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Oral Answers to Questions
(10 months ago)
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Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)
Simon Fell (Barrow and Furness) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)
Since 2010, crime has fallen and so has reoffending, with the overall proven rate of reoffending down from over 31% in 2011-12 to 25% in 2021-22. That means that fewer innocent members of the public are suffering from the misery of falling victim to crime. We have gone further, building up initiatives including a new prison education service, expanded access to incentivised substance-free living wings for drug recovery, and the groundbreaking guarantee of 12 weeks’ post-release accommodation to secure that essential period of stability for offenders to turn their lives around.
Rachael Maskell
With the reoffending rate at over 25%, rising to nearly 50% for burglary, reoffending is costing the country £18 billion a year and the service is failing to keep us safe. If just a small fraction of that cost were invested in probation staff to address the problems caused by 50,000 days lost through sickness and 2,000 people leaving each year, it could be transformative. Will the Justice Secretary back Operation Protect, the campaign spearheaded by the justice unions, and ensure that there is a comprehensive workforce plan to recruit, retain and return the staff needed to prevent reoffending?
Alex Chalk
The hon. Lady is right. We want to drive the offending rate down, and it is good news that it is down from about 31% in 2010 to 25% now, but we do believe in investing in probation. That is why the baseline is up by £155 million, and it is why we have added 4,000 trainees since 2020. Since the reunification of probation services, the number has risen by 17%. Probation officers keep society safe, and we will back them all the way.
Paul Howell
I recently raised the issue of social media use in prison, allegedly by one of those responsible for the murder of Jack Woodley, the son of my constituent Zoey McGill. We have a local campaign against knife crime, and at the latest working group meeting we discussed deterrents. Zoey would like to understand what consequences were suffered by this individual for the posts that he sent, but also why he should be wearing a designer T-shirt and apparently leading a cushy life. Prison needs to be seen as a deterrent, but if inmates are having it easy with designer wear and no consequences, how is that a deterrent? May I ask the Secretary of State what is being done to address this, and to make prison the deterrent that it should be?
Alex Chalk
I know that the whole House will want to send its deepest sympathies to Zoey McGill following the shocking murder of her son in 2021. It was a dreadful crime, of which 10 men were convicted and for which they received life sentences. The use of social media in prisons is not acceptable, and this content was removed from the social media platform. We have been investing £100 million in prison security and new technology, including X-ray scanners to tackle the smuggling of contraband mobile phones. Those who are caught can face loss of privileges, more time in custody, and even a referral to the police and the Crown Prosecution Service for consideration of further charges.
Simon Fell
Last year I was grateful for the Government’s support for my private Member’s Bill to limit Friday releases for vulnerable prisoners. It is an important measure and is now an Act, but it is only one of the measures that we should be taking to reduce reoffending and help people get back on their feet when they leave prison. The excellent charity Switchback has suggested that, at the very minimum, people should be leaving prison with access to ID and an internet-enabled mobile phone just to get their lives in order so that they can access universal credit and other services. What consideration has my right hon. and learned Friend given to those suggestions?
Alex Chalk
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his excellent work in successfully championing the limit on Friday prison releases. The changes for which he called came into force last November and are exceptionally helpful, and he deserves great credit for that. He is also right to point to the brilliant work of Switchback, which has supported our resettlement work. That work includes the roll-out of 12 weeks’ guaranteed accommodation and the introduction of resettlement passports, which contain precisely the basic information to which my hon. Friend referred, such as a prisoner’s name, date of birth, national insurance number and release date. They help prisoners to access essential services such as housing and healthcare, and contribute to the driving down of reoffending, which, as was recognised by the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), is significantly lower than it was in 2010.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
The wife of a remand prisoner at Wormwood Scrubs wrote to me recently to say that the prison is so cold that prisoners are shaking, that they have to choose between work, social time and showering, and that the food is lacking in basic nutrition. I can explore these matters with the Prisons Minister in a couple of weeks’ time during our joint visit to the Scrubs, but does the Secretary of State agree that such conditions are not conducive to rehabilitation?
Alex Chalk
This is an important point. We do deprive people of liberty and sometimes we have to do so in the case of those on remand, but the conditions must be safe, decent and humane—austere, yes, but humane as well. I commend the hon. Gentleman for going to see the Scrubs with the Prisons Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), and I shall be very interested to hear his views thereafter.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
We need to tackle the revolving door of reoffending in our justice system, yet the reoffending rate, as a proportion of those leaving prison, continues to rise. Whatever the Secretary of State may say, I have heard time and again that the lack of secure housing, adequate and appropriate healthcare, education, job training and job support means that prisoners are being left to fail after they are released. It is the victims of crime who suffer when ex-prisoners reoffend. Can the Secretary of State announce when the Government expect the reoffending rate to go down?
Alex Chalk
It is important to note that reoffending is down compared with under the last Labour Government. The hon. Lady shakes her head, but one can dispute opinions in this House, but not facts. The reoffending rate in 2010 was around 31%; it is 25% now. That means fewer people falling victim to crime.
The hon. Lady refers to accommodation, and she is right to do so. What she did not advert to is this Government’s decision to provide 12 weeks’ guaranteed accommodation, which did not happen under a Labour Government. When I went to Luton and Dunstable, I spoke to a probation officer who has done the job for 30 years, and do you know what he said? It is the single most effective measure to drive down reoffending. Who did that? Not the Labour party, but us.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Gareth Bacon)
Measures in the Sentencing Bill will ensure that those who commit the worst crimes will receive the most severe punishment. The Bill creates a duty for the court to impose a whole life order for murders currently subject to a whole life order starting point and for those that involve sexual or sadistic conduct, unless there are exceptional circumstances. The Bill will also ensure that convicted rapists must serve 100% of their custodial term in prison, followed by a licence period.
Nigel Mills
I thank the Minister for his answer and welcome those measures. The two worst cases I have had to deal with as an MP was where women were brutally murdered by a partner or ex-partner. What are the Government going to do in response to the Clare Wade review to increase sentences for people who commit those awful, vile offences?
Gareth Bacon
My hon. Friend is quite right to raise the issue of domestic homicide. We are determined to act to protect the victims of domestic abuse and ensure that the appropriate punishments are in place for perpetrators. That is why, following Clare Wade KC’s review, we are increasing sentences by introducing statutory aggravating factors for murders that are preceded by controlling or coercive behaviour, involve overkill, or are connected with the end of a relationship.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
Does the Minister agree that wider society’s confidence in the judicial system is often determined by how dangerous offenders are treated? Does he agree that it is vital that we get the message out there, both to wider society and to potential offenders, that there is the ultimate price to pay, which is a long sentence in prison for criminal offences such as these?
Gareth Bacon
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I agree with those sentiments entirely.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)
In his excellent report, “The patronising disposition of unaccountable power”, Bishop James Jones called for the creation of the Hillsborough charter for bereaved families, as well as for the imposition of a duty of candour on police officers. We agree wholeheartedly, which is why the Government have signed the charter alongside the Crown Prosecution Service, the National Police Chiefs’ Council and others, and imposed a duty of candour on the police. We are also legislating to create a strong, permanent and independent public advocate to speak up for victims and their families, and to rigorously hold signatories to the charter to account. We stand ready to discuss what further steps may be necessary.
Richard Burgon
The parents of Zane Gbangbola are in the Public Gallery today. Zane was just seven when he died, following floods 10 years ago this month. The fire brigade detected hydrogen cyanide multiple times. His parents, Kye and Nicole, have been fighting for the truth about their son’s death ever since, and a duty of candour would have helped them to get it. In lieu of that, will the Government establish an independent panel inquiry with full disclosure, so that all the evidence can be reviewed by experts, we can finally get the truth about what happened to an innocent seven-year-old boy, and justice can be done?
Alex Chalk
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this deeply upsetting case, and I know the whole House will be thinking of Kye and Nicole as they continue to mourn the loss of Zane. The hon. Gentleman raises a critically important case. May I suggest that he and I discuss it and see what further steps can properly be taken in this difficult case?
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I welcome the meeting that the Secretary of State has just offered.
The problem with the Government’s response is that it ought to be centred on the experiences of families, not on the convenience of state bureaucracy, in order to ensure that they are never repeated. There is nothing in what we have seen so far from the Government that goes as far as we and, more importantly, the families believe is necessary to require public authorities to act with candour and transparency. Why is the Secretary of State persisting with a piecemeal approach, instead of committing to a clear, compelling and comprehensive duty of candour, as proposed in the Hillsborough law?
Alex Chalk
As I say, the recommendations of Bishop James Jones’s report, which we have considered extremely carefully, contained the charter for bereaved families, and it is worth reflecting on what paragraph 3 of the report says. It requires the public body to
“approach forms of public scrutiny—including public inquiries and inquests—with candour, in an open, honest and transparent way, making full disclosure of relevant documents, material and facts.”
Taken together with the powers that exist under the Inquiries Act 2005, there is potentially criminal culpability, misconduct in a public office and perverting the course of justice, but of course we will keep this under review. We want to make sure that public bodies do what they should—that is, act transparently—and we will always consider what further steps can be taken.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)
In September 2020, a public inquiry was set up into the failings associated with the Post Office Horizon IT system and it is expected to report back later this year. In addition, over £160 million has already been paid out in compensation across three schemes.
However, in its December 2023 letter, the independent Horizon compensation advisory board expressed concern that the pace of exonerations was too slow, not least because evidence had been lost and many were simply too traumatised to come forward. That is why the Prime Minister has decided to bring forward legislation to quash the relevant convictions, and the Department for Business and Trade will be announcing details shortly. These wholly exceptional circumstances have led to this wholly exceptional course.
Marco Longhi
While I welcome the Government’s commitment to quash the wrongful convictions of sub-postmasters caught up in the Horizon scandal, I also recognise that this is a complex area of law that could even raise constitutional issues. Given that some sub-postmasters have been suffering for an extremely long time, does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that any legislation should deal with these issues swiftly and avoid any further delays?
Alex Chalk
I thank my hon. Friend for the careful and thoughtful way in which he addresses this significant issue. The judiciary and courts have dealt swiftly with the cases before them, but the scale and circumstances of the prosecution failure mean that this demands an unprecedented response, and that is why the Prime Minister announced this major step forward in response to the Horizon scandal. We are keen to ensure that the legislation achieves its goal of bringing prompt justice to all those who were wrongfully convicted, followed by rapid financial redress. It is not right that wholly innocent people could potentially go to their graves with the mark and stigma of a conviction hanging over them.
Gavin Newlands
Every day we hear further revelations about the Post Office, and today’s shocking—well, it should be shocking—BBC story states that the 2016 Swift review noted that the Post Office had always known about the balancing transaction capability of Horizon and that the Government knew in 2016 that a Deloitte investigation into all Horizon transactions was under way and that this investigation was suddenly halted after sub-postmasters began legal action. Will the Secretary of State confirm whether the Ministry of Justice was aware of this, and does he believe that that apparent non-disclosure to the inquiry is a threat to judicial freedom and independence?
Alex Chalk
In 2020—coming up to four years ago now—an independent inquiry was set up under Mr Justice Wyn Williams. That is expected to report later this year, and it will go into properly exhaustive details about who knew what and when. We are absolutely clear that there has been an egregious failure of prosecution conduct—frankly, one that brings shame on those involved—and it is absolutely right that that inquiry should get to the bottom of what took place and who knew what and when.
Kirsten Oswald
The current chief executive of the Post Office said in evidence to the Business and Trade Committee last month that, despite various audits and investigations, we still do not know the full scope of the money overclaimed through Horizon, or where it went. Even the auditors are unable to give a firm figure. Postmasters such as my constituent Roger have suffered incredible stress and worry as well as significant financial loss, but the prospect of getting to the truth on these figures still seems far off.
