, that the prevention of atrocities begins at home, and we must seek to unite our communities, to prevent hatred and polarisation, and to warn against the dangers posed by insidious hatred.
This year’s “fragility of freedom” theme is a call for us to reject complacency and to pay attention to the processes that restrict and remove the freedoms of those targeted for persecution. As soon as the Nazis took power in 1933, they weaponised every lever of the state to erode the freedoms of German Jews, by passing decrees and regulations to limit the participation of Jewish people in public life. The 1935 Nuremberg laws proscribed marriage between Jews and non-Jews and, in so doing, robbed Jewish people of their freedom of religion and self-identification.
As Nazi horrors spread across Europe, Jews in occupied countries were forced into ghettos and deported to concentration or extermination camps. This was the ultimate manifestation of violence, which took away their freedom to live, but it did not come from nowhere. That is why this year’s theme asks us to remember how climates for genocide are created. It is a reminder that freedom can be vulnerable, and that we should not take it for granted.
By providing a focal point, Holocaust Memorial Day ensures that we come together to remember and to mourn victims of genocide each and every year. Local activities will be taking place all over the UK this week, and I pay tribute to the many organisers who are ensuring that generations of young people continue to hear these vital messages. It is estimated that more than 10,000 such local activities take place across the UK around 27 January each year, which is a magnificent achievement.
I also pay tribute to the Holocaust Educational Trust and the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, which have worked hard to embed understanding of the holocaust in our education system. It is thanks to the Holocaust Educational Trust that learning about the holocaust has been a compulsory part of the national curriculum for more than 30 years. Since 2006, its “Lessons from Auschwitz” project has allowed post-16 students in schools and colleges to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau. In the face of dangerous holocaust denial and distortion, these lessons are of paramount importance.
Recognising the essentialness of holocaust education, we have supported the Holocaust Memorial Bill from its outset. Just like Holocaust Memorial Day, the holocaust memorial and learning centre will provide yet another essential focal point for genocide education and commemoration in the UK. It will preserve the memory of the holocaust, convey the truths about its nature and, crucially, serve as a fitting tribute to the 6 million Jewish people murdered by the Nazis.
I am pleased that today’s debate has given us the opportunity to come together to reject hatred and to strive for a better future, never forgetting the lives, families and communities lost to the most horrifying violence.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)
This is the first time I have attended a Holocaust Memorial Day debate, and I have to say that I am rather glad it is. I must be honest with the House that, if I had had any idea of the raw emotion, I might have dodged it, but I am so glad that I did not. It has been sad and it has been frightening, but every word has been worth hearing. I thank the House and all those who have contributed to today’s debate. It has been a true privilege to be here to hear it.
As many right hon. and hon. Members have noted, the theme of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day is the “fragility of freedom”. It is not just about the fragility of freedom in emerging democracies or elsewhere in the world; it is about the threat and the challenge to all mature western democracies. Frankly, we have grown complacent about our rights and privileges, and about our freedom to think, speak, write, congregate, worship and pray. Too much of it is under attack, whether by social media, the ease of populism or the search for the simple in a complex world. So much that we hold dear is under pressure, so let us come together, as this debate has shown the House can do at its best, to champion and defend all that we cherish and hold dear to our hearts.
But let us do more. Let us not just be armchair or, indeed, green Bench democrats. Let us be, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) suggested, muscular and robust in our stance and in our defence, because in collaborative defence there is courage, there is hope and there is opportunity.
The big numbers of the holocaust make it hard to envisage, as all big numbers and statistics do, so let us pause for a moment not to think of 6 million as just another statistic. I follow the Auschwitz Memorial Twitter feed, or X feed as we now have to call it, and, virtually every day, it presents a picture or pictures of men, women and children. These ordinary folk were starved, taken from their homes, persecuted and incinerated—the true meaning of the word “holocaust”—for their faith. Let us recommit to always seeing these people for what they are, people, fellow human beings, and never as just a statistic, whether they be Jewish, Bosnian, Rwandan or Cambodian.
What we must always remember, as many contributors have reminded us so powerfully today, is that down the centuries the Jewish people have always been forced to look over their shoulders, with pogroms, the holocaust, displacement, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and the Dreyfus case. They are a people always worried that they are only temporarily tolerated, rather than permanently welcomed.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge)—I am going to call her my right hon. Friend—added a poignancy to her characteristically brave and bold remarks and thinking by reminding the House that, sadly, this is the last of these debates that she will take part in as a Member of Parliament. As the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) said, she will be missed but not forgotten. Hers have been important words on this issue, particularly during difficult years for her and Jewish colleagues in her party—thank God that is changing—where she stood bravely on difficult and hostile Benches and made her case, as she did today.
My job is to reply to the debate and respond to speeches, so with the leave of the House I will try to reference a nugget or two from each contribution, because they merit it, as does the seriousness of the issues at hand. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) for her words, in speaking for the Opposition, as I am to the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald), who spoke for the Scottish National party. I know that the hon. Member for Blaydon has given me a little more time than the usual channels may have agreed to.
My hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), the Father of the House, spoke powerfully about the fragility of democracy. As many Members soon went on to do, he pointed to the importance of education. We do not repeat when we know, and we know only when we are educated. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland spoke about his constituency and the story of rescuing those fleeing persecution in Norway. That historical fact was new to me, and the House will be grateful for it.
My right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) spoke, in his characteristically frank but moving way, about his experience in Yugoslavia, and I wish to make two points to him. First, he is right to remind the House, and we are right to remind ourselves, that those events took place not in a faraway land of which we knew nothing, but on our doorstep, and just in 1993. Secondly, for what it is worth, I wish to say personally to him, because he spoke of his shame and the shame of his mother, that he has nothing to be ashamed about. He and his men did their best, and that is all we as a democracy can ever ask.
The hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown) is currently in Westminster Hall for a debate about religious freedom, so there is a link even today. She is not in her place for that reason, but she gave us a powerful speech on Rwanda, reminding us of the horror of rape and sexual violence, as my hon. Friends the Members for Hendon (Dr Offord) and for Brigg and Goole and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) did in relation to the horrific events of 7 October. I sat and listened as a husband and a father of three daughters, and who would not be moved to think that those horrible events took place just a few short weeks ago.
A common theme has been smell, a sense that is often not spoken about enough. We talk about our memories of what we have seen or heard, but smell can be hugely evocative, be it of a time or place in our childhood, a holiday or whatever. My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon is a doctor and he will have been used to the smell of medical things. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet and my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole also spoke about the recent smell of death and rotting flesh. The father of a great friend of mine had been part of the medical team that went into Belsen, and until his death he always spoke about the smell that was still on his skin. We should remember that always.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) spoke of the complacency of the view that, “It’s all history.” It is not history; it is happening now. When we think it is history—that either it is not happening or it cannot happen again—we have lost the battle, have we not? What was the holocaust and why should we remember it? We can remember it for the horror, the statistics, the figures and the scale, but the eternal shame, to use the phrase of my right hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham, is that it was man’s inhumanity to man. We should all be ashamed and embarrassed by it, because it shows, at the darkest and basest moments of humankind, precisely what we can do to each other, in the name of doctrine, theology, ideology. It is a terrible thing that we have somewhere deep within our DNA. Let us resolve to keep it buried.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) spoke powerfully about hatred and prejudice, and he, too, spoke of the importance of education. I want especially to mark the speech made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe). I hope he will not take it the wrong way when I say that I thought that the frank assessment of current events that he gave us was, for a Birmingham Member, a brave speech. I was pleased to hear it, the House will be grateful to have heard it, and he should be commended for delivering it in the heartfelt and sincere way that he did.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Nicola Richards), in that simple memory of a shoe and a piece of make-up, so reminiscent of the museum where the shoes of those who died were gathered up as a reminder, reminds us of the simplicity and therefore the futility; this was ordinary people going about their lives in an ordinary way, on an ordinary day, and suddenly, as a result of somebody’s bigotry and hatred, it was all taken away. The lipstick, powder, mascara, the pair of dancing shoes, whatever it might happen to be, will stand as a longer lasting memorial than any statue or plaque that could be erected.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) again picked up on this theme of education, and I pay tribute to all of those—the Holocaust Educational Trust and others—who day in, day out ensure that we never forget. We are right to remind ourselves of the importance of that. People have spoken of the important role that our universities and schools play in ensuring free and fair speech, and ensuring that all voices can be heard, and that tolerance and toleration are the hallmarks of a civilised democracy. They need to step up to the plate and play their part, as does this place, in ensuring that those are preserved and protected.
The hon. Member for Blaydon, who spoke for the Opposition, gave a heartfelt speech, as did the SNP spokesman, and we commend her for that. How right my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet and my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East were to remind us of the uncomfortable truth, as the right hon. Member for Barking did, of our slightly uncomfortable position with regard to the welcoming of Jewish children through the Kindertransport but not their parents, and the controls that we placed on Jewish migration and the problems that caused for too many people. I could go on, because this has been a moving debate on a mammoth issue. It has been about history—80 years ago and more recent—but the issue is so fresh and contemporary today that it chills us to the bone.
Before I conclude, I should apologise to the Hansard scribes. My officials will have given them a typed speech but, as usual, I have ignored it, because the speeches I heard from colleagues this afternoon were from the heart, and I wanted to respond, on behalf of the Government, in kind.
However, wherever, whoever and whenever, how they died, where they died, and who they were, let us unite today and always to mark and reflect on all of those who have lost their lives, to both the holocaust and all holocausts. May all of their sacrifices not have been in vain. May all of their memories be a blessing.
Dame Margaret Hodge
I will not detain the House, but I echo the words of the Minister and the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) in saying that the House is at its best when we can all speak across the Chamber in unity on issues that are a million times more important than anything else we debate in the House through the year. I thank every Member of the House who has participated in the debate for their warm and important speeches.
I want to reflect on what the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Nicola Richards) said. Like her, I went to the exhibition about the Nova festival, which the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet mentioned. The picture of the shoe lying on the ground, as people were slaughtered at the festival, reminds us of the Holocaust and what we see in Auschwitz, which I do not think any of us can forget. I never smelled the smell in Kfar Aza—I probably went a few weeks after the hon. Members for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) and for Hendon (Dr Offord)—but I felt the misery and horror that people experienced there. I agree with all hon. Members that the growth of antisemitism on our streets today, as with the growth of Islamophobia, should chill us all and make us think about how we do things.
My final words relate to what was said by the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman). Jews have maintained hope through the generations—that is probably why we have survived in the way we have. I hope we can leave today’s debate with a feeling of hope and determination that we will build a society of tolerance, both here and across the world. We should learn that hate will not bring us the peaceful co-existence we all want. Freedom is fragile, and we all have to put every effort into securing freedom for everybody, wherever they live, whoever they are and whatever their background or religion.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)
I thank all hon. Members who have participated today for the manner in which they have conducted themselves. I am sure that will have been appreciated outside the House, as well as within it.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered Holocaust Memorial Day.
Milton Keynes Women’s and Children’s Hospital: New Hospital Programme
(10 months ago)
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Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)
I am hugely grateful to have been granted this Adjournment debate, on a matter that means so much to me, my constituents in Milton Keynes North and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart).
My constituency and the whole of Milton Keynes is growing all the time—it is one of the fastest growing cities in the UK. More and more folk with families, as well as young couples looking to start a family, are moving to Milton Keynes. Our freshly minted city, which is 57 years old this week, is a wonderful place to build and grow a family. People want to build their families in Milton Keynes because there is opportunity there, including highly skilled jobs, good schools and green neighbourhoods for children to grow up in. Milton Keynes is the place to be.
However, a growing city brings challenges, particularly for our healthcare infrastructure. More people means a need for more healthcare capacity, in both the short and the long term. I thank the Government for their efforts so far to meet that challenge head-on.
For those reasons, I am delighted about the investment we have seen since I became an MP in 2019. For example, the community diagnostic centres, backed by £2.3 billion of Government funding, are making a significant impact in reducing the covid-19 backlogs and delivering an extra 6 million vital tests, checks and scans to date. There are two such diagnostic centres in Milton Keynes, with one up and running at the Whitehouse Health Centre and one coming soon in Lloyds Court in central Milton Keynes.
The Maple Centre is another important step in the right direction, helping to provide same day emergency care, meaning patients can get the treatment they need without being admitted to hospital. That has reduced pressure on the main emergency department at Milton Keynes University Hospital, ensuring that patients are treated in the environment that best meets their healthcare needs. In its first year, the centre treated over 20,000 patients, so I offer my thanks to staff at the centre who work really hard to provide the best quality care for their patients.
I also welcome the Government’s urgent and emergency care plan, alongside an investment of over £1 billion to deliver 5,000 more hospital beds. That will free up beds for patients needing urgent and emergency care, and, ultimately, reduce pressures on hospitals. This includes a £3 million investment in Milton Keynes University Hospital, where we have a new 22 bed ward with extra clinical space. I am also delighted that the Government are funding a new breast cancer screening unit at Milton Keynes University Hospital.
Milton Keynes University Hospital serves not just the people of Milton Keynes, but communities in the surrounding areas, acting as a cornerstone in the region. Work must continue to safeguard the healthcare needs of future generations.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
My hon. Friend makes an important point that the hospital is there for Milton Keynes, but it is also there for the surrounding areas, including towns such as Buckingham and Winslow and the villages around them. Does he agree that the important partnership between the medical centre at the University of Buckingham and the hospital has driven up clinical standards? When I was first elected in 2010, standards at Milton Keynes University Hospital were not good. They are now among the best in the country. That should be cherished and it bodes well for future investment.
Ben Everitt
I agree wholeheartedly; in fact, I remember campaigning with my hon. Friend to get that partnership up and running back in 2015. It really is a virtuous circle: because it is now a teaching hospital, people want to go there to learn, and standards go up. It is one of the best places to work in the region, with fantastic staff and fantastic management.
One of the best measures we have for a healthcare system is its capacity to provide everyone with the specialist care they need. That is why I was very pleased when the construction of a women and children’s hospital, which is the subject of the debate, was agreed in principle. It is part of the new hospital programme, and getting it on to the list of 40 new hospitals and keeping it there has been quite a journey. With covid, build cost inflation, and concrete rot being found in other hospitals, which bumped them up the priority list, it has been hard work to keep our hospital on the list. I sincerely thank my hon. Friend for his hard work, and Professor Joe Harrison at Milton Keynes University Hospital.
On the list we are! The Treasury has confirmed the funding and we are a go. Our new hospital will act as the home for paediatric and maternity care in Milton Keynes, while increasing surgical capacity. Through the new hospital programme, the new hospital and the existing hospital will be able to utilise the latest technological developments to create smarter hospital facilities. That means more up-to-date systems and devices, leading to greater efficiency and better care across the whole hospital estate. Another point, which might be overlooked, is that moving maternity and paediatric care to the new hospital will free up capacity in the existing hospital for other clinical requirements. Often, building new hospitals is not just about new facilities, which are of course important; it is also about improving existing facilities and care. MK University Hospital will be able to move forward with its own expansion plans. In that sense, we can begin to unlock the full potential of our healthcare infrastructure in Milton Keynes.
Having seen the architect’s impressions of the new hospital, I can only be excited. With it, we have a brilliant future ahead of us. It is clear that the hospital will act as a symbol of how far our city has come, but I also feel that it will act as a symbol of the new hospital programme overall, and of the benefits of the Government’s ambitious levelling-up agenda. Of course, having a new hospital focused on women and children is not just about the additional treatment; it is about creating the right environment for that care to take place—an environment in which women feel comfortable talking about their health without distress or worry, and children feel that they are cared for in their own setting.
The integration of maternity and paediatric care is key. Having those services all under one roof will make life easier for nurses and doctors, as well as for families. The health of our women and children is fundamental. We must therefore keep pushing for the new hospital to be built as soon as possible, to ensure that Milton Keynes can provide the best care for our young families and is the best place possible to respond to the challenges of population growth. With funding having been announced last May, I hope that the funds can be released soon, so that we can get the plans finalised and get on with the construction work. I know that many back in MK are itching to get the green light and get on with the project, so I would welcome any updates on the hospital, and where we are on the timeline.
Delivering the 40 new hospitals by 2030 is key to meeting our manifesto commitments from 2019. Getting this hospital up and running as soon as possible will demonstrate in no uncertain terms that the Government are more committed than ever to that target.
The Minister for Health and Secondary Care (Andrew Stephenson)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) on securing a debate on this important issue. He is a tireless campaigner for better healthcare in Milton Keynes, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart). Before I talk about the new hospital, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North for mentioning the new community diagnostic centres. I am delighted that the Whitehouse health centre is already carrying out tests, checks and scans for his constituents, with another CDC in Lloyds Court shopping centre coming very soon. As he laid out, Milton Keynes University Hospital has already seen improvements to emergency and cancer care facilities. The addition of a dedicated new women and children’s centre through the new hospital programme builds on that record of investment.
Both my hon. Friends, along with the Conservative candidate for Milton Keynes South, Johnny Luk, have spoken to me in detail about the huge difference that the investment will make for local people. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North hit the nail on the head in pointing out the smarter hospital design that we have developed as part of the programme, and how it will benefit patients. He is entirely right that it will improve patient care, with features such as more single rooms to give new mums the privacy that they deserve, or for families comforting sick children. The design is a major plus for staff working in our NHS too, providing better lines of sight to monitor patients from nurses’ stations, better IT and equipment so that less time is wasted on non-clinical tasks, and a lighter, brighter environment to work in.
The hospital will also boost the emphasis of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on women’s health and maternity care, and I know that she will follow the hospital’s progress with keen interest. As my hon. Friend said, Milton Keynes is rapidly expanding, as the penny drops and people realise what a fantastic place it is to live, work, and raise children, thanks in no small part, I am sure, to his zealous and spirited pursuit of Milton Keynes’ interests in this House. The Government are bearing that important fact in mind, as we work very closely with Milton Keynes University Hospital Foundation Trust on its plans for a new women and children’s hospital, surgical ward block and imaging centre.
In May last year the Government announced a further five hospitals as part of our commitment to build 40 new hospitals by 2030. Structures that were mostly built using reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete—commonly known as RAAC—will be rebuilt by 2030 as part of the new hospital programme, along with two hospitals that were already included on the list. We will not cut any corners when it comes to protecting the safety of patients and staff. We remain committed to every scheme announced as part of the new hospital programme.
I am pleased to inform my hon. Friend that Milton Keynes Community NHS Trust submitted its refreshed strategic outline business case to the programme last week, on 19 January. This will now progress through the appropriate assurance processes, as set out in the Treasury Green Book, to ensure that the trust’s plans are aligned with the national programme approach, are deliverable and provide value for taxpayers’ money. But the intention is very much that these plans will be delivered at pace and with rigour.
I am pleased to inform the House that, up to the end of the 2022-23 financial year, the scheme received more than £11 million for scheme development funding. In the current financial year, we have released more than £600,000 extra, to help the trust develop the business case for the new patient imaging centre. A further £120,000 will be made available for the development of business cases for a multi-storey car park and high voltage supply upgrade. I look forward to receiving further business cases from the trust. I commit to updating my hon. Friend as funding is released for that important scheme. All the money that we have released to date has helped reach key milestones in delivering the plan for the people of Milton Keynes and the surrounding areas, enabling construction teams to crack on early with preparing the site ahead of the main construction commencing in the second half of the decade. The funds also demonstrate our commitment to delivering a new Milton Keynes hospital by 2030 as part of the new hospital programme.
I would like to end by providing a more general update on the ambitious and vital work that we are undertaking as part of the new hospitals programme. I am very pleased that four hospital are now open to patients: the Northern Centre for Cancer Care; the Royal Liverpool Hospital; stage 1 of the Louisa Martindale, also known as the 3Ts hospital—trauma, tertiary and training—in Brighton; and the Northgate and Ferndene hospitals in Northumberland. A further hospital, the Salford Royal major trauma centre, is complete and due to open shortly. Another 17 hospitals are either in construction or in early construction with activity well under way to prepare their sites. This includes surveys and crucial work on non-clinical infrastructure, such as energy centres, demolitions or car parking.
My ministerial colleague with responsibility for the new hospital programme, Lord Markham, has been visiting these sites up and down the country to see at first hand how some of the schemes are progressing. I can assure my hon. Friend that his lordship’s enthusiasm for the programme matches his own.
I thank my hon. Friend for continuing to champion this investment in his constituency and for his continued engagement in the new hospital scheme. He is right to hold our feet to the fire; let the record show that we are committed to every scheme announced as part of the new hospital programme and delivering the new hospital in Milton Keynes by 2030, because I know that he will be holding Ministers to account, as he does so diligently on this and so many other issues.
Question put and agreed to.
Ministerial Correction
(10 months ago)
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Health and Social Care
(10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Dame Andrea Leadsom)
First, let us be crystal clear: the tobacco and vapes Bill will save many lives. Unlike other consumer products, there is no safe level of nicotine consumption; it is a product that kills up to two thirds of its long-term users and causes 70% of lung cancer deaths.
[Official Report, 11 January 2024, Vol. 743, c. 178WH.]
Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire:
An error has been identified in my response to the Westminster Hall debate on a Smokefree Future. The correct information is as follows:
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Dame Andrea Leadsom)
First, let us be crystal clear: the tobacco and vapes Bill will save many lives. Unlike other consumer products, there is no safe level of tobacco consumption; it is a product that kills up to two thirds of its long-term users and causes 70% of lung cancer cases.
Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill (Seventh sitting)
Thursday 25th January 2024
(10 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 View all Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 25 January 2024 - (25 Jan 2024)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 6, in schedule 7, page 119, line 12, leave out sub-sub-paragraph (a).
This amendment would ensure that all leaseholders, not just those with residential leases of 150 years or over, have the right to vary their lease to replace rent with peppercorn rent.
Matthew Pennycook
It is a pleasure to continue our line-by-line consideration of the Bill with you in the Chair, Mr Efford. For the sake of probity, I declare once again that my wife is the joint chief executive of the Law Commission, whose reports on leasehold and commonhold reform I will continue to cite throughout my remarks.
Part 2 of the Bill makes changes to other rights of long leaseholders. Four of its five clauses are concerned with improving the right to manage, but as we touched on briefly at the end of the Committee’s previous sitting, clause 21, which brings schedule 7 to the Bill into effect, makes provision for a new enfranchisement right to buy out the ground rent and vary it permanently to replace the relevant part of the rent with a peppercorn rent, without having to extend the lease.
We welcome the intent of the schedule. The reform will ensure that leaseholders can enjoy reduced premiums and secure nominal ground rent ownership of their properties without the need to go through the challenge and expense of repeated lease extensions. In the Law Commission’s final report on enfranchisement rights, it considered in great detail whether there should be a range of lease extension rights in order to provide greater flexibility than is currently afforded to leaseholders as a result of the provisions in the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 that require them simultaneously to extend the terms of their lease and to extinguish their ground rent.
The rationale for providing greater flexibility in this area is that in allowing leaseholders to choose either only to extend their lease or only to extinguish their ground rent, leaseholders could avoid paying the landlord the value of the remainder of the original terms and the deferral of the reversion, with the result that premiums would be reduced accordingly.
While taking into account the clear benefits that greater flexibility would provide for in terms of reduced premiums, the Law Commission, in its reports, clearly wrestled with whether it was sensible to recommend a more nuanced approach to lease extension rights. It did so, because of the complexity that the availability of different lease extension options would inevitably create, and the corresponding opportunities that such complexity would present to unscrupulous landlords who might seek to take advantage of those leaseholders unable to access costly professional advice about the best choice to make from the available options.
Without doubt, allowing for choices other than a uniform right to a fixed additional term at a nominal ground rent will make the statutory right to a lease extension more complicated. I will return shortly to the implications of clause 21 and the schedule in that regard. However, on the principle of allowing for greater choice, the Law Commission ultimately decided that despite the increased complexity that it would engender, leaseholders who have a lease with a long remaining term should, on payment of a premium, be entitled to extinguish the ground rent payable under the lease without extending the terms of it.
The commission felt, rightly in our view, that that right is likely to be utilised mainly by those with relatively long leases who are subject to onerous ground rent provisions, or those with relatively long leases and ground rents that are not definitionally onerous but still entail, for a variety of reasons, a significant present or future financial burden. In such cases, even if the premium payable is not significantly reduced, the prescribed capitalisation rates provided for by schedule 2 to the Bill should make valuations simpler and enable the change to be made by means of a simple deed of variation, rather than a deed of surrender and regrant, as required to extend the terms of a lease now.
The schedule implements the Law Commission’s recommendation for that right to extinguish the ground rent only. As I have made clear, we support it. We have, however, moved the amendment, which would delete the Government’s proposed 150-year threshold, to press the Minister on the reason or reasons for which the Government have decided to confer that right only on leaseholders with leases with an unexpired term of more than 150 years.
To be clear, we understand fully the argument made by those who believe that the right to extinguish a ground rent without extending a lease should only be conferred on those with sufficiently long leases—namely, that the premium for the reversion increases significantly as the unexpired period of the lease reduces, and leaseholders with leases below a certain threshold should therefore be, in a sense, compelled to peppercorn their ground rent and to extend at the same time by means of the reduced premiums that clauses 7 and 8 of the Bill should enable.
However, what constitutes a sufficiently long lease for the purposes of conferring this new right is ultimately a matter of judgment. The Law Commission recommended that the threshold should be set at 250 years on the basis that the reversion is of negligible value at that lease length. The Government chose not to accept that recommendation and instead are proposing a threshold of 150 years. The Minister may provide us with a different answer in due course, but we assume the reason they did so is simply that this will make the new right to extinguish a ground rent available to many more leaseholders.
However, if that is the case, it obviously follows that setting a threshold of, say, 125 years or even 100 years would make it available to even more of them. The argument against doing so is that leaseholders with leases below a certain threshold should be, in effect, compelled to extend their lease at the same time as peppercorning their rent because not doing so would, in many cases, disadvantage them.
However, that obviously raises more fundamental questions, such as whether it should be up to leaseholders to navigate the wider range of options that will be made available to them if and when this Bill receives Royal Assent, and whether the fact that some leaseholders with relatively short leases may either advertently or inadvertently disadvantage themselves by extinguishing without extending their lease should mean that everyone below the 150-year threshold is prohibited from enjoying the new right introduced by the schedule.
Even assuming one believes it is the role of Government to set a long-lease threshold, it is not entirely clear to us why the Government have alighted on 150 years given that there could be all sorts of reasons why someone with a lease shorter than such a term might want to only buy out their rent, including simply that they are unable to afford the premium required to secure a 990-year lease. As such, we would like the Minister to justify in some detail, if he could, why the Government alighted on a 150-year threshold as opposed to either the Law Commission’s proposal of 250 years or a lower threshold that would give many more leaseholders the right to extinguish their ground rent. We would like to ask him to consider whether, as we believe on balance, there is a strong case for simply deleting the 150-year threshold entirely, given that the “remaining years” test that applies is inherently arbitrary. I hope the Minister will give amendment 6 serious consideration, and I look forward to his thoughts on it.
While we are considering this schedule, I also want to probe the Minister again on the Government’s intentions in respect of the recently closed consultation on restricting ground rent for all existing leases, and specifically how any proposals arising from that consultation will interact with this schedule given that it provides a right to peppercorn ground rents in existing leases. As I made clear when we briefly considered this matter in relation to clauses 7 and 8, I am obviously not asking the Minister to provide this Committee with an advanced indication of what the Government’s formal response to that consultation will be. However, we remain of the view that this Committee needs to know, if the Government ultimately do choose to enact any of the five options for intervention that were consulted upon, what the implications are for the provisions that are currently in the Bill that we are being asked to approve today.
On Second Reading, the Secretary of State was quite clear that at the conclusion of the consultation, the Government would
“legislate on the basis of that set of responses in order to ensure that ground rents are reduced, and can only be levied in a justifiable way.”—[Official Report, 11 December 2023; Vol. 742, c. 659.]
As members of the Committee will know, he was also open with the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee prior to Second Reading about the fact that his favoured approach would be a peppercorn rent—in other words, option 1 from the consultation. I am conscious that many people across the country who bear leaseholders no ill will whatever have invested, almost uniformly on advice and in good faith, in freehold funds. I have constituents who have invested, for example, in time investments and other such funds that have invested in freehold properties. However, I personally share the Secretary of State’s preference not least because, while ground rents exist even at relatively low levels, they will be a major impediment to the widespread adoption of commonhold.
There is a more fundamental issue with ground rents that we need to grapple with. As we have discussed already, over the past two decades, the consequence of the kind of investment we have seen is a system increasingly focused on generating assets by gouging leaseholders through ground rents that are, in historical terms, high to start with and that escalate over the terms of the lease. Leaseholders who worked hard to purchase their own homes and did so in good faith are being asked to pay ever more money for no clear service in return and many are experiencing considerable financial distress and difficulties selling their property, all to sustain the income streams of third-party investors.
Unregulated ground rents of this nature in existing leases cannot be justified. Although we do not discount the risks involved in any of the five options outlined in the consultation, Labour is clear that the Government must act to protect leaseholders from ground rent exploitation and that they should be courageous in determining which of the consultation proposals should be enacted.
All that said, we obviously cannot pre-empt the consultation in question. What is important for the purposes of considering schedule 7, and clause 21, is that we get a clear answer from the Minister as to what the potential implications of any response would be for leaseholders. Specifically, will the schedule have to be revisited should the Government ultimately choose to enact one of the five options in the consultation? Are we correct in assuming that clause 21 and the schedule will have to be overhauled, if not removed from the Bill entirely, in that scenario? If not, how will the Government ensure that the various measures are aligned? It is a hypothetical question, as I am sure the Minister will indicate, but it is entirely reasonable, given that we are being asked to approve the inclusion of the schedule in the Bill. On our reading of the ground rent consultation, the schedule could entirely change the implications; indeed, it may well have to be removed entirely to ensure that the Bill is consistent. On that basis, I hope the Minister will give us a bit more detail. He gave us some on Tuesday, but we need a little more detail on that point.
The Minister for Housing, Planning and Building Safety (Lee Rowley)
I am grateful for the comments from the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, and for his amendment. I will say a few words in general before turning to some of his specific questions.
As he indicated, the ground rent buy-out right enables leaseholders with very long leases to buy out their ground rent on payment of a premium, without having to extend their lease. A leaseholder with a very long lease who does not need an extension may want to buy out the ground rent without extending the lease, but others may wish to do it in a different way.
I appreciate the hon. Member’s points about the amendment, and I understand why he is seeking to extend the right to vary one’s lease to as many leaseholders as possible, so I will try to answer some of his questions. Inevitably, as he indicated, there is essentially an arbitrary decision to take on any number, because moving it up or down would change the provision slightly and incrementally each time, so there is an element of having to put a finger on the scale. As he said, the right is an implementation of the Law Commission’s recommendation 3(2), which suggested that it should be available for leaseholders with 250 years remaining, but the Government have indicated that they want to set the term at 150 years. The reason given by the Law Commission for making this right available only to those with very long leases, which the Government support, is to limit it to leaseholders who are unlikely to be interested in, or do not need, a lease extension.
Making the right available to all leaseholders, irrespective of their term remaining, would mean that leaseholders who will need a lease extension at some point might opt first to buy out only the ground rent, but would need to extend their lease in due course. That would potentially disadvantage leaseholders in two ways. First, as the term on the lease runs down, the price on the lease extension accelerates. Secondly, a leaseholder who buys out their ground rent first and later extends the lease will pay two sets of transaction costs. It is entirely legitimate to say, “That is the choice of individuals,” and I have some sympathy with that argument. On balance, however, the Government recognise that there is a series of things within leasehold law that are permissible but not necessarily advantageous for some groups and sectors. By moving further in this regard, we might inadvertently create another one, which future iterations of Ministers and shadow Ministers might debate removing.
I should make it clear—the hon. Member knows this—that it is not the case that leaseholders with fewer than 150 years remaining do not have the right to buy out their ground rent: they buy out their ground rent when they extend their lease or buy the freehold, and that buy-out will also be subject to the cap. However, the right to buy out the ground rent without extending the lease is for leaseholders with 150 years or more remaining, for the reasons I have given.
Turning to some of the hon. Member’s specific points, the ultimate number is a matter of judgment, and we determined that setting the term at 150 years would offer the right to an incrementally larger group of people. We think that is a reasonable place to be. I accept that others may choose a different number, but that is the number we are proposing in the substantive part of the Bill. I also appreciate his point about the outcome of the consultation being the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle at the moment.
I will not go through my multiple previous caveats around that, because he acknowledged at least one of them. Recognising that I will not be able to answer all of this, it may be that—subject to the outcome of the consultation—changes are needed. I cannot, however, pre-empt that, and we will have to cross that bridge when we came to it. I realise that is not the ideal place to be, but given that we all share the aim of trying to move this as quickly as possible, I hope it is an acceptable position to move forward from. We can return to it in due course should we need to.
The Chair
Oh, I beg your pardon. I did not catch you out of the corner of my eye. I call Rachel Maclean.
Rachel Maclean
I apologise, Mr Efford. I was not quick enough on my feet. Thank you for calling me, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.
I thank the Minister for his comprehensive answer to the shadow Minister’s questions. My point is somewhat in the same vein, and I am very much thinking of the witnesses we had from the National Leasehold Campaign, who talked about this point in quite a bit of detail. Their concern was about having to pay to buy out the ground rent. Of course, there are a number of elements, factors and variables dependent and contingent on the outcome of the consultation. There are people who might be watching this thinking, “Well, when will I actually know how much it is going to cost me?” A year can go by and they may tip over that threshold. Can the Minister give a bit of clarification to those leaseholders who have been trapped for so long and want to see some light at the end of the tunnel? What signpost can he give on when this right will apply to them and how much they will have to pay if they want to exercise their individual right to have their ground rent reduced to a peppercorn?
Lee Rowley
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. She is absolutely right that this matter is important to a number of people, and that it is important that we provide the greatest transparency at the earliest opportunity. I hope she will forgive me for not being able to answer her very valid question directly. We are dependent on an appropriate and detailed review of the consultation, which is necessary—for some of the reasons we talked about on Tuesday—given its importance to a number of parts of the sector and others. We need to allow that to conclude, hopefully as swiftly as possible, and then we need to get it through this place and our colleagues in the other place, who can often slow us down. Hopefully, that will happen as soon as possible.
Matthew Pennycook
I thank the Minister for his response. Let me just deal initially with the three Government amendments, with which we take no issue. On the ground rent consultation, I will not labour the point, because I get the sense we will not get any further information out of the Minister. It is always easier to say this from the Opposition side of the Committee, but it would have been logical to have had the ground rent consultation well in advance of the Bill, as then we could have had a Bill with all the elements properly integrated. It is not like the Government did not have enough time. I think that the previous Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), announced the second part of the two-part seminal legislation back in 2019, so the Government have had time—but that is where we are. By the sound of what the Minister is saying, we will have to significantly overhaul many clauses in the Bill if the Government do decide to enact one of the five proposals.
On amendment 6, I do not find the Minister’s argument convincing. The Law Commission recommended a 250-year threshold. The Government have clearly determined that they need not follow that recommendation to the letter, although they have implemented the principle of it. They have chosen to put their finger on the scale, as the Minister said, at a different threshold. I think trying to put one’s finger on the scale on this particular issue is likely to cause more problems than it solves. I hope the Government might think again about cutting the Gordian knot entirely.
The most common forms of lease are 90, 99 and 125 years. Leaseholders with the most common forms of lease will not be able to enjoy this right. The Government are in effect saying to them, “You must buy out under clauses 7 and 8—your lease extension and your ground rent at the same time.” From what the Minister said, it sounds like the Government think that is right because some leaseholders might disadvantage themselves by trying to exercise only the right in schedule 7. There is a case for giving those leaseholders the freedom to exercise their own judgment on that point—I am surprised the Minister has not agreed with it. A lot of leaseholders will be watching our proceedings who have leases of, say, 120 years and simply do not have the funds available to exercise their right to extend the lease and buy up the ground rent under clauses 7 and 8. This will therefore completely lock leaseholders with shorter leases out of extinguishing their ground rent provisions. We think that is inherently unfair.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend share my view that the Minister is a reasonable gentleman? [Laughter.] I know it may be specific to us and not widely shared. My hon. Friend having made such an eloquent case, the Minister may go away, reconsider this, speak to his officials, and perhaps, once the consultation has concluded, be able to come back with a different answer.
Matthew Pennycook
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, which tempts me to give a number of responses. As I am feeling generous this morning, I will say that I do think the Minister is a reasonable individual —far more reasonable in Committee than he is in the main Chamber—and I suspect that he agrees with me about the 150-year threshold. To encourage him to go away and think further, I think we will press amendment 6 to a vote.
Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
I want to take up the point the hon. Gentleman made about the timing of the ground rent review and the implications for subsequent change in the Bill. Has the Opposition looked at what the potential legal liability might be if we move forward with this Bill without clarity on what happens on ground rent, particularly as this is retrospective legislation, and whether there is a potential liability for the taxpayer if that co-ordination does not work effectively?
Matthew Pennycook
We have had access to the advice and opinion of a number of organisations and individuals, which have probably been sent to the whole Committee. We have also sought to engage the opinions of many relevant experts in this area. The honest answer is that we do not know. I think the Minister himself would say openly that there is a sliding scale of risk with each of those options. I fully expect any of those options, if they are introduced, to result in litigation against the Government that seeks to take the matter to Strasbourg under the relevant rules. That has to be factored in. The Secretary of State and the Minister will be getting the relevant advice. That is why I encourage the Minister to be courageous in the option they ultimately choose. We want to strike the right balance by addressing the problem as it exists for leaseholders—that is very clear—but ensuring that whatever option comes forward can stick and is defensible. That is a conversation we will have over the coming weeks and months, because this issue is going to rumble on for some time to come.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Lee Rowley
I beg to move amendment 79, in schedule 7, page 120, line 3, leave out from “to” to end of line 4 and insert
“—
(a) the landlord under the qualifying lease, and
(b) any other party to the qualifying lease.”
This amendment expands the range of persons to whom a rent variation notice must be given to include persons who are party to the lease (but are not a landlord).
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments 80 to 88, 99 and 100, 102 to 104, 106, 118 and 120.
Lee Rowley
These amendments mostly simplify and clarify the provisions in schedule 7.
Amendment 79 will expand the range of persons to whom a rent variation notice must be given, which should now include persons who are part of the lease but not landlords. Amendment 80 applies where a tenant is bringing a lease extension or a freehold acquisition claim. It sets out that the tenant cannot bring a ground buy-out claim while the preceding claim is still in play, because they do not need one and their ground rent will be bought out by the other enfranchisement claim.
Amendment 81 provides that a variation notice must specify the proposed premium and any variations to the lease consequential on the rent. Amendment 82 provides, first, that where a leaseholder has a ground rent buy-out claim and sells their lease, they may pass on the claim to the buyer, and secondly that where a ground rent buy-out claim has been brought and a landlord sells the reversion, the claim is binding on the purchasing landlord.
Amendment 83 applies where a rent variation notice and collective enfranchisement notice, where the leaseholder is not participating, are coincident on the same premises, irrespective of which was served first. It provides that the rent variation notice is suspended while the collective enfranchisement notice is current. It also provides that the landlord must inform the leaseholder of its suspension and must likewise inform the leaseholder if that suspension is later lifted because the enfranchisement claim has ceased to have effect. Amendment 84 provides that the landlord must specify an address at which notices can be given.
Amendment 85 makes technical amendments to remove unnecessary wording. Amendment 86 provides that the landlord must respond to the proposed premium and any variation to the lease consequential on the reduction of the rent in a variation notice in the counter-notice.
Amendment 87 makes technical amendments to remove unnecessary wording. Amendment 88 makes provision for the landlord or leaseholder to apply to the tribunal to determine the case where the landlord does not admit the leaseholder’s right to a peppercorn rent or disputes the rent to which it applies, consequential variations or the proposed premium.
Amendments 99, 100, 102 and 103 all make minor clarifications concerning circumstances when a variation notice ceases to have effect. Amendment 104 removes a provision for reviving suspended claims.
Amendment 106 provides for commutation following a ground rent buy-out, and the obligations and rights of superior landlords. It also provides for the sharing of copies of rent variation notices among landlords, and the application of superior landlords to the tribunal. A landlord in receipt of a rent variation notice must share a copy with anyone they believe to be a superior landlord and is liable for damages for any loss suffered by others should they fail to do so. Likewise, a superior landlord in receipt of a copy must share it with anyone else they believe to be a superior landlord, with the same consequences where there may be non-compliance. Amendments 118 and 120 are consequential on amendment 104. I commend the amendments to the Committee.
Amendment 79 agreed to.
Amendments made: 80, in schedule 7, page 120, line 5, leave out from “notice” to end of line 7 and insert
“is of no effect if it is given at a time when—
(a) a lease extension notice,
(b) a lease enfranchisement notice, or
(c) another rent variation notice,
which relates to the qualifying lease has effect.
(2A) Paragraph 3A makes provision about the suspension of a rent variation notice.”
This provides that a rent variation notice may not be given if another such notice is already in effect; and changes the provision dealing with cases where there is a current claim for collective enfranchisement under the LRHUDA 1993.
Amendment 81, in schedule 7, page 120, line 15, at end insert—
“(4A) A rent variation notice must also specify—
(a) the premium which the tenant is proposing to pay for the rent reduction, and
(b) any other variations which need to be made to the lease in consequence of the reduction of the rent in accordance with this Schedule.”
This requires a rent variation notice to specify the tenant’s proposals for the premium payable for the reduction in rent and for consequential changes to the lease (eg. relating to rent reviews in the lease).