Will the Secretary of State commit to working with the Secretary of State for Business and Trade and set out a timetable for updating the House on how much the Post Office took and what it did with the money, so that constituents like mine can start to get the answers and the justice that they deserve?
Alex Chalk
My heart goes out to Roger and people like him. I have constituents who are affected, as I am sure everyone in this House does. We are a fair-minded nation, which is why it strikes us to the core. The hon. Lady asks me to liaise with the Department for Business and Trade. Of course the MOJ will do everything it properly can, but DBT is leading on this. It is also worth reflecting that £160 million has already been paid out across the three schemes, and there is a very important, swift and robust approach of paying £600,000 to those who have their convictions quashed. That is the right approach. It is exceptional, but these are exceptional circumstances.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
My right hon. and learned Friend will know that, only last week, the Court of Appeal criminal division, presided over by the Lady Chief Justice, quashed in bulk a number of Horizon appeals, on the basis of a half-hour hearing. When the cases get to court, the courts can deal with them swiftly.
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that in framing any legislation, because of the constitutional implications, it is important that we bear in mind that the failures are the failure of a prosecutor to do their duty, or perhaps the failure of the state to come to the aid of victims, but they are not the failure of the courts, which always acted entirely properly on the material put before them by the parties at the time? It was a failure of the parties, not of the courts.
Alex Chalk
As always, my hon. Friend gets to the heart of it. This was a failure of the Post Office, which is an emanation of the state, and it is the duty of the state to put it right. The courts have approached this entirely properly. The Post Office failed to discharge the solemn obligations on any prosecutor to act fairly and to comply with their obligations under section 3 of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 to disclose material that might reasonably be considered capable of undermining the case of the prosecution, or of assisting the case of the defence. When I was prosecuting, the first rule was that we did not seek a conviction at all costs, which is an important principle that the Post Office failed to appreciate.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
Whistleblowers have come forward to provide information that Fujitsu was given an additional contract by the Post Office in 2013 to re-platform transaction data that was previously held on an external storage system that was considered to be the gold standard. It was replaced by a system that made it virtually impossible to investigate financial transactions in a forensic audit. Does the Justice Secretary share our concern that this decision effectively destroyed evidence, preventing exactly the sort of audit trail that would exonerate those sub-postmasters who were convicted?
Alex Chalk
The Department for Business and Trade is better placed to answer those specific points, but I would say two things. First, as a matter of sacred principle, if material comes into a prosecutor’s possession that might be considered capable of undermining the case of the prosecution, that material should be disclosed to the defence. That is one of the things that has been considered by Sir Wyn Williams’s inquiry. What did the Post Office know, when did it know it, and what did it do with the material before it? Across the House, we want to get to the bottom of those questions.
Alistair Strathern (Mid Bedfordshire) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)
It is a pleasure to respond to my first question from the hon. Gentleman since his election.
As part of the Government’s antisocial behaviour action plan, community payback teams are working in partnership with 11 local authorities to rapidly clean up antisocial behaviour in the community. The pilots started in July 2023, and we are in the process of analysing the outcomes. Initial observations point to the pilots having been successful, with thousands of hours of reparative work being done by hundreds of people on probation within 48 hours of local authority notification, allowing the public to see justice done.
Alistair Strathern
These rapid-deployment community payback scheme pilots were supposed to pave the way for the accelerated roll-out of exactly the kind of swift, transparent restorative justice that victims of crime in my constituency are desperate to see. Unfortunately, I understand that, of a planned 20,000 hours of work, only 2,000 hours have been delivered by the pilots. Can the Minister reveal whether that is the case? If so, what can be learned from the clear barriers to success?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but the clue is in the word “pilot.” These pilots were carried out in 11 areas, over three months, in the run-up to Christmas, and 175 people completed around 2,000 hours of unpaid work. We are analysing the outcome of those pilots and, based on what that analysis says, I look forward to exploring how we can roll this out more widely across the country.
Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)
We know that activities such as education and training can help to give prisoners skills that they need to get a job on release, thus reducing the likelihood of reoffending. That is why we launched our new national regime model for prisoners last month. It sets out core expectations for regime delivery, so that prisons are getting the most out of the working day and aiding the rehabilitation of prisoners. Of course, we are also seeing improved staffing numbers to facilitate those regimes.
Ms Rimmer
Reoffending costs £18 billion a year, but there is not just the financial cost but the impact on society in general, as well as on the individual. Some young prisoners are still getting only one hour out of their cells, so there is no time for rehabilitation—they can perhaps do a little exercise, but that is not the same. How confident is the Minister that all young prisoners will get the re-education that he has outlined? When does he think all young prisoners—if these people have to be in prison—will get proper rehabilitation and the support they need when they come out of prison to get a home, to have somewhere to stay and to go into further training? Will he please give me some reassurance that better times are coming, not just for young offenders but for society as a whole?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that. As she knows, I have a huge amount of respect for her, and she raises a hugely important point. We have heard from the Lord Chancellor that reoffending rates have come down from 31% to 25% since 2010. So we are making progress, but we want to drive them down further. She also rightly highlights the importance of purposeful activity leading to the opportunity on release for employment, accommodation and so on. That is central to the opportunity for prisoners to rehabilitate themselves.
We have seen significant progress made in our youth estate. The hon. Lady talked about young prisoners and rightly said that we need to go further, but we believe the national regime model that we launched in January will go a long way to doing that. The additional staff we have recruited into His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service are central to doing that, as they enable that regime to be put in place. However, she is absolutely right to highlight this issue.
Fleur Anderson
I welcome the Minister’s acknow-ledgement that more education in prisons means cutting the reoffending rate and that clear link to crime. I welcome the national regime model and will be interested to see how it plays out, because I have seen chronic staff shortages and sickness absence, in particular at prisons such as HMP Wandsworth, which I have visited. Those things mean that prisoners are entirely missing out on any education, training and working opportunities. When will I be able to go back to HMP Wandsworth and see the increase in staff and retention that is needed there? When will the Government get a grip on the prison officer recruitment and retention crisis?
Edward Argar
Again, I have a lot of respect for the hon. Lady, but I am afraid that what she is suggesting does not entirely reflect the facts. If we compare the figures for 2023 and 2022 for band 3 to 5 prison officers, we see that there are over 1,400 more now, which is an increase of 6.7%. In HMPPS, sick rates are down in the past year, when just over 12,500 people joined and 7,500 left—again, that reflects an increase. We are investing in our prison officers and increasing their number, and that is being reflected in retention. I pay tribute to them for the work they do; we should be talking them up, not down.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
I am encouraged by my right hon. Friend’s comments about the number of additional prison officers recruited. I have seen many of them and the fantastic work they do, both at HMP Aylesbury and across the prison estate. Will he say a little more about how we can ensure that we retain them once they have been trained and they go on to the wings? This is an incredibly important career—it is key to reducing reoffending—and prison officers deserve credit and the support of everybody in this House.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that. He is absolutely right about the importance of not just recruiting new prison officers, but retaining experienced ones in our prisons. That is why the pay deal done last year with HMPPS staff was hugely important, in recognising the important work that prison officers do day in, day out. It is also reflected in the fact that the leaving rate for prison officers is down in 2023 from where it was in 2022. However, there is more to do and we will continue to do it.
Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)
Prisoners are spending up to 23 hours a day locked up in their cells as a direct result of overcrowding and the prisons capacity crisis caused by this Government. However, I hear congratulations are in order following an announcement last month, not on the Government actually delivering any of the new prisons they have promised or on even getting spades in the ground, but on their submitting yet another planning application for the Leicestershire prison that the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has already ruled on once. Is not about time that the Minister renamed the new prisons programme the no prisons programme?
Edward Argar
For a moment I thought the shadow Justice Secretary was referring to her own party’s record when in government—7,500 prison places in three Titan prisons that failed to be built, whereas we are committed to building six new modern prisons. Two have been built, one is being built at the moment and two have planning permission.
Shabana Mahmood
While prisoners are serving their sentence, they are not being allowed to leave their cell, but ironically the Government are also releasing some of them early. Despite a multitude of letters, questions and even a point-blank request from the Justice Committee, the Government are refusing to tell us how many prisoners are being released early and from where. The public and Parliament have a right to know, so will the Minister finally come clean on how the early release scheme has been used so far? If not, can he tell the House what he has to hide?
Edward Argar
As the shadow Justice Secretary will know, my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor has made clear that in line with other statistics, for example death in custody statistics, we will publish those figures on an annual basis.
James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
I am sure my right hon. Friend will agree with me that the rehabilitation of offenders can be greatly assisted by activity and work outdoors, in particular on farms and at horticultural establishments. Will the Minister reassure me that he is committed to increasing the quantity of work available outdoors and let me know what has happened to the prison estates in recent years?
Edward Argar
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance of a range of purposeful activity for those in prison, from skilled industrial work in workshops to outside work. A good example mentioned recently on “ITV Racing”, of all things, was about getting farriers and those working in the equine world into prisons—the example was a prison in Solihull—to teach prisoners about job opportunities in the equine world. There are a range of opportunities out there, and it is important that they are available to those in our custody.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mike Freer)
We remain committed to reducing the Crown court outstanding case load and have introduced a range of measures to achieve the same. We funded over 100,000 sitting days last year and plan to deliver the same again this year. We have recruited over 1,000 judges over all jurisdictions and plan to do the same again this year. Thanks to the intervention of the Lord Chancellor, we have secured £220 million for essential modernisation repair work over the next two years. As well as retaining Nightingale courts, the investments will also see 58 new courtrooms.
Nick Smith
The fact is that the Crown courts how have a backlog of over 65,000 cases. If that is not bad enough, experts say the courts’ capacity to deal with processing cases will not keep pace with demand. Does the Minister agree that that leads to too many victims unfortunately giving up on our justice system?
Mike Freer
No, I do not accept that that means we are giving up on the system. The Government continue to invest in every single lever that we can pull to increase capacity in our criminal justice system. Given the additional work that the judiciary is doing, the disposal rate in our Crown courts is up and we are seeing record levels of disposals, so we will start to see the criminal justice system heal, because we are still recovering from covid and the Criminal Bar Association strike.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Rape and serious sexual assault cases have increased to 10.3% of all Crown court cases and, with nearly 10,000 of them, they make up one in seven of the backlog. The average wait time for a trial after charge has risen to 18 months. We also know from the Criminal Bar Association that there has been a tenfold increase in adjourned cases due to the fall in the number of rape and serious sexual offence prosecution or defence barristers, with the Crown Prosecution Service now employing King’s counsel to fill the gap. Add to that the many legal aid deserts due to the shortage of solicitors and we have a major staffing crisis across the criminal justice system. How is that going to be fixed?
Mike Freer
First, the figure that the hon. Gentleman quoted for the average time for a RASSO case is simply not true. The Government have continued to invest in ensuring that RASSO cases are brought forward. Listing is a matter for the judiciary, and they take great care to ensure that vulnerable victims are dealt with expeditiously. In addition, we continue to invest in the legal aid system. The Lord Chancellor recently increased the fees to ensure that there are people able to perform RASSO cases and section 28 video recording. On top of that, we continue to engage with the criminal legal aid review to see how we can continue to invest in and incentivise criminal defence barristers in the right parts of the system.
Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)
Since 2010, we have ramped up support for victims in three main ways. First, we have driven down reoffending from around 31% to 25%, so that fewer people suffer the misery of becoming a victim of crime in the first place. Secondly, we have created new offences such as stalking, coercive and controlling behaviour, revenge pornography, upskirting and non-fatal strangulation, so that those who betray trust and shatter lives can be held to account. Thirdly, we have quadrupled victim funding, enabling massive investment in resources such as independent domestic violence advisers, which are up from barely existing in 2010 to more than 900 today, and we will go further with the groundbreaking Victims and Prisoners Bill as well.
Caroline Ansell
I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for all the sterling work that he has just outlined, which is making such a huge difference to victims everywhere. I wish to talk about a case that was raised with me at an advice surgery. After seeing an advert on the tube, my constituent—a man of very good standing—invested in what turned out to be a fraudulent company to the tune of £93,000. He was clearly a victim of crime and, mercifully, his bank reimbursed his life savings after some challenge. He did get financial restitution, but the whole experience had wider, devastating impacts. Those behind the company were registered in Serbia and, to the best of our knowledge, have never been brought to justice. As my constituent did not go through the full criminal justice system, may I ask how victims such as he can be supported in cases like this?
Alex Chalk
I thank my hon. Friend for raising her constituent’s case. Fraud is a pernicious, cruel crime and it can have an appalling impact, as I know from my own experience of prosecuting for the Serious Fraud Office. To support victims in recovering lost funds, the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 gives the Payment Systems Regulator further power to mandate reimbursement where needed, and I am glad that that took place in this case. But to bring wrongdoers to justice, prosecutors, including the CPS, the Financial Conduct Authority and the SFO, regularly co-operate with their international counterparts to make arrests and secure evidence overseas so that, in appropriate cases, defendants can be extradited to face trial in the UK. The other critical point is that the victims code has been expanded, so that people such as her constituent can get the support they need. I would invite him, perhaps through the hon. Lady’s good offices, to look at the support that is available online.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Is the Secretary of State aware of a new crime that is spreading throughout the north of England, including in your constituency, Mr Speaker, and in mine? A group is preying on people who have cavity wall insulation. Those people get themselves into the legal process and find the expenses are so high that they have to sell their home. It is an epidemic. It is also rather like the Post Office scandal. This is an early warning of a major scandal. Will the Secretary of State agree to look into this matter as it is very important, especially in the north of England?
Alex Chalk
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that matter on the Floor of the House. He will understand—I know that he well appreciates this—that it is not for the Secretary of State to be ordering investigations, but, plainly, the matters he raised are serious. I invite the police and prosecutors to take all appropriate steps to investigate it if that is what is required.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Gareth Bacon)
Although the Ministry of Justice collates statistics nationally on the principal criminal offence for which a perpetrator is prosecuted, convicted or sentenced, including data on their ethnicity, it does not collate data on whether the crime that they committed was part of joint enterprise, so unfortunately I am unable to provide the information that the hon. Lady requests. However, we are considering whether such data could be collected as part of the common platform programme, which aims to provide a single case management system that would enable the sharing of such evidence and case information across the criminal justice system.
Kim Johnson
I welcome that response, but the Minister will know that Manchester Metropolitan University has recently carried out some research into the cost of prosecuting under joint enterprise. Some £250 million is spent processing joint enterprises cases, and an extra £1.2 billion is spent incarcerating the just over 1,000 people who are convicted. Those are eye-watering amounts of money, so does the Minister agree that we need to review the doctrine of joint enterprise to ensure that only those who are responsible for significant contribution to a crime are punished for it?
Gareth Bacon
There is a cost to justice. People who are found guilty of crime based on the evidence presented to a court of law have been sentenced, and there is a cost to their incarceration. Simply put, the cost of incarcerating people is not a reason to review the law.
Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mike Freer)
The Government are clear that it is in the best interests of the people of Wales for justice to remain a reserved matter. The current arrangement works well and allows Wales to benefit from being part of a larger, world-renowned justice system. Devolving justice to Wales would mean losing those benefits and would be extremely expensive and complex, requiring the duplication of functions.
Beth Winter
Following the publication last month of the final report by the independent commission on the constitutional future of Wales, the First Minister of Wales confirmed unambiguously that it is the policy of the Welsh Government, and indeed of the Welsh Labour party, to support the devolution of the justice system. In pursuing the devolution of the Probation Service, he said:
“We will have to explore…governance…financial arrangements”
and the interface between Welsh and English services. When will the Minister meet the Counsel General for Wales to discuss the devolution of justice?
Mike Freer
If the representatives for the Welsh Government wish to meet me, I am more than happy to explain why Wales being part of the English and Welsh legal system remains the preferred option for this Government. Why would Wales want to leave the most successful legal services system in the world?
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Laura Farris)
It is paramount that victims come forward without fear that their privacy will be violated. That is why we are taking steps, through the Victims and Prisoners Bill, to create a statutory restriction that limits police requests to third-party material that is necessary and proportionate, and to inform victims of why such material is being requested. The Government have also asked the Law Commission to undertake a review on the use of evidence in sexual offence prosecutions, and it is due to report later this year.
Anna McMorrin
My constituent had all her counselling records used against her in a harrowing trial that she said was worse than the crime itself. Will the Victims and Prisoners Bill be sufficiently amended so that medical and social services records are not used against victims in court, and family courts are not used to perpetuate such abuse against the victim, particularly with the use of the term “parental alienation”?
Laura Farris
I am truly sorry to hear of what happened to the hon. Lady’s constituent. I hope that I can reassure her by saying that new regulations will be published under the Victims and Prisoners Bill to create a code of practice setting out the principles that the police should apply to all third-party requests, including for counselling, therapy and medical notes. The police will be required to complete a new request form that sets out the purpose and impact of their request. The Crown Prosecution Service also has a robust case file review process to ensure that guidance on necessary and proportionate requests is complied with. The CPS pre-trial therapy guidelines make it crystal clear that victims must not delay therapy for criminal investigation and prosecution.
Ruth Jones
Recently, I was able to visit the Gwent rape investigation unit and see what an excellent job the police officers there are doing. However, can the Minister explain why the Government thought it was appropriate to boast about the so-called progress on the rape review when the proportion of cases being charged has halved since 2016, and the key adviser quit because of the lack of drive to improve outcomes for victims?
Laura Farris
I have also heard very good reports of the work that Gwent police are doing, so I am glad to hear what the hon. Lady says. I must push back very slightly on what has happened since we launched the end-to-end rape review. We are prosecuting more rape cases than we were in 2010. Conviction rates are higher, and perpetrators are going to prison for almost 50% longer than they were in 2010; the average sentence increased from six and a half years to nine and a half years. I accept that the last independent adviser to the rape review went, but last week we announced the appointment of Professor Katrin Hohl, a legal academic who pioneered Operation Soteria, which I think every Member of this House agrees has transformed the way in which police investigate and prosecute rape, and is leading to better criminal justice outcomes for victims.
Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mike Freer)
Non-disclosure agreements cannot prevent any disclosure that is required or protected by law; nor can they preclude an individual from asserting statutory rights. The courts and judiciary apply the law in relation to NDAs as appropriate in individual cases and, where necessary, determine whether or not they should be enforceable.
Sarah Green
Last year, the Legal Services Board stated that incidents of misconduct by lawyers dealing with non-disclosure agreements were a “cause for concern”, and that there was a strong case for a strengthened and harmonised regulatory approach. Does the Minister agree that there is a need for stronger regulation in this area, and will he support the Bill tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), which would end the misuse of non-disclosure agreements in the workplace?
Mike Freer
I am more than happy to have a discussion with the hon. Lady, but my understanding is that the Solicitors Regulation Authority has already published a warning notice reminding solicitors and law firms that potential professional misconduct by a person or a firm should be reported to the regulator. If she believes that there are still gaps in that warning notice, or that more needs to be done, I am more than happy to have a meeting.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)
Since the last Justice questions, I have met with the families of those killed by Valdo Calocane: Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates. They deserve answers, and a series of reviews are taking place, including by the Attorney General, on referring the sentence in that case to the Court of Appeal.
We have announced an early legal advice pilot to help families agree child arrangements quickly. I have visited Leeds to see how £6 million is being spent to roll out state-of-the-art courtrooms as part of our £220 million investment in the court estate. I have travelled to the USA to meet my counterparts to discuss how Russia can be held financially and legally to account, and I was fitted with a GPS tag to experience for myself how effective modern technology is in holding offenders and Justice Secretaries to account—a constant physical reminder that debts to society must be repaid, court orders must be observed, and transgressors face the very real risk of the clang of a prison gate. [Hon. Members: “Do you have it on now?”] No, I do not.
Steve Double
As my right hon. and learned Friend just mentioned, he spent a day wearing a GPS tag, along with Jack Elsom from The Sun. Could he outline what he learned from that experience, and say whether he thinks GPS tags are a robust and effective means of monitoring and punishing low-level offenders? Will he reveal to the House who else from the Lobby is on his list to be tagged?
Alex Chalk
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. There is a serious point here: our modern GPS tags act as a constant physical reminder that debts to society must be repaid and that breach of a court order will be detected, so that a person who steps over the line, literally or metaphorically, and enters an area from which he is barred knows that he is liable to be returned to court and sent to prison. We could put the entire Lobby on alcohol tags, but I think that would deal a fatal blow to the UK drinks industry.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
I recently visited Cookham Wood young offenders institution. There, officers told me about the challenges they face, including a staffing shortage and shocking recruitment issues, which have led to rising levels of violence. Can the Minister say when he last visited Cookham Wood, and why this Government continue to be unable to solve those crucial problems?
Alex Chalk
I have visited Cookham Wood. I cannot remember the precise date, but the really important statistic to note is that in the period up to the end of September last year, we recruited an additional 1,400 prison officers. The numbers are going up, and the attrition rate is going down. [Interruption.] Hold on. That is because we have introduced measures such as the new colleague mentor scheme, rolled out £100 million on security and so on. We recognise that the safety of our prisons is in large measure down to the quality and quantity of our staff, and we are improving on both counts.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Mr Speaker
Order. Sir Edward, you should know better. This is topicals. You are a member of the Panel of Chairs as well; you are meant to set an example, not abuse your position.
Alex Chalk
I do not have the advantage of having listened to Lord Hoffmann, but we do not think that the Strasbourg Court will need to intervene, given that our domestic courts will have carefully assessed whether anyone we intend to remove to Rwanda would suffer serious and irreversible harm.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
Unison, of which I am a proud member, has criticised Government plans to reintroduce employment tribunal fees, on the grounds that the
“only people who would benefit from their reintroduction are unscrupulous bosses”.
The Resolution Foundation has found that the lowest-paid workers were least likely to bring a claim, so how can the Justice Secretary defend plans to reintroduce employment tribunal fees, which will disproportionately affect those on low wages and present an obstacle to justice for those who need it most?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mike Freer)
The £55 claim issue fee is modest, and this is completely different from the previous fee scheme, so I simply do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s characterisation. I am quite happy to defend that small, reasonable fee as necessary to help defray the costs of our system.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Alex Chalk
Data on foreign national offenders is collected at the point when an individual becomes an offender—in other words, at the point of conviction—but in addition, the Ministry of Justice records the numbers in custody awaiting trial who are FNOs, and that stands at approximately 3,300. On driving the figures down, the Home Office is working to increase take-up of conditional cautions, which lead to FNOs being expelled from the UK, in place of prosecution, in appropriate cases.
Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Laura Farris)
I think the hon. Lady for her question. The Criminal Justice Bill deals with repeal provisions for the Vagrancy Act, and we are bringing the Bill back on Report with more on rough sleeping.
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
Mike Freer
I can reassure my hon. Friend that we would not dream of forgetting about him. We have seen an increase, particularly on special educational needs and disabilities, of over 300% in receipts, and with the increased number of judges and panel members, we are seeing a 37% increase in disposals this year. We are trying to address the issue of SEND with the Department for Education, and if my hon. Friend thinks there is a problem in this area, I am more than happy to meet him to discuss it.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
Mike Freer
The hon. Gentleman is comparing apples with oranges. The two fees are completely different, in terms of quantum. A £55 claim issue fee is a small contribution towards the tribunals, which cost us £80 million a year to run. I do not think that that is unreasonable.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
This week, we celebrate the fifth anniversary of my Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration etc) Act 2019 completing its parliamentary stages, but it is also the fifth anniversary of the Government taking no action to enforce clause 4, which gives coroners the power to investigate stillbirths. There has been some progress: on 8 December, after 56 weeks, they have produced the results of that consultation, but there has been no Government response. When will we have a Government response, and what is the Government’s problem with getting on with something that is overwhelmingly supported?