Amendment 82, in schedule 7, page 120, line 20, leave out sub-paragraphs (6) to (8) and insert—
“(6) Where a rent variation notice is given, the rights and obligations of the tenant are assignable with, but are not capable of subsisting apart from, the qualifying lease or that lease so far as it demises qualifying property (see paragraph 2(5) and (6)); and, if the qualifying lease or that lease so far as it demises qualifying property is assigned—
(a) with the benefit of the notice, any reference in this Schedule to the tenant is to be construed as a reference to the assignee;
(b) without the benefit of the notice, the notice is to be deemed to have been withdrawn by the tenant as at the date of the assignment.
(7) If a rent variation notice is the subject of a registration or notice of the kind mentioned in sub-paragraph (5), the notice is binding on—
(a) any successor in title to the whole or part of the landlord’s interest under the qualifying lease, and
(b) any person holding any interest granted out of the landlord’s interest;
and any reference in this Schedule to the landlord is to be construed accordingly.”
This deals with the effect on a rent variation notice of an assignment of the lease or the reversion.
Amendment 83, in schedule 7, page 120, line 41, at end insert—
“Suspension of rent variation notices
3A (1) This paragraph applies if conditions A and B are met.
(2) Condition A is met if—
(a) a rent variation notice is current at the time when a collective enfranchisement notice is given, or
(b) a collective enfranchisement notice is current at the time when a rent variation notice is given.
(3) Condition B is met if—
(a) the rent variation notice relates to premises to which the claim for collective enfranchisement relates, and
(b) the tenant under the lease to which the rent variation notice relates is not a participating tenant in relation to the claim for collective enfranchisement.
(4) The operation of the rent variation notice is suspended during the currency of the claim for collective enfranchisement; and so long as it is so suspended no further notice may be given, and no application may be made, under this Schedule with a view to resisting or giving effect to the tenant's claim for a peppercorn rent.
(5) Where the operation of the rent variation notice is suspended by virtue of this paragraph, the landlord must, not later than the end of the relevant response period, give the tenant a notice informing the tenant of—
(a) the suspension, and
(b) the date on which the collective enfranchisement notice was given, and
(c) the name and address of the nominee purchaser for the time being appointed in relation to the claim for collective enfranchisement.
(6) The landlord must give that notice—
(a) as soon as is reasonably practicable, if a rent variation notice is current when a collective enfranchisement notice is given; or
(b) before the end of the period for responding specified in the rent variation notice in accordance with paragraph 4(7), if a collective enfranchisement notice is current when a rent variation notice is given.
(7) Where, as a result of the claim for collective enfranchisement ceasing to be current, the operation of the rent variation notice ceases to be suspended by virtue of this paragraph—
(a) the landlord must, as soon as possible after becoming aware of the circumstances by virtue of which the claim for collective enfranchisement has ceased to be current, give the tenant a notice informing the tenant that the operation of the rent variation notice is no longer suspended as from the date when the claim for collective enfranchisement ceased to be current;
(b) any time period for performing any action under this Schedule (including the response period) which was running when the rent variation was suspended begins to run again, for its full duration, from and including the date when the claim for collective enfranchisement ceased to be current.
(8) In this paragraph—
“claim for collective enfranchisement” means the claim to which the collective enfranchisement notice relates;
“collective enfranchisement notice” means a notice under section 13 of the LRHUDA 1993 (notice of claim to exercise right to collective enfranchisement).”
This provides for a rent variation notice to be suspended at any time when a claim for collective enfranchisement is current, and the tenant is not participating in the collective enfranchisement.
Amendment 84, in schedule 7, page 121, line 9, at end insert
“and which also specifies an address in England and Wales at which notices may be given to the landlord under this Schedule.”
This requires a counter-notice to specify an address for service for the landlord.
Amendment 85, in schedule 7, page 121, line 13, leave out “qualifying”.
This is a technical amendment which removes unnecessary wording.
Amendment 86, in schedule 7, page 121, line 19, at end insert
“and must also give the landlord’s response to the proposed premium, and any other consequential variations to the lease, specified in the rent variation notice in accordance with paragraph 3(4A).”
This requires the landlord to respond to the tenant’s proposals for the premium and consequential changes to the lease (see Amendment 81).
Amendment 87, in schedule 7, page 121, line 29, leave out “qualifying”.
This is a technical amendment which removes unnecessary wording.
Amendment 88, in schedule 7, page 121, line 36, leave out paragraphs 5 and 6 and insert—
“Application to appropriate tribunal where claim or terms not agreed
5 (1) This paragraph applies if the landlord is given a rent variation notice by the tenant.
(2) If the landlord gives the tenant a counter-notice before the end of the response period which disputes—
(a) that the tenant had the right to a peppercorn rent,
(b) that the right applies to the rent in respect of which it is claimed,
(c) the amount of the premium which the tenant is proposing to pay, or
(d) the consequential variations of the lease proposed by the tenant,
the landlord or tenant may apply to the appropriate tribunal to determine the matters in dispute.
(3) Any application under sub-paragraph (2) must be made before the end of the period of 6 months beginning with the day after the day on which the counter-notice is given.
(4) If the landlord does not give the tenant a counter-notice before the end of the response period, the tenant may apply to the appropriate tribunal to determine—
(a) whether the tenant has the right to a peppercorn rent,
(b) what rent that right applies in respect of,
(c) the amount of the premium which the tenant is to pay, or
(d) the variations of the lease that are to be made.
(5) Any application under sub-paragraph (4) must be made before the end of the period of 6 months beginning with the day after the last day of the response period.”—(Lee Rowley.)
This provides for the Tribunal to have jurisdiction where the tenant’s claim for a peppercorn rent or the terms of lease variation are not agreed by the landlord.
Lee Rowley
I beg to move amendment 89, in schedule 7, page 123, line 12, after “tenant” insert
“, and any other party to the qualifying lease,”.
This requires any third parties to a lease to join in variation of the lease to reduce the rent payable.
Lee Rowley
Again, these amendments mostly simplify and clarify the provisions in schedule 7.
Amendment 89 will require the new third parties referred to in amendment 79 to join in any variation of a lease. Amendment 90 removes reference to, and therefore the existence of, a payment period within which the leaseholder must pay the ground rent buy-out premium to the landlord after a rent variation notice has become enforceable.
Amendment 91 provides that a rent variation notice becomes enforceable once all aspects have been agreed or determined by the tribunal. Amendment 92 is consequential on amendment 91 and provides for a better description of the required rent variation.
Lee Rowley
I beg to move amendment 95, in schedule 7, page 123, line 43, at end insert—
“Reduction of rent under intermediate leases
7A (1) This paragraph applies if, at the time when a rent variation notice is given, there are one or more qualifying intermediate leases.
(2) For the purposes of this paragraph a lease is a ‘qualifying intermediate lease’ if—
(a) the lease demises the whole or a part of the property to which the rent variation notice relates,
(b) the lease is immediately superior to—
(i) the lease to which the rent variation notice relates, or
(ii) one or more other leases that are themselves qualifying intermediate leases,
(c) relevant rent is payable under the lease, and
(d) that relevant rent is more than a peppercorn rent.
(3) The landlord or the tenant under a qualifying intermediate lease may, by giving notice to the relevant landlord or landlords before the variation of lease to which the rent variation notice relates, require the rent payable under the qualifying intermediate lease to be reduced in accordance with sub-paragraphs (6) to (8).
(4) If—
(a) under sub-paragraph (3) the rent under a lease is required to be reduced in accordance with this paragraph, and
(b) that lease is superior to one or more other qualifying intermediate leases,
the rent payable under the other qualifying intermediate lease or leases is also to be reduced in accordance with sub-paragraphs (6) to (8).
(5) The landlord and tenant under a qualifying intermediate lease must vary the lease—
(a) to give effect to a reduction of the rent in accordance with sub-paragraphs (6) to (8), and
(b) to remove any terms of the lease which provide for an increase in the rent, or part of the rent, so reduced.
(6) If the whole of the rent under a qualifying intermediate lease is relevant rent, the rent under that lease is to be reduced to a peppercorn rent.
(7) If only part of the rent under a qualifying intermediate lease is relevant rent—
(a) that part of the rent is to be reduced to zero, and
(b) the total rent is to be reduced accordingly.
(8) But the amount of the reduction in a person’s rental liabilities as tenant is limited to the amount of the reduction in the person’s rental income as landlord; and here—
(a) ‘reduction in a person’s rental liabilities as tenant’ means the reduction in accordance with sub-paragraph (6) or (7) of the rent payable by the person as tenant under the qualifying intermediate lease;
(b) ‘reduction in that person’s rental income as landlord’ means the amount (or total amount) of the relevant reduction (or reductions) in rent payable to that person as landlord of one or more other reduced rent leases.
(9) In this paragraph—
‘reduced rent lease’ means—
(a) the lease to which the rent variation notice relates, or
(b) a qualifying intermediate lease;
‘relevant landlord’ means—
(a) the landlord under the qualifying lease, and
(b) any superior landlord who must be given a copy of the rent variation notice in accordance with paragraph 9D or 9E;
‘relevant reduction’ means—
(a) in relation to the lease to which the rent variation notice relates, a reduction resulting from that tenancy being varied in accordance with the other provisions of this Schedule;
(b) in relation to a qualifying intermediate lease, a reduction resulting from this paragraph.
‘relevant rent’ means rent that has been, or would properly be, apportioned to the whole or a part of the property to which the rent variation notice relates.”
This provides for rent to be reduced (commuted) under leases that are superior to the lease in respect of which a rent variation notice is given under Schedule 7 .
Like amendment 106, amendment 95 provides for commutation following a ground rent buy-out, and the obligations and rights of superior landlords. Amendment 95 provides for commutation for ground rent buy-out and the provision is identical to the commutation provision for lease extensions.
As we have discussed, commutation is the process by which a reduction in the rent of the inferior occupational lease—in this case, by a ground rent buy-out—triggers a reduction in the rent of intermediate leases sitting between the most inferior lease and the freehold. The amendment provides that, if commuted, the relevant rent payable by a tenant of an intermediate lease will be reduced to a peppercorn, but the reduction in rent payable by a tenant of such an intermediate lease must not exceed the reduction in the rent they receive as a landlord of an intermediate lease. I commend the amendment to the Committee.
Amendment 95 agreed to.
Lee Rowley
I beg to move amendment 96, in schedule 7, page 124, line 9, at end insert—
“(2A) An order under this paragraph may appoint a person to execute the variation of the lease on behalf of a party to the variation; and a variation executed in consequence of such an order has the same force and effect (for all purposes) as if it had been executed by that party.”
This authorises the Tribunal to appoint a person a execute the variation of a lease on behalf a party (eg. if they are absent or unco-operative).
Lee Rowley
Again, these amendments mostly simplify and clarify the provisions in schedule 7.
Amendment 97 provides that in the event that there is a failure to vary the lease in response to an enforceable variation notice, an application made to the tribunal for enforcement must be made within four months of the date that that notice became enforceable. Amendment 96 provides that the tribunal may appoint a person to vary the lease on the landlord’s behalf.
Amendment 98 provides that where the tribunal is satisfied that the landlord is missing and that the leaseholder has the right to a peppercorn rent, it may make an order to vary the lease and appoint someone to vary the lease on the landlord’s behalf. I commend the amendments to the Committee.
Amendment 96 agreed to.
Amendments made: 97, in schedule 7, page 124, line 11, leave out from first “of” to end of line 12 and insert
“four months beginning with the day on which the rent variation notice becomes enforceable (within the meaning of paragraph 7).”
This changes the period within which an application under paragraph 8 may be made.
Amendment 98, in schedule 7, page 124, line 12, at end insert—
“Missing landlord or third party
8A (1) On an application made by the tenant under a qualifying lease, the appropriate tribunal may make a determination that the landlord under, or another party to, a qualifying lease cannot be found or their identity cannot be ascertained.
(2) The following provisions of this paragraph apply if the appropriate tribunal makes such determination.
(3) The appropriate tribunal may make such order as it thinks fit including—
(a) an order dispensing with the requirement to give notice under paragraph 3 to that landlord or other party, or
(b) an order that such a notice has effect and has been properly served even though it has not been served on that landlord or other party.
(4) If the appropriate tribunal is satisfied that the tenant has the right to a peppercorn rent, the tribunal make such order as it thinks fit with respect to the variation of the qualifying lease to give effect to that right.
(5) An order under sub-paragraph (4) may appoint a person to execute the variation of the lease on behalf of a party to the variation; and a variation executed in consequence of such an order has the same force and effect (for all purposes) as if it had been executed by that party.
(6) Before making a determination or order under this paragraph, the appropriate tribunal may require the tenant to take such further steps by way of advertisement or otherwise as the court thinks proper for the purpose of tracing the person in question.
(7) If, after an application is made under this paragraph and before the lease is varied to give effect to the right to a peppercorn rent, the landlord or other party is traced—
(a) no further proceedings shall be taken with a view to a lease being varied in accordance with this paragraph,
(b) the rights and obligations of all parties shall be determined as if the tenant had, at the date of the application, duly given the rent variation notice, and
(c) the appropriate tribunal may give such directions as it thinks fit as to the steps to be taken for giving effect to the right to a peppercorn rent, including directions modifying or dispensing with any of the requirements of this Schedule or any regulations.”
This enables the Tribunal to deal with the situation where the landlord or third party to a lease cannot be found or identified.
Amendment 99, in schedule 7, page 124, line 15, after “landlord” insert
“, before the lease is varied in pursuance of the rent variation notice,”.
This clarifies that a notice of withdrawal can only be given before the lease is varied.
Amendment 100, in schedule 7, page 124, line 17, leave out from “is” to end of line 17 and insert
“varied in accordance with the notice”.—(Lee Rowley .)
This provides that rent variation notice ceases to have effect when the lease is varied in accordance with the notice.
Lee Rowley
I beg to move amendment 101, in schedule 7, page 124, line 19, leave out paragraph (c) and insert—
“(c) a lease enfranchisement notice or lease extension notice which relates to the qualifying lease is given;”.
This is consequential on Amendment 119.
Lee Rowley
Again, these amendments mostly simplify and clarify the provisions in schedule 7.
Amendment 101 provides that where a leaseholder has made a ground rent buy-out claim but, before the claim is settled, later makes an extension or acquisition claim, the ground rent buy-out claim ceases to have effect. Amendment 117 provides that the regulatory powers given to the Secretary of State by paragraph 12 are subject to the negative procedure.
Amendment 119 will insert a definition of “lease enfranchisement notice” as a notice for a freehold acquisition for a house or collective enfranchisement for a flat, and a definition of “lease extension notice” as a notice for a lease extension for a house or flat. Those definitions support amendments 80, 101 and 83. I commend the amendments to the Committee.
Amendment 101 agreed to .
Amendments made: 102, in schedule 7, page 124, line 21, leave out paragraph (d) and insert—
“(d) any order setting aside the notice is made by the appropriate tribunal or a court;”.
This is a technical amendment to correct the reference to kind of order that would be made.
Amendment 103, in schedule 7, page 124, line 22, at end insert—
“(da) the appropriate tribunal determines on an application under paragraph 5 that the tenant does not have the right to a peppercorn rent;
(db) the period of six months mentioned in paragraph 5(3) or (5) ends, where the application mentioned there could be made, but is not made before the end of that period;
(dc) the period of four months mentioned in paragraph 8(3) ends, where the application mentioned there could be made, but is not made before the end of that period;”.
This sets out additional circumstances in which a rent variation notice ceases to have effect.
Amendment 104, in schedule 7, page 124, line 28, leave out from “effect,” to end of line 16 on page 125 and insert
“except for any obligation arising under any provision of the LRA 1967 or the LRHUDA 1993 that applies by virtue of paragraph 11.”—(Lee Rowley.)
This clarifies which obligations continue after a rent variation notice ceases to have effect.
Lee Rowley
I beg to move amendment 105, in schedule 7, page 125, line 16, at end insert—
“Tenant’s liability for costs
9A (1) A tenant is not liable for any costs incurred by any other person as a result of the tenant’s exercise of the right to a peppercorn rent, except as referred to in—
(a) sub-paragraph (4),
(b) paragraph 9B (liability where claim ceases to have effect), and
(c) paragraph 9C (liability where tenant obtains the variation of the lease).
(2) A former tenant is not liable for any costs incurred by any other person as a result of the former tenant’s claim to the right to a peppercorn rent, except as referred to in sub-paragraphs (4) and (5).
(3) A lease, transfer, contract or other arrangement is accordingly of no effect to the extent it would provide to the contrary.
(4) A tenant or former tenant is liable for costs incurred by another person in connection with proceedings before a court or tribunal if—
(a) the court or tribunal has power under this Schedule or another enactment to order that the tenant or former tenant pay those costs, and
(b) the court or tribunal makes such an order.
(5) A former tenant is liable for costs incurred by a successor in title to the extent agreed between the former tenant and that successor in title.
(6) In this paragraph and paragraphs 9B and 9C—
“claim” includes an invalid claim;
“former tenant” means a person who was a tenant making a claim to the right to a peppercorn rent, but is no longer a tenant.
Liability for costs: failed claims
9B (1) A tenant is liable to the landlord for a prescribed amount in respect of non-litigation costs if the tenant’s claim ceases to have effect by virtue of paragraph 9(1), unless it ceases to have effect by virtue of—
(a) paragraph 9(1)(b), or
(b) paragraph 9(1)(e) because of the application of section 55 of the LRHUDA 1993.
(2) For the purposes of this paragraph—
(a) “prescribed” means prescribed by, or determined in accordance with, regulations made—
(i) in relation to England, by the Secretary of State;
(ii) in relation to Wales, by the Welsh Ministers;
(b) “non-litigation costs” are costs that are or could be incurred by a landlord as a result of a claim under this Schedule other than in connection with proceedings before a court or tribunal;
(c) where a claim ceases to have effect by virtue of a person who was a tenant assigning their lease without assigning the claim under paragraph 3(6), “tenant” includes that person.
(3) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this paragraph is subject to the negative procedure.
Liability for costs: successful claims
9C (1) A tenant is liable to the landlord for the amount referred to in subsection (2) if—
(a) the tenant makes a claim to the right to a peppercorn rent,
(b) the rent is reduced in consequence of the claim,
(c) the premium payable by the tenant for the variation of the lease is less than a prescribed amount,
(d) the landlord incurs costs as a result of the claim,
(e) the costs are incurred other than in connection with proceedings before a court or tribunal,
(f) the costs incurred by the landlord are reasonable, and
(g) the costs are more than the premium payable.
(2) The amount is the difference between—
(a) the premium payable by the tenant, and
(b) the costs incurred by the landlord, or, if those costs exceed a prescribed amount, that prescribed amount.
(3) In this paragraph “prescribed” means prescribed by, or determined in accordance with, regulations made—
(a) in relation to England, by the Secretary of State;
(b) in relation to Wales, by the Welsh Ministers.
(4) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this paragraph is subject to the negative procedure.”
This provides for a tenant’s liability for costs incurred by other persons in connection with a claim for a peppercorn rent .
This amendment applies the reformed cost regime to ground rent buy-out claims. The amendment makes cost provisions for the ground rent buy-out right. These match the cost provisions for lease extensions for houses and flats. There is a general no-costs rule, but a tenant may be liable for fixed costs if their claim fails, and may be liable for a fixed amount of costs, which would be charged by reducing the value of the premium, if the ground rent buy-out claim is a prescribed low-value claim. A tenant cannot be required to give security for costs. I commend the amendment to the Committee.
Amendment 105 agreed to.
Amendment made: 106, in schedule 7, page 125, line 16, at end insert—
“Duty of landlord to give copies of the rent variation notice to superior landlords
9D (1) This paragraph applies if the landlord is given a rent variation notice by the tenant.
(2) The landlord must give a copy of the rent variation notice to any person whom the landlord believes is a superior landlord.
(3) But that duty does not apply if the landlord has been notified under paragraph 9E(5)(b) that a copy of the rent variation notice has been given to that person.
(4) The landlord must comply with that duty as soon as reasonably practicable after—
(a) being given the rent variation notice, or
(b) forming the belief that a person is a superior landlord (if that is after the rent variation notice was given).
(5) If the landlord gives a copy of the rent variation notice to a person under sub-paragraph (2), the landlord must, together with the copy, give that person the names of—
(a) all of the persons to whom the landlord has given a copy of the notice under this paragraph, and
(b) any other persons that the landlord is aware have been given a copy of the notice.
(6) If the landlord fails to comply with a duty in this paragraph, the landlord is liable in damages for any loss suffered by any other person as a result of the failure.
Duty of superior landlord to give copies of the rent variation notice to other superior landlords
9E (1) This paragraph applies if a superior landlord is given a copy of a rent variation notice under paragraph 9D or this paragraph.
(2) The superior landlord (the “forwarding landlord”) must give a copy of the rent variation notice to any person whom the forwarding landlord believes is a superior landlord.
(3) But that duty does not apply if the forwarding landlord has been notified under paragraph 9D or this paragraph that a copy of the rent variation notice has been given to that person.
(4) The forwarding landlord must comply with that duty as soon as reasonably practicable after—
(a) being given the copy of the rent variation notice, or
(b) forming the belief that a person is a superior landlord (if that is after the copy of the rent variation notice was given).
(5) If the forwarding landlord gives a copy of the rent variation notice to a person under sub-paragraph (2), the forwarding landlord—
(a) must, together with the copy, give that person the names of—
(i) all of the persons to whom the forwarding landlord has given a copy of the notice under this paragraph, and
(ii) any other persons that the forwarding landlord is aware have been given a copy of the notice;
(b) must notify the landlord that the forwarding landlord has given the copy to that person.
(6) If the forwarding landlord fails to comply with a duty in this paragraph, the forwarding landlord is liable in damages for any loss suffered by any other person as a result of the failure.”—(Lee Rowley.)
This requires notice of a claim for a peppercorn rent to be given to superior landlords.
Lee Rowley
I beg to move amendment 107, in schedule 7, page 125, line 18, leave out paragraph 10.
This is consequential on Amendment 109.
Lee Rowley
These amendments concern the provisions of the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 as they apply to the right. Previously, provisions applying to ground rent buy-out claims on houses and flats were in separate paragraphs of the schedule: paragraphs 10 and 11, respectively. Amendment 109 amends paragraph 11 so that the provisions therein apply to claims on both houses and flats. Consequently, amendment 108 will change the title of paragraph 11 accordingly, and amendment 107 will remove paragraph 10. “Schedule 12, paragraph 9 (inaccurate notices)” “Property which the tenant is, or is not, entitled to have demised under a new lease Property in respect of which the tenant has, or does not have, the right to a peppercorn rent under this Schedule The premium payable for the new lease The required premium payable under paragraph 7 of this Schedule A notice under section 42 to claim the right to a new lease A rent variation notice”
Amendments 114 and 116 will amend the provisions of the 1993 Act that apply to the ground rent buy-out right, so that the provisions are properly carried across. Amendments 113 and 112 make a provision in relation to mortgages that applies to lease extensions under the 1993 Act, so that it applies appropriately to ground rent buy-out claims.
Amendment 115 will add a provision for dealing with inaccurate rent variation notices, to the effect that small inaccuracies do not invalidate the claim. Amendment 110 will require the leaseholder to pay off arrears of rent or service charges prior to a ground rent buy-out. Amendment 111 will ensure that the provisions in amendment 110 refer correctly to the ground rent buy-out premium. I commend the amendments to the Committee.
Amendment 107 agreed to .
Amendments made: 108, in schedule 7, page 127, leave out line 1 and insert
“Provisions of the LRHUDA 1993 that apply for the purposes of this Schedule”.
This is consequential on Amendment 109.
Amendment 109, in schedule 7, page 127, line 4, leave out from first “Schedule” to end of line 5 and insert
“(whether in its application to a house or flat)”.
This provides for paragraph 11 to apply to all claims under Schedule 7, not just to claims where the qualifying lease is of a flat (and so it means that paragraph 10 is longer needed).
Amendment 110, in schedule 7, page 127, line 19, first column, leave out “and (4)” and insert “(a) and (c)”.
This alters the provision in section 56 of the LRHUDA 1993 which is applied to Schedule 7.
Amendment 111, in schedule 7, page 127, second column, leave out line 19 and insert
“The reference to any premium and other amounts payable by virtue of Schedule 13 has effect as a reference to the required premium payable under paragraph 7 of this Schedule”.
This modifies the wording of section 56 of the LRHUDA 1993 in its application to Schedule 7.
Amendment 112, in schedule 7, page 127, line 24, first column, leave out
“(1), (2), (5), (6) and (7)”
and insert “, except for subsection (4)”.
This alters the provision in section 58 of the LRHUDA 1993 which is applied to Schedule 7.
Amendment 113, in schedule 7, page 127, line 24, second column, insert
“A reference to the new lease has effect as a reference to the deed of variation of the lease”.
This modifies the wording of section 58 of the LRHUDA 1993 in its application to Schedule 7.
Amendment 114, in schedule 7, page 127, leave out lines 28 to 31.
This removes provision of the LRHUDA 1993 which no longer needs to apply to Schedule 7.
Amendment 115, in schedule 7, page 128, line 10, at end insert—
This adds further provision of the LRHUDA 1993 which is to apply to Schedule 7.
Amendment 116, in schedule 7, page 128, line 21, at end insert—
This provides for the modification of additional terminology used in the LRHUDA 1993 in its application to Schedule 7.
Amendment 117, in schedule 7, page 129, line 13, at end insert—
“(4A) Regulations under this paragraph are subject to the negative procedure.”
This makes regulations under paragraph 12 subject to the negative procedure (see clause 62(4)).
Amendment 118, in schedule 7, page 129, line 18, leave out paragraph (d).
This is consequential on Amendment 104.
Amendment 119, in schedule 7, page 129, leave out lines 29 to 37 and insert—
“‘lease enfranchisement notice’ means a notice under—
(a) section 8 of the LRA 1967 (notice of desire to acquire freehold of house), or
(b) section 13 of the LRHUDA 1993 (notice of claim to exercise right to collective enfranchisement);
and a lease enfranchisement notice under section 13 of the LRHUDA 1993 relates to the qualifying lease if the tenant under the lease is one of the participating tenants in relation to the claim under the notice;
‘lease extension notice’ means a notice under—
(a) section 14 of the LRA 1967 (notice of desire to extend lease of house), or
(b) section 42 of the LRHUDA 1993 (notice of claim to exercise right to acquire new lease of flat);”.
This provides for separate definitions of “lease enfranchisement notice” and “lease extension notice” (instead of a single definition of both terms).
Amendment 120, in schedule 7, page 129, leave out line 39.—(Lee Rowley.)
This is consequential on Amendment 104.
Question proposed, That the schedule, as amended, be the Seventh schedule to the Bill.
Lee Rowley
Schedule 7 will confer on leaseholders a right to buy out their ground rent without extending their lease. As the premium payable will be subject to the 0.1% cap on ground rent, this measure will be especially helpful for leaseholders with high or escalating rents. Paragraph 2 sets out that leaseholders who qualify for a lease extension will have this right as long as their remaining term is at least 150 years. Community housing leases and home finance plan leases are excluded, as they were from the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022. Leaseholders may not qualify for lease extensions because they have a lease of Crown land, or because they do not satisfy the low rent test in the Leasehold Reform Act 1967. Such leaseholders will qualify for the new buy-out right.
Paragraphs 3 to 7 set out procedural arrangements for leaseholders and their landlords. They provide that the right is exercised by serving a rent variation notice on the landlord, including time limits for responses and arrangements for either party to apply to the tribunal if they so wish. The premium payable is the same as the term portion of the lease extension premium set out in schedule 2, and is subject to the ground rent cap. It is the capitalised value of the rent payable for the remainder of the lease.
Paragraph 8 provides that where the lease is not varied to provide that the future rent is a peppercorn rent, the leaseholder or landlord can apply to the tribunal. The tribunal shall decide whether it should be varied and, if it should, can appoint a person to execute the variation in place of the landlord. Paragraph 9 sets out the circumstances in which a rent variation notice ceases to have effect. A claim can be revived if it ceased to have effect due to a later extension or acquisition claim, where the later claim ceases to have effect.
Paragraph 10 sets out details of how the schedule applies in relation to the lease of a house; paragraph 11 does the same in relation to the lease of a flat. Finally, paragraph 12 gives various enabling powers to the Secretary of State, including giving effect to the rights, making provisions about notices and amending the details of how the schedule applies to the lease of a house or a flat.
Question put and agreed to.
Schedule 7, as amended, accordingly agreed to.
Clause 22
Change of non-residential limit on right to manage claims
Barry Gardiner
I beg to move amendment 129, in clause 22, page 38, line 21, leave out “50%” and insert “75%”.
This amendment would allow leaseholders with a higher proportion of commercial or non-residential space in their building to claim the Right to Manage.
Barry Gardiner
First of all, let me say what this is not about: it is not about enfranchisement. It is quite simply about the right to manage. I say that because a few days ago, a journalist got this entirely wrong. We welcome the change to 50%. The amendment would allow leaseholders with a higher proportion of commercial or non-residential space in their building to claim the right to manage. It is not about shared services or the percentage of the leaseholders who can be contacted; it is about square footage.
I welcome the proposed increase from 25% to 50%, but as we heard in the witness sessions, the Law Commission was originally asked by the Government to remove the 25% rule on the right to manage completely on the basis that leaseholders who are paying a service charge should have control over the areas for which they are being charged. This would leave the management of the commercial premises absolutely unchanged. It was taken out by the Law Commission, which actually wanted to be more restrictive than the Government, who had said that it could be 100%. On its reason for that, it said, “There could be, at the top of the Shard, 30 residential properties. This could have the perverse result of them taking control of a much larger area.” It used that special example to illustrate why it felt that 100% was not appropriate. The Government had suggested that we go a lot further, but the Law Commission said, “There are special cases, so let’s row back on this.” But then the Government came back with 50%.
Let us take the advice of the Law Commission and accept that 100% is not the right figure. I propose that we go to 75% and use that as the basis, because it would avoid that unique case that the Law Commission put forward. It would achieve what I think was the Government’s original intention of allowing more people in that situation the right to manage.
Lee Rowley
I am grateful to the hon. Member for tabling the amendment. He is correct that, as with many of these instances, there are balances to be struck. While I will argue for a different balance from the one he outlined, I accept, understand and acknowledge that a number of different cases can be made in this discussion.
As the hon. Member indicated, the Bill already includes a provision to increase the limit from 25% to 50%, following the Law Commission’s extensive investigation. We believe that the increase to 50% seeks to strike a proportionate balance. He made a valid point about issues in a minority of cases, and we will not use extreme cases as a reason. However, there is the potential—this is why we have landed on 50%—to unfairly prejudice the interests of landlords and commercial tenants, for example, where a minority of leaseholders take over the management of a building that is predominantly commercial.
As I said, I recognise that there is a balance to be struck, but on the basis of the progress that is being made, which I am grateful to the hon. Member for acknowledging, 50% is where the Government would prefer to land, and that is what we are proposing.
Barry Gardiner
If the Minister casts his mind forward to the next two amendments, which seek to give the Secretary of State the authority to determine the limit, and should the Minister indicate that, in the future, the Secretary of State would almost certainly not determine it to be less than 50%—as the Government have already proposed—then I just might be persuaded to withdraw my amendment.
Lee Rowley
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments. We are sticking with what we have suggested, but I hope he will consider withdrawing his amendment none the less. I will just say a few words on our reasons for sticking with what propose in clause 22. We have been clear that we want to improve access to right to manage—I think that view is shared across the House—and we accept that the current limit of 25% of floor space is not proportionate. Therefore, through this clause, we are seeking to increase the non-residential limit from 25% to 50%, as has been discussed. That replicates clause 3 on collective enfranchisement, recognising that this is not a debate about collective enfranchisement on a specific clause.
For the reasons that we have outlined, 50% is the place where the Government have landed, and where we feel is most proportionate. We hope that it will mean that more leaseholders in mixed-used buildings can take over the management responsibilities of their properties. I commend the clause to the Committee, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will consider withdrawing his amendment.
Barry Gardiner
I am grateful to the Minister for his response; he is courteous, as ever. I just point out that the all-party group on leasehold and commonhold reform, co-chaired by the Father of the House, the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), also made the recommendation that the Government look again at this issue. I am prepared to throw my weight behind amendments 26 and 27, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn .
Matthew Pennycook
I beg to move amendment 26, in clause 22, page 38, line 21, at end insert—
“(b) after paragraph 1(4) insert—
‘(5) The Secretary of State or the Welsh Ministers may by regulations amend this paragraph to provide for a different description of premises falling within section 72(1) to which this Chapter does not apply.’”
This amendment would enable the Secretary of State or (in the case of Wales) the Welsh Ministers to change the description of premises which are excluded from the right to manage. By virtue of Amendment 27, such a change would be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 27, in clause 22, page 38, line 21, at end insert—
“(2) In section 178 of the CLRA 2002—
(a) in subsection (4), after ‘171’, insert ‘, paragraph 1(5) of Schedule 6’;
(b) after subsection (5), insert—
‘(6) Regulations shall not be made by the Welsh Ministers under paragraph 1(5) of Schedule 6 unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by resolution of Senedd Cymru.’”
See explanatory statement to Amendment 26.
Matthew Pennycook
I rise to speak to the amendments in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale. I do so making almost entirely the same argument as that made by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North. [Interruption.] No, I am hoping for a very different response from the Minister to it.
As was made clear in a previous debate, this clause operates in precisely the way that clause 3 does in relation to collective enfranchisement claims: by making changes to the non-residential limit to the right to manage—and we welcome it. The clause will enact recommendation 7 of the Law Commission’s final report on exercising that right.
Although I take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North about the use of extreme outlier cases to undermine an argument, we accept the Law Commission’s broad argument that abolishing the non-residential limit entirely could cause problems in a number of cases for certain landlords and commercial tenants. But as the Law Commission very clearly concluded, the current limit is
“an unwarranted impediment to the RTM, given that it can prevent premises which are mostly residential from qualifying.”
We think it is right that the Bill seeks to increase that limit, and we hope that doing so will bring a greater number and variety—that is important—of premises into the right to manage and therefore help to boost the number of leaseholders who decide to take over the management function of their buildings.
As with the non-residential limit for collective enfran-chisement claims, the threshold is inherently arbitrary, but we feel—here my hon. Friend is absolutely right—that we need to address the fact that 50% will leave large numbers of leaseholders shut out from the right to manage. He made the case for a 75% threshold, and I think that has a lot of merit. We sought to be slightly less prescriptive; instead, much in the way that we argued for powers to be put in the Bill for Ministers to further amend the non-residential limit for collective enfranchisement, we propose to give a degree of flexibility to the non-residential limit on right to manage claims, so that any future changes to increase it—and only to increase it—do not require primary legislation.
We want to be slightly more flexible, or less prescriptive, than my hon. Friend for the following reasons. First, we can imagine a range of scenarios in which we would need to look at the 50% threshold in terms of internal floor space. We also think, as with collective enfran-chisement claims, that a future Government may wish to look at the entire criteria afresh—I am thinking of cases of the right to manage, for example, where we might consider whether there are better metrics for determining the residential nature of a building. It is notable that, although the Law Commission ultimately recommended retaining the use of floor space as the metric, it explored in great detail a comparison between the values of the residential and non-residential parts as a way into this. A future Government may therefore wish to look at the criteria afresh, so we sought to give the Secretary of State that power.
We think that that is entirely sensible, as we did when we argued for earlier amendments. It would be by regulation subject to the affirmative procedure, to give this House the chance to give any change due scrutiny, but we think it is a sensible principle to build some flexibility into the Bill.
I expect the Minister will resist the amendment, for the reasons that he previously resisted a similar amendment on collective enfranchisement. I will therefore probably not press the amendment to a vote. However, I think we will have to come back to the issue later, because on both collective enfranchisement and right to manage, the Government are being somewhat stubborn in saying that the 50% sticks and that future primary legislation, which could be many years away, is the only way to look at it afresh. I hope that the Minister will give the amendment serious thought.
Lee Rowley
I am grateful for the comments and questions from the hon. Members for Greenwich and Woolwich and for Brent North. As they anticipated —I may be becoming too conventional—I will resist the amendment. Again, this is about where primary legislation stops and secondary legislation begins, and the Opposition are right to test us on that. It is perfectly legitimate for people to take different views on where that starts and stops, and we know that our colleagues in the other place caution us, where we can be cautioned, not to take too many Henry VIII powers. We are undertaking a self-denying ordinance to not take an additional Henry VIII power today, on the basis that this is of sufficient magnitude, albeit recognising the challenges that have been outlined, that it should be in the Bill and be clear, and that any appropriate changes should come through similar processes. For that reason, although I understand the rationale for it, and I am always happy to listen to the underlying points, the Government will not support the amendment.
Matthew Pennycook
I will not labour the point, but I put on record that I look forward to the Minister standing up at some future point in what remains of his tenure and arguing for the absolute necessity of a Henry VIII power in one or other respect. It will come, but obviously not on this occasion. As I said, we will have to come back to this matter, but we will reflect on how best to do so. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 22 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 23
Costs of right to manage claims
Amendment made: 45, in clause 23, page 39, line 30, at end insert—
“(8) See also sections 20CA and 20J of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, which prevent costs in connection with a claim under this Chapter being recovered by way of a variable service charge (within the meaning of section 18 of that Act).”.—(Lee Rowley.)
This amendment is consequential on NC7 .
Matthew Pennycook
I beg to move amendment 7, in clause 23, page 39, leave out from line 31 to line 32 on page 40.
This amendment would leave out the proposed new section 87B of the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 and so ensure that RTM companies cannot incur costs in instances where claims cease.
Matthew Pennycook
Clause 23 replaces the existing costs regimes for RTM claims under the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002. The new regime is established in proposed new sections 87A and 87B.
Proposed new section 87A sets out the general rule that RTM companies and RTM company members are not liable for the costs incurred by another person because of an RTM claim. Proposed new section 87B allows the tribunal to order an RTM company to pay the reasonable costs of specified people that arise from an RTM claim notice being withdrawn or ceasing to have effect and the RTM company has acted unreasonably.
We welcome the intent behind new section 87A. At present, the RTM company is liable for the reasonable non-litigation costs that are incurred by a landlord in consequence of an RTM claim notice. Safe in the knowledge that the cost of the process is always recoverable from the RTM company, landlords are at present incentivised to conduct an overscrupulous analysis of the claim with a view to finding minor and inconsequential defects, in an attempt to disrupt the claim. That happens on far too many occasions.
If a claim is disputed and the tribunal decides that the RTM company is not entitled to acquire the RTM, the RTM company is liable to pay the landlord’s reasonable costs, but the same rule does not apply if the landlord unsuccessfully challenges the claim. Landlords can therefore dispute claims safe in the knowledge that doing so is a one-way bet.
In instances where a landlord is obliged to pay litigation costs following a successful claim, they can and do frequently recover the moneys from leaseholders either through the service charge or as an administration charge under the leases. It is not that common, but in such shortfall scenarios the leaseholders end up paying, even if they are successful in the tribunal.
Given that RTM companies are almost always undercapitalised, have no assets and cannot collect service charges before the RTM is acquired, these costs, which cannot be limited or predicted and can have significant implications for large or complex developments, are often met by individual leaseholders, with any challenges to their reasonableness entailing all the burden and risk of going to the tribunal. By entailing unknown and potentially significant costs liability for which they are jointly and severally liable, the present costs regimes clearly act as a deterrent to leaseholders pursuing the RTM and participating in an RTM claim.
In our view, landlords can bear these costs, and by providing for a general rule that they do so, the clause will make the RTM procedure simpler, more accessible and less foreboding. It is for that reason that the Law Commission recommended significant changes to the allocation of costs incurred during acquisition of the right to manage, and in relation to disputes. The clause draws upon five of its proposals.
The Law Commission did recommend, however, that an exception ought to be made where an RTM claim has been withdrawn or otherwise ceased early and the RTM company has acted unreasonably in bringing the RTM claim. In such cases, it recommends that the landlord should be able to apply to the tribunal for any reasonable costs that it has incurred in consequence of the RTM claim, down to the time that the claim ceased. They did so
“to address the risk of landlords potentially having to bear the cost of responding to unreasonable or vexatious claims issued by leaseholders which are subsequently withdrawn.”
Proposed new section 87B enacts that proposal. While the Law Commission made clear that it expected that the tribunal would apply the test in question narrowly, we are concerned about its inclusion for two reasons. First, there is a principled argument that leaseholders should not be put at risk of having to pay costs simply for exercising statutory rights—in this case, the right to seek to acquire and exercise rights in relation to the management of premises in which one has a leasehold interest.
The first-tier tribunal already has the power under rule 13(1)(a) to punish unreasonable behaviour by making the parties’ legal or other representative pay to the other party any costs incurred as a result of improper, unreasonable or negligent acts or omissions. As such, we would ask why we need a new statutory provision to create yet further scenarios where leaseholders might have to pay.
Secondly, we are concerned that unscrupulous landlords will use the rights provided for by new section 87B as a means of recovering costs from RTM companies that act reasonably and in good faith, and by implication that it will discourage RTM companies from initiating a claim because of the financial risk it still entails for individual participating leaseholders. Put simply, we fear that new section 87B will incentivise scrupulous landlords to fight claims on the basis that they are defective in the hope of recovering costs by means of it. Amendment 7 leaves out proposed new section 87B of the 2002 Act, thereby ensuring that all leaseholders are protected from costs for RTM claims. I hope the Minister will consider accepting that.
Lee Rowley
I thank the shadow Minister for the amendment. Again, while I understand and acknowledge the underlying intent behind it, and share his inclination to reduce the cost for leaseholders to exercise the rights to form a company and bring a claim, we will not accept the amendment today for reasons that I will explain. It is perfectly clear that, and I think we will all accept this across the Committee, up until now the situation has been balanced in favour of landlords, who have been able to recover their process costs from leaseholders at times. The Bill will change that, as has been acknowledged, and will significantly broaden the cases in which each party will be required to bear their own costs. However, it is important that we take steps to protect landlords from unfair costs.