Mike Freer
I appreciate that my hon. Friend is increasingly agitated about the implementation of aspects of the Bill; however, the consultation was not conclusive, and the stillbirths landscape has changed. Those issues have to be addressed if the Bill is to be introduced correctly.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
Mike Freer
We are investing an initial £10 million to make sure that legal aid is available for exactly those problems.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Under the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, there is a solemn duty on prison governors to prepare ex-offenders for life outside prison. Seven years on from the introduction of that duty, they are still not doing what they are required to do. We want reoffending ended, and if people are prepared properly for when they leave prison, we increase the chances of preventing reoffending. What action is my right hon. and learned Friend taking on this?
Alex Chalk
My hon. Friend has done spectacular work on this issue. His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service published a policy framework setting out the steps prisons and probation services must take to meet their duty to refer those at risk of homelessness. I was reading it this morning, and it contains template referral forms—and many other aids—that are to be filled out at prescribed points in the prisoner journey. Governors are now held to account, as my hon. Friend rightly indicates, for their record on preparing prisoners for life post release, which is why I am able to say that in 2022-23, some 86% of prisoners were accommodated on the first night of release. That is up from 80% in 2019.
Mr Speaker
I know that question was on the Order Paper to be taken before topicals, but if the Justice Secretary could shorten his answers to make sure everyone has time in topicals, that would help me and others.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Laura Farris
I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s question. She will know how much we are doing on victim support, particularly in terms of sexual and domestic abuse. I would like to speak to her about this issue, and about parental responsibility in the family courts, so I think we should have a meeting. I ask her to write to my office after questions to arrange it.
Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)
Last week, Colin Pitchfork, the double child rapist and murderer, successfully applied for a reconsideration of the Parole Board’s decision not to release him, on the grounds that the decision was irrational. I have issued a survey across my South Leicestershire constituency on Parole Board reform. Will the Secretary of State meet me urgently to discuss the Parole Board rules, as amended in 2019?
Alex Chalk
I certainly will meet my hon. Friend. He has been assiduous for many years in raising this matter on behalf of his constituents. The Parole Board does an exceptionally good job. There are two cases in which decisions appear to have been overturned because they were irrational, and that is why I am meeting the Parole Board tomorrow.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
The Justice Secretary mentioned the duty of candour that he imposed on the police. Has he considered legislating to introduce the same for all public bodies?
Alex Chalk
I can say that we want to extend that duty to healthcare settings, because we do not want health professionals closing ranks when something goes wrong. It is important to say that since Hillsborough there have been so many changes, including through the Inquiries Act 2005, which mean that there can be criminal liability for those who do not do what the hon. Gentleman and I must think is a matter of common sense, which is to tell the truth.
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
Wedding experts at Hitched say that independent celebrants are the biggest trend for couples getting married this year, and with the Church, registrars and humanists all providing additional options, it is about time that we updated the marriage laws, which are from 1836. Will the Government publish a substantive response to the Law Commission’s 2022 report on wedding reform?
Mike Freer
As someone who benefited from the last wedding reform on equal marriage, I can say that this Government are entirely committed to ensuring that we report as fast as possible on the Law Commission’s review. If my hon. Friend would like to meet my noble Friend Lord Bellamy to discuss it further, we can make that happen.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
The backlog of asylum and immigration tribunal cases has soared from 35,400 to 41,500 in a month—a result, no doubt, of the Home Office pushing through decisions at the end of last year to clear its previous backlog. What is the Minister doing to tackle this new backlog that they have created?
Mike Freer
We are increasing fees for legal aid practitioners. We have seen a massive increase in cases going through the system, and that is why we are investing to make sure that legal representation is available.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
Given that the existing prisons in Buckinghamshire cannot recruit to fill staffing vacancies, where does the Ministry of Justice think it will magic up staff and prison officers for the mega-prison that it now has planning permission for in my constituency?
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)
My hon. Friend is a champion of his constituents. While we may disagree on this issue, I know that he speaks for a lot of his constituents, and he does so vocally in this House. We have highlighted the increase of 1,400 in the number of prison officers. We are confident that we can staff all the new prisons and that they are necessary to meet our obligations.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
What can I do to change the Secretary of State’s view on joint enterprise? Has he read Lord Finkelstein’s recent and very good article in The Times? Please can the Minister have an open mind and look at it again? There are more than 1,000 young men in prison on long sentences.
Alex Chalk
Joint enterprise is there to ensure that those who act as the burglary lookout, those who provide the weapon in a murder and those who drive the getaway vehicle do not escape the consequences of their crimes, which shatter lives. It is already the case, as in the case of Jogee, that the person must have helped or encouraged the commission of the offence and intended to do so. If the Labour party’s position is that such people should escape culpability, it should say so. Our advice on this side of the House is clear: do not commit crime.
Immigration Rules and Border Security
(10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on changes to UK immigration rules and the security of the UK’s borders.
The Minister for Legal Migration and the Border (Tom Pursglove)
The security of the UK border is a top priority for me, the Home Secretary and the Home Office. Everything we do in this area is designed to reduce risks to this country and its citizens. Border Force performs checks on 100% of scheduled passengers arriving in the UK and risk-based intelligence-led checks on general aviation. It is deeply disturbing that information that has no basis in fact was leaked by the independent chief inspector to a national newspaper before the Home Office had the chance to respond. We are urgently investigating this breach of confidential information in full in the normal way.
Moving to yesterday’s changes to the immigration rules, since the launch of our Ukraine schemes the UK has offered or extended sanctuary to more than 280,000 Ukrainians, thanks to the immense generosity of the British public. I know that colleagues across the House are grateful for all the work that has been going on in communities to facilitate that support. Almost two years on from the start of the conflict, the UK Government’s commitment to the Ukrainian cause remains undimmed. It is right that we continue to adapt and develop our visa routes to ensure that they keep pace with the rapidly shifting situation in Ukraine. We must ensure that they remain as efficient and sustainable as possible, while providing stability for those we have welcomed to the UK and those who still need our sanctuary. Ukrainian nationals who may have previously been eligible to apply to come to the UK under the Ukraine family scheme will remain eligible to apply for the Homes for Ukraine sponsorship scheme.
Separately, the Government remain wholeheartedly committed to reducing levels of legal migration. Measures to curb immigration abuse and further reduce net migration are being implemented, ranging from salary increases for work and family visas to reforming the shortage occupation list, removing the right for overseas care workers to bring dependants, and requiring care providers to be registered with the Care Quality Commission before hiring overseas carers. The rule changes outlined yesterday, which relate to the care sector, pave the way for those measures to take effect.
Yvette Cooper
It has been reported today that hundreds of high-risk private flights have landed in the UK without proper border security checks having been done. If the Minister disputes the figures, will he tell us the true ones now? Were all the high-risk private flights checked or not?
Ministers have been warned repeatedly about border security risks on private flights. The Prime Minister may think it is just all his own mates, but there are risks from organised crime, money laundering, drugs and weapons smuggling, trafficking, and even terrorism. There has been a 75% drop in class A drugs border seizures. There has been a 39% drop in firearms seizures. Criminal gangs are still organising dangerous boat crossings. There have also been repeated failures in security checks at Western Jet Foil; a 30% drop in foreign national offender removals; a 50% drop in failed asylum seeker removals; and new revelations of visa failures in the Home Office, which issued 275 visas to a care home that did not even exist.
Instead of getting a grip, what is the Minister’s response? It is just to sack the border inspector and sit on his reports, as well as changing the rules to stop Ukrainian family members from coming here. What message of solidarity does that send to a country we are supposed to be supporting in the face of Russian aggression?
Will the Minister now publish all the outstanding inspector’s reports? Is it true that no inspector will be in place for the next six months? Will he tell us the key border security facts? Have all high-risk private flights been met and checked in the last year? Home Office Ministers promised me in this Chamber that that would happen 13 years ago. If not, will he tell us how many high-risk flights—maybe involving dangerous people and weapons—have been allowed into the country without proper border security checks?
The Conservatives have broken the asylum system, bust the Home Office budget, badly undermined Britain’s border security and put our country’s security at risk. Will they ever get a grip?
Tom Pursglove
I am very disappointed with the right hon. Lady’s response on the certainty provided by yesterday’s announcement on Ukraine. Just before the February recess, we had a good debate involving colleagues from across the House where there were calls for certainty on the future of those visa schemes. The Government have come forward and provided that assurance about where we go from here.
Of course, the first of those visas does not expire until 2025. If we add on the 18-month period, that is an additional two and a half years of certainty for individuals from the here and now, which I think is very welcome. There will continue to be an in-country and out-of-country approach. We of course engage with our Ukrainian friends and allies and will support them in any way we can. We are ahead of the curve internationally in giving that assurance. The right hon. Lady should be on the front foot in welcoming that, because it is good, positive news.
We will publish the reports by the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration and our responses to them. That will happen soon. On the right hon. Lady’s questions about the flights at London City airport and the information put in the public domain, the Home Office categorically rejects the claims by David Neal. Mr Neal’s report on general aviation border checks at London City airport was submitted last week and underwent fact checking, as is standard practice. Mr Neal was made aware of a specific issue with the recording of data at London City airport that meant that a large proportion of flights recorded as high risk should have been reclassified as low risk. It is disappointing that he has chosen to put misleading data into the public domain.
The Home Office’s priority is to deliver a safe and secure border, and we will never compromise on that. When notified, we cleared 100% of high-risk general aviation flights either remotely or in person, in accordance with the GA guidance, and we are committed to responding effectively, using an intelligence-led approach, as well as to working thoroughly with the wider law enforcement community.
The right hon. Lady will appreciate that there is a report on this issue. We will respond to the inspector’s report, and that response will have answers to the substantive points posed in it. We will deal with it in entirely the proper way.
It is rather ironic that the right hon. Lady talked about the Opposition’s stance on the security of our border, because she quite happily voted against the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 when we legislated to introduce electronic travel authorisations, which are critical to the future of our border security and allow greater automation for passengers. They improve the passenger experience at the border while being robust on border security. [Interruption.] She is chuntering away, but she voted against those important measures.
When it comes to dangerous foreign criminals on our streets, we hear those on the Opposition Benches opposing removal flights—the Leader of the Opposition and others have taken that stance. They would allow dangerous criminals and dangerous individuals to be on the streets of the United Kingdom.
This Government have a credible plan to stop the small boat crossings of the channel and the risk that they present to our security, as well as the wider criminality. Again, the right hon. Lady has opposed all those steps. We have a plan and we are working through it. That is the position and it is clear for all to see.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Either I misheard, or the suggestion by the Opposition that the measure the Minister has introduced will prevent Ukrainian family members from coming to Britain is deeply untrue and highly irresponsible, isn’t it?
Tom Pursglove
My right hon. Friend summarises the situation neatly. There will continue to be an in-country opportunity for people to apply to extend their visas. Through the Homes for Ukraine scheme, Ukrainians will still be able to come to the UK to access the sanctuary that we proudly support. We have seen communities across the country doing an enormous amount of positive, welcome work to support that national effort. Any suggestion that that will not be the case moving forward is wrong—it is deliberate scaremongering and people should stop it.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
There is a bitter irony in the UK Government making changes to health and social care visas—a sector that is crying out for people—that will make it more difficult for people to come and look after our loved ones. They say, “Come and look after our loved ones, but you can’t bring your own.” How utterly heartless. The sector is dominated by women, who are more likely to have children with them. What equality impact assessment has the Minister carried out on these very poor plans? What advice is he taking from the Migration Advisory Committee? This is a crisis of the Government’s making. The committee encouraged the Government to pay people in the health and social care sector more and commended Scotland, which has less reliance on people coming in because we have a workforce strategy and we pay care workers the real living wage. Will he do the same?
Saturday 24 February marks two years since the escalation of Russian aggression in Ukraine—two years longer than any of us would have wanted. We are appalled that this week the UK Government have made it more difficult for Ukrainians to seek sanctuary here by closing the Ukraine family scheme with immediate effect at 3 pm yesterday, with absolutely no notice. The Minister talked of an 18-month extension, but for new applications that has been reduced from years. Those who hold visas now cannot sponsor, so the wives who want to bring injured husbands to live here presumably can no longer do so. How can he say that is fair? How can this Government say “Slava Ukraini” while closing the door to those in need?
Tom Pursglove
To deal with the latter points first, that is not the case. There continues to be a route for Ukrainians to come to the United Kingdom. It is arguably a more effective route to facilitate sanctuary for people, with all the enhanced checks and support that come with the Homes for Ukraine route. There is the ability for people who are here in the UK to sustain and extend their sanctuary. The hon. Lady should welcome that; she was involved in the Westminster Hall debate before the recess, as was I. I am proud of the Government’s work to support communities to facilitate that sanctuary. We will continue to be front footed and forward leaning when it comes to doing so, because it is morally critical that we are at the forefront and are giving people that certainty, way ahead of our international allies. Again, she should welcome that.
When it comes to care workers, as I have said on many occasions, the current situation for dependants is disproportionate. We saw 120,000 dependants come with 100,000 care workers. That is not sustainable in the longer term. That is why we are taking forward these measures. The hon. Lady mentioned specifically the Migration Advisory Committee, which has consistently said that migration is not the answer to workforce shortages in the social care sector. That is why the Government have invested £7.5 billion to support the strategy for social care workforce development and to boost capacity in social care, including through retention of the dedicated workforce already undertaking these vital roles.
As a former Minister for Disabled People at the Department for Work and Pensions, I can also say that I firmly back the work the Government are doing to support more people domestically into work through the comprehensive back to work plan. The hon. Lady should support those efforts. We are putting real resourcing behind that—that should be our first port of call.
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)
I welcome the news that the Ukrainian visa scheme has been extended by 18 months; that is very generous. Could the Minister confirm that while there is a war in Ukraine and while it is unsafe for these families to return, they will have a home in this country?
Tom Pursglove
I know that my hon. Friend cares deeply about providing that sanctuary for our Ukrainian friends, as do I, colleagues across Government and, I would argue, Members across this House. We are all incredibly moved by what we have seen in our communities, with people rallying behind those Ukrainians to support them and to provide that warm welcome. We will continue to sustain that effort, which we do in partnership with the Ukrainian Government; we regularly discuss these matters with them. Of course, we will continue to sustain that sanctuary for the duration of this invasion. We are firmly on the side of the Ukrainians in winning this war.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Accountability and oversight are critical to the effective management of UK border security. The Home Affairs Committee has repeatedly questioned the Government about the delay in the Home Office publishing the chief inspector’s reports—I understand there are now 15 reports outstanding. We are also concerned as the chief inspector is the statutory body, and there is no deputy or provision for the institution to exist without the chief inspector in post. With David Neal leaving at the end of March, will the Minister update the House on what has happened to the recruitment process that ended in December? When will the Home Affairs Committee get the pre-appointment hearing that we are entitled to have for the new chief inspector?
Tom Pursglove
I think the Chairman of the Committee will appreciate that it would not be appropriate for me to comment on appointment-related matters, but we will follow the proper process in appointing a chief inspector of borders and immigration. The shadow Home Secretary also asked about the laying before Parliament of the Government’s responses to the reports; as I said in response to that question, it will happen soon.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
People who want to work in our care sector from other countries are welcome to do so where it is appropriate. However, under the current model, many people are paying thousands of pounds to agents to contact care home owners in this country who, even if there are no vacancies, will allow people to come here and send them off to work in supermarkets or other areas. The pay then goes back to the agent—the individuals do not even get the pay. Will the Minister take measures to combat what is clearly a criminal conspiracy and prevent it from happening? People who want to come and work here are being exploited ruthlessly.
Tom Pursglove
Where we see abuse of our migration routes, we will root that out and deal with it robustly. That is one of the reasons the Care Quality Commission accreditation angle has been such an important part of the package of measures we are taking forward, ensuring that the roles people come here to fulfil are credible, real jobs in these workplaces. We think it is right that there is a better audit trail for those appointments, not least for the very reason my hon. Friend highlights—to minimise the risks of people being exploited, cheated and sold a fake prospectus for what they are signing up to. That cannot be right. It is right that we as a Government take a robust posture over it.
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Ind)
Tapadh leibh, Mr Speaker, and thank you for taking this urgent question. As you know, I tabled something similar after the BBC and The Guardian reported that the family unification route for Ukrainian families had been unexpectedly closed. I warned the Government against such mean-mindedness. The UK Government were the meanest-minded in Europe at the outbreak of the Ukrainian war, which caused a lot of work for civil servants, for the Government themselves, and for MPs—all unnecessarily. Most importantly, it caused angst for families in Na h-Eileanan an Iar and elsewhere, and concern and worry for those who want to come to the islands and elsewhere. Why? I would ask them to think again. Can the Minister confirm exactly what he has done? I have a feeling he is being economical with clarity here. Are the BBC and The Guardian wrong in what they have reported?
Tom Pursglove
The position, very clearly, is that we have arguably been the most generous with the approach we have adopted to provide sanctuary to our Ukrainian friends. There will continue to be an out-of-country route through the Homes for Ukraine scheme to enable people to come here, as well as the visa extension. As I said, we are getting on the front foot earlier than others in providing certainty and in terms of the length of those visas. Those are measures to be welcomed, not traduced.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
There is a certain irony about Opposition Members going on about border security, when a lot of them tried to prevent a load of convicted criminals from being deported. I welcome the income thresholds going up for getting visas and the changes for social care workers, too. I have been very concerned that other countries have produced evidence about how that route was abused and it is right that we clamp down on dependants coming here. On the welcome changes to net legal migration, will the Minister provide the evidence and data soon to show the public that it is finally heading in the right direction and that they are being heard? I am incredibly concerned that if mainstream parties, such as ourselves, do not get it and show the public that we get it on migration, it will fuel the extremes.
Tom Pursglove
My hon. Friend speaks with real passion and I know that people in Ipswich feel very strongly about this issue. That is why, as a Government, we have a credible plan to bring the numbers down. We believe the inflows will be reduced by 300,000, taking into account the changes we are delivering, relative to the year prior. On his request on what we can do to report around that and provide information about the progress we are making, that is something I am considering.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
So, when does the Minister expect the next independent chief inspector of borders and immigration to take up the post?
Tom Pursglove
We will follow the proper process to make an appointment.
Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)
It is obviously right that we helped those in Ukraine who urgently needed our help, but most people in Stoke-on-Trent and wider north Staffordshire think that the net migration figures have been unacceptably high, and that that has put significant pressure on our local services. Does my hon. Friend the Minister agree with me that it is right that those who come here and use services but have not contributed to their cost should face higher visa and nationality fees?
Tom Pursglove
My hon. Friend is right to touch on the general feeling in Stoke-on-Trent about the net migration situation. That is why we are taking action. The Government feel that the borders and migration system costs we charge people to access those services should reflect the costs we incur. It should not fall to the UK taxpayer to pick up those costs; it should be the individuals who avail themselves of those services who cover their costs. We continue to work towards that in greater detail.
Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)
Aviation has been consistently flagged as a danger to national security. Does the Minister agree that the failure to check those arriving in the UK that way is putting the United Kingdom at risk?
Tom Pursglove
I refer the hon. Lady to what I said in relation to the shadow Home Secretary’s earlier contribution and the questions she asked on that issue. We treat that subject with utmost seriousness. We will, of course, respond to the ICIBI report in a proper and thorough way, having considered the points it raises and ensuring that proper fact-checking is carried out for the reasons I have touched on.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
If the purpose of yesterday’s announcement was to provide some reassurance to Ukrainian citizens who have sought refuge in the UK, why are the Government forcing them to go through yet another application? Every Member of this House will have experienced the problems supporting the initial applications: there will be delays; different family members will get confirmation at different times; and children will be dropped off by mistake, causing great distress. My question to the Minister is this. Should UKVI not be focusing on its existing backlog, rather than adding unnecessary processes to its workload and distressing Ukrainian families who are now our constituents and living in the United Kingdom?
Tom Pursglove
I disagree with the hon. and learned Lady. We think this is an appropriate approach to extending the visas. It is right and proper that there is a proper process around that, and there are obviously reasons why visas are handled in this particular way. Safeguarding concerns come into all these matters, including extensions, and that is why we will take the approach we take. I want it to be as light-touch as possible. I want it to be as easy as possible. All parliamentarians in this House should be providing reassurance today that the Ukrainian people in our country accessing sanctuary will continue to be able to do so. I would argue that that is the responsibility of all of us as leaders in our country.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
A lot of people in this country, including my constituents, will be amazed that in the week of Navalny’s murder by Putin and the tough times that the Ukrainians are facing against Russian reinforcements, the Government have announced restrictions on Ukrainian families coming here. I have campaigned for a long time, because so many wealthy Russian plutocrats have been flying into this country on small private aircraft and helicopters for a long time. I have asked questions about that. Perhaps we should ask Boris Johnson’s friend in the other place, Lord Lebedev of Hampton and Siberia, what he knows about it.
Tom Pursglove
The fact is that we are providing the certainty that Members across the House have been seeking for the future of the Ukraine scheme. I do not think the hon. Gentleman was in the debate we had prior to the February recess. I would argue that the House spoke with one voice, saying that we need to afford sanctuary for longer, recognising that the war remains ongoing but that the Ukrainian people continue to have our firm backing in their fight against Russian aggression. That is precisely what we have done through this announcement. I reject his characterisation of the situation. The message needs to go out that Ukrainians who are here will continue to be able to have that sanctuary in the years ahead.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
Families in all our constituencies, including East Renfrewshire, rely on the skills and compassion of those who work in the care sector. The chief executive of Scottish Care, Donald Macaskill, yesterday described the Government’s plan to ban overseas care workers from bringing dependants as “shameful and damaging”, saying:
“Treating international colleagues in this manner is contemptible.”
He is right, isn’t he?
Tom Pursglove
There will continue to be an opportunity for international recruitment for care purposes, but we cannot have a situation where 120,000 dependants come with 100,000 visa holders. That is not justifiable. That is not acceptable. That is why we are taking the approach we are taking. There will in future need to be a blend of approach to recruitment. I also happen to think it is right that we should strain every sinew to support people in this country to take on these roles with the proper skills, and that is precisely what the back to work plan does.
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
Closing the Ukrainian families scheme almost two years to the day since Putin’s illegal war began is particularly cruel. The Government speak of a rationalisation of the schemes, but what we really need are further measures to support family reunification. Given the changes, what reassurance can the Government give to those on these schemes that they will be able to bring family members to the UK?
Tom Pursglove
We always keep under review the offer we have as part of the Ukraine scheme and that will continue to be the case, but I reiterate the point that what we have done through this package of changes in its entirety is to sustain an out-of-country route to enable Ukrainians to come to the UK to seek sanctuary, while giving certainty ahead of many other countries, including European Union countries with which the hon. Lady has an affinity. We have got ahead of the curve and provided certainty around sanctuary in a way that I think people in this country want to see.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
The changes the Government keep making to the Ukrainian scheme have unfortunately resulted in far too many Ukrainians becoming homeless. When will the Minister finally, as pledged by his predecessor, meet Glasgow Members of Parliament to discuss how Home Office policies are making refugees homeless in the city of Glasgow?