On amendment 7, the Government judge that it would be unfair if a landlord were required to meet their own process costs where a right to manage claim is withdrawn or ceases to have effect as a direct result of unreasonable conduct from the RTM company. The power for the tribunal to order payment of costs for such ceased claims also includes protections for leaseholders. The landlord will not be entitled to costs automatically and it will be necessary to make an application to the tribunal for an order to that effect. If the tribunal does not consider that costs should be payable, it can decline to make an order. I note that the shadow Minister acknowledged that in his initial remarks.
In aggregate, and with that in mind, my and the Government’s view is that, while the cost regime must change, if the amendment were passed, it would expose freeholders to the risk of facing burdensome and unfair costs. I ask the shadow Minister, if he is willing, to withdraw the amendment.
Turning to clause 23 itself, as has been indicated, leaseholders bringing forward a right to manage claim currently face unknown and potentially significant costs. That is because, under current rules, they must meet reasonable costs of a landlord as well as their own costs, and the costs of others often run into thousands of pounds. Those costs—also known as non-litigation costs—include professional services, surveyors, accountants and insurers from which a landlord may incur costs as a result of the claim. Clause 23 seeks to help by removing the requirement for right to manage companies and their leaseholder members to contribute towards those non-litigation costs, meaning that both parties to a claim will bear their own. It does so by replacing the existing cost regime in the 2002 Act.
A requirement that landlords should bear their costs means that they have an incentive to keep costs down, which hopefully reduces some of the issues that the shadow Minister highlighted, and to process claims quickly because they will not be able to pass those costs on to leaseholders bringing forward the claim, potentially reducing the overall cost for both landlords and leaseholders. To protect landlords from frivolous right to manage claims, the clause includes an exception, so landlords can claim costs where the claim has been withdrawn, abandoned, struck out or otherwise ceases, or where a RTM company has acted unreasonably. Under those circumstances, as has been outlined, the landlords can apply to a tribunal.
To reduce existing obstructions to the process, the clause amends the 2002 Act to ensure that a person complying with the duty to provide information cannot withhold supplying a copy of a document to a right to manage company on the basis that they are waiting to receive a reasonable fee. However, the right to manage company will still be liable for reasonable cost of a person complying with that duty.
The clause also removes the current one-way cost shifting rule for litigant costs, which means that only landlords can currently claim the litigation costs from the RTM company, if they are successful. It is only fair that parties to litigation should bear their own costs, and that is the change that has been made.
Finally, the clause prevents landlords from passing costs on to leaseholders via the service charge. We believe that, in aggregate, these measures will reduce uncertainty in making a right to management claim by making sure that each side to a claim bears their own costs. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Alistair Strathern (Mid Bedfordshire) (Lab)
I rise briefly to support the comments from my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich. Although I welcome much of the Minister’s message about removing some of the deterrents to taking on the right to manage on estates, having spoken to a number of residents and campaigners in my constituency, I know that if the clause is not removed it will continue to be a real deterrent and to expose them to a risk of significant financial liability that they would be poorly placed to take on. I know the Minister has already set out that he is unwilling to support the amendment today, but I hope that the Government will reflect on whether they might be willing to come back to the point to ensure there is no unnecessary deterrent to leaseholders in obtaining the right to manage effectively.
Matthew Pennycook
I thank the Minister for his response. There are two differences of opinion, the first of which is on the principled point of whether it is right that leaseholders should be charged for exercising their statutory right. We lean quite strongly towards the argument that they should not be, in principle.
The more pertinent argument for me is the second point I made, which, in all fairness, I do not think the Minister addressed. Let us be clear: in many respects, the Bill forces the Government to judge the right balance to strike between the interests of leaseholders and landlords. In coming to that view, the Bill has to account for the possibility that it creates quite perverse incentives, and I do not think it does that here or in a number of other places. This is one example of where that might happen. If a landlord wants to frustrate, disrupt or stop an RTM claim, the way in which the Government have implemented the exception to the general rule will incentivise them to fight the claim on the basis that they can try and convince the adjudicating party that the claim is defective, in the hope of recovering costs. A leaseholder exploring whether to take forward a claim is then faced with the risk of significant liabilities, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire.
That will deter a huge number of leaseholders from exercising the right. Landlords will know it and fight more claims because they know that the deterrent effect of the exception to the general rule will be quite powerful in a number of cases. We argue quite strongly that we should just end the process costs for leaseholders as a matter of principle. That will incentivise many more groups of leaseholders to seek to acquire the right to manage. For that reason, we are minded to press the amendment to a Division.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Lee Rowley
The tribunal needs the power to order compliance with obligations under the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002. Clause 24 amends section 107(1) of that Act to enable the tribunal to make an order requiring a person who has failed to comply with the requirement on them to address that failure and comply with the requirement within the time set out in the order. The clause also provides that where an order other than an order to pay money has been made by the appropriate tribunal, a person may apply to the county court for the enforcement of the order, or the tribunal may transfer proceedings to the county court for the enforcement of the order. If the tribunal makes an order for compliance, it will be enforceable by the county court in the same way as if it were an order of the county court itself. The clause also inserts a signpost to a general provision in the 2002 Act about the enforcement of tribunal decisions and to provisions in the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 about the enforcement of an order to pay a sum of money. The measures will allow the appropriate tribunal and courts to exercise their proper enforcement function. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 24 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 25
No first-instance applications to the High Court in tribunal matters
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Lee Rowley
Clause 25 complements clause 24 by removing the risk that the change of jurisdiction for right to manage disputes to the tribunal will be circumvented through applications being brought in the High Court instead in the first instance. The clause prevents such applications being brought in the High Court. The tribunal already has exclusive jurisdiction over proceedings, and it is well placed to take over proceedings concerning the compliance with the right to manage provisions in the 2002 Act in the same way that they do for the acquisition of the right to manage. The clause does not prevent an appeal of the decision of the tribunal to the High Court or the jurisdiction of the High Court to consider judicial review claims. The measure will make the determination of disputes clearer, help to reduce costs and ensure that disputes are handled by judges with specialist knowledge. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 25 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 26
Extension of regulation to fixed service charges
Matthew Pennycook
I beg to move amendment 10, in clause 26, page 42, leave out lines 12 and 13.
This amendment would ensure that the statutory test of reasonableness would apply to fixed service charges.
In considering part 3 of the Bill, we move away from provisions that draw on recommendations made by the Law Commission across its leasehold enfranchisement and right to manage reports from 2020 and instead turn to other Government proposals on the regulation of leasehold. The first five clauses in this part concern service charges in residential leases. The Government’s stated objective in including the clauses in the Bill is to improve the consumer rights of leaseholders by requiring freeholders or managing agents acting on their behalf to issue service charge demands and annual reports in a standardised format and a more transparent manner so that leaseholders can more easily assess—and, in theory, challenge—any unreasonable or erroneous charges.
We very much welcome the intent of the clauses. While much of the detail will await the statutory instruments required to bring them into force, the clauses have the potential to improve tangibly what is without doubt one of the most contentious and, for leaseholders, injurious aspects of the feudal leasehold tenure. My office receives scores of complaints, literally on a weekly basis, from leaseholders in my constituency who believe that when it comes to the setting of their service charges, they have been subjected to unreasonable costs; costs artificially inflated as a result of outright error, such as the duplication of charges for the same service; large periodic increases that are rarely justified; or abusive practices, such as the deliberate misuse of funds. Even when leaseholders do not believe that there is a specific problem with their service charge amounts, my experience talking to many thousands of them over the years in Greenwich and Woolwich is that most nevertheless feel that they are not particularly aware of or informed about what their charges are spent on or what their future liabilities might be.
That may well be a trend that is particularly prevalent in constituencies such as my own that contain a significant number of new-build leasehold flats, but my team and I increasingly find—as I am sure other hon. Members find in their own caseloads—that a sizeable proportion of the work we do involves simply demanding from freeholders and managing agents, on behalf of leaseholders pushed to the financial brink, a detailed breakdown of service charge costs. We are then frequently required to assist individual leaseholders or informal groupings of them in probing the relevant freeholder or managing agent on the justification for individual charges, and more often than not we expose discrepancies or charges levied for services that are not provided as a result.
Given that a Member of Parliament is involved in those cases, most freeholders, head lessees or managing agents will, in such circumstances, ensure that the aggrieved leaseholders are reimbursed, thus avoiding the need for them—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Brent North laughs, but we have had success on occasion, once the relevant error is exposed. In those circumstances, it avoids the need for the leaseholders in question to take the matter to tribunal, with the detrimental implications that the current cost regime entails. However, many —perhaps most—do not, instead relying on the barriers that leaseholders face in going to tribunal to ensure that the unjustified costs are still paid and not challenged. I would wager that, in the scenario that I just set out, I am not alone among Members of the House in dealing with service charge disputes of that kind on a regular basis. To my mind, that is a clear indication that the current service charge regime is woefully failing to adequately serve leaseholders or protect their interests. The Opposition take the view that there is a cast-iron case for making changes to the regime, with a view to ensuring that service charges are levied in a more appropriate, transparent and fair way.
Lee Rowley
I thank the hon. Member for his amendment. Even though I will not be accepting it today, it raises an important question and he is right to allow us to debate it. We absolutely recognise that leaseholders who pay fixed service charges do not have the same rights of challenge as leaseholders who pay variable service charges—that is accepted and understood—but it is also the case that there are good reasons for that.
As the hon. Member indicated, the main sectors where fixed charges exist are the retirement and social housing sectors, where households are often on limited and fixed incomes, as I do not need to explain to the Committee. Leaseholders, especially those on low incomes, who pay a fixed service charge have certainty about that charge, whereas those who pay variable service charges do not. Landlords benefit from not having to consider tribunal applications but, in return, they should have a clear imperative to provide value for money.
If we were to grant the right to challenge fixed service charges in a similar way to how variable service charges can be challenged, there would be some operational and practical challenges, which is one of the reasons why we will not agree to the amendment today. For example, if landlords underestimate costs in one year, but overestimate them in another, is it feasible and reasonable to be able to challenge the reasonableness only in the year in which the costs are overestimated? Should a reciprocal ability to challenge or to recover the balance of an underestimated cost in a year, on the basis that it would be reasonable to do so, not be proposed? Landlords might move away from employing fixed service charges and switch to variable service charges, which could have unintended consequences.
Fundamentally, I share the hon. Gentleman’s view that there are challenges in all parts of service charges, and so there will be challenges within fixed service charges. The whole point of other elements of the Bill is to provide transparency and visibility of the reasoning for charges being made. For the reasons I have outlined, we are not of the view that this extension should be made for fixed charges.
Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)
I want to pick up on the shadow Minister’s point about ambiguity. There is no definition of what exactly would constitute a fixed charge, so there is the opportunity for flexibility or the law of unintended consequences. Given the lack of opportunity for subsequent challenge, a landlord might choose to move a charge from one column to the other. When the Minister said he would not accept the amendment today, did he mean he would give this point some further consideration in the future, or was he just being polite?
Lee Rowley
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. Notwithstanding the tone of my responses, given the Committee’s interest I will happily write to it to make sure there is clarity on that point. I hope that, as a general and broad macro point, my comment still stands.
Barry Gardiner
The Minister has yet again confirmed his reputation for being reasonable. Can I probe him on the point about reasonableness? Many leaseholders complain that there is an amount in their service charges, which they may think is either reasonable or unreasonable, for a particular service, but when they enquire about the service provider, they find that it is in fact their landlord under another name. They then pay not only the cost of that arm’s length contractor providing the service, but a 15% service charge on top of it. Many people would feel that this is another rentier practice that landlords are using. I appreciate that the issue does not relate specifically to amendment 10, but I would very much like to get the Minister’s thoughts about the reasonableness of that practice on record.
Lee Rowley
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point. He articulates another example of good law being used in a way that is, in my view—without talking about individual incidents—both unintended and inappropriate. I am not a lawyer, and do not seek or have any desire to be one, but as I understand it, there is a concept of reasonableness within the legal domain based on an Act from a number of years ago. Hopefully that helps to answer part of his question, at least from a structural perspective. On the variable service charge side, without talking about individual instances, that kind of instance is a clear example of where those impacted would be able to go through the process of challenging it, which I think would be very sensible. If I were a leaseholder, I might be very tempted to do that, unless the charge could be justified in a different way. On the fixed service charge side, although I accept that there is the potential for these kinds of challenges, conceptually that needs to be balanced with the fact that when the contract was entered, an agreement was made to consent to that amount, for whatever reason—good or otherwise. That is why we are pursuing this. However, I take the hon. Gentleman’s broader point.
Rachel Maclean
This discussion goes to the heart of some practices and problems that leaseholders have experienced across the sector. On behalf of the many retirement leaseholders, mentioned by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, I will make a point and ask for reassurance from the Minister.
What we are talking about with this amendment is different from the ground rent issue. Ground rent is a payment for nothing—nothing is being provided—whereas something is being provided for service charges. There is a service, so there is a need for a charge; that is perfectly legitimate. As Conservatives, we do not dispute the fact that there should be financial recompense for services. However, we find ourselves with a problem, the law of unintended consequences and the drivers of business models.
I would welcome if the Minister could touch on this in his response, but my fear is that if ground rents are removed and business models need to adjust to make recompense for that, the natural behaviour of unethical operators in the retirement sector and possibly elsewhere—some are unethical and do not think about the people who bought properties in good faith—will surely be to seek to load their charges, their profit and loss, back on to the service charge in some way. I am not close enough to existing contracts to know whether they will be able to do that with a fixed charge, so the discussion might be better suited to when we talk about the variable charge. The Minister can help me on that.
The broad point stands, however, in the case of someone dealing with the estate of a loved one, perhaps someone who has passed on, is in care, is suffering from dementia or otherwise does not have the capacity to deal with all this—the Minister will be familiar with such cases. They might be stuck with a property that they cannot sell, and that often applies in such cases when service charges are racking up in a way that is difficult for people to get a handle on—
Barry Gardiner
I agree with all the points that the hon. Lady is making. I wonder whether she is aware of the report by Hamptons last year, which said that service charges had increased by 50% over the past five years. That is an indication of just how much of the gouging she is talking about is going on. Furthermore, leaseholders paid a staggering £7.6 billion in service charges last year. Of course, much of that is for the proper renovation of the property, but it seems an extraordinary amount. In fact, 10 years ago, Which? estimated that leaseholders were being overcharged by £700 million.
Rachel Maclean
I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing those figures to the attention of the Committee. I am familiar with them, as are others. [Interruption.] I do not wish to detain the Committee any longer—I can see the Whip making that plain to me. I will leave my remarks there, perhaps to continue at a later point, but the Minister may wish to respond in detail.
Lee Rowley
I, too, do not wish to challenge the patience of my colleague the Whip. There will be people who have existing fixed charges; that should not change. There will also be people who have choices about whether to enter into new fixed charges, whether absolute or indexed to some extent. For an inappropriate attempt to do something with variable service charges, there will be the ability to apply to tribunals. I hope that we are closing off all the options that would allow the kind of instances mentioned.
Matthew Pennycook
I will be brief, so as to dispose of the amendment.
I appreciate what the Minister said. He provided some useful clarity. In particular, he highlighted the practical challenges in addressing this matter, and the potential for landlords possibly moving away from fixed charges and into variable. I think that there is a corresponding risk the other way. I appreciate and take on board what he said about the certainty of the charge.
I think the Minister alluded to the point that I am trying to make, which is that residents should have value for money, and they do not always get it on each occasion. We have deliberately not sought to apply all the protections that apply to variable service charges, but focused on the test of reasonableness. With the help of two former Housing Ministers, I think I had an indication from the Minister that he will do this, but I would appreciate it if the Government went away to satisfy themselves that the protections are in place for that category of leaseholder. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Mr Mohindra.)
Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill (Eighth sitting)
Thursday 25th January 2024
(10 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 View all Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 25 January 2024 - (25 Jan 2024)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 7 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 7 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 7 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 8 / Noes: 5 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Minister for Housing, Planning and Building Safety (Lee Rowley)
I beg to move amendment 46, in clause 26, page 42, line 19, leave out “, and subsection (2)”.
This amendment is consequential on NC6.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clause stand part.
Government new clause 6—Notice of future service charge demands.
Lee Rowley
The amendment is consequential on Government new clause 6, which introduces a requirement for landlords to provide a future demand notice under section 20B of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 if the landlord has incurred costs and cannot issue a demand for those costs within 18 months. The new clause makes it clear that a future demand notice applies only in respect of variable service charges; as a result, there is no longer a need to include the reference to section 20B(2) in clause 26, which otherwise seeks to provide clarity on what measures apply to all service charges and what measures apply only to variable service charges. I commend the new clause to the Committee.
I turn to clause 26. It is important that all leaseholders have access to appropriate information on what they are paying for and the condition of their building. That will help them to determine whether their landlord is providing an adequate service or whether they are being overcharged. Many landlords already provide a good service; however, some do not, and that must change. The existing regime is geared up to protect leaseholders who pay variable service charges. There are some leaseholders who pay fixed service charges, and those leaseholders do not enjoy the same protections. Leaseholders who pay fixed charges have a right to receive a good-quality service, which means having a better understanding of how their funds are being used, as well as having access to key information on matters that are important to them, as we discussed before we adjourned.
Clause 26 extends part of the regulatory framework on the provision of information to cover leaseholders who pay fixed service charges. Subsection (2) amends section 18 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 to create separate definitions of “service charge” and “variable service charge”. That enables the Government to provide clarity on which provisions in the 1985 Act apply only to variable service charges. Subsections (3) and (4) amend the 1985 Act to ensure that parts of the regulatory regime continue to apply only to leaseholders who pay variable service charges—that includes, for example, the ability to challenge the reasonableness of the service charge under section 19 of the Act. The measure will ensure that leaseholders paying fixed service charges are entitled to receive information of relevance to them. I commend the clause to the Committee.
I return to Government new clause 6. When section 20 major works are undertaken, landlords may require a leaseholder to pay for costs up front or pass on costs to the leaseholder once the work has been carried out. Where leaseholders are charged after work is completed, the leaseholder must be issued with a demand for payment within 18 months of the costs having been incurred or, alternatively, be notified in writing within the 18-month period that they will be liable to pay the costs in the future. Failure to meet one of those two conditions will mean that leaseholders are not liable.
There is no prescribed form or content of a notice under section 20B(2) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, which has led to confusion regarding the meaning and effect of the section, and much case law has followed. It has also left leaseholders with uncertainty on whether they will be required to contribute, the amount of their contribution and when the demand for payment could be served; the new clause seeks to provide clarity on all of those. New clause 6 introduces new subsections (3) to (9) into section 20B of the 1985 Act, which will require landlords to specify the amount of costs incurred, the leaseholder’s expected contribution and the date by which the demand will be served. The intention is to give leaseholders certainty on costs that have been incurred by the landlord, their own individual liability and when they are likely to receive the demand.
The changes to subsections (2) and (3) require landlords to issue a future demand notice when they will be passing costs through the service charge more than 18 months after the costs have been incurred. Subsection (3) defines “future demand notice” as a notice in writing that relevant costs have been incurred, and that the leaseholder is required to contribute towards the cost by payment of a variable service charge. Subsection (4) sets out that the Secretary of State and Welsh Ministers can, by regulations, specify the form of the notice, the information to be included in it and the manner in which the future demand notice must be given to the leaseholder. Subsection (5) details that regulations by the Secretary of State and Welsh Ministers may specify that information to be included in the future demand notice should include an estimate of the costs incurred; an amount that the leaseholder is expected to contribute to those costs; and a date on or before which it is expected that the service charge will be demanded. We will work with landlords, managing agents and leaseholders to set out what a future demand notice may contain, to ensure that regulations require the right level of information.
Subsection (6) sets out that regulations may provide for a relevant rule to apply where the leaseholder has been given a future demand notice and the demand for payment is served more than 18 months after costs were incurred. Subsection (7) sets out the relevant rules and the leaseholder’s liability to pay the service charge where a future demand notice contains estimated costs, an expected contribution or an expected demand date. Subsection (8) also allows the landlord to extend the expected demand date in cases specified by regulations. That might be because of unexpected delays in completing the work, for example. The measures seek to provide leaseholders with more certainty on costs. I commend the new clause to the Committee.
Amendment 46 agreed to.
Clause 26, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 27
Service Charge Demands
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 11, in clause 27, page 43, leave out line 12.
This amendment would remove provision for the appropriate authority to exempt certain categories of landlord from the requirements relating to service charge demands set out in subsection (1) of the clause.
Clause 27 replaces provisions in the 1985 Act with a new provision that imposes a simple requirement on landlords to demand payment of a service charge using a specified form, rather than, as is presently the case, in accordance with the terms under the lease in question—or, in the absence of any such provisions, in any manner that suits them. We very much welcome the clause, which should ensure that service charge demands and annual reports are provided to leaseholders in a standardised format. If it works well, the clause is likely to have the most widespread practical impact of any provision in the Bill, given that many hundreds of thousands of service charge demands each year will have to be in a prescribed form.
The clause will also ensure, by means of inserting proposed new section 21C into the 1985 Act, that where the demand for service charge payments is not in the specified form, containing the specified information and provided to the leaseholder in the specified manner, the lease provisions relating to late or non-payment do not apply to the charge in question, and there is no obligation to pay until they are met. There is also a new sanction for non-compliance, which we will consider in due course. The effectiveness of the provisions in the clause will ultimately rely on enforcement, but new section 21C should ensure that the majority of freeholders and managing agents comply with the requirement to issue a service charge in the standardised form.
We do, however, have two concerns about aspects of the clause. Amendment 11 addresses the first of those concerns, which relates to exemptions from the requirements being introduced. New section 21C(3) confers powers, by regulations subject to the negative procedure, on the appropriate authority to exempt certain landlords. We have reservations about the inclusion of such powers, because they could be used to exempt entire categories of landlords from the requirements set out in subsection (1), and thereby deny large numbers of leaseholders the benefits that they would otherwise secure as a result of their application. Amendment 11 simply deletes subsection (3)(a) to remove the power to provide exemptions from subsection (1) for certain types of landlords. We hope the Minister will consider accepting it. If not, we would be grateful for some clarity on what kind of landlords the Government believe might need to be legitimately exempted from the relevant requirements, and some reassurance that the power will be used sparingly and in an extremely limited manner.
Lee Rowley
I thank the shadow Minister for his amendment. We will resist it for reasons that I will give, and I hope I can reassure him to the extent that he does not seek to push it to a vote. I am happy to give at least one instance of a good reason for exempting landlords now or in future: there are cases where it may be too costly or disproportionate to expect a landlord to provide this degree of information, or where doing so is unnecessary. An example that I was not aware of before I was told is a freeholder of two flats who resides in one of them; that is known as a Tyneside or criss-cross lease, which became common in the north-east of England in the 19th century. Given the limited number of people who live in there, and the reason for that structure, we would deem it unnecessary to provide this form, hence the ability to exempt.
However, to address the hon. Gentleman’s key point, notwithstanding individual exemptions, I am happy to place on record that once we have consulted, understood people’s views, taken on the broad range of views about this, and potentially found other things like criss-cross leases, we would expect any list to be very small indeed. We share the clear hope that the power will be used only where it is absolutely necessary, and certainly not to the extent that the hon. Gentleman fears. I hope that, on that basis, he may consider withdrawing his amendment.
Matthew Pennycook
I thank the Minister for that response. I was also unaware of criss-cross or Tyneside leases, although the Opposition Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside, indicated to me during the Minister’s remarks that she used to live in one, so she will have some familiarity with them. On the basis of the Minister’s response, and given the reassurances that he has provided, I am happy to withdraw the amendment. It is our hope that the measure will apply to very limited categories of landlord, and I think that the Minister indicated as much, so very few leaseholds will be exempt from the requirements. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lee Rowley
I beg to move amendment 47, in clause 27, page 43, line 24, after “1987” insert “(‘the LTA 1987’)”
This amendment and Amendment 54 align references to the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 with other references to Acts.
Lee Rowley
Amendments 47 and 54 are required because of new clause 9, which amends the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987. They ensure that references to the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 are aligned with other references to Acts, by adopting the abbreviated reference. Amendment 124 is consequential on amendments 47 and 54; it aligns references to the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 with other references to Acts in the Bill. I commend these amendments to the Committee.
Amendment 47 agreed to.
Matthew Pennycook
I beg to move amendment 12, in clause 27, page 43, line 38, at end insert—
“(c) in section 48 (notification by landlord of address for service of notices), after subsection (3) insert—
‘(3A) Subsections (2) and (3) do not apply in relation to a written demand for payment of a service charge if section 21C of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 requires the demand to include information which subsection (1) also requires to be provided to the tenant.’”
This amendment would ensure consistency between the information requirements provided for by Clause 27 and specific contractual requirements set out in leases.
Amendment 12 addresses our second concern with clause 27, which relates to consistency between it and existing contractual requirements. This issue came to our attention purely as a result of written evidence—actually, to be precise, I think it was as a result of a blog post—from Mark Loveday of Tanfield Chambers. He drew attention to the fact that the amended provisions in this clause are likely to supplement, rather than replace, contractual requirements in some existing leases about the form of demands for payment. There is therefore potentially a risk of confusion and duplication. Mr Loveday also highlighted the overlap between provisions in the 1987 Act relating to the information to be furnished to tenants, and the fact that clause 23(4) does not disapply the information requirements of section 48 of the 1987 Act.
I throw my hands up: this is far from my most elegantly drafted amendment. It is simply an attempt to probe the Government on the consistency between the information requirements provided for by this clause and provisions in 1987 Act relating to specific contractual requirements set out in leases. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s thoughts on the amendment, and on the general need to ensure complete consistency between the measures being introduced by clauses 26 to 30 and those in the 1985 and 1987 Acts that set out the main limitations on variable service charges in residential leases.
Lee Rowley
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his amendment. The advice that I have received is that the amendment is unnecessary. Sections 47 and 48 of the 1987 Act already prescribe that landlords must give details of their name, and an address in England or Wales where they can be served with notices, when making a demand for rent or other sums, including service charges. Clause 27(4) provides clarity on the fact that if there is an overlap between information required under proposed new section 21C of the LTA 1985 and the obligations under the 1987 Act, proposed new section 21C takes precedence. For example, if the new standardised service charge demand form requires a landlord to give the same information as is provided under sections 47 and 48 of the 1987 Act, proposed new section 21C would take precedence, and failure to provide the information would be dealt with by the provisions of the proposed new section.
Critically, the new standardised demand form will not restrict the amount of information that must be provided with a demand. Landlords will be able to provide additional information on the demand form if they wish. That may include any information set out in the lease. Unless we have missed something, we believe that, for that reason, the amendment is unnecessary, and request that it be withdrawn.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
I think the Minister referred to section 47 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987. Is he entirely confident that that is effective? I have a case in my constituency, in Wembley Central Apartments. The co-developers have sold on and on, and the owner is now in the Cayman Islands. The UK address to which one can apply is that of the managing agents, Fidum, but Fidum says, “We have asked our principals, and they say that they have asked their principals,” and it goes all the way to the Cayman Islands, and one gets nothing back. The leaseholders have been desperately trying to access the information for months. They have served the correct notice to the correct address in the UK, but they still cannot get the information that they require.
Lee Rowley
I recognise that in some instance it is an incredibly frustrating process to go through. As I know the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, this is a pretty technical element of policy. The assurances that I have received from officials and experts involved is that the legislation should cover those bases. There will always be challenges around finding people and going through operational processes. There will be challenges in finding people who do not want to be found easily, but ultimately the law is clear that they need to be found. From that perspective, I think that the law is sufficient. We do not think anything has been missed, but if something has, we will happily receive further correspondence and consider it.
Matthew Pennycook
I will be brief. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent North raises an interesting point. Can the Minister—if not now, then perhaps in writing—expand on whether, where a landlord has not complied with the relevant requirements, proposed new section 21C means that the provisions relating to late or non-payment do not apply? Does it provide that level of protection? The hope is that it does.
On the general point, I welcome the clarification and assurances that the Minister has provided. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
Lee Rowley
Service charge demands are one of the most important ways in which leaseholders receive information from their landlord, as we have been discussing. Under current arrangements, landlords are required to issue any service charge demand in accordance with the terms of the lease, or otherwise in a manner that suits them. That has led to variable practice in the sector, which has often been to the detriment of the leaseholder, who then gets confused about what they are paying for and has to spend time chasing the landlord for more information.
Proposed new section 21C enables the Secretary of State and Welsh Ministers to prescribe a standard form and the information that it should contain. We will work closely with leaseholders, landlords and managing agents to ensure that we prescribe both the right information and the right level of detail. Proposed new section 21C(2) makes it clear that a failure to provide information in the new standard format will mean that the leaseholder does not have to pay the charge until the failure is remedied, and any provisions in the lease for non-payment will not apply. The Secretary of State will also have the power to create any exemptions if our work with stakeholders demonstrates that there is a good case for any landlord being excluded, either now or in the future.
Clause 27(2) omits existing legislation relating to obtaining information on a summary of costs, as well as other unimplemented legislation surrounding service charge demands. Those measures will be superseded by the provisions we are implementing in part 3 of the Bill, so it is not necessary to retain them. That measure, alongside others, should ensure that landlords provide relevant information to leaseholders, and I commend the clause to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 27, as amended, accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 28
Accounts and annual reports
Barry Gardiner
I beg to move amendment 130, in clause 28, page 44, line 17, at end insert—
“(iii) a statement of all transactions relating to any sinking fund or reserve fund.”
This amendment would require the written statement of account which the landlord will be required to provide to a tenant to include a statement of all transactions relating to any sinking fund or reserve fund in which their monies are held.
This amendment would require the written statement of account, which the landlord will be required to provide to a tenant, to include a statement of all transactions relating to any sinking or reserve fund in which their moneys are held. Sinking or reserve funds in England and Wales contain literally millions of pounds. Even the smallest block of flats will have a fund of tens of thousands of pounds, yet leaseholders find that they cannot get information about what is happening with it. A landlord may be raiding it to meet their cash-flow problems, in the hope—which is not always fulfilled—of putting the money back later. If millions of pounds is held in a reserve account, leaseholders want to know what interest they may be earning on those funds or whether it is being quietly siphoned off by the landlord.
The amendment would require the written statement of account, which the landlord will be required to provide to a tenant, to include a statement of all transactions relating to any sinking or reserve fund in which their moneys are held. As colleagues will remember from the evidence session that we had before we started our line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill, Martin Boyd of LEASE—the Leasehold Advisory Service—and Andrew Bulmer of The Property Institute said that this provision was really important to include; indeed, it is now part of their voluntary code. They pointed out that it was originally included in the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 but was never brought into force.
The provision is particularly dear to me because it is what started my campaigning for leasehold reform 26 years ago. A group of leaseholders in Mountaire Court came to me and explained that they had each paid £23,000 to their landlord, who was the head leaseholder. They lived in a block of 30 flats, so the total was well over £600,000. They said that the head leaseholder had gone into liquidation and that their money had gone. At that point, the freeholder came to them and said that they were prepared to do some of the work. The leaseholders had been arguing that the work should be done. The freeholder then came to them and said, “Yes, we’ll do the roof and the windows, but we need you to pay us £6,000 each to do that,” in addition to the £23,000 they had already incurred. They came to me and asked, “What guarantee do we have that our moneys are not going to be filched away in the same way as the original funds?”
I tracked back through Companies House—I think there were 156 different companies, which were ultimately registered, through Daejan Holdings, to Freshwater—to find out that the head leaseholder, who had gone into liquidation, had signed form 397, which allowed Freshwater to take any moneys that were left with the head leaseholder. All that money had gone back to Freshwater, and there was no way of accounting for it. The debate that I held with the then Minister at that time started the campaign. He said, “This is outrageous. These moneys should be held in some sort of escrow account.” They were not, however, and the leaseholders had no access to what was happening. It is important that there is real accountability for reserve funds, because at the moment it is being held blind from the people who are paying the money.
Lee Rowley
I am grateful to the hon. Member for his amendment. When I was a councillor in a location not too far away from him a number of years ago, I had similar experiences with the challenges of sinking funds, so I completely appreciate the point he makes. The amendment would prescribe that landlords provide specific information to leaseholders. I agree that they should have access to relevant information. My pushback is merely about where we put this as opposed to what we do, subject to consultation. I am very sympathetic to many of the points he made.
Clause 28(2) does give the appropriate authority the power to prescribe other matters that should be included as part of a written statement of account. We need a consultation to give relevant parties the ability to debate and discuss that and give their views. We must ensure that it is proportionate and cost-effective, but once we have gone through that consultation, I think there is a strong case for ensuring that there is sufficient information as he has outlined to some extent.
Barry Gardiner
I am grateful to the Minister for what he has said, but the strongest protection would be to have it on the face of the Bill. Even when it was on the face of the 2002 Act, the Government never brought it into force. So this is not something we have not had previously. It is right there in legislation for a leaseholder to have access to this information, but we have never brought it in. What the Minister is suggesting is actually a regressive step, taking leaseholders further away by saying, “We’ll do it through secondary legislation now.”
I really do think it is important to have this on the face of the Bill. We know how Committees work. I know the Minister cannot accept the amendment now, but I would ask him to go away and come back on Report. If he comes back with his own amendment to achieve the objective, I will be delighted.
The Chair
Order. I am not surprised the hon. Lady has mistaken that intervention for a speech. It was a very long intervention—
Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)
It’s like those leases he keeps talking about; they just keep rolling round.
Lee Rowley
Thank you, Mr Efford. Would my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch like to intervene on me?
Rachel Maclean
I thank my hon. Friend the Minister. Perhaps he would like to ask whether, given his extensive history and detailed knowledge on the subject, the hon. Member for Brent North knows why those provisions were not brought in following the 2002 Act. Or perhaps the Minister would like to update us if he has that knowledge for the Committee.
Lee Rowley
Sadly, I confess to not having that knowledge from back when I was at university; I probably was not studying the right things. I appreciate the point from my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch that there has been an opportunity for this to be implemented under Governments of both parties and it has not been done. I am always happy to listen to the hon. Member for Brent North, and I do appreciate the point he is making. It is this Government’s intention to move forward with this, albeit through secondary legislation, which I know he has concerns about. I am happy to put that on the record on the assumption and hope, at least on the Conservative side, that we are in government when this happens. I hope he will not press his amendment.
Barry Gardiner
I will press the amendment to a vote because I think it is important that we have it on the record.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 131, in clause 28, page 44, line 34, at end insert—
“(4A) Any of the contributing tenants, or the sole contributing tenant, may withhold payment of a service charge if the tenant has reasonable grounds for believing that the payee has failed to comply with the duty imposed by subsections (1) to (4); and any provisions of the tenancy relating to non-payment or late payment of service charges do not have effect in relation to any period for which a service charge is withheld in accordance with this subsection.”
This amendment would enable leaseholders to withhold service charge payments where the landlord has failed to comply with the obligation to provide a written statement of account in the specified form and manner within the six month period from the end of the financial year.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 13, in clause 28, page 45, line 4, at end insert—
“(8) Where a landlord of any such premises fails to comply with the terms implied into a lease by subsection (2), any rent, service charge or administration charge otherwise due from the tenant to the landlord shall be treated for all purposes as not being due from the tenant to the landlord at any time before the landlord does comply with those subsections.”
This amendment would require courts and tribunals to treat the landlord’s compliance with the implied term requirement for annual accounts and certification as a condition precedent to the lessee’s obligation to pay their service charges.
Amendment 14, in clause 28, page 45, line 40, at end insert—
“(9) Where a landlord fails to comply with subsection (1), any rent, service charge or administration charge otherwise due from the tenant to the landlord shall be treated for all purposes as not being due from the tenant to the landlord at any time before the landlord does comply with that subsection.”
This amendment would require courts and tribunals to treat the landlord’s compliance with the implied term requirement for annual accounts and certification as a condition precedent to the lessee’s obligation to pay their service charges.
Barry Gardiner
Amendment 131 would enable leaseholders to withhold service charge payments where the landlord has failed to comply with their obligation to provide a written statement of account in the specified form and manner within the six-month period from the end of the financial year that is specified in the legislation. Arguably, it is more important for leaseholders that the accounts are presented in time than that they are presented in a specific form. I welcome what the Government have done to make sure that accounts are presented in a specific form, but the real crux of the matter is: are they presented in time? The amendment would enable leaseholders to have redress if they were not.
We heard in the evidence sessions of that huge imbalance of power in the leasehold system. Given that the Government already accept the principle of leaseholders withholding service charge moneys where they have not been demanded by a landlord in the right way, surely we should rebalance that imbalance of power in the landlord-tenant relationship in leasehold by permitting them to withhold service charges when they are not forthcoming within that allotted time. I believe that policy was also in the 2002 Act, but again, as with the provisions on sinking funds, it was not brought into force.
I also welcome amendments 13 and 14. Certainly, the former achieves something similar—maybe even better. If the Minister were able to give me an assurance that he were willing to accept amendment 13, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, I might even be persuaded to withdraw amendment 131.
Matthew Pennycook
I rise to speak to speak to amendments 13 and 14. As I think my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North just touched upon, clause 28 inserts new sections 21D and 21E into the 1985 Act to create a new requirement for a written statement of account to be provided by landlords within six months of the end of the 12-month accounting period for which variable service charges apply. It also places an obligation on landlords to provide an annual report to leaseholders. We welcome the clause, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North, for the reasons discussed in the evidence sessions last week. The 2002 attempt to mandate a form of regular service charge accounts and statements was ultimately unsuccessful, with the replacement section 21 of the 1985 Act never brought into force. As a result, service charge processes remain unstandardised.
A staggering range of different procedures are being used across the country. Some leases specify the form that annual budgets and accounts must take, while others do not. Some require certification by the freeholder, managing agent, management company, accountant or auditor, while others do not. Some prescribe deadlines by which budgets or accounts must be produced and make adherence to those conditions a precedent to liability to pay a service charge, while others do not.
Clause 28 clearly seeks to overhaul this fragmented patchwork of arrangements by introducing the new section 21D, making annual accounts and certification by a qualified accountant a mandatory requirement and, through new section 21E, introducing a statutory duty to provide leaseholders with an annual report about their service charges. By introducing the mandatory requirements that it does, new section 21D(2) implies a term into leases of dwellings with variable service charge provisions.
In our view, the decision to imply terms raises a number of questions and concerns. First, do the implied terms of new section 21D replace any equivalent existing provisions in the lease? If not, landlords and managers will potentially be forced to prepare two sets of accounts: one under the existing terms of the lease and the other under the new implied terms in section 21D. Secondly, why are no express sanctions for non-compliance included in new section 21D? That point was raised by Amanda Gourlay in the Committee evidence sessions.
Given that the implied terms are not covered by the enforcement provisions in new section 25A—provided for by clause 30—surely it is not the Government’s intention to require leaseholders to apply for specific performance through the courts when it comes to this matter. Thirdly, despite the clause including no right to recover implied costs, there is a risk that some landlords will nevertheless seek to recover the extra costs of complying with these requirements through service charges. Can we be sure that leaseholders will not find themselves picking up the bill for complying with the new mandatory requirements? I would welcome the Minister’s response to each of those questions and concerns, in writing if he is not able to address each in detail today—they are very specific and technical.
Perhaps the more significant question that arises from the decision to imply terms by means of new section 21D is whether the landlord’s compliance with those terms will be treated by the courts and the tribunal as a condition precedent to the lessee’s obligation to pay their service charges. We believe it is important that it is made clear in the Bill that compliance with the implied terms in question is a condition precedent to the lessee’s obligation to pay their service charges and that, by implication, leaseholders are not required to pay if the landlord does not comply with the implied terms. Amendments 13 and 14 would have that effect, with the same desired outcomes as the welcome amendment 131, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North, but without the tribunal potentially having to arrive at a judgment on the state of mind of the leaseholder who is withholding their charge. I hope the Minister will accept those amendments as a means of providing the necessary clarification.
Lee Rowley
I thank the hon. Members for Brent North and for Greenwich and Woolwich for their amendments.
Amendment 131, in the name of the hon. Member for Brent North, seeks to enable leaseholders to withhold payment of their service charges when accounts are not provided within six months. I absolutely agree with the sentiment that information must be provided in a timely manner, and that there have to be consequences for not doing so. However, the question is whether withholding the service charge is a proportionate and effective means of doing so; the effective question is whether the risk of doing so creates unintended consequences. For example, were a leaseholder to withhold payments in circumstances where it is found that section 21D had been complied with, that may render the leaseholder liable to pay their landlord’s litigation costs, depending on the terms of the lease. Withholding payments also creates consequences for other leaseholders and may eventually mean that works are not carried out. I recognise that that is not the intention or the point that the hon. Gentleman is making, but in the portion that we are looking at, it is important that we consider all potential unintended consequences.
Services of certified accounts will, for most landlords, be a necessary step for a landlord to identify whether they have spent more than estimated during the accounting period and, where the costs incurred during that period are more than was estimated, the landlord will wish to serve a further demand to recover the shortfall. It is in the landlord’s interest to do that, but I recognise that not all landlords act in a completely rational way or a way that necessarily follows logic. Should a landlord, however, fail to issue a demand for costs within 18 months of those costs having been incurred, then through new clause 6, the leaseholder would not be liable to contribute towards those costs at all.
I realise that that answer will probably not address every part of the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Brent North; it is the same as when I applied that logic to the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich. However, I hope it demonstrates both that we are clear that it should be done—that there is a logic, an incentive and a rationale for it to be done—and that there is ultimately a cliff at the end of it, a cut-off point in the event that they do not do it. I hope that provides some assurances; I will see whether that is enough to tempt the hon. Member for Brent North to withdraw his amendment.
Barry Gardiner
I appreciate what the Minister has said about that cliff edge of 18 months. We have talked about cynicism in this Committee before, but let me tell the Minister what I believe may happen. I think a landlord who is withholding information will decide that they can now do so with impunity for 17 months and 28 days, and then they will serve the required information up on a plate. The provision is almost tempting them to do that. If the Minister is going to rely on that, rather than looking at the question again in further detail, I urge him to reduce that timeframe substantially. I will not put a figure on it—I do not say that it should be 12 months, or nine months—but it should be reduced substantially. However, I am very happy to withdraw my amendment in favour of amendment 13.
Lee Rowley
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments in that regard. To save time, the same logic applies from our perspective to amendments 13 and 14, and I hope that at least in part reassures him—I will wait to hear his comments, but I encourage him to withdraw his amendment if it does.
Barry Gardiner
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Matthew Pennycook
Mr Efford, may I respond to the Minister’s comments on amendment 13?
Matthew Pennycook
In that case, I will press the amendment to a vote without justifying it.
Amendment proposed: 13, in clause 28, page 45, line 4, at end insert—
“(8) Where a landlord of any such premises fails to comply with the terms implied into a lease by subsection (2), any rent, service charge or administration charge otherwise due from the tenant to the landlord shall be treated for all purposes as not being due from the tenant to the landlord at any time before the landlord does comply with those subsections.”—(Matthew Pennycook.)
This amendment would require courts and tribunals to treat the landlord’s compliance with the implied term requirement for annual accounts and certification as a condition precedent to the lessee’s obligation to pay their service charges.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Lee Rowley
We have already talked about this, but in summary, most landlords are required under the terms of the lease to provide leaseholders with a written statement of accounts. Where leaseholders feel they have not been provided with sufficient information, they may ask for a written summary of costs for the past accounting period or, if the accounts have not been made up, for the period of 12 months ending with the date of the request.
We know that the current arrangements, as we have just discussed, do not provide adequate statutory protection. Although many landlords provide their leaseholders with sufficient information, others fail to do so. Subsection (2) of clause 28 introduces two new measures to address that. Proposed new section 21D of the 1987 Act implies into leases a new requirement for landlords who charge variable service charges and manage blocks of four or more dwellings. The threshold reflects existing arrangements for the preparation of a summary of costs. We are placing an obligation on such landlords to provide a written statement of account to leaseholders within six months of the end of the 12-month accounting period. This statement must be certified by a qualified accountant.
Matthew Pennycook
The Minister provides me with the opportunity to get my justification in, but, without going through it, he can answer the question that underpinned amendments 13 and 14 by simply telling me whether the decision to imply terms, as new section 21D does, means that a landlord’s compliance with them is to be treated as a condition precedent to the lessee’s obligation to pay their service charges.
Lee Rowley
I am grateful to the shadow Minister for his question, and, because of its specifical legal and technical nature, I will write to him. I know that members of the Committee may wish to seek assurances about the word “arising”, which was referenced in evidence last week. I am happy to give the assurance that we will consult accountants on to how to present these service charge accounts, which I hope will mean that there is a process to ensure that any necessary clarification of particular terminology will be clear to those who operate within it.
Rachel Maclean
In the same evidence session, we also heard Amanda Gourlay’s concern about the nature of the accounts being mandated, and she said that it is not something that she would recognise as a set of accounts because it does not have a balance sheet or expenditure. I think the Minister said that a chartered accountant will have to sign off on them. Can he reassure members of the Committee that that will address the concern raised with us by Amanda?
Lee Rowley
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. Yes, that is my understanding, and, as part of the response in writing, we will clarify that.
To conclude, new section 21E places an obligation on landlords to provide an annual report in respect of service charges and other matters likely to be of interest to the leaseholder arising in that period.
Barry Gardiner
Could the Minister clarify a point for me? Obviously, there are different forms of accounts, such as short-form accounts and audited accounts. In what he is proposing, as I understand it, there is no compulsion to have an audit of the service charges shown in those accounts. The certified accounts happened in blocks already, but they are pretty meaningless because the freeholder appoints the accountants and tells them what form they want them in. Surely the key is having not just the accounts but the service charges audited as proper.
Lee Rowley
I am going to include that in my written response, too, because I know that the specifics of the definition of audit are quite different from other aspects of this question. My understanding is that we will prescribe in secondary legislation what needs to be provided. Given that an accountant will be a part of that, they will have to ensure that the audit conforms to their usual codes of practice. I will write on the specifics to ensure that I have given sufficient information.
Richard Fuller
As the Minister is contemplating what he will put in his letter, including a response to the hon. Member for Brent North, could I gently remind him that auditing is an expensive procedure? There will be a number of instances where these accounts might fall short of what would be required under existing Companies House legislation. There are some metrics and things out there that the Government could use, but he should bear in the mind the cost of auditing.
Lee Rowley
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the reasons why I want to write is that I want to ensure that the specific elements and substantive parts of the concept of audit are represented to the Committee in the most accurate way. We have to strike a balance by ensuring that sufficient information is made available for decisions to be made, but equally we cannot create a process that is so involved, for what I am sure are very good reasons, that it would be disproportionate, and then create a whole heap of new consequences on the other side, which is what we are trying to avoid.
To conclude, new section 21E places an obligation on landlords to provide an annual report. For service charges, that report must be provided within one month of starting a 12-month accounting period, although it can be provided earlier if it is expedient to do so. Both new sections allow the Secretary of State, as we have already discussed, and Welsh Ministers to prescribe the detailed content in secondary legislation. We will work closely with interested parties when we come to do that. Subsections (3) and (4) make consequential changes to the definition of “qualified accountant” under sections 28 and 39 of the 1985 Act to reflect these new sections. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 28 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 29
Right to obtain information on request
Matthew Pennycook
I beg to move amendment 15, in clause 29, page 46, line 19, at end insert—
“(3) Information specified for the purposes of section (1) must include accruals and prepayments and digital copies of service charge accounts.”
This amendment would ensure that regulations made by the appropriate authority must provide tenants with the right to accruals and prepayments and digital copies of service charge accounts.
As things stand, leaseholders only enjoy the right to request a summary of relevant costs and inspect supporting documentation in relation to such a summary. Barring a disclosure order made during tribunal proceedings, there are few direct means for leaseholders to secure relevant information. Clause 29 makes a series of changes to the 1985 Act to provide for a new stand-alone right for leaseholders to request information from their landlord, and we welcome it.
Precisely what such a right will entail will largely be set out in regulations that will presumably not only specify the relevant categories of information that can be requested and obtained, but the relevant timelines for compliance. We take no issue in principle with the detail being brought forward by statutory instrument—for obvious reasons—but we have tabled amendment 15 to ensure that the information that ultimately can be lawfully requested by leaseholders under clause 29 includes accruals and prepayments, as well as digital copies of service charge accounts.
We feel that statutory access to accruals and prepayments is vital because they are prepared on a true and fair basis and are necessary to understand most service charge accounts. The case for ensuring that service charge account information can be accessed by leaseholders in a digital format is, we hope, self-evident. I hope the Minister will consider accepting the amendment or, if he feels that he cannot, will at least provide the Committee with robust assurances that the relevant regulations will in due course specifically include accruals and prepayments and digital copies of accounts in the categories of information that can be requested.
Lee Rowley
I do not seek to detain the Committee, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will accept my short response. I am not disregarding the substantive points of the amendment, but some of them we have discussed before. I accept that this is an important area and we have to get it right. We must make sure that the information prescribed in the process works and is comprehensive enough for people to get a true understanding of what is going on and proportionate enough to make it meaningful and not incur unnecessary costs. I agree with the hon. Member that leaseholders should have access to the relevant financial information and that that information should be clearly understood and articulated so that people can derive decisions and comfort from it.
The Government prefer that the detail is prescribed in secondary legislation and are committed to consulting. It is fair to say that the details will be key parts of a discussion about the feasibility of inclusion in the final decision when it is made.
Matthew Pennycook
I welcome that response from the Minister. On that basis, I am happy to beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Matthew Pennycook
I beg to move amendment 16, in clause 29, page 48, leave out lines 1 to 8 and insert—
“(4) P may not charge R any sum in excess of the prescribed amount in respect of the costs incurred by P in doing anything required under section 21F or this section.
(5) The prescribed amount means an amount specified in regulations by the appropriate authority; and such regulations may prescribe different amounts for different activities.
(6) If P is a landlord, P may not charge the tenant for the costs of allowing the tenant access to premises to inspect information (but may charge for the making of copies).”
This amendment would make the appropriate authority (i.e. the Secretary of State or the Welsh Ministers) responsible for setting a prescribed amount for the costs of providing information to leaseholders. That prescribed amount would be the maximum amount that freeholders and managing agents employed by them could seek to recover through a service charge.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 132, in clause 29, page 48, leave out lines 1 and 2.
This amendment would prevent a landlord from recovering the costs of complying with the requirements to provide information imposed by new sections 21F and 21G.
Amendment 133, in clause 29, page 48, line 3, leave out “But,”.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 132.
Matthew Pennycook
Arguably of more importance in ensuring that clause 29 is beneficial to leaseholders than the type of information that they will henceforth have the right to request and what form it is shared in is the need to protect them from excessive charges levied for providing that information. As it stands, subsection (4) of new section 21G of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 would allow person P to charge person R for the costs of doing anything required under new section 21F or this new section, while subsection (6) renders those costs relevant for the purposes of a variable service charge. In other words, new section 21F includes an implied right for landlords to recover the costs of supplying the relevant categories of information to leaseholders through the service charges, with penalties for non-compliance under clause 30.
We obviously do not take issue with the right to recover reasonable costs of complying with the mandatory requirements introduced by the clause, but there is an obvious risk, given everything we know about how some landlords in the market operate, that some will charge excessive fees for supplying that information. We have tabled amendment 16 to give the Secretary of State the power, just as the Bill provides for in other respects, to set prescribed amounts with a view to ensuring that leaseholders are not subject to unreasonable costs should they feel they need to request certain categories of information. I hope the Minister can understand the very simple point that the amendment is driving at and will consider accepting it.
Lee Rowley
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for moving amendment 16. He does not deny that landlords will incur a cost for answering information requests. The level of cost will vary, depending on the volume of information, the complexity, the period, the timeline and a number of other factors. There may be difficulties in obtaining all that information. Landlords may also incur a cost in chasing other people who hold the information required to answer a leaseholder’s request, notwithstanding our earlier conversations about the reasonableness of the costs for talking to other parties.
Given the variety of different scenarios, we start from a place in which it is very difficult to set a cap that would not create another unintended consequence somewhere else. None the less, I note the hon. Gentleman’s concern and am happy to confirm that we are listening very carefully on this matter, but I hope he might consider withdrawing the amendment.
Barry Gardiner
Amendments 132 and 133 would prevent a landlord from recovering the cost of complying with a requirement to provide information imposed by new sections 21F and 21G of the 1985 Act, which is very much in line with what my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich said.
Given that the Government are rightly focusing on reducing costs to leaseholders, these amendments would ensure that a landlord cannot charge leaseholders for giving them information about their home and their charges. We do not charge voters or taxpayers for complying with freedom of information requests, so I am not clear why there should be a distinction here. Many requests and information transfers will now be made electronically. The days when people had to go to the office to pull out hordes of receipts are, I hope, a thing of the past. These requests and transfers should not involve a great deal of expense.
Again, I do not want the Minister to think I am a cynical chap, because I am not, but I know what will happen. There will be the same hierarchies that we talked about earlier. Landlords will create arm’s length companies to hold this information in tiers and categories, and they will charge for providing information at each level. That is what they do. We have to understand that it is not a mistake or one bad apple. Many landlords adopt this practice as a way of securing revenue. Painful though it is to admit that our fellow citizens do this sort of thing to each other, they do. We are passing this legislation to try to protect people.
Lee Rowley
I will not detain the Committee, because my response will be similar to the one I gave to the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich.
We accept the broad point made by the hon. Member for Brent North but, for the reasons I outlined previously, we think it would be difficult to do this. There is at least an argument that proportionality has to be considered. However, I am happy to confirm that we are listening very carefully. On that basis, I hope the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich may be willing to withdraw amendment 16.
Matthew Pennycook
I appreciate what the Minister has said, both about the variety of circumstances that need to be covered and about the difficulties with imposing a flat cap. I take on board what he said about the Government listening carefully.
I am minded to press the amendment to a vote purely to indicate how strongly we feel about this issue. The thrust of the five provisions is, “Let’s increase transparency and let’s increase the enforcement measures,” all ultimately to ensure that leaseholders have a better ability to bear down on unreasonable costs, and it is of great concern to us that while we are trying to do that, we are opening up other routes whereby unscrupulous landlords can start to introduce unreasonable costs in relation to the very things that we are trying to clamp down on. We will press the amendment to a vote simply to put on the record our concern in respect of leaseholders needing some protection—even if it is not a flat cap—from unreasonable costs being passed on through this mechanism.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Barry Gardiner
Mr Efford, it is the definition of insanity to do the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. Therefore I am happy not to press amendments 132 and 133.
Lee Rowley
As I outlined in relation to clause 28, the Government accept that the current arrangements do not provide adequate statutory protection. In addition to the measures set out in clauses 26 to 28 to drive up transparency, clause 29 introduces new provisions to enable leaseholders to request information from their landlord or a third party who holds relevant information. Subsection (2) introduces proposed new section 21F of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, which sets out provisions that enable leaseholders to receive information on request. That information may relate to
“service charges, or…services, repairs, maintenance, improvements, insurance, or management of dwellings.”
One example might be a stock condition report for the building. Landlords will be obliged to provide information that they have in their possession, and where they need to ask another person for it, that person is required to do the same.
Proposed new section 21G provides further details on information requests under section 21F. It allows a leaseholder to request that they inspect a document and make and remove a copy of the information. Section 21G also provides that landlords may not charge the leaseholder for providing facilities for access, although they can charge for the making of copies. Alternatively, the landlord can pass the reasonable costs of any inspection through the service charge. This section allows the Secretary of State and Welsh Ministers to specify the time period for providing such information, circumstances in which that period may be extended and how the information is to be provided.
Proposed new section 21H provides that where the lease is assigned, the obligation to provide the information requested under section 21F must still be complied with. However, the person obliged to provide the information is not required to provide the same information in respect of the same dwelling more than once.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 29 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 30
Enforcement of duties relating to service charges
Matthew Pennycook
I beg to move amendment 19, in clause 30, page 49, line 15, leave out “damages” and insert “penalties”.
This amendment, together with Amendments 20 to 25, would make clear that the sum to be paid to the tenant in circumstances where a landlord failed to comply with duties relating to service charges is a punishment rather than a recompense for loss to the leaseholder thus ensuring it is not necessary to provide proof of financial loss. See also Amendments 17 and 18.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 20, in clause 30, page 49, line 27, leave out “damages” and insert “penalties”.
See explanatory statement to Amendment 19.
Amendment 21, in clause 30, page 49, line 30, leave out “Damages” and insert “Penalties”.
See explanatory statement to Amendment 19.
Amendment 22, in clause 30, page 49, line 34, leave out “damages” and insert “penalties”.
See explanatory statement to Amendment 19.
Amendment 23, in clause 30, page 49, line 39, leave out “damages” and insert “penalties”.
See explanatory statement to Amendment 19.
Amendment 24, in clause 30, page 49, line 41, leave out “damages” and insert “penalties”.
See explanatory statement to Amendment 19.
Amendment 25, in clause 30, page 50, line 2, leave out “damages” and insert “penalties”.
See explanatory statement to Amendment 19.
Amendment 134, in clause 30, page 49, line 29, at end insert—
“(4A) An order under subsection (2)(c) or (4)(c) may include an order that the landlord remedy any breach revealed by the application in respect of any other leaseholder.
(4B) Where the tribunal makes on order under subsection (4A), the tribunal may make an order that the landlord, or (as the case may be) D, pay damages to any other leaseholder in respect of whom a breach revealed by the application must be remedied.”
This amendment would enable a tribunal to order the remedy of a breach in respect of, and damages to be paid to, a leaseholder affected by a breach revealed by the application to the tribunal, even if that leaseholder is not a party to the litigation.
Matthew Pennycook
Clause 30 substitutes existing section 25 of the 1985 Act, which includes penal provisions dealing with any failure to comply with the relevant provisions, with proposed new section 25A, which decriminalises the sanctions and applies a new enforcement regime. The new enforcement regime will allow a tenant to apply to the appropriate tribunal in instances in which their landlord did not demand a service charge payment in accordance with section 21C under clause 27, failed to provide a report in accordance with section 21E under clause 28, or failed to provide information in accordance with sections 21F and 21G under clause 29. The tribunal will have the power to issue an order that the landlord comply with the relevant provision within 14 days and that they pay a fine of up to £5,000 to the applicant, or other consequential orders.
We welcome the new enforcement regime, but we have three main concerns about how it will operate in practice. With amendments 19 to 25, we seek to address the first of those concerns, which is our fear that the use throughout clause 30 of the term “damages” may imply that leaseholders are required to provide proof of financial loss for the tribunal to order that the landlord pay a fine for failing to comply with one or more of the modified requirements introduced in clauses 27 to 29. The risk that the tribunal takes that view, and thus stipulates that proof of financial prejudice is required, is real, as we have seen with the reforms made to section 20 of the 1985 Act. We tabled this group of amendments to encourage the Government to consider replacing “damages” throughout the clause with “penalties” to make it explicit that an order for failing to comply with requirements under sections 21C, 21E, 21F or 21G of the 1985 Act requires no proof of financial loss on the part of leaseholders. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s thoughts.
Lee Rowley
I thank the hon. Gentleman for amendments 19 to 25, with which, as he indicated, he seeks to adds clarity that any sums paid to the leaseholder where there is a failure to comply are a punishment rather than a recompense for loss. As the Committee is aware, clause 30 will replace the existing and ineffective enforcement measures for failure to provide information with new, more effective and more proportionate measures. That includes allowing the leaseholder to make an application to the appropriate tribunal in cases where landlords have failed to provide the necessary service charge information.
It is the Government’s view that the tribunal is the appropriate body to handle such disputes and to determine whether the landlord has failed in their duties, and whether subsequently they are required to pay damages to the leaseholder. In reaching its decision and ordering that damages be paid, the tribunal need only be satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the landlord breached the relevant section. If a financial penalty were applied, the appropriate tribunal would need to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the landlord had breached the relevant section.
While I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point on the use of the term “damages”, I am advised that its use does not mean that evidence of financial loss is required. Therefore, in aggregate, we consider that financially recompensing the affected leaseholder by way of the payment of damages is both a suitable incentive for the leaseholder to bring the application and a suitable deterrent for landlords, while aligning with the tribunal’s powers.
Richard Fuller
The Minister speaks quickly and is knowledgeable about this matter; I just want to put it into everyday speak that the rest of us can understand. I think that the intention behind the Opposition’s amendment is to be clear that there is a difference between penalties and damages. They do not want the burden of proof to be on leaseholders, in this case, and there is tremendous merit to that. Whatever we put into law has to be accessible to people. I think the Minister said that if we change the word from “damages” to “penalties”, that would raise the hurdle. Can he assure us of his objection to the proposed amendment in everyday speak,? As the Bill is drafted, the hurdle will be lower, and there will be no burden of proof on the leaseholder for the penalties/damages to take effect.
Lee Rowley
As best as I understand it, the situation is exactly as my hon. Friend describes. The threshold is lower, and therefore the provisions are more proportionate, and evidence of financial loss is not required. On that basis, I hope that the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich will withdraw the amendment. I will come to amendment 134 in due course.
Barry Gardiner
Amendment 134 would enable a tribunal to order the remedy of a breach in respect of, and damages to be paid to, a leaseholder affected by a breach revealed by an application to the tribunal, even if the leaseholder is not party to the application. Let me explain why that is appropriate. In an estate in my constituency, Chamberlayne Avenue and Edison Drive, FirstPort was the estate manager. It failed in the case that went to the leasehold tribunal, which was brought by one member of the estate. The tribunal quite correctly found in favour of the leaseholders. However, everybody else on the estate was equally affected, and they are now all having to bring a separate tribunal case against FirstPort in order to receive the same benefits and relief. It seems to me that where that is the case, it would make sense for the tribunal to be able to instruct the landlord that where there has been a failure affecting all the leaseholders, they should remedy that breach to all the leaseholders, not just the one who brought the case, if there are damages.
I was heartily gratified by the explanation that the Minister and the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire gave about “damages” not being the legalistic sense of damages, because I was beginning to worry that the second part of my amendment might fall foul of exactly what my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich said. However, if we want to free up and speed up the tribunal system, that would be one way of doing so that would afford great relief to the very many people trapped in that situation.
Lee Rowley
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his amendment, which he has just outlined. The Government are sympathetic to the intention of the amendment. It is not that we do not understand the point that he has made or the point that he articulated in relation to Chamberlayne Avenue; where freeholders behave badly, it should apply across the board, and that is the kernel of the point he makes. The challenge—and I am sorry to be difficult about it—is that, as I know the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, there is a potential ramification to asking a tribunal to make a read-across from one case to every other one. Even though it is highly likely that it will apply to all or almost all of those cases, there is the difficulty of creating the link that makes the assumption that it must apply. For that reason, we do not think we can accept the amendment, although I am sympathetic to the point made by the hon. Gentleman.
Barry Gardiner
I am grateful to the Minister, because it is really good to know that he will consider those points further. Let me therefore make a suggestion: if the tribunal were given powers through secondary legislation on estate cases where the matter is remedying something about the estate that applies equally to everybody, it should be obvious to the tribunal that anybody living on that estate is equally affected.
Let me give an example. If the managing agent, FirstPort, says that it has mended a fence, and it has charged everybody for mending that fence, but it is found that it did not mend the fence and it was not its fence to mend—this is the actual case. Everybody on the estate received those charges, and everybody on that estate was due therefore to be compensated for them. That will happen in some cases, but I accept what the Minister says. Would it make sense to consider giving the tribunal the power to instruct the managing agent to remedy the breach for any of those similarly affected, such that, if they did not, there was an additional penalty when that case was brought to the subsequent tribunal to prove that they were affected?
Lee Rowley
I am happy to ask the Department to look into that in further detail. I have no personal understanding of whether that would be possible or reasonable and proportionate and not have a series of other consequences, but it is reasonable to look into it further.
Matthew Pennycook
Briefly, I welcome what the Minister said on the issue of damages versus penalties. It could be another word than “penalty”, but I hope the point that the amendment tried to make was understood. I am not certain, because I, like him, do not have expertise in the area, whether “damages” could be misinterpreted by a tribunal, notwithstanding what he said. I encourage the Minister to go away and ensure that the reassurance he has given—it is on the record and can be referred to, which is helpful—is understood and cannot be misinterpreted. I think we share the same end: this must be punishment rather than recompense, and leaseholders cannot be expected to provide proof of financial loss. If, as the Minister has indicated, that is the shared intention, I am happy to ask leave to withdraw the amendment, but I hope he will go away and reassure himself further that the tribunal can have no confusion on that point. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Matthew Pennycook
I beg to move amendment 17, in clause 30, page 49, line 30, leave out “£5,000” and insert “£30,000”.
This amendment would raise the cap on penalties under this section (see explanatory statement to Amendment 19) for a failure to comply with duties relating to service charges to £30,000.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 142, in clause 30, page 49, line 30, leave out “£5,000” and insert “£50,000”.
This amendment would increase from £5,000 to £50,000 the maximum amount of damages which may be awarded for a failure on the part of a landlord to comply with the obligations imposed by new sections 21C (service charge demands), 21E (annual reports), or 21F or 21G (right to obtain information on request) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.
Amendment 18, in clause 30, page 49, line 30, at end insert—
“(6) Penalties under this section must be at least £1,000.”
This amendment would insert a floor on penalties under this section (see explanatory statement to Amendment 19) of £1,000.
Matthew Pennycook
Amendments 17 and 18 address our remaining main two concerns about the clause. The first concern, to which we will return when we consider penalties in relation to part 4 of the Bill, is that we are not convinced that a penalty cap of £5,000 is a sufficient deterrent against non-compliance with the requirements in question. For many—not all, but many—landlords, a penalty of £5,000 will be very easily absorbed. The degree to which the sanctions in proposed new section 25A to the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 bite would obviously be improved if the penalty cap of £5,000 applied to all leaseholders partaking in any given application, rather than them having to share an amount up to £5,000 between them. My reading of proposed new section 25A(5) is that the fine would apply to each person making an application on grounds that the landlord has failed to comply with a relevant requirement, but I would be grateful if the Minister would clarify that point. Is it a single fine, or is it a fine that would apply to each leaseholder involved?
However, even if a fine of up to £5,000 could be awarded to multiple leaseholders, we still question whether it is sufficient—I think that is a point that is worthy of debate. Labour is minded to believe a more appropriate threshold for penalties paid under proposed new section 25A—I remind the Committee that penalties are awarded at the discretion of the tribunal, so they are not automatic—would be £30,000, thereby aligning penalties in the Bill with other leasehold law, such as financial penalties for breach of section 3(1) of the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022. Amendment 17 proposes such a cap, although we would certainly consider an even higher limit, such as the £50,000 proposed by the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire.
Secondly, Labour thinks that the functioning of the new enforcement regime would be improved by specifying a floor on penalties in the Bill. In making clear that non-compliance with the relevant requirements will always elicit a fine, landlords will be incentivised to comply. Amendment 18 proposes that penalties under this section must be at least £1,000, with the implication that the tribunal would determine what award to make between the range of £1,000 and £30,000 for each breach. I look forward to the Minister’s response to each amendment.
Richard Fuller
I am tempted to frame page 25 of today’s amendment paper, because it includes the shadow Minister’s amendment 17, which would increase the penalties from £5,000 to £30,000, and my amendment 142, which would increase them from £5,000 to £50,000. I thought it was usually the Conservative party that is pro-business and tries to keep costs on business low, but then I recalled that these penalties apply to people doing something wrong, and of course the Labour party is always soft on criminals.
Seriously, though, the shadow Minister and I have a clear intent, which I am sure is shared by the Minister. A lot of the measures in this part of the Bill are trying desperately to unpick complicated things and rebalance them in favour of people who own their own home but do not run a large business, or people with small financial interests, where there are 30 or 40 of them against one person with a significant financial interest that covers all those people. In trying to rebalance things here, we all want to ensure that these measures are as effective as possible and that there is enough encouragement to ensure that the good practice the Government want to see can be done effectively.
The concern that I share with the shadow Minister is that the current levels of penalties just look like a cost of doing business. [Interruption.] Indeed! The hon. Member for Brent North has just slapped himself on the wrist, which is probably how many businesses will see it.
Can I gird the Minister’s loins and encourage him to take up his shield and his sword of righteousness in defence of individual leaseholders and say, “This amount is too low. We shall change the legislation. This party and this Government stand to make the intent of what we will do to truly bite on those who are doing wrong”?
Lee Rowley
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire and the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich for tabling their amendments. I share their basic conceptual desire, and that of other Committee members, for people or organisations that have done the wrong things to be held to account. There should be penalties that recognise that they have done the wrong thing. The challenge is always going to be where we draw the line.
I recognise that there are multiple parts of the menu on offer. Notwithstanding the very valid points that have been made, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that the Government are doubling the number from £2,500 to £5,000. Individual right hon. and hon. Members will take different views throughout this process and beyond on whether that is proportionate or whether it should be higher or lower. We think we have struck a proportionate balance.
I will add to the record, for consideration, the importance of the potential for unintended consequences. The response will quite rightly be that it will ultimately be for the tribunal to determine how much to apportion and how to use any changed option. There is a scenario in which the potential penalty on the freeholder, or the party being taken to the tribunal, becomes so great and the hazard becomes so visible that the freeholder starts to oppose it with even more objections, difficulties and the like.
I am making quite a nuanced argument, and Members may feel that I am overthinking this, but we have to be cautious not inadvertently to create a process that emboldens freeholders to fight even harder because of the potential hazard and because they feel that they may be exposed to a fine larger than would be reasonable and proportionate. However, I take the point about the challenge of setting the penalty in the right place. The Government’s view is that the increase from £2,500 to £5,000 is a step forward. That is what we are proposing to this Committee. As a result, we will resist the amendments.
Matthew Pennycook
To clarify whether my reading of proposed new section 25A(5) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 is right, is the penalty a single amount that is shared, or an amount per challenge? This is important.
Lee Rowley
I apologise for not covering that point; I intended to do so. It is £5,000 per challenge. There is the ability to bring forward multiple challenges. Should that be the case, similar amounts of damages may be awarded.
Richard Fuller
Sorry, I am such a pedant, but “per challenge” could relate to person A making the challenge that report x was not done on time, and then person B making the challenge that report x was not done on time. Do those two challenges count as two separate challenges because they are brought by two different people, although they are for the same objection, or as one challenge because they are for the same objection, although they are presented by two different people?
Lee Rowley
They are two separate challenges. If a challenge goes to the tribunal and it is deemed that a penalty should apply, for whatever reason or whatever poor behaviour, and a penalty of up to £5,000 is apportioned, and then another person makes the same claim about exactly the same instance, one would logically expect the tribunal to allocate the same penalty. Multiple challenges get multiple fines.
Barry Gardiner
Could the Minister elaborate on something? Where a group of leaseholders brings the challenge—let us say that 30 leaseholders in the block all club together and bring the challenge—is it one challenge that pays one set of £5,000, or is it 30 challenges that pay £5,000 each? Otherwise, we risk leaseholders bringing one challenge and then everybody thinking, “Okay, if I’ve got to, I will now do it,” and making the same challenge over and over again, clogging up the tribunals. That is not what we want. If they all come together and make that application, surely they should all get the damages that the tribunal feels is proportionate.
Lee Rowley
The hon. Gentleman is making a number of important points. As it is currently structured, one challenge of n people gets up to £5,000; if it is multiple challenges of one person or n people within challenge 2, challenge 3 or challenge 4, that would be £5,000. As it is structured at the moment, one challenge equals £5,000, irrespective of the number of people within that challenge.
Barry Gardiner
Does the Minister appreciate that that could lead to a situation in which we are multiplying challenges unnecessarily?
Lee Rowley
I absolutely appreciate the point that has been made. There is a balance to be struck here. Obviously we will need to go through the justice impact test, or whatever it is called, to check the volume of challenges that would potentially come into the tribunals system as a result of the changes in the Bill. Again, it is about trying to balance those very challenging concepts, making sure that there is a penalty—it is important to recognise that the penalty is doubling—but also that people have the ability to choose to do things or not do things. I know that members of this Committee will have different views about how to structure that balance.
The Chair
Order. We are getting a bit conversational in the exchanges we are having. Can Members make either interventions or speeches, please? It is difficult to follow what is going on up here.
Matthew Pennycook
The Minister’s response was quite disappointing. I think he has made it clear that it is per challenge per group, so what is the incentive for a large group of leaseholders to press the dispute if the potential amount of the share that they are going to get is £100, or even £50? It might be a low amount. [Interruption.] No, it could be. It is a share of the challenge; if there are 100 leaseholders in the challenge, they get a maximum of £5,000 to share between them unless they make multiple challenges. That is my reading of what the Minister has just said.
Richard Fuller
I think the shadow Minister is mixing two things up when he says that people get a share. The issue here is about changing the behaviour of the person who is doing wrong, not “I’m going to get this much money out of it.” The incentive is for the person who is doing wrong. Does the shadow Minister agree with the point made by the hon. Member for Brent North about clogging up the system: why would 150 people put one challenge in when they could put 150 challenges in?
Matthew Pennycook
I take the point, and I understand what the hon. Gentleman is driving at: there is the very real risk of clogging up the system with multiple challenges if leaseholders are sophisticated enough to understand the provisions of the clause and work out that the best thing they can do is submit multiple challenges. I do not think that most will. There is therefore a detrimental impact on the incentives for leaseholders to try to dispute these matters.
Coming back to the fundamental point of whether this will change the behaviour of landlords when it comes to compliance, though, I think the hon. Gentleman is right: the figure of £5,000 is too low. I have had this debate so many times with Government Ministers. We had it on the Renters (Reform) Bill: the maximum that local authorities can charge for certain breaches of that Bill is £5,000. Most landlords will take that as a risk of doing business.
Matthew Pennycook
It is operational. It can be absorbed on the rare occasion that it will be charged, so we think that amount should be higher. Ultimately, as the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire said, we have to make clear that we are very serious about the sanctions in this new section biting appropriately. For that reason, although I am not going to push the amendment to a vote at this stage, it is a matter that we might have to come back to. It applies to part 4 of the Bill—to residential freeholders—equally, and it is important that we get it right and convince the Government to look at this matter again. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lee Rowley
I beg to move amendment 48, in clause 30, page 50, line 14, leave out subsections (4) and (5).
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 123.
Lee Rowley
Amendment 48 is consequential on amendment 123, which we discussed in our debate on part 2. Amendment 123 ensures that the Bill is clear for the reader by grouping a set of related amendments that are consequential to section 26 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, which clarifies that the provisions of amendment 29 do not apply to tenants of public authorities.
Clause 30 will introduce new, more effective and more proportionate enforcement measures to replace existing ineffective measures. Subsection (2) will repeal the existing enforcement provisions under section 25 of the 1985 Act, which allow a local housing authority or leaseholder to bring proceedings against the landlord in the magistrates court. This measure proved an ineffective deterrent and has hardly been used.
Subsection (3) will insert a new section 25A into the 1985 Act. It sets out routes to redress. Proposed new section 25A(2) sets out measures for situations in which landlords have failed to provide the information required to be included within the annual report or have failed to provide the service charge demand form in the prescribed format. When those circumstances apply, the leaseholder may make an application to the appropriate tribunal. The tribunal may order that the landlord must serve a demand for payment using the correct form under section 21C or provide a report in accordance with section 21E within 14 days of the order having been made. It can also order that the landlord pay damages to the leaseholder.
Proposed new section 25A(3) sets out measures for where the landlord has failed to provide information on request. In such circumstances, the leaseholder may make an application to the appropriate tribunal. The tribunal may order that the information is provided within 14 days, or that the landlord pays damages to the leaseholder, or both.
Proposed new section 25A(5) provides that the damages payable to leaseholders must not exceed the £5,000 figure that we have just debated. Proposed new section 25A(6) will confer powers on the Secretary of State and Welsh Ministers to amend this amount to reflect changes in the value of money, if they consider it expedient to do so. Proposed new sections 25A(7) to (10) contain measures to ensure that landlords cannot pass through service charge demands that they have been ordered to pay nor draw on service charge moneys held in trust and hence seek to reclaim their losses. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Amendment 48 agreed to.
Clause 30, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 31
Limitation on ability of landlord to charge insurance costs
Amendment made: 49, in clause 31, page 50, line 24, leave out from beginning to “insert” in line 25 and insert
“After section 20F of the LTA 1985”.—(Lee Rowley.)
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 51.
Barry Gardiner
I beg to move amendment 151, in clause 31, page 50, line 32, leave out from beginning to end of line 32 and insert—
“(a) exceed the net rate charged by the insurance underwriter for the insurance cover, and”
This amendment would define an excluded insurance cost as any cost in excess of the actual charge made by the underwriter for placing the risk, where such cost is not a permitted insurance payment.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 135, in clause 31, page 50, line 34, at end insert—
“(2A) Costs for insurance are also ‘excluded insurance costs’ where—
(a) a recognised tenants’ association has not been provided in advance with three quotations from reputable insurance companies or brokers, or
(b) the recognised tenants’ association has not had the opportunity to submit a further quotation (in addition to the quotations required by paragraph (a)), which the landlord must consider prior to placing the insurance.”
This amendment would require a landlord to provide a recognised tenants’ association with three insurance quotes before placing the insurance, and provide an opportunity for a recognised tenants’ association to submit an alternative quotation.
Amendment 152, in clause 31, page 50, line 35, leave out from beginning to end of line 6 on page 51.
This amendment, to leave out subsection (3) of the proposed new section 20G of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, is consequential on Amendment 151.
Amendment 153, in clause 31, page 51, line 18, at end insert—
“(5A) The regulations must specify a broker’s reasonable remuneration at market rates as a permitted insurance payment.
(5B) The regulations must exclude any payment which arises, directly or indirectly, from any breach of trust, fiduciary obligation or failure to act in the best interests of the tenant.”
This amendment would require “permitted insurance payment” to include payment of a reasonable sum to a broker at market rates for placing the cover, and to exclude any payments which have arisen from wrongdoing.
Amendment 137, in clause 31, page 52, line 24, leave out third “the” and insert “a reasonable”.
This amendment would ensure that the costs which a landlord can recover from tenants in making “permitted insurance payments” are reasonable.
Clause stand part.
Amendment 154, in clause 32, page 51, line 3, leave out “Sub-paragraph (2) applies” and insert
“Sub-paragraphs (1A) and (2) apply”.
This is a paving amendment for Amendment 155.
Amendment 155, in clause 32, page 53, line 5, at end insert—
“(1A) Within six weeks of the insurance being effected, the insurer, or, where the insurance has been arranged by a broker, the broker, must provide all tenants with a written copy of the contract of insurance.”
This amendment would ensure that tenants are provided with the contract of insurance which covers their building.
Amendment 136, in clause 32, page 53, line 12, at end insert—
“(2A) Regulations under sub-paragraph (2) must specify the contract of insurance containing the full extent of the protection afforded by the insurance, and the associated costs.”
This amendment would require a landlord to provide a tenant with the contract of insurance containing the full extent of the protection afforded by the insurance, and the associated costs.
Amendment 156, in clause 32, page 53, line 22, leave out from beginning to the end of line 23.
This amendment, to remove sub-paragraph (7) of new paragraph 1A of the Schedule to the LTA 1985, would remove the landlord’s right to charge tenants for providing them with information about insurance.
Amendment 157, in clause 32, page 54, line 20, leave out from beginning to the end of line 21.
This amendment, to remove sub-paragraph (7) of new paragraph 1B of the Schedule to the LTA 1985, would remove the right of a person required to provide information about insurance from charging for providing that information.
Amendment 138, in clause 32, page 54, line 21, after “the” insert “reasonable”.
This amendment would ensure that the costs payable by a landlord for information requested by him from another person, under paragraph 1A(2)(a), are reasonable.
Clause 32 stand part.
New clause 41—Building insurance and section 39 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000—
“A landlord may not manage or arrange insurance for their building under the protections of section 39 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.”
This new clause precludes a landlord from operating as an appointed representative under the licence of Broker, where the landlord has no such licence themselves.
Barry Gardiner
Gosh, that is quite a mouthful of a group! I draw the attention of the Committee in the first instance to amendments 151 to 153. I welcome the fact that the intention behind the Bill is to improve the situation with regard to insurance charges; I make it clear to the Minister that I do recognise that. Together, however, those amendments would prevent the Bill from excluding different descriptions of the type of costs that are excluded. Amendment 151 would change the definition of the actual cost that is permitted to a much tighter one, namely that which the underwriter has charged. Amendment 153 would add that the reasonable brokerage that the broker is charging the client, who is the landlord, is recoverable at prevailing market rates.
There is also the issue of fiduciary duty. Fiduciary duty and breach of trust are important, because the leaseholder on whose behalf the insurance is being arranged by the landlord has an insurable interest in the property. That means that the landlord, in affecting the insurance, is doing so not only on his own behalf but on behalf of the leaseholders; otherwise, the leaseholders would not be paying for it. The landlord is technically an agent of the leaseholder, and the law of agency in common law is specific about the duties of an agent to their principal. In particular, they may not do anything against their principal’s interest, as that would be a breach of trust. That means that should a landlord do anything improper to increase his own revenues against the leaseholder’s interest, he would be guilty of a breach of trust, and the leaseholder would and should be able to recover under common law and have a remedy for it.
Together, the amendments would provide a tight circumscription of what should be permitted as the recoverable costs when placing insurance, but of course I have left wiggle room for the Secretary of State, who is still able to specify in the secondary legislation anything that he or she thinks reasonable, so it is not a straitjacket. I hope that the Minister will understand that this gives much greater clarity to the notion of permissible insurance costs and much greater clarity, which I think is what he seeks in the Bill, to that which properly ought to be excluded. I have not constrained it so greatly that secondary legislation could not come into force to make something else permissible.
Amendment 135 would require a landlord to provide a recognised tenants association with three insurance quotations before placing the insurance, and to provide an opportunity for a recognised tenants association to submit an alternative quotation. In its multi-occupancy buildings insurance investigation, the Financial Conduct Authority found evidence of at least £80 million in insurance kickbacks going to landlords and their managing agents paid for by leaseholders. The amendment would bolster the rights of a recognised tenants association, which successive Governments have supported and sought to protect. Although it would not give the RTAs the power to place the insurance policy, it would help them to close the informational asymmetry with the landlord and pressure them to get a competitive deal by submitting their own quote.
I point out to the Minister that where capital works are being done under a section 20, that is exactly the procedure that would be in operation. The landlord would provide quotations, and the RTA would have the opportunity to submit its own quotation for the work to be done. It seems to me that introducing that same procedure for insurance would be extremely helpful.
Amendment 137 would ensure that the costs that a landlord can now recover from tenants in making permitted insurance payments are reasonable. Although the reasonableness of the cost of buildings insurance can be difficult to prove, especially in a market where brokers are often loth to quote to anyone who cannot place the insurance, the reasonableness test for service charges is the last line of defence for many. I do not think that the insurance scheme in the Bill can fail to make reference to the reasonableness of the permitted insurance payments. The Minister may well say that that will be prescribed in secondary legislation, but I seek to probe him on the point.