Tom Pursglove
In fact, the announcement has provided real certainty about the future of the Ukraine schemes at an early stage, and we are ahead of the curve internationally. The hon. Gentleman knows me well, and we have always had a constructive working relationship. I am very willing to meet him to discuss the issue of asylum accommodation and support for refugees in Glasgow, and I know that my colleagues in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities who lead on the accommodation side of the Ukraine scheme would also be happy to engage with him.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for all his helpful answers. In the context of the open border, may I ask what steps have been taken to ensure that Northern Ireland does not become the back door to the rest of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?
Tom Pursglove
The hon. Gentleman is right to raise that point. As he has recognised, we must ensure that our approach to border security is adopted properly throughout the United Kingdom. I was pleased to be able to have a constructive meeting about the future of the Ukraine schemes with the new Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland last week, as part of the conversations that are taking place with the devolved Governments. I told her that I would be very willing to meet her again, and I was delighted to see her in her place and taking on those responsibilities. I am sure that these are matters that she will want to discuss.
Points of Order
(10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You will be aware that the Northern Ireland Assembly was restored two weeks ago. During the period when it was not sitting, Members of the Legislative Assembly were not fulfilling the full range of their functions, and the Secretary of State reduced their salaries.
I wrote to the Leader of the House last week about a matter of which you may well also be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker: the matter of the abstentionist Sinn Féin MPs who have not fulfilled the full range of their own functions, but have received millions of pounds in representative moneys over not two but 22 years. While they receive no salary from the House, the money that they do receive is allocated on the same basis as Short money, namely to assist Opposition parties with such processes as scrutiny and preparation for debates, in none of which Sinn Féin participates. I just wish to ascertain, Madam Deputy Speaker, whether the Leader of the House, having received my letter, has as yet indicated her intention of tabling a motion allowing us to discuss this matter.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for giving me notice of it. I have had no indication that the Government intend to table a motion on this matter, and I believe that Mr Speaker has had no such indication either. However, the hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity to ask the Leader of the House a question on Thursday when she has announced the forthcoming business. I hope that that is helpful; I think that that is the direction in which he should go.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is not something that has happened in the last while; as we have just heard from my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), it has been going on for a number of years. Representations have been made to the Government and to the Minister responsible on numerous occasions, so it is disappointing that my hon. Friend has had to bring the matter up yet again today. Is it not time for the Minister to come to the House, make a statement and get this matter sorted out?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I do not think there is much that I can add to what I said earlier, but I am confident that those on the Treasury Bench and the Whips have heard what both hon. Gentlemen had to say, and I am sure that they will be reporting back. I urge the hon. Gentlemen to take the matter up on Thursday, when the Leader of the House will be here.
Broadcasting (Listed Sporting Events) (Scotland)
Tuesday 20th February 2024
(10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Broadcasting (Listed Sporting Events) (Scotland) Bill 2023-24 View all Broadcasting (Listed Sporting Events) (Scotland) Bill 2023-24 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
A Ten Minute Rule Bill is a First Reading of a Private Members Bill, but with the sponsor permitted to make a ten minute speech outlining the reasons for the proposed legislation.
There is little chance of the Bill proceeding further unless there is unanimous consent for the Bill or the Government elects to support the Bill directly.
For more information see: Ten Minute Bills
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to expand the list of sporting events that must be made available for broadcast by free-to-air television channels to include all qualifying matches played by the Scotland men’s and women’s national football teams in the World Cup and the UEFA European Football Championship; and for connected purposes.
Like many people throughout the United Kingdom, I look forward to watching the European football finals in June. Not just Scotland but England, and hopefully Wales too, will be there if they win their qualifier. I was fortunate enough to attend the Scotland games when the competition was held in England in 1996, as well as going to France for the World Cup in 1998. Scotland are my team. They represent our nation, and Steve Clarke and his lads have done us proud. We can dream of winning the competition, but in reality I shall be happy with our qualifying from the group. We have faltered and failed to do that before—sometimes through bad luck, although at other times it has been self-inflicted—but in Andy Robertson, John McGinn, Scott McTominay and others we have a squad who are skilled and determined as well as a canny manager.
The Tartan Army who are going to Germany will enjoy the spectacle, while others, including me, will simply watch the games on television. That, after all, is how most people watch their national team. Going to the game is either too difficult or too expensive, or else there is simply insufficient capacity for all to attend, so it is at home, on their TV screens, that most people follow their team. For quite some time, however, that has not been the case for Scotland fans in the qualifying matches for this tournament or the qualifying matches for international competitions, which is why this Bill is necessary. Like the World cup finals, the Euro finals are available on free-to-view channels—that is specified by law—but Scotland qualifying matches are not protected. They have been available only through Viaplay, a Swedish media company, and at a cost of £180 per annum. In these tough financial times, that is a cost that many cannot afford, no matter how much they would like to watch the games. It is a poll tax on Scots watching their national team.
The qualifying games—a number of which were enthralling, with wins at home against Spain and away against Norway, were not available to view for many people other than those fortunate enough to be able to go to the match itself or able to pay for Viaplay. That is as unfair and unjust as a refereeing error or VAR review which punishes your team. It has meant that Scots fans have missed out on the well-earned success of their team. Even worse, when these Euro finals are past and the qualifiers for the World cup in north America begin, Scots will again be deprived of the opportunity to watch their team on free-to-air TV. The games go on as another competition beckons, but many Scots are excluded from watching their team’s journey, and that is neither right nor fair. It is not the norm in Europe, where only seven countries including Scotland and Northern Ireland are in this situation; nor is it the case in England, where qualifying games have been free to air on ITV or Channel 4 since 2018. Even in Wales, where rights to the national team’s qualifying fixtures were also sold to Viaplay in 2022, access was available free to air on S4C.
The charging for viewing extends from the major competitions even to friendly fixtures. While they may lack the same bite as the competitive games, many wish to see their heroes perform or new stars be given an opportunity, but the four friendly fixtures arranged for Scotland’s warm-up for Germany are all to be behind a pay wall on Viaplay, so even these non-competitive fixtures will be denied to many Scottish fans. Meanwhile, England’s warm-up will be broadcast free to view on Channel 4.
The anomaly between Scotland and England international matches extends beyond the men’s international team. For the women’s game, ITV has the rights to the English national team, having recently taken over from the BBC. Scotland games are shown on BBC Alba, a channel I know and enjoy but which, although free to view, has neither the reach nor the resource of the bigger channels. Indeed, I have seen Scottish and English fixtures going head to head on the BBC and BBC Alba. Why is there pan-UK coverage of the England game, but restricted access to the Scottish one? Similarly, the BBC holds the rights to England under-21 internationals while Scotland’s are left to the Scottish Football Association website, which shows that it is not just in respect of the men’s team but across genders and ages that Scots are being deprived of the right to watch their national team. Those fixtures also matter to fans.
The Scottish football press were once described as fans with typewriters; now it seems to be the UK broadcasters who are fans with TV stations, but while the Scottish press supported the Scottish team, the UK broadcasters only seem to support England. UK broadcasters are revealing themselves not as UK television outlets, but as Team England only. That is happening whether we are talking about the state-funded BBC, publicly owned Channel 4, or the commercial ITV or STV channels that have broadcasting obligations beyond the border.
Some may blame the Scottish Football Association, which sold the rights to Viaplay. Let me say at the outset that I do not hold the SFA responsible; culpability rests with broadcasters, who have not just rights but duties, and who are failing Scotland. The SFA has a duty to the game in Scotland. That responsibility runs from the grassroots and football simply being a game to be enjoyed by youngsters, through developing pathways for people to continue playing at whatever age or standard, and on to those entering into the professional ranks and, ultimately, the pinnacle of the national team. The SFA is also required to nurture and develop not just the men’s game, but the growing women’s game and football among people of different ages and capacities. The men’s and women’s international teams are the pinnacle, but the SFA’s remit covers all.
All that comes at a cost, however, and the SFA is required to fund it. Money is tight for associations, as it is for individuals. Broadcasting money that applies in nations such as Ireland when Premier League games south of the border are shown is denied to Scotland. The reason is that the UK is classed as one broadcasting entity and international football divergence is of no relevance. Hence a cash-strapped SFA needs to maximise income, and the rights to show the national teams’ fixtures are its major asset. Viaplay offers more. It is something the SFA is required to do to promote the game from grassroots to international teams.
What about broadcasters? Why can the BBC, Channel 4 and ITV all have budgets to pay for England games, but not for Scottish ones? It is not that the SFA is seeking more than the FA—quite the opposite. The viewing rights fee for Scotland matches is significantly lower than for England matches, just as transfer fees in the Scottish Premier Leagues are lower than those in the English Premier League. But while UK broadcasters are prepared to pay top dollar to show England games, they are not prepared to fund a bawbee for a Scotland game. Indeed, that was stated by Simon Pitts of STV when he gave evidence to the Scottish Affairs Committee. He said that there was
“very little prospect of a larger commercial return UK-wide, which in turn determines the level of bid.”
Scots TV licence fees do not, therefore, matter, and obligations to Scots viewers count for little. The licence fee paid by Scots and the rights given in Scotland to UK broadcasters are not being matched by coverage.
That is why this Bill is necessary. It must be mandatory that Scotland’s games should be available, and broadcasters must live up to their obligations. Scots fans have a right to see their team and to expect no less from their broadcasters.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Kenny MacAskill, Neale Hanvey, Angus Brendan MacNeil, Douglas Chapman, Martyn Day, Carol Monaghan and Jamie Stone present the Bill.
Kenny MacAskill accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 21 June, and to be printed (Bill 166).
Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill
Tuesday 20th February 2024
(10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill 2023-24 View all Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill 2023-24 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 20 February 2024 - (20 Feb 2024)
15:34 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 44 / Noes: 285 - Question accordingly negatived.
15:49 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 226 / Noes: 287 - Question accordingly negatived.
17:12 - The House divided: - Ayes: 286 / Noes: 221 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Sir Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)
I beg to move amendment 12, page 1, line 3, at end insert—
“(1ZA) The OGA must not invite any new seaward area production application licences until the Secretary of State has by regulations brought into effect a ban on flaring and venting relating to new offshore installations other than that required in an emergency.
(1ZB) The Secretary of State must by regulation make such provision so that the OGA is only permitted to invite seaward area production application licences after 2030 once a prohibition is in place on routine flaring and venting for all offshore installations operating in UK waters.
(1ZC) A statutory instrument containing regulations under subsections (1ZA) and (1ZB) is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.
(1ZD) In subsection (1ZA) and (1ZB)—
‘flaring’ means the burning of hydrocarbons produced during oil and gas extraction;
‘venting’ means the release of un-combusted hydrocarbons directly into the atmosphere.”
This amendment prevents the invitation of new seaward area production application licences until the Secretary of State has introduced a ban on flaring and venting by new offshore installations. It also requires the Secretary of State to prevent licensing rounds from 2030 if a wider ban is not in place.
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 15, page 1, line 3, at end insert—
“(1ZA) The OGA must not invite any new seaward area production application licences until the Secretary of State has by regulations brought into effect a requirement that—
(a) all new seaward area production application licences require a specific field commitment of a net zero carbon footprint reached through developing the Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage network or such other means as deemed appropriate; and
(b) a percentage, to be specified in regulations but not less than 30 per cent, of all new seaward area production application licences specifically align petroleum extraction with the refining of petroleum at the Grangemouth oil refinery.
(1ZB) A statutory instrument containing regulations under subsections (1ZA) is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.”