Amendment 136 is an important amendment that would require the landlord to provide a tenant with a contract of insurance containing the full extent of the protections afforded by the assurance and the associated costs. In the Bill, we have gone to great lengths to ensure that the leaseholder, as the assured, is able to access information from the landlord, but we heard in the evidence submitted to us by the witnesses in the evidence sessions that there should be a shortcut. The FCA rules already state that, if approached, an insurance company has to provide the information, although we then found out that the landlord did not have to tell leaseholders who the insurance company was; and we know about the difficulties in securing information from a landlord.
Would it not make sense to the Minister to have amendment 136 on the face of the Bill? This information is in the schedule of insurance. The underwriters want to know, “What is it I’m insuring?” They know exactly which units are in that block and exactly what is going on in that block. Therefore, they have the information to do it directly. It seems to me that the amendment would be a far more efficacious way of achieving the objective that the Minister has rightly set out in giving powers to acquire the information from the landlord; it would be far easier and far cheaper simply to say that the insurer has to do it.
Amendment 138 would ensure that the costs payable by a landlord for information requested by him from another person are reasonable. I am sorry that that was a lot, but it is a big grouping. Absolutely at the heart of the issue are amendments 151 to 153 and, ultimately, new clause 41, but we do not get to that until later, I understand.
Barry Gardiner
Fine. In that case, let me speak to new clause 41, which
“precludes a landlord from operating as an appointed representative under the licence of broker, where the landlord has no such licence themselves.”
The whole point of this new clause, which goes to that issue of fiduciary duty and agency, is that at the moment, landlords can operate under the licence of a broker to provide brokerage services. If we were to take away that capacity from them by passing new clause 41, we would then have circumscribed the way in which a landlord would be able to game the system, because they would not be able to operate under the protections that the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 affords them, operating under somebody’s licence when they themselves do not have those qualifications.
I am unsure whether this is a proper interest to declare, but I am an associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute. That was many, many years ago; I am not practising now, but I have mentioned it just in case. I think that landlords are getting away with murder by operating in this way, and it would be good to close that loophole to bring it all very tightly together. I appreciate that amendments 151 to 153 and new clause 41 have to be seen as a unit, but they really do give the Minister the opportunity to do what I think he is attempting to do through the Bill, but in a tighter and more effective way.
Matthew Pennycook
I will be fairly brief, because my hon. Friend covered a lot of detail. He is right to do so, because these are important clauses. We welcome the intent behind them, and we think they have the potential to address a very serious problem that has plagued leaseholders across the country for many years. Not just those in buildings with fire safety defects who have seen their insurance premiums soar in the aftermath of the Grenfell fire, but across the board, we are seeing leaseholders face unreasonable and in many cases extortionate buildings insurance commissions that the property managing agent, landlords and freeholders have charged through the service charge. We discussed this in our evidence sessions last week. The Financial Conduct Authority’s report of September last year on the subject of insurance for multi-occupancy buildings found evidence of high commission rates and poor practice, which were “not consistent” with driving fair value to the customer.
The FCA also found—I put this question to one of the witnesses in our evidence sessions, because I find it quite staggering—that the mean absolute value of commissions more than doubled between 2016 and 2021 for managing agents and freeholders of buildings with fire safety defects. Put simply, in far too many instances, managing agents, landlords and freeholders have been gouging leaseholders in this area with impunity. In practice, the effectiveness of this clause will hinge almost entirely on whether the definition of “excluded insurance costs” is sufficiently tightly drawn, and how we define “permitted insurance payments” for the purposes of specifying what payments can be charged.
I appreciate fully that the Minister will be bringing the necessary detail forward through regulations and we will scrutinise them very carefully when that happens. My right hon. Friend—sorry, just hon. Friend, but it is only a matter of time—the Member for Brent North is right to try to strengthen the clauses, because although the permitted insurance payments must be attributable to a permitted insurance, there is nothing on the face of the Bill to ensure that they or the cost of providing information in relation to them is reasonable to the leaseholders. As far as we understand the clause, there is no guarantee that leaseholders will be able to transparently scrutinise quotes or the agreed contract. We fully support my hon. Friend’s amendments 151 to 153, 157, and particularly new clause 41, which attempt to address some of these omissions and deficiencies. I hope the Minister will give them due consideration.
Specifically on my hon. Friend’s amendment 136, clause 32 introduces a new duty to provide specified insurance information to leaseholders. Again, it will be for regulations to fill out the detail about how the new duty will operate in practice, but I would like to briefly probe the Minister on it. During our evidence session with Matt Brewis of the Financial Conduct Authority, it became clear that although the FCA’s new rules mandate that a contract of insurance must be provided by an insurer or broker to the freeholder, and although the leaseholder will be able to write to the insurer to request a copy of the contract, there is nothing that we can see in either the FCA’s rules or the Bill as drafted that will permit a leaseholder to know who that insurer is in the first place. I would like to press the Minister, as my hon. Friend has, to confirm that the Government’s intentions when regulations are made under this clause is for the specified information to include a copy of the contract with the relevant insurer.
While we are considering these two clauses, I would like to take the opportunity to raise a separate concern, which I do not believe is covered by my hon. Friend’s amendments, in relation to proposed new section 20H of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, as provided by clause 31 of this Bill. This proposed new section would introduce a new right to claim where excluded insurance costs are charged. Again, this has the potential to provide leaseholders with effective means of redress, but its efficacy depends on how it is implemented. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that there is no specific requirement for any damages awarded under this proposed new section to credit the service charge accounts of leaseholders not party to the claim, or any service charge fund generally. It stands to reason that if one has been affected—and this follows from the debate we had on a previous clause—the rest of the leaseholders in the building will be too. If so, could the Minister look at how the regime operates to ensure that all leaseholders that have paid excluded costs are reimbursed in the same manner as the claimant?
Lee Rowley
I turn first to amendment 151, in the name of the hon. Member for Brent North. As someone who has held the building safety portfolio in my Department for the past 16 months, one of my greatest frustrations is that we have not yet made the progress that I would like to see, and that I am sure we would all like to see, with regards to insurance for buildings that have been affected by cladding, having made good progress on lending and other areas.
I think we have made some progress, and the willingness of a number of brokers to come together and voluntarily cap what they are willing to take is a step forward; I would like to see other brokers doing the same. I would also like to see an industry-led solution to be brought forward for those with the greatest exposures at the earliest possible opportunity. That is something I outline to the Association of British Insurers, and other insurers, on a very regular basis—with varying degrees of frustration and emphasis. I hope we will see movement on that in the very near future.
That is a broad discussion about a more specific issue—I will turn shortly to the amendments we are currently debating—although I hope that highlights my interest in this area and my desire to get this right not just for people with remediation and cladding issues, but for the broader community of leaseholders in general. On that basis, I hope that both the hon. Members for Brent North and for Greenwich and Woolwich will appreciate that we have similar ambitions in making sure that transparency in this area is as effective as it can possibly be, and that we ensure the appropriate outcome so as to improve things from where they are at the moment.
I turn to the amendments, specifically amendment 151. We believe that clause 31, which inserts proposed new section 20G into the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, already achieves the intent behind the amendment by providing powers that allow the appropriate authority to specify the permitted insurance costs that can be passed through the service charge to leaseholders.
From discussions held with the insurance sector itself, and with the FCA, we know that the value chain is a complicated one. Some buildings rely heavily on the reinsurance market—we have seen that increasingly with remediation issues—using a broker for access, and some do not. Some place insurance with numerous insurers splitting the risk, whereas others only use one—the hon. Member for Brent North may know this from his previous engagement with the industry.
Clause 31 is designed to constrain unreasonable costs in all scenarios by defining a payment and allowing us to then separate these costs as either permitted or excluded. Although I understand the intent of the hon. Member for Brent North, the Government’s concern about amendment 151 is that in seeking to tighten the provisions, it may have pulled the strings a little too tightly and become too narrowly focused on certain elements. I hope the hon. Gentleman will consider withdrawing his amendment as a consequence.
Again, although I have great sympathy for the sentiment behind amendment 135, I hope the transparency provisions already in the Bill will help in this regard. Once implemented, they intend to enable leaseholders to have access to details of the policy and the total amount of remuneration being taken on their building's insurance placements. This can be used for a legal challenge if costs have not been reasonably incurred. Our concern with the amendment is the potential for delays in the placement of insurance, which could result in a lapse in cover to the material risks of the building. There also may be instances—although I hope it would be a minor number of cases—where three quotes cannot be obtained, as much as that is possibly unlikely to occur.
We seek to focus the legislation on ensuring that those buildings have insurance that works, with a balance that is appropriate and supported by regulatory changes brought in by the FCA. On the basis of that explanation, I hope the hon. Member for Brent North will withdraw his amendment.
I will address amendments 152 and 153 together. Again, we have are similar ambitions, aspirations and intent, but again, there is a question of narrowness through the amendments, and our view remains that clause 31 will allow full scrutiny of what is to be a permitted insurance payment. The intention is for that to be both through consultation and then subsequently set out in regulations through the affirmative procedure, which will allow hon. Members to debate measures and highlight if there is a better way of doing it. I hope that, with those reassurances, the hon. Member for Brent North may be willing to withdraw the amendments.
Amendment 137 seeks to introduce a reasonable test to permitted buildings insurance costs. At the heart of clause 31 is the need for any costs passed on to leaseholders relating to the placement or management of buildings insurance to be fair and transparent. That is the whole point of it. Section 19 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 already requires for those costs to have been reasonably incurred and for a reasonable service to have been provided. We have obviously seen a whole heap of bad behaviour in this sector; I accept that that is the case. Within the sector, there is ubiquitous use of commissions with poor or no underlying connection to the work undertaken, and I hope that some of the progress made through the Bill will hopefully reduce that.
I do not believe that the amendment would sufficiently protect leaseholders. We seek very clear requirements in the secondary legislation for how permitted insurance fees will be calculated, and that their reasonableness be included in that. We will consult on the measures in due course, and I hope that, with those reassurances, the hon. Member for Brent North will withdraw his amendment.
I turn to clauses 31 and 32, which address insurance, before turning to some further Opposition amendments. Several actors in the procurement of buildings insurance each seek to make a profit in return for their role in supplying insurance, whether they be brokers, managing agents or landlords, who can all take commissions, and that all adds to the overall cost.
Currently, as we have discussed, leaseholders do not have to be made aware of these commissions, and that can hinder the ability of leaseholders to challenge unfair costs. Inflated premiums can be paid through the service charge because there is a lack of transparency and knowledge about what is happening. Clause 31 seeks to ban the placer of insurance on residential leasehold properties from receiving any form of commission that is passed on to leaseholders as a cost, and instead uses a transparent handling fee that must be proportionate to the value of the work done.
Proposed new section 20G provides that excluded insurance costs cannot be charged and enables the Secretary of State and Welsh Ministers to prescribe a permitted insurance payment, which will be the only payment that can be charged. The detail of calculating the fee is to be set out in affirmative secondary legislation, and we will work with stakeholders across the industry and in this place to support that.
Proposed new section 20H sets out what happens should the ban be breached. There is an ability to apply to the tribunal in England and the leasehold valuation tribunal in Wales. It also removes the presumption that leaseholders have to pay their landlord’s legal costs when challenging poor practices, as we talked about earlier. If the tribunal determines that the legislation has not been complied with, damages can be paid. That will be a minimum of the commission taken or the unlawful insurance handling fee, but it will not exceed three times the level of the commission or fee.
Proposed new section 20I outlines the right of the landlord to obtain a permitted insurance payment. The section clarifies how all costs for placing and managing insurance incurred by the landlord must then be charged to the leaseholder. Transparency reforms in the Bill will require the placer of insurance to disclose information about the decision-making processes when purchasing buildings insurance on behalf of leaseholders.
Amendments 154 and 155, tabled by the hon. Member for Brent North, seek to stipulate how the insurance contract is to be provided to leaseholders. We have been working already with the FCA on that area, and it has already produced a number of reports and changed its regulations. The changes allow leaseholders to receive their policy documents and information about the charges within their overall premium. Those changes are important to ensure that the relevant information is available, but they do not remove the necessity for the landlord to supply that information as the placer of the insurance. The amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Brent North remove the focus on the landlord’s responsibility to undertake that activity. Clause 32 is designed to complement the work of the FCA and to provide the powers necessary to ensure that landlords supply the information that will enable leaseholders to scrutinise. With those assurances, I hope that the hon. Member will not press the amendments to a vote.
Barry Gardiner
I am grateful to the Minister for the way in which he is engaging with the issue and for the points he has made. Given that it would be possible to relay the insurance contract electronically, will it be possible for secondary legislation to stipulate that any additional layers of complexity would be outwith the permitted costs? The Minister will see that I keep coming back to that theme, because unfortunately landlords add additional layers of complexity. We need to be sure that, where it is possible to do something simply, it is not permissible to recover the cost of doing it not simply, if I can put it that way.
Lee Rowley
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. I will not try to solutionise in Committee, given the inherent dangers doing so from the Government Front Bench. We have committed to consulting, and there will be lots of experts and interested parties who will want to engage in that. As the hon. Gentleman suggests, transfers of data in an electronic form do not necessarily involve a substantial amount of time or effort, albeit that the provision and creation of the data in the first place may do. Those are exactly the kinds of things that we will want to talk about as part of the consultation, as and when it comes. On that basis, I hope that the hon. Member will consider not pressing amendments 156 and 157.
Amendment 138 seeks to require that charges made of parties where they request information from the landlord are reasonable, and I agree with the sentiment. Reasonableness is already required through section 19 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. As I indicated in relation to amendment 137, reasonableness is not in itself a guarantee that costs will be constrained and proportionate, especially where the test is reliant on the assessment of normal behaviour across the sector. The Government would seek to deal with this area in secondary legislation, to ensure that the priorities of transparency and proportionality are in place. On that basis, I hope that the hon. Member will consider not pressing his amendment.
Before I conclude, I have two further points. Clause 32 confirms the importance of the intention of transparency, which is behind the Bill. The clause places a duty on landlords and managing agents that compels them to proactively provide information on building insurance to leaseholders. That should help leaseholders to better understand what they are paying for, and give them information they need to scrutinise that and take appropriate action, should that be necessary. The required information will be specified in the regulations, but it is anticipated that it should detail the insurance policy that is purchased, including a summary of the cover such as the risks insured, excess costs, premium costs and any remuneration received by the insurance broker. We also anticipate that it will include details of all alternative quotes obtained from the market and any possible conflicts of interest that arose during the procurement process.
Subsection (2) will insert new paragraph 1A into the schedule to the 1985 Act to allow leaseholders to request further information from landlords or managing agents. This could include full contractual documentation and policy wording, as well as the declaration of technical information that may have shaped the eventual premium price. We hope that giving leaseholders this improved information will allow them to challenge the reasonableness of their policy costs, if required. We expect that it will change landlord behaviour by making sure they are more price conscious, as it will be clearer that their movements are being watched. This will ensure that they do not try to pull a fast one on their leaseholders when it comes to insurance.
New paragraph 1B imposes a duty on third parties to provide landlords with any specified information requested within the specified period. Under paragraph 1A landlords will be obliged to provide information that is in their possession, and under paragraph 1B, where a landlord needs to ask another person for that information, that other person will also be required to provide the information within the specified timescales. Again, those timescales will be detailed in secondary legislation.
Clause 32 places requirements on landlords for how the handling fee that will replace insurance commissions will be disclosed to leaseholders. Again, this seeks to ensure greater transparency and allow more scrutiny where the charges are unreasonable.
Under paragraph 1C of the schedule to the 1985 Act, a leaseholder may make an application to the appropriate tribunal if their landlord fails to comply with the requirements under paragraphs 1A and 1B. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Finally, new clause 41 would preclude landlords from undertaking regulated insurance activity on behalf of a broker. Although I understand the sentiment behind this new clause, I hope the hon. Member for Brent North will recognise that the underlying point behind clauses 31 and 32, on which I hope we all agree, is transparency and fairness. These clauses will require the disclosure of fees charged for any work, as I have just indicated. We will prescribe what is a permitted cost that can be collected through the service charge, which should ensure that commissions that bear no connection to the work undertaken will not be permitted. It should also ensure that key documentation is provided.
Barry Gardiner
The Minister said that all the costs of the broker will have to be disclosed, which is absolutely right. However, where the landlord is operating under the provisions of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, he or she would be indistinguishable from that brokerage company and, therefore, the leaseholder will not be able to ascertain what was done by the broker and what was done by the landlord operating under the licence of the broker. What will be revealed is simply “the brokerage.” Unless we can unravel that, we will never get to the issue of kickbacks. As we saw with the Canary Riverside case before Christmas, those kickbacks can be frighteningly large—£1.6 million for one block. The disaggregation of what is the landlord qua broker and what is the broker qua broker is really important.
Lee Rowley
I will try to reassure the hon. Gentleman. I think we both agree on the intention behind full transparency and clarity, so that things are not being hidden in the “value chain,” to use a terrible expression from my previous life.
The secondary legislation for clause 31 will seek to define the permitted insurance costs, and we will consult specifically on issues around regulated insurance activity. I hope that secondary legislation will cover some of the hon. Gentleman’s points and allow him, and others with concerns, to make their case. We can then determine how best to approach it.
With that, I hope the hon. Gentleman will consider withdrawing his amendment.
Barry Gardiner
There is good news and bad news, Mr Efford. The good news is that I am content to withdraw amendments 135, 137, 154, 155, 136, 156, 157 and 138, but I wish to press amendments 151, 152, 153 and 157 to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Lee Rowley
We know that there is currently a lack of transparency around administration charges and that leaseholders can face high administration charges. Administration charges must be reasonable, but this can be difficult to determine due to the lack of clarity surrounding them. As a result, leaseholders are often reluctant to challenge the reasonableness of administration charges at the appropriate tribunal.
Clause 33 inserts new paragraph 4A into schedule 11 to the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002. It will require landlords to publish an administration charge schedule. A revised schedule must also be published if a landlord revises the administration charges. The Secretary of State and Welsh Ministers will be able to prescribe the form and content of the schedule, and how it is to be provided to a leaseholder, in regulations. If a landlord has not complied with the provision of publishing an administration charge schedule, a leaseholder may make an application to the appropriate tribunal. The tribunal may order that the landlord provide an administration schedule within 14 days and pay damages of up to £1,000 to the leaseholder. This measure seeks to increase transparency, and I commend the clause to the Committee.
Matthew Pennycook
As the Minister has just made clear, clause 33 amends the 2002 Act to create a new duty on landlords to publish administration charge schedules. We welcome it but, as with clauses 31 and 32, the effective functioning of the new requirement will depend on details such as the form and content of the schedule and how it should be published, all of which is to be set out in future regulations.
I have two specific questions for the Minister. The first largely mirrors my concern about the provisions in clause 31 relating to damages. If a tenant claims damages as a result of a breach of the requirements in new paragraph 4A of the 2002 Act, is it not likely that other tenants will have been similarly affected by the failure to publish an administration charge schedule? If it is the case that the damage provisions relate only to the claimant, will the Minister look at how the regime operates to ensure that all leaseholders who may have paid costs, other than in accordance with new paragraph 4A of the 2002 Act, are reimbursed in the same manner? It is a recurring theme, but it is worth putting on the record that it applies to clause 33 as well.
Secondly, along with other measures in the Bill that add new provisions for when a leaseholder is liable to pay a charge—in this instance, where an administration charge has been levied that has not appeared for the required period on a published administration charge schedule—how do the Government intend to make leaseholders aware of their new rights in this respect and in various other places throughout the Bill? Will he consider mandating that freeholders must furnish all leaseholders with an updated “how to lease” guide?
Lee Rowley
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his questions. I will write to him on the answers or the process by which he can get them.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 33 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 34
Limits on rights of landlords to claim litigation costs from tenants
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clause 35 stand part.
New clause 3—Prohibition on landlords claiming litigation costs from tenants—
(1) Any term of a long lease of a dwelling which provides a right for a landlord to demand litigation costs from a leaseholder (whether as a service charge, administration charge or otherwise) is of no effect.
(2) The Secretary of State may, by regulations, specify classes of landlord to which or prescribed circumstances in which subsection (1) does not apply.
(3) In this section—
“administration charge” has the meaning given by Schedule 11 of the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2022;
“dwelling” means a building or part of a building occupied or intended to be occupied as a separate dwelling, together with any yard, garden, or outhouses and appurtenances belonging to it or usually enjoyed with it;
“long lease” has the meaning given by sections 76 and 77 of the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002;
“service charge” has the meaning given by section 18 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985;
“landlord” has the meaning given by section 30 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.
This new clause would prohibit landlords from claiming litigation costs from tenants other than under limited circumstances determined by the Secretary of State.
Lee Rowley
We know that leaseholders can be deterred from challenging costs, or the services that their landlord provides, at court or tribunal for fear that they will also be charged their landlord’s legal costs. The ability of the landlord to charge litigation costs will depend on whether the lease allows for that. That can mean that leaseholders have to pay litigation costs even if they win. Currently, the onus is on leaseholders to make an application to the relevant court or tribunal to limit their liability to pay those costs.
Clause 34 seeks to flip that presumption, and instead requires landlords to apply to the relevant court or tribunal for permission to recover their litigation costs from leaseholders, whether as an administration charge or through the service charge. It does that by inserting proposed new section 20CA into the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 relating to litigation costs passed through the service charge, and inserting proposed new paragraph 5B into the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 regarding litigation costs recovered as an administration charge.
In the future, a landlord’s litigation costs will not be payable by a leaseholder unless the landlord has successfully applied to the relevant court or tribunal for an order. The relevant court or tribunal may make such order where it considers it just and equitable in the circumstances. We have also taken a power to set out matters that the relevant court or tribunal must consider when making an order on an application. We will carefully consider the detail of these matters with stakeholders, including the tribunal.
Where the landlord is applying to pass on their litigation costs through the service charge, they will be required to specify each individual leaseholder they are seeking to recover their costs from. We have sought to further protect leaseholders by ensuring that a lease, contract or other arrangement has no legal effect if it seeks to disapply this legislation. These measures will prevent leaseholders from being charged unjust litigation costs by their landlord, and will remove barriers to leaseholders holding their landlord to account. I commend the clause to the Committee.
On clause 35, at the moment landlords can charge the costs of a legal dispute to leaseholders. This is an imbalance, as landlords are in a better position to seek legal representation and are more frequently represented than leaseholders at hearings. We understand that there is no other area of law where the parties start from such an unequal position. Clause 35 gives leaseholders a new right to apply to the relevant court or tribunal to claim their litigation costs from their landlord. It does that by implying a term into all leases, ensuring greater balance between landlords and leaseholders with regard to litigation costs. On a leaseholder’s application, the relevant court or tribunal may make such an order if it considers it just and equitable in the circumstances. We have also taken a power to set out matters in regulations that the relevant court or tribunal must take into account when making an order.
Clause 35 also makes it clear that any costs that a landlord is ordered to pay to a leaseholder are considered to be litigation costs incurred by the landlord. As such, if the landlord wants to recover such costs through the service charge or as an administration charge, they will need to apply to the court or tribunal under clause 34.
In addition, we have taken a power to describe which “relevant proceedings” will be subject to the leaseholder’s right to seek their costs. This is to help align the leaseholder’s rights with the right to costs that landlords currently enjoy. We have further protected the leaseholder’s right to recover litigation costs by ensuring that a lease, contract or other arrangement has no legal effect if it disapplies this legislation. I commend the clause to the Committee.
New clause 3 seeks to disapply terms in a lease that allow a landlord to recover their legal costs from leaseholders. It also allows exceptions for certain types of landlord to be set out by the Secretary of State in regulations. Currently, landlords are able to recover their litigation costs from leaseholders, and we absolutely agree that unjust litigation costs should not be incurred.
There may, however, be legitimate cases where a landlord may need to seek their litigation costs from a leaseholder—for example, where a leaseholder has breached their lease in a way that is affecting the other residents in the building, or where non-payment of a charge is limiting the upkeep or repair of the building. In these cases, where landlords have exhausted other means of addressing the dispute, we would want them to feel able to address such issues and be able to recover their litigation costs, if that is justified. That is why we have included measures in the Bill to rebalance the system, but we do not necessarily believe that we should go further at this time. We hope that the Bill takes a proportionate approach. I hope that I have reassured the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich that we are committed to ensuring a fair approach, and that he will withdraw the new clause.
Matthew Pennycook
I must disappoint the Minister, because what he says does not reassure me. I rise to oppose clause 34 standing part of the Bill, and to argue in favour of new clause 3. As he has made clear, clause 34 amends the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 and the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, with a view to limiting but not abolishing the right of landlords to claim litigation costs from tenants. Although the property chamber tribunal does not generally tend to shift the legal costs of the winning party on to the losing claimant, on various occasions landlords have been able to rely on contractual rights to recover costs against leasees. When that occurs, it is in essence a form of one-way cost shifting, and it is inherently unfair to the affected leasees. Previous attempts have been made expressly to limit these cost recovery provisions, notably by means of schedule 11 to the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, but despite those provisions, and the issue coming before the higher courts on several occasions, the ability of a landlord to recover costs incurred in litigating disputes persists.
We support the aim of scrapping the presumption that leaseholders will pay their freeholders’ legal costs when they have challenged poor practice, as outlined in the explanatory notes to the Bill, and we believe that, apart from in a limited number of circumstances, landlords should be prohibited from claiming litigation costs from leaseholders. As I have said, clause 34 does not prohibit landlords from claiming litigation costs from tenants; instead, it merely limits their ability to do so.
The clause allows landlords in certain, at present undefined, circumstances to apply to the relevant court or tribunal for an order to pass their legal costs on to leaseholders as an administration charge, or on to all leaseholders, irrespective of whether they participated in any given legal action, through the service charge. It may be that the matters that the relevant court or tribunal can take into account when determining whether to make an order on an application for costs will be defined in such a way as to protect the vast majority of leaseholders from unjust, one-way cost shifting, but to allow for cost recovery in circumstances where it is essential—for example, when the landlord is a company controlled by the leaseholders that needs to recover its reasonable legal costs via the service charge or risk going bust. However, as we consider the clause today, we have no certainty whatsoever about that, because the matters that the relevant court or tribunal can account for, as well as the application process, will be set out in regulations to come.
Even if we had certainty about what the Government will tell courts and tribunals that they can consider in determining whether to make an order, we fear that clause 34 is an invitation to litigate. Yes, regulations will prescribe the relevant matters that can be taken into account, but given the multiple Court of Appeal cases and numerous upper tribunal cases on what “in connection with” means, we will almost certainly see disputes arising about what costs are incurred “in connection with” legal proceedings, and whether they are compatible. The risk is that the outcomes of any such cases could erode the general presumption against leaseholders paying their freeholders’ legal costs that the clause attempts to enact.
We believe that it would be more prudent to implement, by means of the new clause, a general prohibition on landlords claiming litigation costs from leaseholders, and then clearly to identify a limited number of exceptions to that general rule through regulations. As I have said, such exceptions might include cases in which the landlord is a leasehold-owned company, or in which the costs are, in the opinion of the tribunal, reasonably incurred for the benefit of the leaseholders or the proper management of the building. That would cover the example that the Minister used. Amendment 8, which would simply delete clause 34, and new clause 3 would provide for that approach by leaving out clause 34 and replacing it with a new clause that provides for a general prohibition on claiming legal costs from tenants, and for a power to specify classes of landlord who will be exempted from it.
I appreciate that this is a complex argument about the best means to achieve an agreed end, but we think that clause 34 requires further thought, and urge the Government to give serious consideration to the issues raised by amendment 8 and new clause 3. As I said, the Government’s approach is a recipe for freeholder litigation, and it might mean far more leaseholders than we are comfortable with bearing the legal costs of their landlords.
Rachel Maclean
I place on record my concerns about the Government’s approach to this issue, based on my experience in the Minister’s role, and having listened carefully to representations made, particularly by members of the all-party parliamentary group on leasehold and commonhold reform and a gentleman called Liam Spender, who detailed his experiences at the hands of FirstPort. That was an absolutely horrific, heartbreaking and shocking abuse of a decent, honourable and hard-working person buying a flat. He described it as being treated like a “lab rat” in a laboratory maze. I will not forget the testimony that he and many others gave.
Lee Rowley
My hon. Friend has a huge amount of expertise and knowledge in this area. I am grateful to her for all her work in preparing for our discussion today. I am very happy to talk to her in more detail on this subject. She is absolutely right to articulate that progress must be made, and we must ensure that the correct balance is struck. I know that she will appreciate that there is a balance to strike, rather than there being movement in only one direction, but I appreciate the points that she made. I am happy to talk to her further outside the Committee, and I hope to provide her with the assurances that she seeks.
Matthew Pennycook
I thought that the Minister would provide a fuller response to our intention to remove the clause and introduce new clause 3. The hon. Member for Redditch is right to be concerned about the clause as drafted—I commend her for raising the issue. The spirit of the Committee has not been particularly party political, but I will give her the opportunity to break the Whip, because we feel strongly about the issue. Lots of leaseholders will find that they still bear legal costs because of the way in which the Government have approached this issue; it is a recipe for litigation. There is a much more sensible way to achieve the end that I think we all want: a general prohibition with a very limited number of exceptions, which could set out clearly in the Bill. We oppose the clause standing part, and will potentially move the new clause in due course.
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Lee Rowley
Clause 36 sets out general provisions that apply to regulation-making powers under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. Subsection (2) introduces a new section 37A, which sets out the procedure applicable to statutory instruments. It provides clarity on what is meant by regulations that are subject to the negative procedure and those that are subject to the affirmative procedure. Subsection (3) inserts a new definition of “appropriate authority” into section 38A of the 1985 Act. That defines the Secretary of State as being the appropriate authority in England, and Welsh Ministers the appropriate authority in Wales. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 36 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 37
Part 3: consequential amendments
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendments 125 and 126.
Schedule 8.
Government new clause 8—Appointment of manager: power to vary or discharge orders.
Lee Rowley
Clause 37 introduces schedule 8, which concerns a number of consequential amendments to the 1985 Act and other Acts of Parliament arising from the provisions of part 3 of the Bill. We will address those consequential amendments when we come to schedule 1, and I commend the clause to the Committee.
Government amendment 125 is a consequential amendment on new clause 8, which ensures that the tribunal has the ability to vary or discharge orders it makes under leasehold legislation on its own as well as on request. Government amendment 126 clarifies that a repeal of a section in the Housing (Wales) Act 2014 is to be done in both the English and Welsh language texts of the Act. I commend those amendments to the Committee.
Schedule 8, as introduced by clause 37, sets out the consequential amendments arising from the provisions of part 3 of the Bill. Part 1 of the schedule sets out the specific consequential amendments to the 1985 Act to take account of the changes in clause 36. In many cases, it makes changes to the regulation-making powers to confirm that the Secretary of State has powers to make regulations in England, and that Welsh counterparts do in Wales. It also clarifies which regulation-making provisions in the Act are subject to the negative procedure or the affirmative procedure. Part 2 of the schedule sets out consequential amendments to other Acts of Parliament to reflect the new measures introduced by part 3 and the omission of existing measures. The schedule seeks to provide clarity on regulation-making powers and to ensure that other Acts of Parliament reflect the new measures provided in part 3 of the Bill. I commend the schedule to the Committee.
Turning to new clause 8, sections 21 to 24 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 provide a remedy for leaseholders in circumstances where there is significant management failure. Under current arrangements, leaseholders may apply to the first-tier tribunal to ask it to make an order to appoint a manager, who will be responsible for carrying out functions specified in the order rather than by the landlord or an agent acting on their behalf. The manager will be accountable to the tribunal, but once an order has been issued, the tribunal may only vary or cancel it if an interested party asks it do so. The current arrangements are, in the Government’s view, too restrictive and limit the tribunal’s authority to act if there is already an existing order in place.
New clause 8 makes a minor amendment to section 24 of the 1987 Act and gives the tribunal the ability to take action on its own as well as on request. That means that, where there is a possible overlap between orders, the tribunal can amend an existing order, if necessary, of its own accord. The discretion to amend an order will be constrained. The tribunal must be satisfied that, in all cases, any variation or discharge is just and convenient, and would not result in the recurrence of the same problems that led to the order being made in the first place. I commend new clause 8 to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 37 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 8
Part 3: Consequential Amendments
Amendments made: 121, in schedule 8, page 132, line 9, at end insert—
“13A The LTA 1985 is amended in accordance with paragraphs 14 to 14B.”
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 123.
Amendment 122, in schedule 8, page 132, line 10, leave out “of the LTA 1985”.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 121.
Amendment 123, in schedule 8, page 132, line 18, at end insert—
“14A In section 26 (exception for tenants of certain public authorities)—
(a) in subsection (1)—
(i) for the words from ‘Sections 18 to 25’ to ‘do not apply’ substitute ‘Sections 18 to 25A do not apply’;
(ii) for ‘, in which case sections 18 to 24 apply but section 25 (offence of failure to comply) does not’ substitute ‘(but see subsection (1A));
(b) after subsection (1) insert—
‘(1A) The following sections do not apply to a service charge payable by a tenant under a long tenancy of a landlord referred to in subsection (1)—
(a) section 20H (right to claim where excluded insurance costs charged);
(b) section 20K (right to claim where costs charged in breach of section 20J);
(c) section 25A (enforcement of duties relating to service charges).’
14B In section 27 (exception for rent registered and not entered as variable), for the words from
‘Sections 18 to 25’ to ‘do not apply’ substitute ‘Sections 18 to 25A do not apply’”.
This amendment would consolidate the consequential amendments to section 26 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 required by virtue of clauses 30 and 31 and NC7 into a single paragraph of Schedule 8.
Amendment 124, in schedule 8, page 132, line 21, leave out “Landlord and Tenant Act” and insert “LTA”.
This amendment is consequential on Amendments 47 and 54.
Amendment 125, in schedule 8, page 132, line 35, at end insert—
“(ca) in section 160 (third parties with management responsibilities), omit subsection (4)(d);”.
This amendment is consequential on NC8.
Amendment 126, in schedule 8, page 133, line 22, after “(anaw 7),” insert
“in the English language text and in the Welsh language text,”.—(Lee Rowley.)
This amendment would clarify that section 128 of the Housing (Wales) Act 2014 is to be repealed in both the English and Welsh language texts of that Act.
Schedule 8, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 38
Application of Part 3 to existing leases
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Lee Rowley
Clause 38 makes clear that the new provisions introduced by this part of the Bill extend to leases entered into before the date the section comes into force. This provides clarity that the provisions in part 3 apply to existing, as well as new, leaseholders, but only from the date the relevant section comes into force. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 38 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 39
Meaning of “estate management” etc
Lee Rowley
I beg to move amendment 52, clause 39, page 66, line 8, at end insert—
“(e) a charge payable by a unit-holder of a commonhold unit to meet the expenses of a commonhold association.
(9A) For the purposes of subsection (9)(e)—
(a) “unit-holder”, “commonhold unit” and “commonhold association” have the same meaning as in Part 1 of the CLRA 2002 (see section 1(3) of that Act);
(b) the expenses of a commonhold association include the building safety expenses of the association (within the meaning given in section 38A of the CLRA 2002).”
This amendment would exclude charges in respect of the expenses of a commonhold association from the definition of “estate management charge” for the purposes of Part 4.
Lee Rowley
Amendment 52 amends clause 39(9) of the Bill to clarify that any payment by a commonhold unit owner to a commonhold association is not to be regarded as an estate management charge. It is a clarificatory amendment to ensure that sums payable to a commonhold association that provides services to the common parts that it owns are not covered by part 4 of the Bill.
Turning to clause stand part, part 4 of the Bill creates a new regulatory framework to protect homeowners living on those estates where services are managed privately rather than by local authority. We know that that has been a growing trend and that homeowners on those estates have very few rights in that regard. We are determined to change that and empower homeowners to hold estate management companies to account on how they spend money and on the quality of the services they provide.
Clause 39 sets out key definitions that have effect for part 4 of the Bill. They have been drafted with the intention of providing clarity on what is and is not being regulated, and to avoid creating loopholes. For example, subsection (2) defines what is meant by estate management; subsection (3) defines an estate manager; subsection (6) defines a relevant obligation; subsections (8) and (9) define what is meant by and what is excluded from the definition of an estate management charge; and subsection (10) defines relevant costs. In aggregate, this clause helps to provide the key definitions for measures and will inform the regulatory framework in part 4, which we will discuss in due course.
Amendment 52 agreed to.
Clause 39, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 40
Estate management charges: general limitations
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Lee Rowley
Clause 40 sets out general limitations with regard to estate management charges. Subsection (1) states:
“A charge demanded as an estate management charge is payable…only to the extent that the amount of the charge reflects relevant costs”—
in other words, purely the costs associated with estate management—and cannot be used to fund wider activities. This means that not every cost incurred by an estate manager is chargeable; an example would be if costs arose from the award of damages against the estate manager or an activity outside the estate by the estate manager that is not regulated. Those costs cannot be passed on.
Subsection (2) goes on to set out more detailed circumstances in which costs that are relevant costs may cease to become relevant costs and hence not payable or only partially payable.
Richard Fuller
I want to probe a bit more, because of the speed with which we shot through clause 39—with your leave, Chair, I am sure you will find this in order, because clause 40 also relates to relevant costs. Clause 39(10) says that relevant costs,
“in relation to a dwelling, means costs which are incurred by an estate manager in carrying out estate management for the benefit of the dwelling or for the benefit of the dwelling and other dwellings.”
As the Government were considering clauses 39 and 40, the general limitations on what might be a relevant cost, what consideration did the Minister or the Government give to the fact that there are some costs that might be covered within that general limitation that, for some people, are covered by payments they make through their council tax? Therefore, in certain circumstances it may be the case that people are paying twice for the same services covered by what are defined as estate management running costs.
Lee Rowley
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his point. He tempts me, at this relatively late hour, to get into an extremely important conversation that we will come to in the coming days. With his leave, I will limit my response to acknowledging his broader point, which is potentially broader than simply the discussions here on this Bill. Having listened to the evidence given to the Committee last week, I recognise that this is a key area that those impacted by estate management charges would like to debate further. I know that we will come to this in due course. I am putting that down as a marker for further discussion—I am not sure if I can satisfy him with the discussion, but I will put down a marker for it none the less.
To conclude on clause 40, specifically, subsection (2) refers to the provisions in clauses 41 to 43, which cover the requirement for the reasonableness of estate management costs and broader consultation requirements. Clause 40 provides clarity that not all costs incurred by estate managers may be passed on and sets out circumstances when even chargeable costs are not payable. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 40 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Mr Mohindra.)
Criminal Justice Bill (Thirteenth sitting)
Thursday 25th January 2024
(10 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Criminal Justice Bill 2023-24 View all Criminal Justice Bill 2023-24 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 25 January 2024 - (25 Jan 2024)
The Chair
I have a couple of preliminary announcements. Members should send their speaking notes, if they have any, by email to hansardnotes@parliament.uk. That helps to get the transcription done and made available to you as quickly as possible. Please switch electronic devices to silent; I have just checked mine, so hopefully it is okay. Tea and coffee are not allowed during sittings; that is just one of those things.
Clause 72
Crime and disorder strategies
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your benevolent and wise chairmanship, Dame Angela.
The clause confers a new power on police and crime commissioners and other local policing bodies to make recommendations on the activity of community safety partnerships and, in turn, places a duty on community safety partnerships to consider those recommendations. Community safety partnerships will be duty-bound to consider recommendations, but they are not under a duty to implement them. However, if a partnership does not implement the recommendations, it must share its reasons for not doing so with the relevant local policing body, most likely the PCC.
The feedback from part 2 of the police and crime commissioner review, conducted by the Home Office in 2021, was that while the importance of local partnerships such as CSPs was widely acknowledged, they were not being used as effectively as they could be. Every public service should be accountable to the public, and to the local communities they serve. This provision will strengthen the accountability and visibility of CSPs and improve how they work with the relevant policing body to tackle crime, disorder and antisocial behaviour.
No one single agency can address all drivers of crime and antisocial behaviour, so partnership working between policing, local authorities, local education providers, the prisons, probation service, mental health trusts and so on are all very important. This measure will take a step towards formalising more that kind of collaboration.
I take the view, as I am sure other Members here do, that police and crime commissioners as directly elected representatives of the local people are particularly well placed to convene groups. More often than not, they chair the local criminal justice board. They have a lot of public visibility, convening power and influence, and provide visible public local leadership. The provision helps build on and strengthen the work that PCCs up and down the country are doing together. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dame Angela.
I am a community safety partnership enthusiast. The partnerships, which were established under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, are a crucial forum for leadership, partnership working around crime prevention and reduction, and problem solving. I chaired my partnership in Nottingham a decade or so ago, and saw at first hand the impact of all those partners coming together, with shared priorities and mutual accountability, in a partnership built on trusted, close relationships and focused on solving problems.
It is with a degree of sadness that I say that partnerships have fallen in prominence and impact in recent years. One of the major challenges these bodies have found, and one of the limiting factors to the proposals in the Bill, is that austerity has bitten the partners that formed CSPs, certainly as regards funding, and partners have pulled away. In many cases, we have lost the shared data and insight function, and some of the things that brought partners to the table. Some of the extras done by CSPs are seen as nice-to-haves, rather than crucial functions.
As a result, there is a danger, certainly in some parts of the country, of the partnerships becoming meetings, rather than problem-solving bodies. Of course, whatever saving is made is lost later, through the impact on the criminal justice process. Certainly, if I ever get the chance to sit where the Minister sits, I will seek to reallocate those bodies and use them to their fullest extent, because we know the impact they can have.
In the meantime, we have what the Government have offered us. I probed the issue a little in our evidence session with the police and crime commissioners, and the real impact of this measure is that we are setting the police and crime commissioner or the relevant deputy Mayor as first among equals, and giving them higher status in CSPs. They are clearly to be given primacy. I thought about voting against this clause, but I talked to PCCs and local authorities, and they have fewer concerns than I do. The requirement is relatively light, in the sense that the power is to make recommendations, rather than to direct. That is probably right, so I have not chosen to vote against.
I have some degree of enthusiasm for what the Minister said about public transparency on decisions and recommendations. If recommendations are rejected, at least there will be an explanation why; that is probably enough. We should make it clear—I hope that the Minister will—that circumstances in which this power was necessary would generally reflect a failure. If a PCC needs to direct their CSP, there is no doubt a bigger problem in play.
What we want—I am sure that the Minister does as well—is a family of organisations across sectors in a community. We are talking about principally public sector organisations, but also bodies in the community and voluntary sector and, to some degree, the private sector, coming together on a basis of mutual trust to identify the common challenges for crime prevention and community safety in an area. They should have agreed priorities and plans based on good-quality data, insight and understanding of what each organisation is doing. Those are all parts of the puzzle. They should work to common goals in the interests of their community. That is easy to say, but it can be a difficult alchemy to achieve sometimes. However, that is what makes change, and that is what we need to see from CSPs. It will drive us away from what we have sadly seen in recent years.
There has been a move to counting crimes, and a move away from problem solving and problem-oriented policing. I have to say, there is minimal value to having one partner able to trump the rest. However, in cases of dysfunction, it will be a valuable asset for a police and crime commissioner or a deputy Mayor for policing to be able to say, “Hang on a minute. We have the ultimate mandate in this area. We don’t think things are working. This is how they ought to work.” Every time this provision is used, it will be a sign of failure, rather than success, but nevertheless it probably does add some value, so we will not oppose it.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 72 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 73
Ethical policing (including duty of candour)
Alex Norris
I beg to move amendment 63, in clause 73, page 64, line 36, at end insert—
“(2A) The Code must set out the actions and behaviours which will be considered to constitute ‘acting ethically.’”
This amendment would require the College of Policing’s code to state how police officers are to embody and demonstrate the requirement to act ethically.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 135, in clause 73, page 64, line 36, at end insert—
“(2A) In subsection (2) the reference to acting ethically includes a prohibition on a police officer engaging in—
(a) sexual relationships with members of the public whilst acting in their capacity as a police officer; and
(b) abusive conduct, including domestic abuse or sexual violence, towards any person whether in their role as a police officer or otherwise.”
Clause 73 is amended to make explicit that ethical policing also entails zero tolerance for violence and other forms of abuse against women and girls by police officers and staff.
Amendment 149, in clause 73, page 64, line 36, at end insert—
“(2A) The Code must set out how persons under the chief officer’s direction and control are to act ethically and with candour when discharging their duties in relation to a major incident, including—
(a) their duty to assist with any court proceeding, official inquiry or investigation resulting from a major incident fully, transparently and with proper expedition;
(b) their duty to disclose relevant information related to the discharge of their duties in relation to a major incident which would not otherwise be disclosed under the terms of reference or parameters of the relevant proceedings, inquiry or investigation.
(2B) The duties under (2A) may arise from—
(a) an application by any person affected by the major incident to the relevant court or inquiry chairperson;
(b) an instruction from the relevant court or inquiry chairperson; or
(c) where there are no extant court or inquiry proceedings, a requirement of any judicial review proceedings in the High Court.”
Amendment 136, in clause 73, page 65, line 17, at end insert—
“(h) the Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales;
(i) the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses;
(j) the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner.”
This amendment aims to ensure that there is independent external oversight to the Code of Practice from bodies which represent the interests of victims and survivors whom this Code seeks to protect.
New clause 48—Duty to investigate suspects diligently—
“(1) The Police (Conduct) Regulations 2020 are amended as follows.
(2) In Schedule 2 (standards of professional behaviour), under the heading ‘Duties and Responsibilities’, after ‘Police officers are diligent in the exercise of their duties and responsibilities.’ insert ‘This includes undertaking diligent searching for, and consideration of, all relevant intelligence related to a suspect.’”
This new clause is a change to Police Regulations. It is designed to ensure that officers diligently consider all intelligence on a suspect, including previous convictions or reports related to that person.
Alex Norris
Clause 73 is a significant clause that many outside this Committee are likely to be paying close attention to. I will resist the urge to pile into the clause stand part debate, but the clause relates to ethical policing, including the duty of candour. The duty of candour is the subject of a very live public conversation, following the brave campaign by the Hillsborough families for many years on this issue. Amendments 63 and 149 are in the service of that debate.
Clause 73 makes real the Government’s response to the report by Bishop James Jones, which details the long and agonising quest for justice by those families. The report, “The patronising disposition of unaccountable power”, is characterised by Bishop Jones as
“A report to ensure the pain and suffering of the Hillsborough families is not repeated”.
It includes 25 recommendations by the noble Bishop, and its title alone should focus colleagues’ minds on the need for legislative change, and what we in this place have a responsibility to do. It includes a recommendation for the establishment of a duty of candour for police officers—that is, a duty for police officers to be open and transparent when liaising with inquiries. As we know, that has not always been the case; in Hillsborough, it absolutely was not the case. The report was published in 2017, and it has taken us a long time just to get to where we are. It has been deeply upsetting for families that things have moved slowly; they have fought for so long, and they deserve the vindication of action in this place. That is why there is a degree of sadness that what is in the Bill certainly falls short of the recommendations in the report and the expectations of the families.
The Bill places a narrow requirement on chief officers; I am keen to understand why that path was chosen. Amendments 63 and 149 seek to improve that, and I am glad to have the support of the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. There is a limit to what we can do today. The need is for a proper duty of candour that would apply to all public bodies, but an amendment that achieved that would be outside the scope of the Bill, but I seek to introduce that duty at least in the field of policing. Nevertheless, our commitment remains to a wider duty of candour.
First, through amendment 63, I seek an explicit definition of actions and behaviours that constitute “acting ethically”. We are asking the College of Policing to develop a code; it has to be made clear that guidance on acting ethically should explicitly be part of it. I hope that the Minister will say that it will be; I would like that clarity from him in the debate, if not in the Bill. I do not want to prejudge the clause stand part debate, but I hope that he will explain why the code of practice route has been chosen, rather than a straightforward legal duty, which is what we suggested during the passage of the Victims and Prisoners Bill through the Commons; it is now in the Lords. This seems a bit of an indirect way of proceeding, but I am not sure. The amendment at least gives us the opportunity to set out that point.
Amendment 149 sets out what a duty of candour might look like in our eyes. It mirrors a provision that we have pushed in various Bills, and it comes from reflection on the Bishop Jones report, and conversations that my colleagues have had with the families. It gives us much greater detail and clarity on what we mean by a duty of candour with regard to policing, and the subsections relate to different aspects of that duty. It would be a significant improvement on what is in the Bill, because at the moment we are at risk of a double failure. There is a clear failure in that the Government’s plans for a duty of candour are too narrow. Sadly, we cannot rectify that today. However, we are at risk of sending a signal to the public that, although we recognise that the situation is wrong and ought to change, and that there ought at least to be a duty on chief officers, we still feel that we can subcontract responsibility for that to the College of Policing, rather than thinking that we, the democratic body, ought to make our judgment on that duty. The Government have fallen short here. My amendments add that requirement back in.
I am conscious that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley, has lots of amendments in the group as well, but in the spirit of the Minister, I will not prejudge them until I have heard my hon. Friend speak about them. I may pop up again, if need be.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
The enormous list of amendments in my name—it is time for everybody to strap in—is not necessarily a criticism of police forces, but is real recognition that women in our country do not trust the police. That is dangerous, because the women I work with have no choice but to trust the police. It is not a privileged position that they can take; they have to trust them, but they do not.
Clause 73 relates to the College of Policing’s code of ethics, but there is nothing at all about police-perpetrated abuse in it. Neither the code of ethics nor the standards of professional behaviour makes clear that police-perpetrated domestic abuse is contrary to the standards required by a police officer. Clause 73 should be amended to make it explicit that ethical policing also entails zero tolerance for violence and other forms of abuse against women and girls by police officers and staff. Amendment 135 does just that.
Why that is important should be pretty obvious. Conduct that constitutes domestic abuse or sexual violence should be clearly specified as being a breach of the code of ethics and of standards of professional behaviour, whether committed on or off duty. It is necessary to spell that out in legislation, because police forces still frequently take the approach that domestic abuse committed while an officer is off duty discredits the officer personally, but does not constitute a breach of the code of ethics or the standards of professional behaviour, as it occurred in the officer’s private life.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct’s guidance says:
“The Standards of Professional Behaviour and the obligations that they impose will be assessed in context, which includes whether they are on or off-duty at the material time. Police officers have a right to a private life”—
they do not have the right to be a domestic abuser, though—
“which must be factored into any assessment. Assessments of seriousness and public interest should include consideration of whether an off-duty behaviour discredits the police service.”
David Carrick was off duty when he raped all those women.
Forces are seizing on this in some cases to say that domestic abuse is personally discrediting for the officer, but not the police service. Jackie, an experienced police officer, was the victim of domestic abuse by her police officer husband. She reported the abuse to her force, but no criminal charges were brought, on the basis that there was not a realistic prospect of conviction because it was her word against her ex-partner’s. Misconduct proceedings were not pursued on that basis; the conduct alleged by Jackie had taken place while both she and her ex-partner had been off duty. It was therefore deemed to be part of their private lives. As a result, Jackie felt unable to continue working for the force. Meanwhile, her ex-partner had been promoted, and holds a leadership role in the force’s violence against women and girls strategic command.
Jackie’s case and others like it send a clear message about the force’s true attitude towards domestic abuse. Other officers have said that seeing how officers such as Jackie have been treated when they have tried to report domestic abuse speaks volumes, and that they would not report domestic abuse themselves, having seen how Jackie and others were treated by the force. Regardless of what the force says about operational pledges or other initiatives, the way it responds to allegations of police-perpetrated domestic abuse has a much greater impact on the willingness of other victims to come forward.
The relevance of abusive behaviour towards women to an officer’s suitability to hold the office of police constable and the impact on public confidence when perpetrators of domestic abuse hold positions in the police are being overlooked. Therefore, there needs to be a clear and unequivocal statement that domestic abuse committed by a police officer, whether on-duty or off-duty, will always discredit the police service if that officer is permitted to continue serving on that force.
Furthermore, subsection 2A(a) in amendment 135 refers to,
“sexual relationships with members of the public whilst acting in their capacity as a police officer”.
Section 1 of the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act 2021—some of us were on that Bill Committee as well—amended part II of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 so as to enable the authorisation of CHIS. That includes enabling under- cover police officers to participate in conduct that would otherwise be criminal.
A number of groups, including the Centre for Women’s Justice, the End Violence Against Women coalition, Justice, Women’s Aid and Police Spies Out of Lives, are very concerned about that in light of the significant history of undercover officers engaging in deceitful sexual relationships during the course of their under- cover deployment. A specific prohibition against such relationships should be included in the police code of ethics, making it clear that any such relationship is a breach of the code of ethics and of the duty under the standards of professional behaviour in schedule 2 to the Police (Conduct) Regulations 2020—to
“behave in a manner which does not discredit the police service or undermine public confidence in it, whether on or off duty.”
Amendment 136 aims to ensure that there is independent external oversight to the code of practice from bodies that represent the interests of the victims and survivors whom this code seeks to protect. The Bill currently sets out a range of organisations that need to be consulted regarding the code of practice relating to ethical policing. However, while this code is being implemented following serious failings by policing to adequately protect victims, there is no requirement to consult organisations that protect the rights of victims to ensure that the standards set out in the code are sufficiently robust.
In the previous debate, the Minister said how important partners were in ensuring that things worked well. Amendment 136 would ensure that the interests of victims were entrenched in the code of practice and the duty of candour. We have heard concerns about police marking their own homework, yet the current state of the Bill is like allowing them to set their own questions in the exam. The current provision requires police to act
“in an open and transparent way”.
That should start with openness to external scrutiny by individuals whose role it is to uphold and promote the rights of victims. By including named commissioners as statutory consultees, we can ensure that the standards set out in the code are fit for purpose.
I move on to new clause 48. Gaia Pope-Sutherland was 19 when she died. She was one of a significant number of young women and girls with cases against a man who had served time for child sex offences. Gaia had reported that she had been raped by him, but her case was dropped by the police and dismissed by the Crown Prosecution Service. Her family believed that that was because her case was presented in isolation from all the other independent allegations of violence and abuse. Detectives were said to have been aware of allegations made against this man, who was accused of grooming her as far back as 2014.
Gaia was already suffering from severe post-traumatic stress and living in fear of retaliation from the perpetrator, so the collapse of the case had a devastating impact on her mental health. That contributed to her disappearance and death from hypothermia shortly before the suspect was due to be released from a prison sentence for other child sex offences.
What happened to Gaia is heartbreaking. I have met many victims of sexual violence, and many of them have spoken about how it is not the violence that broke them but the failed state response—that when they turned to the institutions that were supposed to be able to protect them and deliver justice, they were met with incompetence or discrimination and a system that was uncaring and silencing.
Gaia’s heartbroken family have courageously taken up the campaign to change this. They have been pushing for the “Gaia principle”, which stipulates that any failure by a police officer to comply with existing policies and guidance will be considered a professional standards issue and escalated to misconduct in the event that the pattern persists. It is basically trying to make the police do their job. It urges that all police forces investigate sexual violence crimes in line with the national operating model developed from Operation Superior, and that officers be held accountable if they fail to do so.
New clause 48 is a step towards delivering that principle. It makes diligent consideration of all intelligence on a subject—previous convictions, reports or accusations—an unquestionable or overt part of what we expect of our police officers in their service. Repeat offending is a critical issue in the investigation of VAWG. The VAWG national strategic threat risk assessment notes:
“A relatively small number of highly prolific offenders are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime.”
The Femicide Census tells us that in 59% of intimate partner or relative homicide cases, a history of abuse towards the victim is evident. Research from Respect shows that a quarter of high-harm domestic abuse perpetrators are serial offenders, some having as many as six victims. Between 41% and 59% of Operation Soteria offenders were linked to more than one offence, and that is just the tip of the iceberg. One study sample revealed that 120 undetected rapists, defined as those whose offences met the legal definition of rape or attempted rape but who had never been prosecuted, were responsible for 1,225 interpersonal violence offences, including rape and child sexual and physical abuse.
The picture is clear: we know who these men are and what they are doing, but because of endemic police failure to investigate properly and a lack of co-ordinated professional curiosity, those known perpetrators are acting with impunity. New clause 48 makes the investigation of potential perpetrators a central part of policing. It is unbelievable that I have to say this—the country would think that this is happening—but that must be a part of the standards of their professional behaviour.
The police must live up to that and be held accountable for it. If a serving officer fails to do his or her job properly, they must face consequences and disciplinary processes, and if necessary they must no longer hold that role. That seems obvious, and it is extraordinary that we are debating it, but rape has an appallingly low conviction rate: a perpetrator is held to account in just 1.5% of rape cases. The devastating lived experience of families such as Gaia’s makes it clear that we cannot continue.
The new clause, based on the “Gaia principle”, will ensure that survivors of VAWG are no longer denied justice and left in danger because police investigators fail to investigate a suspect properly. As I said, it is named in memory of 19-year-old Gaia Pope-Sutherland from Dorset, who lost her life following these failures.
Chris Philp
I thank the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley for explaining their very thoughtful amendments. We will obviously have a stand part debate a bit later, but in short, and for context, clause 73 places a duty on the College of Policing to issue a code of practice relating to ethical policing, which must include a duty of candour, delivering one of the points of learning set out by Bishop James Jones in response to the Hillsborough disaster, which Members of this House and this Committee—including you, of course, Dame Angela—have discussed extensively.
The Government and the House obviously take police integrity and accountability very seriously indeed, which is why the code of ethics and the duty of candour are so important. Amendment 63, in the name of the shadow Minister, asks for information to be set out that specifies what actions are to be considered ethical. Although the Bill is not yet in force, the College of Policing has acted pre-emptively—that is helpful for this Committee, as we have something to look at—and has already published and set out a statutory code of practice for ethical policing under section 39A of the Police Act 1996. It has met the statutory requirement that we are looking to legislate for in this clause already, even though the Bill is not yet in force. Once the Bill is in force, it will have to maintain that code and review it.
Jess Phillips
It would not pick up employment issues raised by one police officer about their police officer husband. The police currently operate on a criminal threshold in an employment environment, which is a dangerous precedent. We would not allow that anywhere else. We do not allow it in here. It would not have helped Jackie in her case. On looking at criminal records or other intelligence—we will come to the intelligence that they are not looking at in a moment—it needs to be explicitly stated that we do not want domestic abusers in our police force.
Chris Philp
We certainly do not want domestic abusers in our police force. To be clear, domestic abuse is rightly a criminal offence. If someone gets convicted of that, it will be on the police national computer. Even if there is not a conviction, because the victim does not want to proceed with a prosecution, the evidential threshold is not met or there is an acquittal or whatever, the police national database, as distinct from the police national computer, records intelligence and information more generally.
Even if there is no conviction, for whatever reason, information that is received gets recorded on the police national database. If there has been an allegation that has not been prosecuted and there is no conviction, that will still show up on the police national database and therefore be considered in the data washing exercise, even if there has not been a criminal conviction.
Jess Phillips
To what end? They will find that somebody made an allegation, but how many result in “no further action”? If they found that there were three allegations against a police officer by three different women, they went, “No further action.” To what end? We are washing it, but I want to put it on after it has been washed.
Chris Philp
It is in order to make decisions about whether the officer concerned meets the standards required for vetting. The hon. Lady made this point a second ago. The standard for employment should be much lower than the standard for criminal conviction. Obviously if there is a criminal conviction, the expectation is that the person will be dismissed. Where there are allegations that are concerning but have not been proved, we would expect that to adversely affect the officer’s vetting status.
We made a change last summer, I think, to say that an officer has to clear vetting not just once when they are first hired—this was a problem in the Carrick and Couzens cases—but throughout their career. If the data washing exercise brings out information that is not necessarily criminal but means that the officer does not meet the vetting standards, we expect action to be taken. I am speaking from memory here, but in something like 150 of those 461 cases, there is now a misconduct investigation, so not criminal. Nine of them are being investigated criminally. About 150 misconduct investigations have been triggered, which will pick up examples such as the one the hon. Lady just mentioned although they do not meet the criminal threshold.
To elaborate on that, the paragraph about discreditable conduct includes the requirement that police officers behave in a manner that
“does not discredit the police service or undermine public confidence”—
“undermine public confidence” is an important phrase—and that is
“whether on or off duty.”
Each case is assessed on its own facts, but I expect— I am sure the hon. Lady would expect this, too—credible allegations, in particular credible repeated allegations, of domestic abuse, even if not prosecuted or convicted, to undermine public confidence in the officer concerned. The hon. Lady would definitely take that view and I would as well. I have not looked at all 150 cases individually, but I expect that a number of those recently uncovered cases include examples such as the one I have set out.
Critically, the data-washing exercise, that check, will now happen on an ongoing and repeated basis, and it will give a lot of assurance. [Interruption.] I apologise— I said 150, but actually 88 cases have been triaged for disciplinary investigation. It was not 150; I was mis-recollecting. It is 88 of the 461. But I hope that gives more confidence to the public, including women, particularly as the vetting will happen on an ongoing basis—we have funded that. Maintaining vetting clearance throughout an officer’s career, which could be 30 years, rather than just having it at the beginning, will help to rebuild confidence.
Jess Phillips
If the vetting has to be ongoing, where is that written into primary legislation? I do not doubt the good faith of the Minister—we have all said as much in Committee—but how can people like me have a guarantee that it will happen forever? Secondly, the Minister made a valiant effort to point out to the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North, where exactly all the duty-of-candour things appeared in the ethical code of practice for policing. But I have just had a quick scan of that, and it does not mention domestic or sexual violence once.
Chris Philp
Maintaining vetting throughout an officer’s career rather than just at the beginning of it is set out in the vetting code of practice, which was published by the College of Policing, I think, in July last year. The ongoing checking against the police national database is an operational practice. We have put funding behind it, so there is money to pay for it, and the relevant National Police Chiefs’ Council lead has publicly committed to doing it. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley is right that such vetting is not a statutory duty, but the Government have funded it and the police have said that they will do it, so Parliament will hold them to account to ensure that they deliver on that commitment and continue to do so.
The hon. Lady asked about the “Guidance for ethical and professional behaviour in policing”, which was published recently. Some relevant information, which the Committee will want to hear about, is in that document. Two more documents are also relevant, one of which was published earlier this week. This is confusing, because three documents fit under the umbrella of the codes of practice.
The statutory document, under section 39A of the Police Act 1996, was published on 6 December and I quoted from it previously. Two more documents were published in the past few days: “Guidance for ethical and professional behaviour in policing”—also issued by the college, and I can provide a copy—and “Ethical policing principles”. Those three documents should be taken together.
The first of the two new ones is relevant to amendment 135. It has some sections that answer the questions that have just been asked, including the one about inappropriate relationships. The “Guidance for ethical and professional behaviour in policing”, published only a few days ago, has a section on “Fairness and respect”, which includes things such as:
“protect vulnerable people and groups from behaviour that is abusive, harassing, bullying, intimidating, exploitative or victimising”
and
“avoid any behaviour that could cause unreasonable distress or harm, including any behaviour that might interfere with…colleagues’ ability to carry out their duties”.
Clearly, exploitation, which obviously includes domestic abuse, is covered, but so are other things such as victimisation, harassment and abusive behaviour.
Jess Phillips
Does the document say whether that is on or off duty? Does it include officers’ own personal relationships or does it just apply to members of the public?
Chris Philp
The document talks about treating everybody in those ways. It also goes on to talk about relationships, which obviously can happen inside and outside policing. It also talks about—I think this was the topic of amendment 135—ensuring that there are appropriate boundaries between police officers’ professional roles and personal relationships. It particularly talks about recognising
“the need to manage…relationships with the public because of the existence of a power imbalance”,
respecting “personal and professional boundaries” and maintaining
“the integrity and rights of those we come into contact with”.
Critically, it also states:
“do not use our professional position to pursue a sexual or improper emotional relationship with a member of the public”.
I think that speaks directly to the concerns raised in paragraph (a) in amendment 135, which expressly references the same thing. That is in the document that I just mentioned.
What the whole group of amendments tabled by the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley calls for is covered in these documents, which have been published by the College of Policing under section 39A of the Police Act 1996. If there are gaps in them, obviously they can be updated.
Someone—I think it was the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley—asked, “Why not set it all out in the Bill?”. The documents are quite long—29 pages, 10 pages and something like 30 pages: there is a total of 60 or 70 pages of guidance. It is rather difficult to put that much detail into the Bill. What the Bill is doing is compelling—not asking—the College of Policing to publish these documents. The detail is obviously in the documents, and I hope that the Committee can see, from the examples that I have given having rifled through the documents, that they address the topics that one would want to see addressed.
Jess Phillips
I thank the Minister for giving way again; it is good to have this debate. I must say, as an expert in this field, that what the document says is not good enough. That brings me to amendment 136—which specialist agencies who work with victims of domestic violence did the College work with to write this? It is not good enough, I am afraid to say. I can take that up with the College of Policing, but that is also not the mechanism.
Chris Philp
There is obviously a duty to consult various bodies in preparing the code of practice. I know that the College of Policing and its chief executive, Chief Constable Andy Marsh, engages extensively with a number of people. The hon. Lady lists in amendment 136 the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses, and the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner. I do not know whether the College of Policing expressly consulted those people in preparing the codes of practice, but I can undertake to ask its chief executive and find out.
I appreciate that the hon. Lady has probably not had a chance to read the documents, because two of them got published only earlier this week. Once she has had a chance to look at them, if, based on her experience and work in this area, which I know is extensive and long-standing, she thinks that some things have not been properly addressed, I am happy to commit to raising them directly with the College and ask that they be addressed in the next iteration of the documents. I am definitely happy to do that whenever the hon. Lady is ready; if she can set down what she thinks is missing, I will raise those issues.
I am told that the three organisations that I just read out, which appear in the hon. Lady’s amendment, actually were consulted routinely on the documents. However, as I said, if, once she has had the chance to read the documents, she finds in them things that are not properly constructed, I will definitely raise them with the chief executive of the College on her behalf. She can obviously do so directly, but I will certainly do so reflecting her advice as well.
I essentially agree with the spirit of all the amendments. However, because of the detail published relatively recently, on 6 December and in just the last few days, my view is that what is being asked for has been essentially incorporated into the documents. As I said to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, if she especially or any members of the Committee feel that things are missing, I will absolutely take them up with the chief executive, should a view be formed that changes would be useful and appropriate.
Alex Norris
This has been a really important debate, and I am grateful for the case made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley. The Minister’s very full answer was much appreciated by us all. Interestingly, my hon. Friend and I focused on two different issues, but they have the same principle at root: the public must be able to expect that public organisations—in this case, the police—are candid, transparent and making their best efforts to do the best job in all circumstances. That should be obvious, but we know that too often that has not been the case, and Hillsborough brought that into sharp relief. Alongside that, in the cases mentioned by my hon. Friend there is a more numerous although less high-profile drumbeat of mundane failure, which has been almost baked into the system. Those will never be the subject of a high-level inquiry; instead, there are people dying in doorways, unaccounted for, unknown and unseen. We should believe that we can do better than that.
I am grateful for what the Minister introduced in relation to the work of the College. I was going to say this in the next debate when we talk about vetting, but we have full confidence in and we believe in Chief Constable Andy Marsh. He is excellent; he has engaged with us on the Opposition Benches and he is always very good, so no point that I make is against either him or the College. The question, for us, is about the degree to which we are comfortable with subcontracting important judgments about how one of the most crucial public services operates to other organisations that we cannot scrutinise in the same way as the Minister and the Home Office. There are times when that is very much the right thing to do, and when we cannot and should not seek to operate those things remotely from here; we would not have the time and it would not be appropriate.
Chris Philp
We both have confidence in the College and Chief Constable Andy Marsh—in fact, now is a good time to thank him for the work that he and his colleagues at the College have done. On the subcontracting of important things to the College of Policing, I should say that the statutory code must be approved by the Home Secretary prior to its coming into force. That gives not parliamentary approval, but at least some level of democratic oversight on what goes into it.
Alex Norris
If I am honest, that level of oversight might not give much comfort to us in the Opposition, but never- theless that at least gives the code a statutory footing, which is in itself very much valued. We must make the judgment of when we are happy for others to make those decisions and when we believe that it is our responsibility to set a tone. That remains the case, particularly around candour; I will come on to amendment 149 in a second.
I turn to the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley. One of the most important things we can say—and I hope that the Minister will say this at some point; I do not think that he has said it yet and it is really important for the amendment—is that we believe that off-duty conduct is relevant to establishing the character and suitability of officers. My hon. Friend’s amendment mentions a couple of cases where standards that we would routinely expect to be met have not been, whether that is in a domestic abuse or sexual violence situation or related to the point around spy cops. We ought to send a stronger signal on that.
I confess that I have not yet had the chance to see the documents that have been published in recent days. I hope that they pass the test that the Government’s own documents often fail around gender. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley said, the Government managed a whole Domestic Abuse Act without mentioning women. We cannot lose sight of what is happening here—it is not exclusively male perpetrators and women victims, but that is largely the case. This is a gendered crime, and we ought to treat our regulation in that way.
I heard the Minister’s point about amendment 136. While we have to admire the College of Policing’s diligence in publishing the code prior to its becoming a statutory requirement, if the consultation has not happened yet there will be a period of time when that work could take place, prior to the Secretary of State signing it off, and for it to be understood that the commissioners mentioned in the amendment would be routinely consulted during the development of the process. The insight that those individuals have on those cases, as we saw in the evidence sessions, is hugely valuable.
I turn to new clause 48. As my hon. Friend said, the public should be able to expect that relevant intelligence is always considered; it is not. The Gaia Pope-Sutherland case is absolutely devastating. If the Bill is not the place for this detail, we need to hear a strong signal that it is what we expect of policing—what the public expect and should be able to expect.
On amendment 63, I think the Minister is right. I am happy to withdraw it as it is covered by the document he mentioned. I cannot quite share his view on amendment 149. We should not misconstrue that what is in the Bill now means that police officers are obliged to act with a duty of candour. What is in the Bill is that chief officers have a duty; what is in the College of Policing’s guidance, at paragraph 4.5, is that that duty to act with openness and—I forget the other word—is then pushed to other officers.
Alex Norris
Openness and candour. But that does not have a statutory underpinning. There is carrot but no stick—that is the point I am trying to make. The code covers chief officers. It will not really cover their staff—not so that we can have confidence that the job has been done with regard to the duty of candour. There is still a gap.
As I have said, I have doubts about whether the Bill is the right vehicle for the change that the Opposition seek on duty of candour, so I will not press that point to a Division yet. But the issue will come back at later stages and in other legislation as well. We certainly do not think that the job has been finished.
Jess Phillips
On amendment 135, the Minister offered to sit down and talk to me about what needs to be in the document. On reflection, I will not press the amendment, in the expectation that that will happen before the Bill goes to the other place. We shall see how we feel about the matter then.
Chris Philp
On a point of order, Dame Angela. Could I ask the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, through you, to make contact with me with her thoughts when she has looked at the document? I would be grateful.
Alex Norris
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Jess Phillips
I beg to move amendment 134, in clause 73, page 65, line 5, at end insert—
“(3A) The Code must make explicit that any criminal behaviour perpetrated by persons under the chief officer’s direction and control disclosed as a result of proceedings in the family courts must be considered during the vetting process.”.
This amendment ensures criminal behaviour that is uncovered within family courts is disclosed within the vetting process of police officers.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 6—Automatic dismissal on conviction for a serious criminal offence—
“(1) Section 50 of the Police Act 1996 (Regulations for police forces) is amended in accordance with subsections (2) and (3).
(2) After subsection (3) insert “and subject to any regulations made under subsection (3ZA)”.
(3) After subsection (3G) insert—
“(3ZA) Regulations made under this section may provide that upon the conviction of a member of a police force for a certain type of criminal offence, that person shall be dealt with by way of automatic dismissal without the taking of any disciplinary proceedings against that person.”.”.
New clause 7—Automatic suspension of officers charged with specified allegations—
“(1) Regulations made by the Secretary of State pursuant to section 50 of the Police Act 1996 may make further provision as set out in this section.
(2) Where an officer is charged with an indictable-only or an either-way offence, the Regulation 11 of the Police (Conduct) Regulations 2020 and any other relevant legislation shall not initially apply.
(3) In a case falling within subsection (2), regulations may provide that the appropriate authority must automatically suspend the officer from the office of constable for an initial period of 30 days.
(4) Where an officer is suspended in circumstances falling under subsection (3), regulations may provide that—
(a) the officer remains a police officer for the purpose of the Police (Conduct) Regulations,
(b) the suspension must be with pay,
(c) at or prior to the expiry of the initial period of suspension, the appropriate authority must make a determination as to whether the suspension conditions in Regulation 11 of the Police (Conduct) Regulations 2020 are satisfied, and
(d) upon the making of a determination referred to in paragraph (c) that an officer should remain suspended, Regulation 11 of the Police (Conduct) Regulations shall apply thereafter to that officer.”.
New clause 8—Automatic dismissal of officers who fail vetting—
“(1) The Police Act 1996 is amended in accordance with subsection (2).
(2) In section 39A (Codes of practice for chief officers), after subsection (1) insert—
“(1A) Without prejudice to subsection (1) and subject to subsection (1B), a code of practice may provide for an officer to be dismissed without notice where—
(a) the officer fails vetting, and
(b) it is not reasonable to expect that the officer will be capable of being deployed to full duties within a reasonable timeframe.
(1B) Subsection (1A) does not apply where a chief officer concludes that—
(a) the officer, notwithstanding his vetting failure, is capable of being deployed to a substantial majority of duties appropriate for an officer of his rank; and
(b) it would be disproportionate to the operational effectiveness of the force for the officer to be dismissed without notice.””.
New clause 9—Duty of officer to hand over personal mobile phone—
“(1) Section 50 of the Police Act 1996 is amended in accordance with subsection (2).
(2) After subsection (4) insert—
“(4A) Regulations under this section may, in connection with the procedures that are established by or under regulations made by virtue of subsection (3), provide that an officer has a duty to hand over to the appropriate authority a personal telecommunications device capable of storing information in any electronic format which can readily be produced in a visible and legible form, belonging to that police officer where there is a request by the appropriate authority in circumstances where the appropriate authority has reasonable grounds to suspect the police officer of behaving in a way that could amount to gross misconduct and in respect of which information stored on the device may be relevant to the suspected misconduct.
(4B) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (4A), regulations may provide for—
(a) the form of the request to be made to the police officer concerned and any related information that must be provided by the police officer in releasing the device including, but not limited to, any passcode required to access information stored on the device;
(b) the time period within which the device must be provided to the appropriate authority and any sanction which may be imposed on the police officer for failing to do so;
(c) the provision to the police officer concerned of reasons for the requested possession of a device;
(d) the arrangements to be put in place for the protection of confidential, privileged or sensitive information stored on the device which is not relevant to the matter under investigation;
(e) the period of time that the device may be retained by the appropriate authority and arrangements for the return of the device when it is no longer required for the purposes of the investigation;
(f) the deletion of information obtained from the device and retained by the appropriate authority other than information which is reasonably required to be retained in connection with the matter under investigation; and
(g) the making of ancillary and consequential amendments to other regulations as may be considered necessary.
(4C) In subsections (4A) and (4B) “appropriate authority” has the meaning given in article 2 (interpretation) of the Police (Conduct) Regulations 2020.””.
New clause 33—Police perpetrated domestic abuse as a recordable complaint—
“(1) Schedule 3 of the Police Reform Act 2002 is amended as follows.
(2) After paragraph 1(2)(b) insert—
“(c) it is alleged by any person, including any person serving with the police, that a person under his direction and control, whether in the course of their duties or otherwise, has engaged in domestic abuse within the meaning of section 1 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 or abuse of position for a sexual purpose,”
(3) After paragraph 2(6B)(c) insert—
“(ca) the complaint is one which alleges that a person serving with the police, whether in the course of their duties or otherwise, has engaged in domestic abuse or abuse of position for a sexual purpose; and “domestic abuse” has the meaning set out in section 1 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021,”.”.
This new clause would ensure all allegations of Police Perpetrated Domestic abuse are treated either as a recordable police complaint or as a recordable conduct matter.
New clause 34—Domestic abuse complainants: police officers and police staff—
“(1) Section 29(4)(a) of the Police Reform Act 2002 is amended as follows.
(2) After “person whose conduct it was” insert “, save that this paragraph does not apply where the conduct alleged (assuming it to have occurred) falls within the definition of domestic abuse in section 1 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 or constitutes abuse of position for a sexual purpose,”.”.
This new clause would ensure that police officers and members of police staff have the same right to make a complaint of domestic abuse against a member of their force as do members of the public.
New clause 35—Vetting: duty of chief officers—
“(1) Chief officers must ensure that all persons under their direction and control have valid and current vetting clearance appropriate to their role.
(2) All persons under the direction and control of a chief officer must be re-vetted—
(a) within a period of five years from an individual coming under the direction and control of a chief officer; and
(b) within a period no longer than every five years thereafter.
(3) Vetting clearance must not be granted to persons who have received a caution or conviction for serious violent or sexual offences including, but not limited to offences involving—
(a) domestic abuse,
(b) coercive and controlling behaviour,
(c) stalking,
(d) harassment,
(e) sexual assault or abuse,
(f) rape, or
(g) female genital mutilation.
(4) A person who does not have valid and current vetting clearance appropriate to their role will be dismissed.”.
New clause 36—Allegation of violence against women and girls: withdrawal of warrant card—
“Where a police officer is the subject of an allegation that the officer has perpetrated violence against a woman or a girl, the officer’s warrant card must be withdrawn pending investigation.”.
This new clause creates a provision requiring the removal of warrant cards from police officers who are under investigation for crimes relating to violence against women and girls.
New clause 43—Domestic abuse: automatic referral to Independent Office for Police Conduct—
“(1) A chief officer of police must ensure that any allegation of domestic abuse made against a person under the chief officer’s direction and control must be referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct for determination of the mode of investigation.
(2) If the Independent Office for Police Conduct determines that the investigation must be referred back to the chief officer’s force, then such an investigation must be conducted and concluded.
(3) The Independent Office for Police Conduct may also refer the complaint to the chief officer of police for a different police force and direct that the complaint be investigated independently by that force.”.
Jess Phillips
As I started to say earlier, I think the public would be surprised to hear that the provision in amendment 134 does not already exist. The amendment seeks to ensure that criminal behaviour that is uncovered in the family courts is disclosed in the vetting process for police officers.
When the Bureau of Investigative Journalism made freedom of information requests to police forces asking for the number of officers who had been made subject to non-molestation orders by the family courts, it was shocked to learn that forces do not collect that data. That means that evidence of rape, violence, danger or child abuse demonstrated in a UK court is not part of the vetting process for our police officers, who the Minister has asked us, quite rightly, to have faith in.
The granting of a non-molestation order requires the court to be satisfied that there is evidence of molestation, that the applicant or a child is in need of protection and that the order is required to control the behaviour of the person against whom it is sought. Those are significant findings when made in relation to a serving police officer. It is scandalous that there is not an established arrangement between the police and the family courts to ensure that not just non-molestation orders, but any judicial finding of domestic abuse, rape or child abuse against a serving police officer or someone who wishes to serve is automatically notified to the officer’s force, to inform vetting. The amendment would require such information to be considered during the vetting process.
My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North spoke about the duty of candour. We wish to see that in all public institutions, although that is obviously not within scope. The public would be horrified to hear that there will be teachers in their children’s schools, currently, who have been found to be child abusers in our family courts.
The famous case on this issue relates to this building. Because the family courts are so secretive, a court case was fought; two journalists had to take the institution to task in order to be able to report that a previous Member of this House was found in the family court to have raped his wife. I pay tribute to her for the bravery that she showed.
Currently, such a finding—a finding of rape against somebody who sat among us—would never otherwise be known. If that man now wants to try to get a job in a police force or advising police forces, he can knock himself out. I mean, his case was written about in the newspaper, but that is one in a million cases; that does not happen routinely, because of the secrecy. We should all be terrified that there is no safeguarding. A person can be found to be a child abuser in the family court, and not be allowed to see their children, but they could be teaching my kids and nobody would know, because it is secret. It does not go on a Disclosure and Barring Service check.
I happen to know of a series of cases of police officers found in the family courts, by UK judges, to be child abusers, rapists or domestic abusers, but nobody would ever know, and they carry on serving as police officers. I think the public would be appalled. Every one of the police officers I asked about this in our evidence sessions, including Andy Marsh, said that it would be helpful to know. They all said it would be helpful, essentially, to have the family courts keeping a repository of safeguarding information based on outcomes at court that can be fed into the DBS or the vetting system. There are other areas that we will discuss today where I could definitely feel myself ending up at loggerheads with some senior police officers, but not in this case.
New clause 34 would amend section 29 of the Police Reform Act 2002 to ensure that police officers and members of police staff have the same right as any member of the public to make a complaint of domestic abuse against a member of their force. Again, it is shocking to hear that this is not already the case. Section 29(4) of the 2002 Act prevents police officers and staff from making a police complaint against a member of their own force. This is a significant problem in police-perpetrated domestic abuse cases, because many police officers and staff are married to each other—just like in this place—or in relationships with other officers and police staff. Just to be clear, I am not married to anybody in this place; I think my husband has been to London twice in his entire life.
Of the victims of police-perpetrated domestic abuse who have come forward to give their accounts to the Centre for Women’s Justice, nearly 45% are themselves police officers or police staff. While police victims can still report criminal activity by their husband or partner, the fact that their complaints are not also investigated under the misconduct process is a huge problem.
Criminal investigations very often conclude with no further action—NFA—on the basis that it is one person’s word against another’s. Given the burden and standard of proof in criminal proceedings, either the police or the CPS—if it gets that far—decide that there is not a realistic prospect of securing a conviction. However, the standard of proof is different in disciplinary proceedings. Clearly, it is important, not only for the victim but for the protection of the public, that the matter is recorded and that there is a disciplinary investigation even if criminal proceedings are not pursued—we have all agreed on that this morning already.
The case study of “Celine” pulls together the key elements of a number of real-life cases. Celine is a police sergeant. Her now ex-husband is an inspector with the same force. Celine and her ex-husband were married for 12 years. During the marriage, Celine was subjected to controlling and coercive behaviour, including financial control, alienation from friends and family, belittling and abusive language, and intimidation, such as her husband driving erratically and locking Celine and her children in a bedroom. Since the marriage broke down, Celine’s ex-husband has been harassing her with phone calls and threatening emails.
Celine made a complaint to her force about her ex-husband’s behaviour. There was a cursory criminal investigation, but—as they always are—it was “NFA’d” because the investigating officer took the view that there was no corroborating evidence of Celine’s account. Celine submitted a victim’s right to review request and asked for clarification on what was happening in terms of a misconduct investigation. She was initially told that there would not be any misconduct investigation, because of the NFA decision in the criminal investigation and because she is a police officer and so cannot make a police complaint. We need to have it categorically written into any code of ethics that an NFA decision in a criminal case should not be used in an employment case. We also have the issue of Celine not being able to make a complaint in the first place.