Amendment 7, page 1, line 4, leave out “in each relevant year” and insert “on a case-by-case basis”.
Amendment 2, page 1, line 6, at end insert—
“(aa) the climate test (see section 4ZD)”
This paving amendment, together with amendment 3, sets out the climate test to be applied by the Oil and Gas Authority before inviting applications for seaward new production licences.
Amendment 8, page 1, line 6, at end insert—
“(aa) the energy and job security test (see section 4ZD)”
This paving amendment, together with Amendment 9, introduces a new test to be applied by the OGA before inviting applications for seaward new production licences.
Amendment 10, page 1, line 6, at end insert—
“(aa) the just transition test (see section 4ZD)”
This paving amendment, together with Amendment 11, introduces a new test to be applied by the OGA before inviting applications for seaward new production licences.
Amendment 13, page 1, line 6, at end insert—
“(aa) the just transition plans test (see section 4ZD)”
This paving amendment, together with Amendment 14, introduces a new test to be applied by the OGA before inviting applications for seaward new production licences.
Amendment 17, page 1, line 6, at end insert—
“(aa) the climate change test (see section 4ZD)”
This paving amendment, together with Amendment 18, sets out the climate change test to be applied by the Oil and Gas Authority before inviting applications for seaward new production licences.
Amendment 22, page 1, line 6, at end insert —
“(aa) the home energy efficiency test (see section 4ZD).”
This paving amendment, together with Amendment 24, introduces a home energy efficiency test to be applied by the OGA before inviting applications for seaward area production licences.
Amendment 23, page 1, line 6, at end insert—
“(aa) the Energy Charter test (see section 4ZD).”
This paving amendment, together with Amendment 25, introduces an Energy Charter test to be applied by the OGA before inviting applications for seaward area production licences.
Amendment 19, page 2, line 1, after “of” leave out “liquefied”.
This amendment, together with Amendment 20, would require the carbon intensity of domestic natural gas to be assessed against the carbon intensity of all natural gas imported into the UK.
Amendment 20, page 2, line 7, leave out “liquefied”.
This amendment, together with Amendment 19, would require the carbon intensity of domestic natural gas to be assessed against the carbon intensity of all natural gas imported into the UK.
Amendment 21, page 2, line 24, at end insert—
“(4A) Within six months of the commencement of this Act, the Secretary of State must produce and lay before Parliament a report on the effect of amending the definition of “carbon intensity” as set out in subsection (4) according to section 93 of the Climate Change Act 2008.”
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to report how the carbon intensity test is affected if the definition of carbon intensity were amended to include emissions of gases other than carbon dioxide in line with the carbon dioxide equivalent measure in section 93 of the 2008 Climate Change Act.
Amendment 3, page 3, line 23, at end insert—
“4ZD The climate test mentioned in s 4ZA
The climate test is met in relation to a relevant year if the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finds that current global fossil infrastructure will not emit more greenhouse gases than is compatible with limiting global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius.”
Amendment 9, page 3, line 23, at end insert—
“4ZD The energy and job security test mentioned in s 4ZA
The energy and job security test is met in relation to a relevant year if the OGA assesses that new licences will—
(a) lower energy bills for households;
(b) deliver energy security and reduce reliance on imported fuel sources for domestic consumption;
(c) enhance sustained job security for the oil and gas workforce in areas of the UK economically reliant on the oil and gas sector;
(d) guarantee funding for domestic refineries to increase capacity to process sustainable fuel sources; and
(e) help the oil and gas sector meet commitments set out in the North Sea Transition Deal.”
This amendment sets out a new test to be applied by the OGA before inviting applications for seaward new production licences.
Amendment 11, page 3, line 23, at end insert—
“4ZD The just transition test mentioned in s 4ZA
The just transition test is met in relation to a relevant year if the OGA assesses that—
(a) new licences will support the delivery of the North Sea Transition Deal’s greenhouse gas emission reduction targets of 10% by 2025, 25% by 2027 and 50% by 2030 against a 2018 baseline, to meet the sector’s aim of a net zero basin by 2050; and
(b) the Secretary of State has provided funding to support the development of the renewable energy sector, in areas of the UK economically dependent on the oil and gas sector, equivalent to tax revenues collected from UK oil and gas production.”
This amendment sets out a new test to be applied by the OGA before inviting applications for seaward new production licences.
Amendment 14, page 3, line 23, at end insert—
“4ZD The just transition plans test mentioned in s 4ZA
(1) The just transition plans test is met in relation to a relevant year if the OGA assesses that all existing seaward area production licence holders have published just transition plans for their workforce that are compatible with limiting global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
(2) For the purposes of this section—
“just transition plans” refer to plans agreed through formalised collective agreements with unions in the workplace for consultation on policy;
“workforce” includes workers, directly and indirectly (sub-contracted or agency) employed, or engaged through day-rate or self-employed contract models.”
Amendment 18, page 3, line 23, insert—
“4ZD The climate change test mentioned in 4ZA
The climate change test is met in relation to a relevant year if the latest reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the mitigation of climate change find that the granting of additional seaward area production licences is consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C.”
This amendment sets out a new test to be applied by the OGA before inviting applications for seaward new production licences.
Amendment 24, page 3, line 23, at end insert—
“4ZD The home energy efficiency test mentioned in s 4ZA
The home energy efficiency test is met if the median rating in current Energy Performance Certificates in the United Kingdom falls within or above Band B.”
This amendment sets out the home energy efficiency test to be applied by the OGA before inviting applications for seaward area production licences.
Amendment 25, page 3, line 23, at end insert—
“4ZD The Energy Charter test mentioned in s 4ZA
The Energy Charter Treaty test is met if the United Kingdom has made arrangements to withdraw from the Energy Charter Treaty.”
This amendment sets out the Energy Charter test to be applied by the OGA before inviting applications for seaward area production licences.
Clause stand part.
Clause 2 stand part.
New clause 2—Duty to introduce spatial prioritisation policy—
“After section 4 of the Petroleum Act 1998 insert—
‘4ZAA Duty to introduce spatial prioritisation policy
(1) Before the OGA invites applications for seaward area production licences under this Act the Secretary of State must publish a marine spatial prioritisation policy.
(2) The marine spatial prioritisation policy must establish a process for prioritising offshore renewables, marine protection, fishing activities, oil and gas licensing, and the achievement of relevant targets under the Climate Change Act 2008 and the Environment Act 2021 in any relevant decisions relating to the marine environment made by a body undertaking public functions.
(3) The OGA must comply with the marine spatial prioritisation policy set out in subsection (1) when deciding applications relating to new seaward area production licences.’”
This new clause requires the Secretary of State to publish a marine spatial prioritisation policy, taking into account relevant targets under the Climate Change Act 2008 and the Environment Act 2021.
Sir Alok Sharma
I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
On Second Reading, I said that this Bill was something of a distraction and not necessary on the basis that the North Sea Transition Authority can already grant licences annually or, indeed, whenever it considers it necessary. That will not change with the Bill. I also noted at the time that the two statutory tests in the Bill have been designed in such a way that the computer always says yes to new oil and gas licences, but I also said that I would work with other like-minded colleagues to improve the Bill and bring in further tests that need to be met before any new oil and gas production licences are granted. That is what I and other Members have sought to do.
Amendment 12 seeks to do two things. First, it would stop the invitation of new production application licences until the Secretary of State has introduced a ban on the flaring and venting of methane by new offshore installations. Secondly, it would require the Secretary of State to prevent licensing rounds from 2030 if a wider ban on flaring and venting is not in place. Along with other Members who have signed up to the amendment, I argue that this is an entirely reasonable ask that the Government and all Members should be able to get behind, given that all it modestly seeks to do is put into statute existing guidance on flaring and venting that was issued by the North Sea Transition Authority.
Let me set out the precise wording of the principles that the NSTA expects industry to follow in relation to flaring and venting across all UK continental shelf areas. First,
“flaring and venting and associated emissions should be at the lowest possible levels in the circumstances”.
Secondly, there should be
“zero routine flaring and venting for all by 2030”.
Thirdly,
“all new developments should be planned and developed on the basis of zero routine flaring and venting.”
That is a set of NSTA principles with which amendment 12 in entirely consistent.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Can my right hon. Friend explain why it would be better to import liquefied natural gas, with four times the amount of CO2 produced, rather than have our own gas? His regulations would not apply to the foreign-produced gas we import.
Sir Alok Sharma
My right hon. Friend makes an important point: LNG has a higher carbon-intensity footprint. But the majority of the gas that we import comes by pipeline from Norway, and the production intensity of Norwegian gas is around half that of the UK’s.
Sir Alok Sharma
If I may, I will continue. In their response last year to the Environmental Audit Committee’s report on accelerating the transition from fossil fuels and securing energy supplies, the Government doubled down on the NSTA position. Responding to the EAC recommendation, which called for the banning of flaring from UK installations, the Government noted that they had already signed up to
“make every effort to ensure that routine flaring from existing oil fields ends as soon as possible, and no later than 2030.”
The Government response went on to highlight the NSTA guidance that new developments are approved on the basis of zero routine flaring and venting.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) raised the issue of imported gas. I will just point out to him that, unfortunately, flaring is still a common practice in the UK. By contrast, Norway banned routine flaring in 1971, and the carbon intensity of Norwegian gas production is around half that of UK domestic production.
John Redwood
The marginal gas we would import would come from Qatar or the United States of America. There is not an infinite supply of Norwegian gas, so my right hon. Friend is missing the main point.
Sir Alok Sharma
With respect, I do not think I am missing the main point. The point that the Government are pursuing is to ensure that we have less use of fossil fuels overall and that we expand our renewable capacity, including nuclear, which I know my right hon. Friend supports. That is where we should be going with this strategy. The ban on flaring in Norway is one of the key reasons that Norway has become a leader in the cleaner production of oil and gas, which this Government have clearly indicated that they also want for UK production.
I am looking forward to hearing the Minister’s response to amendment 12. I hope he will say that, given that it is consistent with Government policy and guidance, the Government will introduce a similar amendment in the other place. If they choose not to do that, I am pretty sure that a similar amendment will be tabled in the other place anyway, and that it is likely to be supported. I would just humbly observe that if the Government whip against this or any similar amendment, either in this House or in the other place, they will put colleagues in the absurd position of effectively having to vote against existing Government policy. I am really looking forward to listening to what the Minister has to say.
Several hon. Members rose—
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. We are in Committee, so I remind Members that the Chair should be addressed by name or as “Chair” or “Madam Chair”, as Sir Alok Sharma did, and not as “Mr Deputy Speaker” or “Madam Deputy Speaker”.
Before I call the shadow Minister, I want to make it clear that I will be calling those who have amendments down first and I will then move on to others, going from side to side.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
I would like to speak to our amendments 17, 18, 19 and 20, to comment on other amendments before us today and then to place all this into the context of the Bill as a whole by way of what will effectively be a stand-part contribution. This Bill remains an ill-advised, pointless piece of political posturing—
Dr Whitehead
That was the mild version.
As the right hon. Member for Reading West (Sir Alok Sharma) has informed us, the Bill legislates for something that happens anyway. It will make no difference to bills, according to the Secretary of State. It will make no difference to our energy security, according to the former chair of BP. It will undermine the independence of the North Sea Transition Authority, according to the NSTA’s own board, and it and will reinforce the perception around the world that the UK is rowing back from climate action, according to the former COP President, the right hon. Member for Reading West. We regret that this insubstantial and damaging Bill has proceeded this far, and we will vote against it on Third Reading.