Celine challenged that and pointed out that her allegations should be investigated as a conduct matter, even if she was precluded from making a police complaint. Very shortly afterwards, she was told that the professional standards department had considered the case and that no further action would be taken. Celine asked for an explanation, but was told that since she was not classed as a complainant in the misconduct investigation, due to her being a police officer, it would be a breach of her ex-husband’s rights for her to be told anything about it, and that the force would not correspond with her further on the matter. Celine tried reaching out to her Police Federation representative for support, but was told that because the Police Fed was assisting her ex-husband, it could not offer her any assistance.
Being a police officer, and section 29(4) of the Police Reform Act, prevented Celine from having the same rights as a member of the public. Had that not been the case, her report of abuse could have been treated as a formal police complaint. She would have had the right to require the police to record it, and therefore deal with it under the statutory scheme set out in schedule 3 to the PRA. She would also have had the right of review of the outcome, either by the local police and crime commissioner or the Independent Office for Police Conduct, depending on whether the complaint had been handled by the force or by the PCC at the investigation stage. All those rights are currently withheld from police officers and members of police staff when they raise concerns about the conduct of an officer in their own force.
New clause 33 would go further, by ensuring that all allegations of police-perpetrated domestic abuse are treated either as a recordable police complaint or as a recordable conduct matter. Although all police complaints and conduct matters are required to be logged, they are not all required to be recorded. Schedule 3 to the Police Reform Act 2002 and regulations made under it specify which complaints and conduct matters have to be recorded. Recordings make a real difference, because complaints and conduct matters that are recorded have to be dealt with in accordance with the statutory process set out in schedule 3—I feel like the Minister! If a police complaint or conduct matter is not recorded, it is likely to be dealt with informally by the police, outside the statutory complaint system. Some might call that being brushed under the carpet.
Importantly, a number of forces do not use the national Centurion database to log complaints and conduct matters that are not formally recorded and therefore are handled outside schedule 3. That means that such complaints and conduct matters are not captured in the Home Office or IOPC statistics on police misconduct, resulting in the undercounting of the extent of police-perpetrated domestic abuse. A cynical person might suggest that that gives the force an incentive to find that a complaint or conduct matter is not recordable under schedule 3, because that means that there are no formal requirements to investigate and it will not appear in the official figures.
A further critical issue when complaints and conduct matters are not recorded and are dealt with informally outside the schedule 3 process is that information about the complaint or conduct may not be available for vetting purposes, or if further allegations are made against the officer or member of police staff in future. That risk is especially high if information is stored on local force systems and the officer or member of police staff transfers to a different force. We have seen in some of the most high-profile cases that it was the moving between forces that was problematic.
Let me lay out the problem with another case study. “Sally” was in a relationship with a police officer for more than 15 years. During that time, she suffered physical, emotional and psychological abuse from him, including while she was pregnant with her child. Sally did not feel able to report the abuse to the police, but her midwife noticed bruising and Sally opened up to her about what had been going on. The midwife made a referral, which led to Sally being contacted by the police. Sally told them about the abuse, but did not feel able to make a formal complaint, because she was financially dependent on her partner and expecting his child. She was worried that if she pressed charges, her partner would lose his job. The police did not take the matter forward and the abuse continued.
Eventually, several years later, Sally found the courage to leave. She subsequently learned through friends of friends that her ex-partner had gone on to abuse his new partner, and that he was now working on the force’s sexual offences and domestic violence team. Sally decided that she needed to report the abuse formally, because she was worried about her ex-partner working in a frontline role with victims of domestic abuse. When she did so, she was shocked to learn that the force did not have any record of the previous referral from the midwife or GP, or the account that she had given them at the time. The Minister was talking about vetting and other intelligence, but some gaping gaps clearly remain in what goes on to the recording and what does not. If the force had been required to record the earlier report as a conduct matter, as the proposed new clause would require, it would have had to investigate it under schedule 3 of the Police Reform Act. It would have had to have been recorded and should have informed Sally’s ex-partner’s vetting status and deployment within the force.
New clause 43 would require all allegations of police-perpetrated domestic abuse to be investigated and to be referred to the IOPC for determination of the mode of investigation—whether the matter requires investigation by the IOPC itself, or whether it should be referred back to the perpetrator’s force or referred to an independent force for investigation.
The Chair
Before we proceed, it was not quite clear from what the hon. Lady said whether there is a sub judice consideration involved in any of the cases she referred to.
The Chair
Nevertheless, everyone should be very careful that any of the examples they use do not fall into the sub judice category. I accept the hon. Lady’s assurance.
Alex Norris
I rise to speak to new clauses 35 and 36 in my name, which concern vetting arrangements for the police, particularly in cases involving violence against women and girls.
New clause 35 proposes that all police officers must be re-vetted every five years—it is currently every 10—and that vetting clearance must not be granted to those who have received a caution or a conviction for serious violent or sexual offences including domestic abuse, coercive and controlling behaviour, stalking, harassment, sexual assault or abuse, rape and female genital mutilation. Under my new clause, those who fail vetting for such offences would be dismissed.
After so many horrific high-profile cases in recent years, many outside this place would be shocked and appalled to learn that such measures are not in place and that the vetting procedures are poor enough to allow potential threats to the public to wear a uniform that should be a symbol of safety and security. We must tackle this issue head on. We know the police recognise that; chiefs do not want individuals in their forces who have shown through their behaviour that they do not meet that standard. Giving them the tools is important in rebuilding confidence in the police, which is a priority for all of us. The new clause would give chiefs tools to dismiss those people if necessary.
I will make a slight case against subsection (2)(b) of my own new clause on the five years provision. During the evidence sessions, I asked Andy Marsh from the College of Policing what the right period for vetting should be, and he said then, as he has said to me previously, that, if we are not there already, we are on the way towards being able to move beyond timed sweeps of vetting and instead use lifetime interrogation through new technologies. There is often a risk of saying things are AI when they are not AI, but they probably are in this case. Machine techniques can be used to interrogate databases of all sorts, including those that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley mentioned, such as the ones in the family courts.
That would make the vetting period moot, because vetting would be up to date. Any time that there is a breach, whether it relates to conduct towards women and girls or broader matters, that would be flagged to a chief straightaway and the vetting could be re-evaluated. That is very exciting, and if the Minister stands up and says that that is where we are going, that would be enough for me, but I want us to be in that place as soon as possible, so I would be interested in his views on that.
New clause 36 is on a similar theme, although there is no high tech involved in it. It would introduce a more straightforward requirement for warrant cards to be removed from officers under investigation for crimes relating to violence against women and girls. To be clear, this is not about prejudging an individual before a full and proper investigation has taken place. They would presumably still be at work doing other duties, or if they were suspended they would still be receiving pay. It is about ensuring high standards and the safety of others. My hon. Friend mentioned life in Parliament. It is rare that we hold better standards than others, but in this place we act differently if a serious allegation has been made, with no presumption of guilt, and I think the public would expect something similar from the police.
The warrant card is both a totem of an officer’s service and a huge factor in how they do their job, but in serious cases—the Sarah Everard case is the most obvious—they can be misused. Individuals at points of stress may act in such ways, so the removal of the warrant card is one way of putting in a restriction. This proposal has the support of Dame Vera Baird and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, Nicole Jacobs, who has pushed for the removal of the warrant card in cases of police-initiated domestic abuse.
On amendment 134, in the name of my hon. Friend, I think the public would find it astonishing that that measure is not already in place. Clearly, when it comes to vetting and being secure about who is serving in such important roles, we need full evidence of their character and behaviour. To leave out that proposed measure would be to leave out a huge bit of the fence, so I certainly support it.
On new clauses 33 and 34, I support my hon. Friend’s points about making police-perpetrated domestic abuse a recordable complaint. If new clause 33 is not the best way to do that, I will be interested to hear the Minister’s challenge. New clause 34, which would grant equal rights to make a complaint, makes a lot of sense.
On the new clauses tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), I hope the Minister will talk about how he feels Casey is being implemented. Some of the new clauses, such as new clause 8, overlap with my own. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response, and I look forward to hearing my right hon. and learned Friend’s case for them on Report.
Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Scott Mann.)
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Religious Persecution and the World Watch List
(10 months ago)
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Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered religious persecution and the World Watch List 2024.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for giving time for this debate on religious persecution and the 2024 Open Doors world watch list. Several hon. Members have spoken to me and said they would have liked to have attended and spoken in the debate, but that it directly clashes with the debate in the main Chamber on Holocaust Memorial Day. We fully understand, because as hard as MPs might try, we still have not worked out how to be in two places at one time.
That allows me to speak more at length than I might otherwise have the luxury of doing, so I take this opportunity to thank Open Doors for its 2024 world watch list and for all the organisation does to ensure that the issue of persecution of Christians and, generously and rightly, of those of other faiths and none is highlighted globally and in particular in this Parliament. Open Doors does a tremendous job of ensuring that its supporters, whom I thank, ask our Members of Parliament to attend the annual launch of the world watch list. This year’s event took place last week here in Parliament, with just under 100 Members of Parliament attending. That is a huge number for a gathering of that kind.
I also thank other organisations, such as Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Aid to the Church in Need and those that represent people of other faiths such as the Baha’i, the Ahmadiyya Muslims or the Jehovah’s Witnesses, with which I work as the special envoy for freedom of religion or belief. I thank them for what they do, working as part of a global network of organisations, individuals, NGOs, academics and Government representatives, and collaborating now more than ever to promote and protect FORB worldwide and to challenge its abuses.
Before I proceed, I will also say that while I have had the privilege of being the Prime Minister’s special envoy for more than three years and I have learned a great deal through that role, I speak this afternoon as a Member of Parliament. I will be interested to hear the responses from the Minister, who I am delighted to see in his place. I know he has taken an enormous personal interest in this issue over many years.
As chair for the past two years of the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance, consisting of Government representatives from 42 countries, I know that we as representatives cannot do our job without the grassroots accounts and information brought to us by those working on the ground in countries and often at great risk and cost to themselves. With that information about the persecution of individuals, we can then advocate, and it is wonderful to be able to advocate confidently on the facts when an organisation such as Open Doors and others I have mentioned bring to us those facts and cases of individuals being so maltreated.
For more than 30 years, Open Doors has produced its annual world watch list, most recently last week for the current year’s edition. It is the product of intensive, year-round research, data collection, interviews and action, all independently analysed and verified to produce a ranking system to portray Christian persecution globally. Details are collected on five areas of non-violent pressure on the freedom of religion for Christians: private life, family, community, the church and business life. Separately, details are collected on violence against Christians, which includes reports of attacks on churches, homes and businesses, detention without trial, jailing, abduction, sexual harassment, forced marriage, and Christians being exiled or displaced, tortured and even killed.
It is a gruesome schedule. It is even more distressing when we realise that when the Open Doors world watch list started just over 30 years ago in 1993, Christians faced high, very high or extreme levels of persecution in around 40 countries and 30 years on that number has just about doubled. Year on year the world watch list now reports increasing numbers of Christians persecuted. According to the report, this year more than 365 million Christians around the world faced high levels of persecution or discrimination for their faith in Jesus Christ. That is one in every seven Christians worldwide. In the top 50 countries covered by the report, 317 million Christians face high, very high or extreme levels of persecution.
Why should that be in the 21st century? As I say, this is happening not only to Christians but to those of many other faiths, and indeed those of no faith at all—humanists, atheists. The watch list highlights a number of reasons. First, there is a shrinking space for civil society. That means a shrinking space for people to speak publicly about their religious beliefs. There is an increase in autocratic regimes across the globe. Religious faith and allegiance is anathema to an autocratic regime, which demands undiluted loyalty.
That goes not just for North Korea, where we hear of a two-year-old child having been sentenced to life imprisonment simply because his parents owned a Bible. It does not just go for China, where we know there are severe restrictions on practising the Christian faith, with children under 18 now banned from church, along with many other groups in society. It is happening in Asia and Africa too, in countries such as Eritrea, where there is appalling cruelty. Tens of thousands are imprisoned there simply because of what they believe.
Prisons in Eritrea are not like prisons here. People are placed in shipping containers where they nearly burn to death in the heat of the noon sun at over 40° with little if any ventilation, or they are virtually frozen at night. Many go mad. Many die. Others are imprisoned in what are literally holes in the ground dug into the earth —maybe no bigger than 4 metres by 6 metres, if that, and often shared. They have little chance of escape, and are often kept for years with little chance of release.
Open Doors talks about one such prisoner in its report. It is only when reading about the experiences of individuals that we can appreciate that the numbers we talk about relate to people like us. Abdullah—not his real name—had a Government job, like many people in this room, in Eritrea. A co-worker baited him into making comments while secretly recording him. The next day, he was arrested, charged and sent to prison. He grew up in a traditional Muslim family, but became a Christian and married a Christian woman; they had seven children. He was recorded after he spoke about his faith to his colleagues, and spent two years in prison. His wife shared that she was not allowed to bring him extra clothes, and he only received food three times a week. His health deteriorated and he needed medical attention; he died in 2022. There are many like Abdullah in Eritrea, imprisoned simply on account of what they believe. It is no wonder that Eritrea is No. 4 on the world watch list.
Persecution is also increasing due to the rise in the use of technology by regimes. It enables persecution on an industrial scale unimaginable even a few years ago, and that technology is being exported all over the world. A human rights lawyer and Uyghur activist, Nury Turkel, has written a wonderful book called “No Escape”. It is a powerful and authoritative memoir about the detention of the Uyghurs in China; he himself was detained. He writes that in East Germany, once the Stasis targeted a dissident, it took an entire team of covert agents to tail them—not any more. All-pervasive surveillance cameras can use artificial intelligence to scan vast numbers of people using facial recognition software, or even a person’s particular gait or walk, to pick them out of the crowd. A handful of people can now keep tabs on millions, and then arrest and incarcerate at scale. The problem, of course, is that AI has no moral sense of right and wrong.
There has also been an increase in gender-based violence: violence against women and girls, who suffer doubly if they are a member of a religious minority. This discrimination, often justified on religious grounds, exacerbates lawless mob violence—with no legal action taken. Time permitting, I hope to speak more on this regarding the abduction of young girls in Pakistan for so-called forced conversion and forced marriage. I wish we could think of another phrase, because that is a heinous way to put it. There are potentially hundreds of Hindus, Sikhs and Christians being mistreated in this way, including girls as young as 12, often with no recourse to justice, cast out of their communities even if they escape.
Another reason for the increase in persecution worldwide is what Open Doors describes as the collapse of Government institutions—the collapse of the rule of law in the face of widespread lawlessness. Open Doors quite rightly highlights Nigeria, where there are major problems, as we have said many times in this place. It is no surprise that Nigeria is No. 6 on the world watch list.
It is important to describe personal experiences. At the launch last week, Henrietta Blyth, the CEO of Open Doors UK, relayed the experience of one man. She said that while we were all enjoying Christmas eve, and while Christmas day found us all with our families once again, at exactly the same time in Nigeria, in the middle of the night, gangs of Fulani militants launched a devastating attack on Christian families in the central Plateau state. Twenty-five villages were attacked; 160 people burned to death in their homes; 15,000 people fled; and eight churches were burned down. She said that the violence continued from Christmas eve until the morning of Boxing day.
The militants discovered older people, women and young children who were hiding by the riverside. They shot some of them, and hacked others to death with machetes. One man tells how his wife “was not fast enough” and the attackers caught up with her:
“They grabbed her and my two children. They shot my wife and my children before my eyes. There were so many things we wanted to do. All our plans are shattered. Now I don’t know where to start from.”
That is happening on a regular basis in Nigeria. People go to bed at night fearing attacks from militant Islamic extremists, and not enough is being done by the Government there to address it. We need to call it out and help those people. They are asking for help when they suffer in that way and lose their homes and livelihoods.
The UK in 2022 spent £110 million on UK bilateral aid. Surely some of it could be spent on helping victims of massacres such as the Owo massacre, which I spoke about recently at Prime Minister’s Question Time, and in which more than 40 people were killed in their church. I brought here one of the survivors, Margaret Attah, and her husband. She lost both her legs and an eye. She spoke in the Jubilee Room next door. I was amazed at the grace of her husband, Dominic, when he said, “I forgive them all.” That takes some doing. It was moving; Margaret was sitting quietly in her wheelchair, and one of the people there asked, “How can we help you?”. Dominic and Margaret said, “We really could do with a computer”, and within three days, money had been gathered by volunteers and a computer was delivered to them. Margaret also needs prosthetic limbs. Wonderfully, again as a result of that meeting, a colleague in this place has offered to try to help with that. That is wonderful, but survivors of massacres ought not to have to rely on almost individual charity. There should be a way in which UK aid can quickly help them.
Another cause of the rise in persecution is religious nationalism. It is often accompanied by hate speech, which drives persecution of religious minorities and often incites mob violence. Criminality is overlooked. I ask colleagues and those listening to have a look at the concerns relayed in the report about the collapse in stability in Manipur in India. Since May last year, I have worked with Open Doors on looking into what has happened there. It has ensured that we have interviewed individuals affected, and that people on the ground have gathered accurate information. What is happening in Manipur is horrific and widespread, yet the world knows very little about it, partly because the internet has been disconnected there for much of the time since what happened. Let me read hon. Members a little about it:
“attacks have not been limited to one tribal group. More than half of the 400 churches attacked were those of Meitei Christians— 249 of these within the first 36 hours of rioting.”
How could so many churches be attacked in the riots without some premeditation? We have even heard that houses that were attacked had been marked; the doors of Christians had been marked. According to Open Doors’ sources, around 70,000 Christians
“have been forcibly displaced….Particularly horrific has been the situation for Christian women in Manipur.”
I have mentioned the plight of women already. In one incident,
“women were dragged from a police van by a mob…before being stripped, paraded and sexually assaulted. The younger woman’s brother and father were killed trying to protect them.”
Sadly,
“Open Doors researchers have verified five case studies of women being targeted for sexual violence, with the police failing to intervene or protect the women.”
As I say, the increase in persecution is happening all over the world, much of it due to autocratic regimes. The world watch list 2024 highlights that in South America there are concerns about Nicaragua and Cuba. In Nicaragua over the last year, the Catholic Church has been severely attacked by the Government. Radio stations run by Catholics have been shut down, as have schools, medical centres and even a university. Even Mother Theresa’s nuns, who have been there for 30 years, were expelled without notice.
It is heartening that in such cases the international community comes together. Non-governmental organisations and Government representatives from the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance, of which I am a member, have championed the situation of Bishop Álvarez of Nicaragua, who was imprisoned for 26 years for speaking out about human rights violations last year. I am very pleased to say that two weeks ago, he was released as a result of that campaigning, so it does work, although sadly he has been expelled from the country.
I encourage people to campaign for and support Pastor Lorenzo of Cuba, who has been imprisoned in Cuba for a seven-year term for raising the issue of human rights violations. There is information about his plight on the CSW website. We want him released, so please support that campaign.
Other cases include that of 27-year-old Hoodo Abdi Abdillahi, from Somaliland—I apologise; I know that I have not pronounced her name correctly. She was arbitrarily arrested and sentenced in October 2022 to seven years in prison, simply for becoming a Christian. She was reported to the authorities, in violation of her right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and her right as a member of a religious minority in Somalia. Of course, Somalia too is high on the world watch list; in fact, it is No. 2. We have learned that during her trial, which was allegedly very swift, she did not even have defence counsel, and she has not had an opportunity to appeal her sentence. Her appeal case is being brought to the Somaliland court of appeal, but the hearing date has been repeatedly delayed by the court. International organisations have taken up her case. I do hope that she will be released, and I urge others to support her.
Ordinarily in such debates, I would not have this much time. I am very pleased that I have been informed that today I do have the luxury of time, so I now turn to the recommendations in the Open Doors report. I apologise, because some of the comments that I will make will perhaps appear just a little bit dry after the human stories of the last few minutes, but it is important that we look at the recommendations.
One of the recommendations says that the UK Government should
“Promote and protect FoRB as a leading priority in foreign policy and diplomatic engagement”.
The UK Government frequently pronounce that promoting and protecting freedom of religion or belief is a priority in their international human rights work. It is true that it is much more of a priority than it was just a few years ago. Defending FORB has risen up the political agenda.
I am interested in comments made by Sir Malcolm Evans, the principal of Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford, and a member of the Foreign Secretary’s advisory group on human rights. Sir Malcolm has said that in the mid-1990s—that would be about the time that the Open Doors watch list began—the growth of international human rights law concerning freedom of religion or belief had barely begun. It is testament to many, including Open Doors, that in the 30 years since, it has indeed risen up our Government’s agenda.
I pay tribute to all individuals and organisations, such as Open Doors, CSW and Aid to the Church in Need, that have worked to ensure that parliamentarians here continue to press our Ministers. I pay enormous tribute to my colleague the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for his sustained work on this issue, because it is in large part as a result of that that our Ministers and officials have taken hold of this issue in a way that they did not just a few years ago.
I have worked internationally, and I think we can be very proud of our Parliament. There is no other Parliament in the world where, across the parties, this work and advocacy happen on this scale. Having 170 Members of Parliament and peers as members of the all-party group— it is the biggest all-party group out of, I think, over 700 now—is testament to the commitment of our colleagues to this issue.
I also thank Ministers. I thank the then Foreign Secretary, now the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for initiating the Bishop of Truro’s independent review for the Foreign Secretary of Foreign Office support for persecuted Christians. The review was published in 2019 and made 22 recommendations. It has been part of my mandate as envoy to try to get those recommendations implemented. I also thank the Prime Minister and the current Foreign Secretary for their support for my role, which I know is strong. I thank, too, the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), who is responsible for development and Africa, and of course the Minister present today.
We have come a long way in the last few years, and there has been improvement in addressing FORB, but there is much more to be done. Three years after the Truro review’s work, experts carried out an independent review of it. Rather politely—they are academics, so this may be the language they use—the review concluded that
“there remains scope for further developments in order to ensure that the protection of FoRB for all becomes firmly embedded in the operational approach of the FCDO as a whole.”
That is right. A number of Truro recommendations still need to be implemented fully or effectively if, in line with the review’s core principle, FORB is to become truly mainstream in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and a leading priority in foreign policy and diplomatic engagement, as the Open Doors report recommends.
I will mention a few areas in which we—I use the word collaboratively, because I recognise that I, too, have responsibilities in this regard—need to step up. For example, a lot of work has been done on producing religious literacy materials, including a FORB toolkit, to help our officials and diplomats in embassies across the world to understand what FORB is and the importance of protecting it, promoting it and understanding the principal areas of different faiths and beliefs. However, it is really important that the material is read and used. The problem is that, although its roll-out should be mandatory, as Truro recommended, it is not—it is just recommended. We need a review of how often and to what degree the materials are being taken up, because we need to ensure that every diplomat working in the world watch list’s top 50 countries has been through them, and others too.
Engagement by the diplomats who work in our embassies and diplomatic posts around the world needs to be ramped up, acknowledging that in the context of peacebuilding, supporting democratisation and the development of inclusivity, FORB needs to be included with other human rights. It is more necessary now than ever. As international commentators now frequently remark, the rules-based international order has not been so imperilled for decades. The international scene is darkening. There can be no assumption of peace and security; we have to work for it.
Although religion can be a cause of conflict, it can also be a force for good. Is peace not a core value of most religions? In the context of our trying to prevent conflict and deter wars, the promotion and protection of freedom of religion or belief is vital. Indeed, it has much to contribute upstream to preventing conflict in the first place. I commend the education materials that have been developed in four primary schools across the country, one in my constituency, that help children as young as four to understand this. It is one of the activities that our international alliance has inspired. What has come out of it is that children as young as four grasp very quickly how important it is not to be unkind to people simply because of their beliefs.
Similarly, we have worked with older young people. In October, we had a 24-hour global conference—a virtual conference—which young people across the world could join using open space technology. They came from countries where there was persecution and where they wanted to work on the issue. More than 500 young people from more than 70 countries across six continents joined the conference. If we could inspire young people to be global ambassadors for FORB in the same way as they have been global ambassadors for climate change, we could really see change in the next generation. That is what I call the ultimate upstream prevention work, but most of that work is being done by the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance. Let us look at how we can ensure there is some real support from the FCDO for that work with young people.
We should be bolder when we work with countries where persecution is high or where there is risk of persecution. We should not underestimate the UK’s influence. I see that happening around the world: we underestimate our influence on this and other issues, but Ministers in post need to be equipped and to know about what resources are available to them from across the FCDO. It would be interesting to ask the Minister how many briefings on freedom of religion or belief he has received when travelling to countries where he is responsible for representing the UK. I believe those countries include Nicaragua and Cuba in the Americas, which rank as 30 and 22 respectively on the world watch list and where FORB concerns have seriously increased in the past year. That should be happening as Ministers travel, whether to countries such as those or to like-minded countries where we can discuss how to work more closely with those countries to promote FORB.
I am not saying that good work has not been done, but I think we could work more strategically. We need to have specific action plans for certain at-risk countries. Just as His Majesty’s Government has focused so well on women and girls, we need to strengthen collaborative working with those in the FCDO and elsewhere who are working on this issue.
I went to the conference on the preventing sexual violence in conflict initiative around a year ago. I was surprised that there was such limited—if any—reference to freedom of religion or belief, despite the double jeopardy of women who are in a religious or belief minority. I spoke about those in Pakistan, but we also see women in Iran and Afghanistan, from religious groups such as the Hazara Shi’a community, being excluded from society. They are women and they are members of a religious minority. We need to look at how we can integrate work on freedom of religion or belief in the FCDO, along with other human rights issues. We need to ensure that the Foreign Secretary’s advisory group on human rights meets regularly to ensure that FORB issues are incorporated into wider human rights discussions.
You will be pleased to hear that I do not have too much longer to go in my speech, Ms Vaz, but there are some important points that I want to make to the Minister. It is good that we have been imposing sanctions following the Magnitsky laws, but we need to be more prepared to impose sanctions, specifically against perpetrators of FORB abuses, through the human rights global sanctions regime in order to send a powerful message to those who target people on the basis of their beliefs.
It is welcome that there is a mass atrocity prevention hub at the FCDO, but, as Open Doors rightly says, that needs to recognise the connection between the persecution of Christians or other religious minorities and the risk of mass atrocities. A plan for the work of the hub is needed, but there is no plan. That is one of the Select Committee recommendations that we have to take forward.
It is good, too, that FORB is more on the FCDO’s radar, but we have not yet fully worked out how to establish cross-departmental work in the Government, as the Truro review recommended. Nor have we convened
“a working group for government departments and civil society actors to engage on the issue.”
We need to do that. I know that needs to happen because, over the past year, I have held several roundtables in my office in the Foreign Office, bringing together officials and civil society—15 or 20 of us sat round the table. Time and again, officials have said that they did not know what civil society was bringing to them. We need to narrow that gap. One of my aspirations is to narrow the gap between Whitehall and Westminster; there is only a road between them, but it is a big gap.
We are doing great work with like-minded countries as members of the international alliance of 42 countries, but we need to work harder to engage with countries that do not qualify to join the IRFBA. Several countries have approached me because they are interested in joining—countries such as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Indonesia. I have met their representatives, and we need more dialogue with them in order to move the dial on freedom of religion or belief. All those countries appear in the world watch list top 50, but there is a door and an opportunity for dialogue.
It is excellent that, with the United Arab Emirates, we delivered a landmark security decision on tolerance and international peace and security last year, but we need to look at how to take that work forward. I look forward to meeting the UK mission at the UN next week when I am in New York to discuss that issue.
I am grateful that Open Doors referred to the need to address human rights concerns around emerging technology. It is excellent that our Prime Minister has taken a lead on AI, and we need to include in that discussion its challenges for FORB.
I thank the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield, for listening to my team’s concerns and including the plight of religious minorities in the recent White Paper. When people are discriminated against because of their beliefs—perhaps they cannot get a job, education or healthcare—they will be poorer. That needs to be recognised and addressed, but it has not been to date. It is excellent that religious minorities are mentioned in no fewer than six places in the “International development in a contested world: ending extreme poverty and tackling climate change” White Paper. We need to make that a reality to help the millions across the world who are affected by integrating FORB into UK aid thinking; the Department for International Development did not do that in the past.
We have a real opportunity to be a global leader if we lead the dialogue on the review of the sustainable development goals up to 2030 and provide evidence that they will succeed only if this issue is addressed and included. Marginalising and disadvantaging religious groups drives poverty, and the SDGs will continue to be compromised if those groups are left behind. Our ability to achieve them will be enhanced if there is a better understanding of the value of religious freedom and pluralism in societies. I commend the work of the Coalition for Religious Equality and Inclusive Development in that regard. I look forward to working further with it and with Ministers to take this issue forward and build on the excellent White Paper.
I thank Open Doors for highlighting the importance of recommendation 6 of the Truro review, on establishing the role of the Prime Minister’s special envoy permanently. I thank Foreign Office Ministers for their support for my private Member’s Bill, which has its Second Reading tomorrow. It is vital that the envoy role is not dependent on the discretion of any individual Prime Minister. It has been my privilege to serve under three Prime Ministers who have all been very supportive, but the role cannot be dependent on the good will of the Prime Minister in place at the time. If the work done by me and my predecessor envoys, my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) and Lord Ahmad, is to continue and be strengthened, the role must continue.
I conclude with the words of Sir Malcom Evans:
“the establishment of the Office of the Special Envoy has been a real driver of, and catalyst for, change. What is needed is for that Office to have legislative grounding to ensure that this continues, that it has a more clearly defined position and that its impact continues to grow…Making it so will help support the development of detailed, focussed and clearly articulated policies and strategies which will complement take up and lend further substance to what is already now in place. We have come a long way—but there is a long way further to go and it is all too easy to go backwards. Can a bulwark also be a springboard? Hopefully, a legal duty to promote freedom of religion or belief will be both.”
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce). I congratulate her on leading the debate so well. I can assure you, Ms Vaz, that I will not take as long. That does not take away from the importance of the debate, but I do not want to repeat what has been said. Although we could speak about many countries, I want to focus on two—India and Pakistan.
I declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief. I am very pleased to be chair of the APPG; it is a privilege and an honour. The importance of freedom of religion or belief is indicated by the fact that some 174 Members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords wish to be part of the APPG. That shows the interest and the strength of support in Parliament.
Through the APPG I am fully aware of the relevant issues, and it is crucial that we speak about them and give them the time they deserve. With the launch of this year’s world watch list, it is important to bring attention to two specific countries where there is religious persecution—India and Pakistan. As religious nationalism escalates in both countries, the impact of persecution for one’s faith or belief is suffered not only by Christians, but by other religious minorities. Pakistani religious minorities face serious persecution, including forced conversions, child marriage, the abuse of blasphemy laws, exclusion from education, limited employment, hate speech and incitement to violence. All these things happen against Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities in both India and Pakistan. In Punjab alone, 3,914 cases of rape or sexual abuse of ladies and young girls, 664 cases of domestic violence, 174 honour killings and 44 acid attacks were recorded in one year, such is the violence and hatred towards others. I can never understand how anyone could hate anybody with such venom and violence.
Open Doors has ranked Pakistan as No. 7 on its world watch list for the persecution of Christians. Last year, more than 20 churches and 100 homes were attacked in response to believers’ being accused of desecrating the Koran, often on trumped-up charges. Blasphemy laws in Pakistan pose a grave and serious threat to Christians and many other religious minorities, because it seems that people do not need to have an evidential base; they just have to make an accusation and the authorities will take action, without any basis of fact at all. All minority religious groups in Pakistan suffer persecution, with no end in sight.
The Sita Ram temple in Ahmadpur Sial served the Hindu community in the region for more than a century, with the architecture revealing a rich cultural heritage and religious beliefs. That beautiful representation of Hinduism in Pakistan has now been converted into a chicken shop. Where is the thought for Hindus and people of other religions? The views of the Hindus who live there have been disregarded entirely. Multiple Hindu sites were demolished or encroached upon in 2023. In December, CCTV footage from a Hindu temple in the Sindh region showed a radical extremist mob with sticks and batons attacking the temple and beating Hindu worshippers. Such persecution must be addressed and stopped.
The Ahmadis—we in the APPG met some of them at about this time last year—are a major target for prosecutions under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, with specific anti-Ahmadi laws enabling such persecution. This Muslim group is explicitly targeted by the federal laws of Pakistan. What have we done to address such targeting? I am not asking the Minister to do it all himself—that is not right—but what course of action have the UK Government taken? Ahmadi Muslims are denied the right to call themselves Muslims and have been openly declared as “wajibul qatl”, or “deserving to be killed”, in the Pakistan media and by religious clerics.
Am I less of a Christian because I am a Baptist? The Minister is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) is a member of the Church of Scotland and others in this Chamber are members of the Church of England. Am I less of a Christian than they are? No, I am not—not a bit of it. Why should they be less of a Muslim just because they happen to have slightly different beliefs? They are just as much a Muslim. I find it incredibly hard to try to understand. No state action with Pakistan has been taken to protect the Ahmadiyya. In the past year alone, over 42 Ahmadiyya mosques have been attacked and more than 400 Ahmadiyya graves have been desecrated and destroyed.
Sikhs also suffer grievous religious persecution in Pakistan. With rising violence, many Sikhs have fled Pakistan’s north-western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa due to deadly militant attacks and severe religious intolerance. As Members of Parliament, what should we do? What should our Government do? I am always very pleased to see the Minister in his place. I mean it sincerely, and he knows that. I believe that he understands the points I am trying to put forward and agrees with our comments. I know he will be anxious to make clear in his reply what we have in place.
I am also very pleased to see the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown), in her place, fresh from the Holocaust Memorial Day debate in the Chamber. A Member can almost be in two places at once. I commend the shadow Minister sincerely. In her comments in the Chamber she mentioned the Tutsis and what happened in Africa. That was a genocide without a doubt, and she said that. I believe that in some parts of the world we are seeing the same genocide being carried out. The hon. Member for Congleton also mentioned genocide. The hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) is a good and dear friend. She knows that. While we do not always agree on everything we speak on, these issues draw us together. With one voice, we speak on behalf of those who wish for someone to be their voice.
One oppressed Sikh has said:
“We do not want money or jobs from the Government. We just want an immediate end to the targeted killings of our community members and want the Government to compensate us for the demolition of our houses. Pakistani leaders have promised to protect members of religious minorities from militants and Muslim mobs, which have carried out lynchings and destroyed places of worship. But minority communities say the authorities have not done enough. There is no security for religious minorities in Pakistan.”
Where is our aid money going in Pakistan? I am not saying we should not give any, but let us make it a condition that we see an improvement in human rights and the opportunity for people to worship their God as they wish. What records are being kept to ensure that the money is spent equally on all areas of need in Pakistan? Religious persecution in Pakistan is a necessary area to which aid money should be directed. We should also help to increase access to education, healthcare and opportunities for work.
I want to speak about access to decent job opportunities. On both occasions when we were in Pakistan, I was really aggrieved to see the young Christians; they have the ability, and with a bit of education they could be nurses and doctors, but only certain jobs are allocated for them. Those jobs are usually for menial positions, such as janitors, sweepers and sanitary workers. The job adverts specifically state that the jobs are only available to Christian minorities. Members of the Christian minorities could be nurses, teachers or doctors or do so many other jobs with the right skills, ability and qualifications. They just need opportunity, which they are not seeing yet. That creates an impression among the wider society that Christians are only able to do such work as the three jobs that I mentioned. We met some very influential people in Pakistan and felt that we were making some headway on this issue, but my question to the Minister is: is our aid money going into job development or trade education?
While the situation in Pakistan continues to give rise to extreme concern and we must constantly monitor it, we must also address the growing religious persecution of Muslims, Christians and other religious minorities in India. India is a country of particular concern to Open Doors and the State Department of the United States of America. In the first eight months of 2023 there were more than 525 attacks against Christians in India. Vigilante violence against Muslims and Dalits has been accompanied by a sharp rise in attacks against Christians in India in recent years. It can manage to escape the headlines, because often much happens there and little is said.
The numbers this year are likely to be particularly high given the violence in Manipur state, where hundreds of churches have been destroyed in the last four months. A petition to the Supreme Court puts the figure of places of worship destroyed at 642. That is 642 churches destroyed. Yes, they can destroy the buildings, but they cannot destroy the spirit or the beliefs of the people, who should have the right to go to those places of worship and the necessary protection should be given. Unfortunately, on many occasions it is not, and sometimes the army, the police and others stand by and let it happen. The Supreme Court has ordered restitution for the victims of the violence in Manipur, but what policies and requirements have been put in place to ensure equal funding to the religious minorities that were impacted by the violence? I apologise to the Minister for asking all these questions in such a hurried state, but I am conscious of the time.
In addition, Muslims are being challenged on their ability to prove their Indian citizenship by the National Register of Citizens. A report published in 2018 indicates that over 15% of the adult population in India are left out or excluded from voting lists, and the percentage is considered to be higher among Muslims. Fifteen per cent of 1.3 billion is 195 million people excluded from voting in India in 2018. If anyone did not have an idea of the vast impact of this issue, those are the figures and the stats, and we can never ignore them. That is a significant number of people to consider as being unable to vote, especially when one realises that currently 15% of the total population of India identify as Muslim. Looking at those numbers, we see that an even greater number of people are excluded because they are Muslims, and that is the case for Christians as well.
We are aware that elections are coming in both Pakistan and India, and we hope and pray that they will be a time of not only safety but opportunity for people to express their mind and vote for whoever they wish, and that the elections will be free from corruption and so on. I believe that the UK has a role to play and must take action to ensure that both countries rightfully include religious minority citizens and their right to vote in any discussions. If the Minister could give us some indication of that, I would be really pleased.
In conclusion, as Members of Parliament it is our duty to ensure freedom of religion or belief for everyone. The APPG, which I am privileged and honoured to chair, speaks up for those with Christian beliefs, other beliefs and no beliefs. We sincerely believe that our God is a God of love. As such, I wish to see everyone have the opportunity to express themselves and their religious views in the way that they wish, and I believe that others in this House do as well. Such violations in India and Pakistan must be brought to the forefront and efficiently addressed.
As I have done on many occasions, I call upon the Minister, who is a dear friend to us all, to ensure that persecution and abuses are addressed. We in this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland must play our role in ensuring that we support other nations across the globe. That is how we can influence and assist those in Government and positions of authority—the police, army and so on—to do better. Here in this place we have again been given the opportunity to be a voice for the voiceless—people in this world whom we may never meet. We today have been their voice and it is wonderful to have that opportunity, privilege and honour. They are people we may never meet, but we will undoubtedly meet them in the next world.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
I am delighted to participate in this annual debate on the world watch list that ranks the persecution of Christians around the world, and to have attended the launch of the 2024 report last week. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) for securing this debate and for all the work that she and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) have done in this area for such a long time.
Persecuting people for their faith is completely unacceptable. As we have heard, nations that persecute people for their faith also have very poor human rights records across the board. This year, North Korea retains its No. 1 position in that grotesque league table as the worst country in the world for the persecution of its Christians, of which there are around 400,000. Those who are discovered to be Christian under that barbaric regime effectively face a death sentence: either they are deported to labour camps to be worked to death or they are shot on the spot, a fate shared by their whole family.
Violence against Christians has intensified in sub-Saharan Africa as the region faces increasing instability. During the 2024 reporting period, across 18 of the countries in that region, 4,606 Christians were killed because of their faith. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimate that 16.2 million Christians became forcibly displaced persons at the end of 2022.
Article 18 of the UN declaration of human rights states:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”
That article is almost identical to article 9 of the European convention on human rights. It will be no surprise to the Minister that we in the SNP are very keen for the UK Government to reaffirm their commitment to human rights, and to remain part of the European Court of Human Rights as part of that commitment. It is important that we do not politicise human rights in any part of the world, including the UK. Like other hon. Members, I pay tribute to the wonderful work of Open Doors, which does so much to support Christians who are persecuted for their faith around the world.
After North Korea, the worst offenders for the persecution of Christians are Somalia, Libya, Eritrea, Yemen, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, Iran, Afghanistan, India, Syria and Saudi Arabia—nations that do not believe that their populations should be able to worship their god, however they perceive their god, or to practise their Christian faith. As we have heard, that means that Christians in those nations face violence, “elimination”— not my word—arrest, harassment, attacks on and the destruction of their places of worship, as the hon. Member for Strangford outlined, and ultimately death.
The UK and all democratic nations must be unequivocal. The freedom to worship is a fundamental human right. We cannot tiptoe around so-called cultural, religious or other sensitivities. all nations that believe in and value freedom must stand up for it. That is our duty.
The UK has close relationships with some of the nations that I have mentioned as the worst offenders and those that are the most repressive in their persecution of Christians. Those close relationships must be re-examined in light of that persecution. If any nation turns a blind eye, it becomes complicit by default.
Every year I attend the Open Doors event in Parliament, and every year I am both moved and horrified by the first-hand accounts of those who come to Westminster to share with us the level of persecution that they, their families and their communities have suffered. Those accounts are worth hearing, and they are very disturbing. They demand not just that we listen, but that we act.
The action we take should have an impact on our dealings with the worst-offending states. One of the worst offenders is India, yet the UK Government are writing a blank cheque to that nation when they should be holding it to account for its appalling human rights record. For Christians in the countries named on the world watch list, there is an environment of intolerance, hatred, fear, intimidation, discrimination and violence.
The worst part is that the persecution of Christians is not diminishing. In fact, there is much evidence to suggest that it is growing: 365 million Christians around the world face high levels of persecution. That is one in every seven Christians worldwide. In the top 50 countries on the Open Doors world watch list, 317 million Christians face high, very high or extreme levels of persecution and discrimination.
For peace-loving and rights-respecting democracies, that demands a response—a practical response. Whatever form it takes—a refusal to trade with states that are guilty of such crimes, a united diplomatic response across the west to elicit change, or diplomatic isolation for the offending nations—more pressure has to be applied. Whatever approaches western democracies have already taken to address the matter have not brought about the necessary change. The problem is getting worse, the repression is getting worse and the violence is getting worse. Other approaches should be considered. We cannot pass by on the other side.
Like everyone else here, I am keen to hear what new approaches the Minister believes the UK and other western democracies could take to make it clear, or clearer, to these barbaric and repressive regimes that human rights must be respected for all peoples. To quote one of the people who attended the world watch list event in Parliament:
“Why should practising one’s faith come at such a high and unjust cost?”
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I believe that this is the very first time I have served under your chairship, Ms Vaz; I am delighted to do so, and I am sure it will not be the last.
My thanks, as ever, go to the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) for securing the debate. She is a redoubtable, articulate and knowledgeable advocate for those who experience religious persecution, as is the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I am always delighted to be asked to be on the Labour party Front Bench for one of the hon. Members’ debates.
I am also delighted to have the opportunity to address the important issue of religious persecution around the world. I know that each of us wants to see our foreign policy working hard to strengthen protections for freedom of belief. Given my role, I hope that I will be forgiven for focusing on Africa, although nearer to the end of my remarks I will mention a number of other areas of the world.
I want to talk about Nigeria, where, as we know, there is significant continuing violence across the country. Some of that violence, sadly, is religiously motivated, and none of us could possibly forget the utterly horrific attack on St Francis Xavier Catholic church in June 2022. As we know, both Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province continue to kill innocent people. In October last year, suspected jihadists killed 37 villagers in the Geidam area of Yobe state. Days later, on 5 November, an armed group attacked a Muslim celebration in the Musawa area of Katsina state, killing at least 20 people and abducting others. The following day, in Borno, Boko Haram combatants killed at least 15 farmers in the Mafa area.
We have to recognise that much of the violence in Nigeria is not religiously motivated and that all communities are affected. Even so, the impact of all the violence clearly worsens religious and ethnic tensions. For example, in Plateau state, intercommunal violence between farmers and herders continues and attacks on Christmas eve by suspected armed herders killed almost 200 people. While herders are mostly Fulani Muslims and farming communities are often non-Fulani Christians, I believe it is vital that we look at the root causes of the violence.
Climate change is eating away at arable land, making conflict over resources near-inevitable. To reduce religious tensions, which is something we all want, we need a holistic approach. We need to work to mitigate the economic and climate-linked harms that can so easily deepen divisions and spark conflagrations of intercommunal violence. There are actions that we can take within our partnership with the Government of Nigeria to support that holistic approach. While I am talking about Nigeria, we are all aware that Mubarak Bala, the president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, is still in prison. It has been almost two years since he was sentenced to 24 years’ imprisonment for allegedly blasphemous Facebook posts. That is something that we should continually raise with our Nigerian partners.
However, there are also positive stories that I think we can learn from. Ahead of the 2023 general elections, Muslim leaders and traditional rulers in Nigeria’s Kaduna state joined worshippers at an evangelical church to show solidarity and commitment to co-existence and harmony. I know that all friends on both sides of the Chamber will agree that we do not hear enough about the steps that religious community leaders take to build peaceful co-existence. We need to look how we can help to support that work, because it is a way we can move forward together. Can the Minister tell me what steps are being taken to work with civil society organisations on this interfaith and intercommunal work that reduces tension and provides narratives against hate?
Another way we can support communities at risk of persecution is by pushing for accountability. With that in mind, I would like to talk about Sudan. As we know, appalling, widespread and apparently systematic atrocities have been taking place in Sudan. As I noted in a debate yesterday, the recent report of the UN panel of experts estimates that as many as 15,000 people were killed in the city of El Geneina alone. Specific evidence continues to emerge of targeted massacres and sexual violence against the Masalit people in El Geneina and elsewhere in Darfur on the basis of their ethnicity. The conflict in Sudan is extremely complex. It is not primarily about religion, but all Sudanese communities have been affected. There can be little doubt that the rapid escalation in violence and the proliferation of weapons to militias have created significant additional risks to religious minority communities.
Sadly, there has been relatively little coverage of the plight of Christians and other minority communities in Sudan during the present horrifying conflict. Just two weeks ago, on 12 January, yet another church was burned in Sudan, continuing the pattern that we discussed last February. Following the capture of Wad Madani by the Rapid Support Forces faction, the Gezira state evangelical church was set on fire. I understand that it was the largest church in the state and one of the oldest in Sudan as a whole. Thankfully, the building has been only partially destroyed. However, we have to recognise the pattern of abuses of Sudanese religious minorities by those with power who can act with impunity. It is clear that the pattern will continue unless we see peace, justice and accountable civilian government in Sudan.
Is the Minister confident that the Government have the capacity to identify and map those responsible for these targeted attacks? I genuinely believe that there is more that we can do to work towards justice and accountability. To give just one example, surely far more work is needed to stop the funnelling of gold out of Sudan. That gold fuels the atrocities. As I have mentioned the issue many times over recent months, I will leave it there for now, but I think it is something we have to look at. How is this conflict being funded?
Today’s debate is about persecution globally, so I am sorry not to be able to address as much of the world as I would like in my 10 minutes. Hon. Members have raised heartbreaking cases from many areas of the world where we know that diverse religious groups are targeted for persecution, including in China, as the hon. Member for Congleton mentioned, in North Korea, in Iran, in Pakistan, as the hon. Member for Strangford mentioned, in Afghanistan and in Syria. However, I want to mention the plight of many minority communities, including Christians and Muslims, in India.
India is a country with a rich, diverse history, of which every Indian should rightly be proud. But last summer during a Hindu procession in the Nuh district of Haryana state, communal violence broke out. Authorities in India then retaliated against Muslim communities. Hundreds of properties owned by Muslims were demolished and scores of Muslim boys and men were detained. It is reported that Sarfu, a 65-year-old mechanic who had been running his small business from a tin shed for 30 years, came home to find his shed and all his tools reduced to scrap: imagine—struggling to make a living and working hard all your life, to have your work destroyed in a few minutes all because of your faith.
The targeting of minority groups can form part of a very disturbing pattern, which we know can only lead to spiralling misery and escalating violence. As we know, state action against identifiable groups often results in communities believing they can act with impunity and take whatever action against others that they individually see fit.
I want to end my contribution by speaking about the widespread and continuing persecution in Eritrea. The Eritrean Government continue to detain those who practise faiths not recognised by the state. One Pentecostal church leader died in detention last April following a year of imprisonment; I will not name him because of concerns about the risk of reprisals against his family, but I understand he was denied the burial chosen by his relatives. I cannot begin to imagine the pain that his family experienced as a result of that final insult.
Many others continue to languish in prison, and it is a source of deep frustration to many of us that there is so little that we can do to support them. Let’s face it: there are clear links between closed societies, poor governance and insecurity, and many forms of religious persecution. A key goal of our foreign and development policies must be to promote good governance, a free press and a strong civil society, but we have to recognise that, in reality, much of our development co-operation and wider partnerships also have a role to play.
We can support peace-building efforts more consistently if we partner with Governments and civil society organisations in a smart, joined-up and strategic way. The issue is far wider than sanctions and support for democracy. In supporting Governments to provide even the most basic services to their most marginalised communities, we can reduce the risk of religious persecution and extremism.
I welcome the fact that freedom of religion or belief was mentioned several times in the international development White Paper, but does the Minister think that enough is being done, as part of the UK’s atrocity prevention strategy, to address the root causes of religious tensions? Although our influence is limited, we have the power to support strong protections for freedom of religion or belief in partnership with our friends around the world. I know we all agree that it would be a terrible waste if we squandered that opportunity.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (David Rutley)
It is an honour to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Vaz. I normally have the joy of being on the receiving end of your powerful speeches, so it is good that you are here to keep order—although you have not had to work particularly hard in this debate, because we have been probably the most unanimously agreed body I have ever heard in Parliament. We had a pretty good debate yesterday on human rights, too, but it is important to highlight that this one has really brought all sides of the House, and each of the nations, together.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce)—my well-respected neighbour and dear friend—on securing the debate. I pay huge tribute to her, to echo comments from across the Chamber, for the work that she has undertaken as the Prime Minister’s special envoy for freedom of religion or belief, which she has been doing for over three years now—thank you. I am also grateful to her for her moving speech.
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for his work as the chair of the APPG for international freedom of religion or belief, which takes him to many parts of the world—he is a strong voice. I know that it is not always customary to pay tribute to people who have not even made a contribution to the debate, but I also recognise the presence of the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms)—we have the Members for both East Ham and West Ham in the Chamber today—for his interest in the subject over many years. It is important that he is here, along with everyone else, to highlight the importance of this area. It is obvious from the debate that, through the work of the APPG and Members present, there is a lasting and mutual commitment across the House to protect freedom of religion or belief. The Government, and my noble Friend Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, who has responsibility for freedom of religion or belief and human rights in the FCDO, share that commitment.
Today, the importance of championing freedom of religion or belief is laid bare in the alarming facts and figures regarding Christian persecution described in the Open Doors world watch list for 2024, which was launched last week. I was able to attend part of that reception. The presentations were incredibly clear, worrying and often harrowing. We are clear that no one should be persecuted, abused or intimidated because of their religion or belief. The Government have long been committed to promoting and protecting freedom of religion for all, but sadly, as the world watch list sets out, many Christians are targeted daily purely for their faith, despite the protections of international law. History has shown us that where freedom of religion or belief is under threat, other human rights are also at risk. We must continue to call out human rights violations and abuses.
Sadly, many of the concerning trends and statistics set out in the world watch list are familiar. The report identifies that one in seven Christians are persecuted worldwide. It is in the most oppressive societies that Christians face the harshest persecution. This year, Open Doors again ranked the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea as the place where Christians face the most persecution for their faith. As we have heard today, it is not just the facts and figures that are shocking; it is the personal stories of those who are suffering at the hands of oppressive regimes. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton highlighted concerns about that country, as did the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) in her moving speech.
According to that report, attacks on places of worship around the world were up sixfold in 2023 and nearly 5,000 Christians were murdered that year. The need for collective action and unwavering commitment from the international community to protect freedom of religion or belief for all remains imperative. That is why FORB remains a human rights priority for the United Kingdom.
The UK is deeply concerned about the scale and severity of the violations of FORB, whatever the faith or belief. Religious intolerance and persecution, whether targeted at Christians, Muslims, Jews or Buddhists, as the hon. Member for Strangford highlighted, are often at the heart of foreign and development policy challenges. No one should be excluded because of their religion, belief or conscience. Discrimination not only damages societies, but holds back economies by reducing opportunities for all.
Countries cannot fully develop while they oppress members of religious or belief minorities. Communities are stronger when they are fully inclusive—a point that is particularly poignant as we approach Holocaust Memorial Day. My mother was raised in occupied Denmark, and she taught me at a very early age the importance of never forgetting the horrors of the holocaust and the bravery of those who fought against it.
We demonstrated the depth of our commitment to FORB in July 2022 by hosting the international ministerial conference in London, bringing together 800 faith and belief leaders, human rights activists and 100 Government delegations to agree action to promote and protect those fundamental rights. My noble Friend Lord Ahmad, who as I said is Minister for human rights, announced new UK funding to support FORB defenders, including those persecuted because of their activism, as well as funding and developing expertise for countries prepared to make legislative changes to protect FORB.
As a result of the conference, 47 Governments, international organisations and other entities made pledges to take action in support of FORB. I was able to attend one of the regional meetings linked to the conference, hosted in Manchester by my faith, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton spoke. It was great to see people coming together in common cause, not just here in this House, but across the country, speaking to each other and learning from each other, as we should.
Since the conference, we have built on that momentum in a number of ways. First, we have been working through international bodies to strengthen coalitions of support and to protect freedom of religion or belief for all within the multilateral framework. Secondly, we have been using the strength of our global diplomatic network to encourage states to uphold their human rights and FORB obligations. Thirdly, we have been working to embed FORB considerations across the work of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
My hon. Friend, who I have to say was quite forceful in some of her asks—that is a common theme in the way she works, and quite rightly too—asked important questions around sanctions. I want to respond to her and to the House to say that we use our global human rights sanctions regime as a lever to hold to account those involved in serious human rights violations or abuses around the world, including those carried out against individuals on the basis of their religion or belief. That includes the sanctioning in December 2022—in the wave of sanctions that we put in place, which we talked about in yesterday’s debate—of Mian Abdul Haq, a cleric responsible for the forced conversions of girls and women in Pakistan.
My hon. Friend also talked about SDGs. The UK is firmly committed to achieving those SDGs, as affirmed in the international development strategy. It is vital that the SDGs get back on track, and to achieve that the world must work in partnership to recommit to reform, and to accelerate our work. We are pleased that our commitment to FORB was included in our international development White Paper, published in November, which has been noticed and noted in this debate already. She also asked about mandatory training on FORB for diplomats; they are well briefed on the matter, but I will take that point away and determine how we can do more on it.
It is also right, in the time available, to highlight the multilateral action we are taking through the UN, the G7 and other multilateral fora. We regularly raise situations of concern at the UN Human Rights Council and we hold states accountable—that is another important word that has come out of this debate—on their FORB commitments and obligations through our engagement with the UN’s universal periodic review. For example, the UK was active in its participation in Nigeria’s UPR, published yesterday, and we raised a number of human rights issues, including FORB. At the UN Security Council in June 2023, we led a resolution with the UAE on tolerance, peace and security. That resolution directly addresses for the first time the persecution of religious minorities and other minority groups in conflict settings, which again has been noted in the debate.
Our collective action does bear fruit. Last year, my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton concluded her second consecutive term as the chair of the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance. That network of 42 countries, committed to protecting and promoting FORB for all, has published statements on the FORB situation in numerous countries, including Nigeria and Myanmar. As well as statements on specified persecuted religious minorities, with one on Christians published in May 2023, the IRFBA has also conducted advocacy campaigns on individual prisoners of conscience. We have seen several released from prison, no doubt due in part to the work of the alliance. We achieve that success by working together, and I am grateful for the convening role played by my hon. Friend—the role that she enjoys and amplifies so well. She regularly meets with civil society groups and faith leaders, and has been chairing a series of roundtables to bring civil society representatives together with FCDO officials to discuss the FORB situation in individual countries.
Indeed, at the bilateral level, the Minister for human rights, as well as myself, other ministerial colleagues and FCDO officials, do not shy away from challenging those who we believe are not meeting their obligations, both publicly and in private. The UK continues to raise FORB and ongoing insecurity on a regular basis with the Nigerian Government, a point well made by the hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown)—she knows more about the situation in Africa than I do, and I am grateful for the comments she made. For example, the high commissioner recently raised reports of serious violence in Plateau state with the Nigerian national security adviser.
My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton raised concerns about the situation in Nicaragua. We welcome the release of Bishop Álvarez and 18 other clergy from unjust detention in Nicaragua, but we absolutely condemn their expulsion from the country, which is something I tweeted about. We know that human rights need to be respected fully, in the round. In my role as Minister for the Americas and the Caribbean, I have been briefed on the situations in Cuba and Nicaragua, and I can assure my hon. Friend that I am committed to making FORB an even greater priority in my work over the months ahead.
The British commission in Islamabad continues to engage with senior Government officials and civil society in Pakistan on the need to ensure the safety of the Christian community at this troubling time, a point that was well made by my friend the hon. Member for Strangford. Representatives from the British high commission in Islamabad visited the Christian community in Jaranwala in December to discuss ongoing support for that community. The hon. Member raised an important point about education; in Pakistan’s universal periodic review in January, the UK formally recommended that Pakistan ensure that school textbooks are inclusive of all religions, and that religious minorities can access suitable alternatives to compulsory Koranic studies.
The hon. Member for Strangford also raised points about India. The British high commission in New Delhi and our deputy high commissions across India regularly meet with religious representatives and official figures. The high commissioner has visited a number of diverse places of worship in India, meeting faith leaders there—including Christian communities, which is important. The Government also show our support to diverse faith communities through hosting iftars to celebrate the important contribution that Indian Muslims and other communities have made in Indian society.
Sudan was also raised by the hon. Member for West Ham. The UK continues to fund and support the office of high commissioner for human rights in Sudan, the UN body that provides a crucial role in monitoring and reporting on human rights violations, including restrictions on freedom of religion or belief. Since 2022, we have provided around £1 million in funding for that office.
We continue to ensure that the changes we made following the Bishop of Truro’s review of the work the Department has done on FORB are embedded, and we look for opportunities to ensure that FORB is central to our wider human rights work. In that regard, I am pleased to say that our work on FORB is included in the international development White Paper, as I said. As in past years, we marked Red Wednesday by lighting up the UK-based FCDO buildings in red on 22 November 2023 to stand in solidarity with persecuted Christians.
I note the private Member’s Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton on international freedom of religion or belief, which seeks to make the role of special envoy for FORB statutory. I know that is something she feels strongly about, and I also know the Minister for Development and Africa, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), looks forward to joining the debate on the Bill tomorrow. The Government’s position will be confirmed on Second Reading, as is the usual procedure.
Before I conclude, I would like to thank all those who work tirelessly defending freedom of religion or belief. We have talked about the special envoy and the chair of the APPG, and we all talked about the important work of Open Doors. I would also like to pay tribute to those who work at the local level in all our constituencies to encourage greater interfaith understanding and activity.
In my constituency, I have to shout out the important work of Hope in North East Cheshire and legends, such as Pip Mosscrop, who spend their lives bringing people together from all faiths. They put into practice what we all know: that we should celebrate different beliefs, learn from each other and work in common cause to tackle the challenges of this world. Even if we have different perspectives, that is the antidote to the intolerance and persecution that concern all of us. I speak in tribute to not just that particular organisation, but the many across the country. We stand in awe of that work.
Let me end by saying that the issues outlined in the Open Doors world watch list are of the highest importance to the Government. We continue to work through all available methods to call out persecution and defend the right of freedom of religion for all, just as hon. Members across this Chamber have said today.
Fiona Bruce
I thank the Minister for his response and, indeed, all colleagues who have contributed to the debate. We are all very much of one heart and mind that this important issue is one that needs to continue to be moved forward. It is in that vein that I say to the Minister that, yes, I am forceful in my role, but I make no apology for it—millions are suffering across the world.
There was almost complete unanimity but not quite. I want to come back on the position of the hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown) for the Opposition. I very much appreciate her presence in these debates and she contributes thoughtfully, but I want to quote some of the report from Open Doors on Nigeria and west Africa, because we have a difference on the level to which religious differences are a motivating factor in some of the violence there.
The report says,
“ISWAP (Islamic State West African Province)”
—the clue is in the title to an extent—
“continues to menace Nigeria’s north-east and many other parts of the country.”
According to Open Doors research:
“A decentralized armed group with ethnic ties to the pastoralist Fulani people, the Fulani Ethnic Militia”—
a separate group—
“attack predominantly Christian villages, abducting, raping and killing people, destroying buildings and harvests or occupying farmlands.”
The report quotes the July 2023 all-party parliamentary group on FORB report, “Nigeria: Unfolding Genocide? Three years On”. Based on evidence from a wide range of organisations, it concluded that FORB violations had “worsened” in the intervening years, with religious identity remaining “the key motivator” in the violence and Christian groups suffering “disproportionately”. It pointed to the fact that while a range of other factors are contributing to violence in Nigeria, from poverty to existing ethnic tensions, the flow of weapons and insecure borders, contributors to the report highlighted how the religious dimension was often obscured or played down by appeal to those other factors. I want to put that on the record.
Valerie Vaz (in the Chair)
Order. Could I just say to the hon. Lady that wind-ups are two minutes?
Fiona Bruce
I will conclude.
I therefore believe that with regard to the recent universal periodic review on Nigeria, while it was good that the UK’s recommendations highlighted blasphemy and the need for accountability for mob killings in Nigeria, it is regrettable that the UK did not mention increasing attacks on religious minorities, or freedom of religion or belief.
I close with a quote from Henrietta Blyth at the Open Doors launch of this year’s world watch list. She said:
“Never has it been more important for those of us who are free to worship as we wish to wake up to what is happening to our Christian family and those of other faiths around the world”
and to speak out.
Question put and agreed to.
That this House has considered religious persecution and the World Watch List 2024.
Written Statements
HM Treasury and Bank of England Consultation Response
(10 months ago)
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The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Bim Afolami)
The Government have today laid the response to the Bank of England and HM Treasury’s consultation paper, “The digital pound: a new form of money for households and businesses?”—(CP 970).
The Bank of England and HM Treasury have been exploring the concept of a UK retail central bank digital currency (CBDC), or “digital pound”, issued by the Bank of England. A digital pound would be a new form of digital money for use by households and businesses for their everyday payment needs, and a complement to physical cash and other means of payment. However, it is important to stress that no decision has yet been made to build or issue a digital pound, either for corporates or for the public.
Alongside cash, a digital pound would help to ensure that central bank money remains widely available and useful in an ever more digital economy, continuing to support UK monetary and financial stability. It would also provide a public platform for private sector innovation, promoting further competition, efficiency and choice in payments. Many other countries are also exploring the issuance of CBDCs.
No decision has yet been made to build or issue a digital pound, but given changes in money and payments, as well as developments in other countries, we believe there is merit in further preparatory work. This work will allow us to build the necessary skills and put in place the technical capability to introduce a digital pound in a timely manner, were the decision made to do so in the future.
The consultation paper sought feedback from the public on a set of design proposals for the digital pound. The Government and the Bank of England are grateful to everyone who provided their feedback, which will be carefully considered during the ongoing design phase. Respondents from a range of industries and organisations were supportive of the design proposition set out in the consultation paper, while many other respondents raised concerns about the implications of a digital pound for access to cash, users’ privacy, and control of their money. The Government and the Bank of England recognise the critical importance of building the public’s trust in a digital pound.
The consultation response sets out commitments that the Government and the Bank of England are making in response to the feedback received in the consultation, including that primary legislation would be introduced before any launch of a digital pound. Today, the Government and the Bank of England are committing that this legislation would include measures to guarantee users’ privacy and control over how to spend their money. The response also reiterates the Government and the Bank of England’s commitment to protect access to cash. The digital pound, issued by the Bank of England, would be a complement to cash and not a replacement for it.
This consultation response sets outs the steps we are taking to reinforce public trust in the design of a digital pound before any decision is made:
Before any launch of a digital pound, the Government have committed to introducing primary legislation. This means that the digital pound would only be introduced once Parliament had passed the relevant legislation. A further consultation exercise would be held prior to the introduction of legislation.
Privacy, and preventing Government programmability, would be a core design feature of the digital pound issued by the Bank of England.
The Government and the Bank of England would not access users’ personal data, and legislation introduced by the Government for a digital pound would guarantee users’ privacy. Today, the Bank of England is committing to exploring technological options that would prevent the Bank from accessing any personal data through the Bank’s core infra- structure.
The Government and the Bank of England would not program a digital pound, and legislation introduced by the Government for a digital pound would guarantee this.
The Government have already legislated to safeguard access to cash, ensuring that it would remain available even if a digital pound was introduced.
The feedback to date will help to inform our work on the design of the digital pound. We will continue to engage with parliamentarians, the private sector, civil society, academia and the public to develop our proposals for a digital pound, so that we are prepared, should a decision to build a digital pound be taken in the future.
The document is published online at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/the-digital-pound-a-new-form-of-money-for-households-and-businesses.
Copies of the document are also available in the Vote Office.
[HCWS210]
Public Service Pension Scheme Indexation and Revaluation 2024
(10 months ago)
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The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Laura Trott)
Public service pensions continue to be among the very best available. Scheme Police Fire-fighters Civil Service NHS Teachers LGPS Armed Forces Judicial Revaluation for active member 7.95% 7.7% 6.7% 8.2% 8.3% 6.7% 7.7% 6.7%
Legislation governing public service pensions in payment requires them to be increased annually by the same percentage as additional pensions (state earnings related pension and state second pension). Public service pensions will therefore be increased from 08 April 2024 by 6.7%, in line with the annual increase in the consumer prices index up to September 2023, except for those public service pensions which have been in payment for less than a year, which will receive a pro-rata increase.
Separately, in the career average revalued earnings public service pension schemes introduced in 2014 and 2015, pensions in accrual are revalued annually in relation to either prices or earnings depending on the terms specified in their scheme regulations. The Public Service Pensions Act 2013 requires HMT to specify a measure of prices and of earnings to be used for revaluation by these schemes.
The prices measure is the consumer prices index up to September 2023. Public service schemes which rely on a measure of prices, therefore, will use the figure of 6.7% for the prices element of revaluation.
The earnings measure is the whole economy year-on-year change in average weekly earnings (non-seasonally adjusted and including bonuses and arrears) up to September 2023. Public service schemes which rely on a measure of earnings, therefore, will use the figure of 7.7% for the earnings element of revaluation.
The effective date of revaluation listed in the order is 1 April 2024, but some schemes have chosen to move their effective revaluation date to 6 April 2024 in order to manage interactions with the annual tax allowance.
Revaluation is one part of the amount of pension that members earn in a year and needs to be considered in conjunction with the amount of in-year accrual. Typically, schemes with lower revaluation will have faster accrual and therefore members will earn more pension per year. The following list shows how the main public service schemes will be affected by revaluation:
[HCWS211]
Higher Education Student Support
(10 months ago)
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The Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education (Robert Halfon)
I am announcing details of student fees and support arrangements for higher education students undertaking a course of study in the 2024-25 academic year starting on 1 August 2024, together with further help to address cost of living pressures in 2023-24. Also, I am confirming that eligibility for student finance is being extended to children granted indefinite leave to remain where their parent has been granted ILR as a victim of domestic abuse or as a bereaved partner.
The Government recognise the additional cost of living pressures that have arisen this year and that are impacting students. We have already made £276 million of student premium and mental health funding available for the 2023-24 academic year to support successful outcomes for students, including disadvantaged students.
We are now making a further £10 million of one-off support available to support student mental health and hardship funding. This funding will complement the help that universities are providing through their own bursary, scholarship and hardship support schemes.
In addition, we are investing hundreds of millions of pounds of additional funding over the three-year period from 2022-23 to 2024-25 to support high-quality teaching and facilities, including in science and engineering, subjects that support the NHS, and degree apprenticeships. This includes the largest increase in Government funding for the HE sector to support students and teaching in more than a decade.
I can confirm today that maximum tuition fees for undergraduate students for the 2024-25 academic year in England will be maintained at the levels that apply in the 2023-24 academic year. This is the seventh year in succession that fees have been frozen. This means that the maximum level of tuition fees for a standard full-time course will remain at £9,250 for the 2024-25 academic year, to deliver better value for students and to keep the cost of higher education down.
Thanks to the progress we have made on the Prime Minister’s five priorities, inflation has more than halved. Maximum undergraduate loans for living costs will be increased by forecast inflation, 2.5%, in 2024-25. The same increase will apply to the maximum disabled students’ allowance for students with disabilities undertaking full-time and part-time undergraduate courses in 2024-25. Maximum grants for students with child or adult dependants who are attending full-time undergraduate courses will also increase by 2.5% in 2024-25.
We are also increasing support for students undertaking postgraduate courses in 2024-25. Maximum loans for students starting master’s degree and doctoral degree courses from 1 August 2024 onwards will be increased by 2.5% in 2024-25. The same increase will apply to the maximum disabled students’ allowance for postgraduate students with disabilities in 2024-25.
The 2.5% increase follows standard procedure to base annual increases in support on forecasted inflation. We have continued to increase maximum loans and grants for living costs each year, with the most support for students from the lowest income families. Decisions on student finance have had to be taken to ensure that the system remains financially sustainable and the costs of higher education are shared fairly between students and taxpayers, not all of whom have benefited from going to university.
I am also announcing today a number of other changes to eligibility rules for student support and home fee status that will benefit certain vulnerable groups of students.
Students who have been granted indefinite leave to enter as a victim of domestic abuse, and their children who are granted ILE, will also qualify for student support and home fee status.
I am also confirming today that home fee status and tuition fee support is being extended to British citizens born in the Chagos islands, and their direct descendants who are also British citizens.
In addition, students who gain settled status part way through their course will qualify for student support and home fee status for the remainder of their course.
Looking forward to the 2025-26 academic year, the new lifelong learning entitlement will create a single funding system to help students to pay for college or university courses, and train, retrain and upskill flexibly over their working lives. In tandem, the Government will continue to recognise the importance of loans for living costs and targeted grants to support access and participation in higher education.
That is why, under the LLE, the Government will extend the scope of loans for living costs, and grants for students with adult and child dependants, making this support available for all designated full-time and part-time courses and modules that require in-person attendance. This will ensure that people will be able to develop new skills and gain new qualifications at a time that is right for them.
Further details of the student support package for 2024-25 are set out in the document available as an online attachment: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2024-01-25/HCWS209
I am today laying regulations implementing changes to student finance support for undergraduates and post- graduates for 2024-25. These regulations will be subject to parliamentary procedure.
[HCWS209]
Correction to Written Parliamentary Question 182223
(10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (David Rutley)
On 2 May 2023, the FCDO responded to WPQ 182223 in relation to how much the FCDO spent on staff training related to diversity and inclusion in 2022.
The figure provided—£25,412.96—was inaccurate and an error. The figure was incorrectly provided as that amount had been charged to the account code relating to training in the team that was responsible for the diversity and inclusion work in 2022. Recent work has identified that none of the transactions put to this account code during this time period were actually diversity and inclusion training, and instead related to the running costs of that team, such as conference attendance.
The FCDO does not have a centrally organised diversity and inclusion training offer; instead, we use courses provided via Civil Service Learning.
Directorates and posts have devolved training budgets, which could have been used on training needs, but information is not collected centrally on whether this spend relates to equality and diversity training.
The FCDO has contributed to the Cabinet Office-led civil service equality, diversity and inclusion expenditure review, which is assessing current spending on EDI activity across the civil service to ensure that spend is providing a return on investment and that activity is being carried out in the most efficient and cost-effective way.
I am apologising for this error and clarifying the position in relation to diversity and inclusion training spend in 2022. We have learned from this situation. There has been a change in budget managers in that team and new financial procedures have been put in place to ensure greater accuracy. The Department continues to take its responsibility for parliamentary accountability very seriously.
[HCWS208]
Improving Police Standards and Culture
(10 months ago)
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The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
Last year, on 1 March, I issued a written ministerial statement (HCWS590) setting out actions being undertaken by the Home Office and partners to improve police standards and culture. This statement provides an update on that work.
The vast majority of police officers and staff perform their vital duties with professionalism, skill and courage. We are fortunate to have so many brave people dedicated to protecting us. However, we must not be complacent, we know that confidence and trust in the police must never be taken for granted.
That is why the Government asked the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) to undertake a “datawashing” exercise to ensure that all officers and staff employed within policing across the country were checked against the police national database (PND) for any new intelligence which forces were previously unaware of.
This week—22 January—the NPCC published the outcomes of this work, which represented the largest single integrity screening project undertaken in any national workforce. It is a key step to identify information and intelligence around our workforce and take appropriate action to remove those not fit to work in policing.
Checks were made against 307,452 officers and staff in total. In well over 99% of cases, no new adverse information was identified. Of the 461 cases that were referred to a decision-making process, 97 required no further action. Criminal investigations were triggered in nine cases, 88 cases led to disciplinary investigations, 139 others led to a vetting review while 128 cases led to management advice.
The Government have committed to provide further funding to the NPCC to develop an automated and continuous vetting system, enabling the identification of new information on officers and staff to be sent directly, at pace, to the force concerned. The NPCC will continue to work closely with the Home Office to achieve this.
This month will also see the closure of the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s programme to co-ordinate and monitor the police service’s progress against recommendations made by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) in their November 2022 report into vetting, misconduct and misogyny. This follows evidence being submitted to HMICFRS on successful delivery of almost all of the 28 recommendations and five areas for improvement.
This work has driven significant improvements in force vetting processes and is underpinned by the new statutory code of practice for vetting, strengthened by the College of Policing at the Home Office’s request and published in July last year. The revised code makes clear the expectation on chief officers to ensure vetting standards are maintained within their force.
The vetting code of practice is supported by the college’s authorised professional practice guidance, or APP. The APP is regularly updated, and the college has now published a revised vetting APP, currently out for consultation, which will further promote national consistency and the highest standards in police vetting.
To further support the vetting code of practice, the Government are legislating to introduce a statutory requirement for officers to hold and maintain vetting clearance. Individuals who are unable to hold vetting clearance should face dismissal proceedings. Our new regulations will provide a stronger, clearer and more defined process to assist forces.
This is included, and will be delivered, as part of a wider package of reforms, announced as part of the Government’s review of the police dismissals process, to strengthen the systems that deal with police misconduct and performance. These include:
Enabling senior officers to chair misconduct hearings, giving them a greater role in decisions relating to the integrity of their workforce
Creating a presumption of dismissal where gross misconduct is proven; and
Prescribing that conviction of certain criminal offences automatically amounting to gross misconduct.
This package of measures is designed to improve not only standards, but efficiency and timeliness as well. The first tranche of these reforms is to be in place this spring.
It is imperative for public confidence in the police that we have assurance that professional standards departments are tackling misconduct and implementing these reforms. To ensure more rigorous scrutiny, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services has been developing a new inspection methodology looking at force professional standards departments. This will join the existing vetting and counter-corruption inspection arrangements to form a new integrity programme, which is due to commence in the new financial year.
Adhering to professional standards is just part of ensuring that those who work in policing deliver a service that is fair, ethical and can be trusted to make decisions in the interest of keeping people safe. Yesterday, the College of Policing launched the new code of ethics. This provides everyone in policing with clear principles and practical guidance for officers on making ethical decisions as they undertake their daily duties. This will complement provisions in the Criminal Justice Bill that require the college to set out a duty of candour in statutory guidance for chief constables, ensuring a culture of transparency and accountability.
The Government and our policing partners have made significant progress in delivering on our commitments to help rebuild confidence and trust in policing, and will continue to drive this work forward. This is what the public expect and the decent, hardworking majority of officers deserve. I will provide the House with further updates in due course.
[HCWS212]
Levelling Up
(10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Jacob Young)
In 2019, we set out the Government’s commitment to level up and unite the country, making it our guiding mission to spread opportunity around the United Kingdom. The Levelling Up White Paper set out a broad prospectus on the long-term steps we would take to deliver on this ambition. On 26 October 2023, the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 received Royal Assent. To cement the Government’s commitment to levelling up, and meet the requirements of the Act, I am laying before each House a statement of levelling-up missions, setting out the Government’s levelling-up missions and the metrics against which we will measure them.
As has always been our intention, this first statement reaffirms the 12 long-term and ambitious missions set out in the Levelling Up White Paper. In the statement, we detail the definitions and metrics we will use to assess the two missions that were exploratory in the White Paper: wellbeing and pride in place. As this is the first time we have set out this detail, we have also published an accompanying narrative, setting out how we developed the definitions and metrics for the missions and the rationale behind some of the decisions we have taken during the exploratory phase.
In making our commitment to level up and unite the country across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, we set ourselves deliberately stretching missions designed to drive all levels of government, the private sector and civil society to think innovatively about how to address these challenges. Since then we have continued to push new and innovative ways to transform communities and respond to the issues that people care most about—whether that is by transferring powers away from Whitehall and investing in local growth and pride through the levelling-up fund and the community ownership fund, or through our investment in cities through investment zones and innovation accelerators that are driving nationwide economic growth.
Our progress
Cross-Government efforts to deliver levelling up mean that we have made significant progress—but there is more to do. Starting with transport, more than £36 billion previously earmarked for extending High Speed 2 will now be reinvested in transport improvements that will benefit far more people, in far more places, far more quickly. This will benefit towns, cities and rural areas through improvements to roads, rail, trams and buses. Every penny committed to the northern leg will go to the north and every penny committed to the midlands leg to the midlands. That means £19.8 billion and £9.6 billion is reserved for transport investments in the north of England and midlands respectively. This adds to the work already done by the Department for Transport to make sure that every local authority has a plan for improved bus services and the extension of the £2 bus fare cap until December 2024.
Digital connectivity is as important as transport. The 5G element of the mission, which commits to basic 5G coverage for the majority of the population, has been met. The wireless infrastructure strategy, published in April 2023, commits to an ambition of spreading advanced 5G coverage to all populated areas. On research and development, the £100 million innovation accelerator programme is empowering local areas by bringing together national and local government, industry and R&D institutions in a long-term partnership. The programme is investing in 26 transformative R&D projects to harness innovation in support of regional economic growth. The UK continues to lead the way in attracting significant foreign investment into the UK, with the latest data showing that we delivered the highest jobs total in Europe, with more jobs per project than our European partners and the most “new” projects.
On education, we have put in place targeted support in our 55 education investment areas across England to improve outcomes in the areas where attainment is weakest, including through the levelling-up premium, giving teachers up to £3,000 annually, aimed at helping schools to retain the best teachers in high-priority subjects. The Government are also offering additional intensive investment in 24 priority education investment areas in England, including through the local needs fund, providing up to £42 million to support schools to boost pupils’ literacy, numeracy and attendance.
In October, we launched the long-term plan for towns, a £1.1 billion lifeline to drive ambitious plans to regenerate local towns across the UK over the next decade, recognising that it is both our towns and our cities that are the engines of delivering change. Through the antisocial behaviour action plan, we are giving communities, police and local authorities the tools they need to protect the spaces and places they most care about. Our levelling-up partnerships have shown that central Government, working alongside local leaders, MPs and the communities they represent, can support bringing about real long-lasting change in the places that need it most.
Our levelling-up funds have continued to provide much-needed capital to bring back into use or transform cultural and town centre assets. Towns, cities and communities across the UK have benefited from significant funding through the levelling-up fund, the future high streets fund and the towns fund. Across the three rounds of the levelling-up fund, £4.8 billion has been awarded to 271 projects across the UK, driving prosperity and boosting pride in place in communities. Investment zones are exemplifying our commitment to unlocking growth potential, and driving innovation in city regions across the UK. All eight freeports in England—East Midlands, Freeport East (Felixstowe and Harwich), Humber, Liverpool, Plymouth and South Devon, Solent, Teesside, and Thames—are now open for businesses, offering attractive tax incentives to companies looking to invest and create jobs. These incentives have recently been extended to 2031, giving businesses the long-term certainty to invest. In 2023, we also announced two new green freeports in Scotland—Inverness and Cromarty Firth green freeport and Firth of Forth green freeport—as well as two new freeports in Wales—Celtic freeport and Anglesey freeport—which are currently working through Government approvals and will be open for business later in 2024.
Finally, we have made significant progress against our local leadership mission. Today’s devolution deal signing with Devon and Torbay means that Government have agreed 10 devolution deals with 26 different local authorities since the Levelling Up White Paper was published in February 2022. Taken together, these deals take the proportion of the English population living in a place with a devolution deal up from 41% when the White Paper was published to 60% today—an increase of over 10 million people. More than 90% of the north of England, and 55% of the midlands, now stands to benefit from devolution, with over £5 billion of new long-term funding committed as part of devolution agreements in the last 18 months. In total, these deals will see the election of seven new mayors or directly elected leaders in the next two years, with voters having their say on a new mayor in York and North Yorkshire, the east midlands, and an expanded north-east, for the first time this May. As well as extending devolution, we have also deepened arrangements, with two trailblazer deals in Greater Manchester and the West Midlands announced last year, and the offer of a deeper “level 4” to all eligible institutions. We continue to extend and deepen devolution in England with further live negotiations, including new trailblazing provisions for the north-east.
We also committed to publishing a current analysis of geographical disparities in the UK and a document showing how we have had regard to the considerations of the devolved Administrations in relation to the missions. These accompanying documents will be published on gov.uk in due course. We will also deposit all relevant documents in the Libraries of the House.
This is just the start, and there is more to do, but we will continue to drive change across the United Kingdom.
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Universal Credit: Managed Migration from April 2024
(10 months ago)
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The Minister for Employment (Jo Churchill)
The Government are working to deliver a brighter future for Britain, with long-term economic security and opportunity, where hard work is always rewarded; where ambition and aspiration are celebrated; where people get the skills they need to succeed in life; where families are supported; where those who have worked hard all their lives have the retirement they deserve.
Universal credit plays a vital role in providing financial support to households. For more than 10 years, universal credit has successfully delivered a tailored service to millions of people, adjusting each month to an individuals’ needs and helping people progress in work.
The “move to universal credit” activity will bring those who remain on the older, legacy benefits on to universal credit, completing the implementation of this major welfare reform.
Throughout 2023-24 our activity has focused on notifying households that receive tax credits only. This activity is progressing well, and we remain on track to notify over 500,000 tax credit-only households of the need to claim universal credit by the end of March 2024. Furthermore, by February 2024, a month earlier than originally anticipated, “move to universal credit” will be under way across all jobcentre districts within Great Britain. The Department continues to listen to all feedback to continuously improve the service, but to date there have been very few complaints, and any issues have been swiftly resolved.
Looking ahead to 2024-25, we will be migrating the remaining groups of households receiving legacy benefits to universal credit, excluding employment and support allowance only and employment and support allowance with housing benefit.
Our plans for 2024-25 are to undertake the issuing of migration notices to in-scope working age benefit households sequentially, starting with income support claimants and those claiming tax credits with housing benefit from April, housing benefit-only claimants from June, claimants of employment and support allowance with child tax credits from July, and jobseekers allowance claimants in September. Households may be in receipt of a combination of benefits, for example an income support recipient could also be claiming housing benefit and/or child tax credits.
From August, we will contact those claiming tax credits who are over state pension age, with households being asked to apply for either universal credit or pension credit, depending on their circumstances.
The Government recognise that some individuals may need additional support to move to universal credit. The Department is committed to providing such support through a range of channels for anyone who needs it. We will continue to review and revise this approach to ensure the success of “move to universal credit” for our customers.
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