We do not need this one-clause Bill. We need instead a strategy for managing the North sea that supports our energy security, meets our climate commitments and secures the economic and jobs benefits of the transition to a low-carbon economy. We would have liked to debate a new clause setting out a new principal objective for the North Sea Transition Authority that would have put such a strategy into effect. However, because the Bill is so short and tightly drawn around the narrow issue of mandatory licensing rounds, amendments to put a more sensible strategy into place are regrettably not in order. We must therefore take the Bill on its own terms, even if that means treating it with significantly more respect than the drafters have treated this House with in presenting such a trivial and nakedly political proposal.
We have in the Bill at present two tests that should be passed if the Oil and Gas Authority is to proceed with mandatory licence issuance, and we know that the two tests cannot be failed. It is a fact that if properly drafted—we might come to that in a moment—liquefied natural gas will always be more greenhouse gas-intensive in production than UK natural gas and we will always be in a position where gas and oil produced in the UK and in a declining North sea field will not meet our total demand for gas and oil.
I learned in my first year at university—as I think the Minister did, because he did a similar degree to me—that a proposition that cannot be falsified cannot stand as a valid proposition. Here we have two completely non-valid propositions in the Bill. They are bogus and cynically contrived to give the appearance that something has to be achieved before mandatory licencing takes place. At the very least we need a test or tests that can be failed and that produce a proper level of judgment into the advisability of proceeding with such mandatory licences. The best test surely has to be whether such action is compatible with our climate change goals. The Government had previously introduced climate change compatibility tests into production generally. It is strange that these appear nowhere in the Bill.
John Redwood
The shadow Minister has said that getting more of our own gas out of the North sea would help our security of supply and reduce CO2 because it would displace imported LNG, so why does he not support that proposition?
Dr Whitehead
The proposition before us today is for mandatory licence rounds in a declining North sea field, which would make no difference in the long term to the total amount of gas that we get out of the North sea, as everybody knows. It would instead put us firmly on the back foot as far as international climate change discussions are concerned. That is the key issue that we need to address this afternoon.
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)
Following on from the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), is it therefore Labour’s position not to allow any new oil and gas licences in the future, if Labour were to come into power?
Dr Whitehead
It is Labour’s position that we do not wish to see new energy exploration licences issued for the future, but that does not mean that the North sea will not continue in production over a long period of time and provide a substantial amount of oil and gas for our domestic market.
Our first amendments, 17 and 18, would introduce a new test that would safeguard the legally binding commitments that the UK and all other nations made in the Paris agreement and have reaffirmed ever since. Every credible independent analysis—the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the International Energy Agency, the Climate Change Committee—shows that new exploration licences are not compatible with limiting warming and avoiding the worst of the devastating impact that climate change will have, and is having, around the world and here in the UK.
The test that we have put in amendments 17 and 18 is possible if we have achieved or are achieving our climate change goals internationally. Amendment 18 states:
“The climate change test is met in relation to a relevant year if the latest reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the mitigation of climate change find that the granting of additional seaward area production licences is consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C.”
No one who is serious about this can take that to mean that existing fields will not continue to produce for years to come—of course they will—but anyone who argues that business as usual and a few new licenses are the route to good, long-term jobs and energy security is frankly peddling a myth.
We must accelerate the transition to new opportunities for North sea workers in the low-carbon economy, including through carbon capture, usage and storage, through hydrogen and through floating offshore wind. We do not believe that tests are the best route to achieving that goal. We need a holistic strategy, but within the framework set out in this Bill, the climate change test we propose is the only way to achieve a policy that is consistent with being a responsible and leading actor on the world stage in the fight against climate change, with managing our existing North sea assets carefully and for the long-term, and with maximising the low-carbon economic potential of the North sea.
The other two amendments I will speak to highlight the extent to which the Bill fails even on the narrow terms it has set out. Amendments 19 and 20 would address the glaring deficiencies in the bogus carbon intensity test set out by the Government. Currently, the test compares UK gas production carbon emissions only against an aggregate of liquefied natural gas production emissions, ignoring pipeline-delivered gas, which makes up most of our imports, as the right hon. Member for Reading West reminded us. This amendment would correct that. As it stands, the test is designed to be impossible to fail, so it is barely worthy of the name. Including only LNG is a serious logical flaw. Before the Minister jumps to his feet, it is not true to say that every marginal unit of imported gas must be LNG. Indeed, we support substantial amounts of natural gas coming into the UK via the pipeline from Norway. The production of that gas is substantially cleaner than that of UK natural gas.
Apart from anything else, the Bill takes no account of the UK’s likely future gas demand profile. Demand for gas will decline as we rapidly decarbonise our power sector and electrify more and more of our economy. Indeed, this decline in demand, not just supply, is at the heart of a successful net zero transition.
Approving new exploration licences for fields that will take years to come online, on the assumption that the alternative must otherwise be LNG, without taking any account of future demand, is absurd. A fairer test would consider gas imports in the round.
David Duguid
I take on board the hon. Gentleman’s comment that, overall, 30% of our gas comes from Norway. Yes, that is the majority of our imports, but it is still 30% overall. Nobody in this House has authority over Norway’s future oil and gas prospects, but would he be in favour of the Norwegian Government exploring for new oil and gas to supply to us?
Dr Whitehead
No, in line with the IEA and the IPCC, I am not in favour of new exploration licences. The point is that, in a declining market, Norwegian supply will continue to be very substantial, even if no new exploration licences are granted in Norway.
The figure cited by the hon. Gentleman is almost right —the actual figure is 34%. The United Kingdom supplies 38% of its own gas, with the United States supplying 14%, Qatar supplying 9% and other countries supplying smaller amounts. Norway already occupies a very substantial position in our present gas supplies, and I am sure it will continue to do so.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it might be useful to remind Conservative Members that, according to the UN production gap report, Governments are already planning for their existing developments to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than is consistent with keeping global heating to 1.5°C or below? The idea that anyone can have vast new developments is not compatible with keeping below our climate target.
Dr Whitehead
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. New licences are an international issue. If we had new exploration licences around the world, we would simply produce far more oil and gas than is compatible with the 1.5° climate target. We should just keep it in the ground.
Finally, amendment 21 would go some way towards correcting another element of the carbon intensity test. As currently drafted—the Minister will want to listen to this bit—the test will not take account of methane emissions, which is a serious flaw. The whole case for comparing UK-based natural gas with LNG is based only on production emissions. The emission of methane at various stages of the production and transportation of LNG is, in aggregate, worse than the emissions of UK-produced and piped natural gas, but they are not carbon dioxide emissions, which is what the Bill says should be measured.
LNG’s potential carbon dioxide emissions upon burning are roughly the same as, or perhaps slightly greater than, the carbon dioxide emissions from UK natural gas. As the right hon. Member for Reading West said, that is elevated by the current UK practice of flaring surplus gas, which can be measured in carbon dioxide emissions.
Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over 20-year and 100-year timeframes. Its lifetime in the atmosphere is shorter than the lifetime of CO2, but its impact is far more significant. The Climate Change Act 2008 is quite specific on how this should be measured. Section 93, which the Bill mentions but does not act on, states that
“greenhouse gas emissions…and removals of greenhouse gas from the atmosphere shall be measured or calculated in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.”
Proposed new section 4ZB(1) of the Petroleum Act 1998 mentions the carbon intensity of natural gas, but proposed new subsection (3) defines “carbon intensity” as
“the carbon dioxide emissions attributable to its production”.
But carbon dioxide emissions in production are not the principal concern here, as the gas has not been burned at that point. Indeed, I can conceive of smart climate lawyers challenging the test’s validity on precisely that point. The Minister might therefore see amendment 21 as providing a vital lifeline to the integrity of his Bill. To that extent, the amendment might be seen as helpful, but I somehow doubt that he will take it up. To coin a phrase, “It’s the methane, stupid.” The Bill should say so.
Proposed new section 4ZB(4) already gives the Secretary of State the power to amend the carbon intensity test to include emissions other than carbon dioxide. Perhaps the Secretary of State or the Minister will shortly take that up to save the test. We can anticipate a fairly amusing statutory instrument debate when he tries to do that.
Amendment 21 would simply require the Government to produce a report analysing what the impact of that change will be. In the spirit of trying to improve a Bill that, by design, is fairly resistant to improvement, we welcome the amendments tabled by the right hon. Member for Reading West and the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby).
The Climate Change Committee and the Environmental Audit Committee have called for a ban on routine flaring and venting, and such a ban is long overdue. A marine spatial prioritisation policy would help to organise and plan an optimal long-term, low-carbon economic strategy for the North sea.
There is clearly significant strength of feeling across the Committee that this is an inadequate Bill, and some of the proposed tests could undoubtedly make a bad Bill a little better, although some of those tests have internal problems. We would not want to vote against those tests, but the only comprehensive climate change and net zero compatible test is the one that we and, in principle, the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) have set out. It is the best available route, within a severely constrained process, to align this deeply flawed Bill with our essential energy security and climate change priorities.
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)
I rise to speak to new clause 2 on spatial prioritisation. The competing pressures on sea space mean there is essentially a spatial squeeze. I fully understand the Bill’s importance, as we all know that the oil and gas industry will have a key role as the UK transitions towards cleaner energy. The Bill will provide reassurance to the industry.
I am grateful that the Government have stated that each annual licensing round will take place only if key emissions tests are met, to support the transition to net zero. I thank the Minister and his team for their ongoing engagement on this issue but, as we seek to turn to renewables and clean energy, we need to ensure that we have the space and infrastructure to carry this forward, otherwise the energy transition will never come to fruition.
I brought up this issue directly with the Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mark Spencer), at the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, as my concerns extend beyond just oil and gas. I am also concerned about how floating offshore wind and fishing can cohabit the same ocean space, and I am also concerned about marine protected areas. There is clearly a balance to strike.
It was good to hear the Fisheries Minister’s response about cross-departmental work to ensure that our fishermen have a future in the light of our need to expand our renewable energy sources, but there is an opportunity in this Bill to ensure that we do not repeat these conversations as other energy sources compete for space in the precious waters around our coast. This will help not only the UK’s energy security but our push towards renewable energy, which will support our fishing fleets and retain a simultaneous focus on biodiversity and improving the condition of marine protected areas.
As a coastal MP, all these points are especially important to me. Being an eternal optimist, I think we can do all these things simultaneously if we can plan strategically where we have the opportunity.
David Duguid
My hon. Friend is making some very good points, particularly on the spatial squeeze. She says that this is not a choice between one thing and another. Opposition Members tend to see this debate as black and white, and that we have to go in either one direction or the other. Does she agree that, whether from the perspective of fishing, offshore wind or offshore oil and gas, it is very important that we come together so that everyone has a say?
Selaine Saxby
As always, I agree with the points my hon. Friend makes. Prioritising space is critical, as the Government have committed to delivering 50GW of offshore wind, which this represents approximately £93.3 billion-worth of investment and requires nearly 8,500 sq km of new marine space. I need to declare an interest, as the chair of the all-party group on the Celtic sea. As such, my particular concern is about the deployment of floating offshore wind, as it will open up areas such as the Celtic sea so that we can generate energy no matter which way the wind blows. As it can be deployed in waters deeper than 60 metres, that technology opens up 80% of our offshore wind resources.
The Celtic sea is an environment where strategic planning at this early point in the development of FLOW—not just for spatial prioritisation on the seabed but for clear planning of cable routes to optimise how power transitions to the grid—minimises blue carbon disruption from our ocean floors and onshore environmental damage from multiple plug-in points. Indeed, given the long-term commitment to energy generation in the Celtic sea, as well as the North sea, the chance to plan strategically and include all future leases within a national framework comes now. More renewable energy and greater energy efficiency contribute more to energy security than new oil and gas. This integrated spatial planning will require new licences to ensure that enough sea space is allocated for nature recovery and climate change mitigation. Otherwise, there is a risk that industrial activities could crowd out those important environmental purposes, which, with the right strategic planning early enough in the evolution of these vital new technologies, can coexist alongside those that are now waning.
Currently, the Bill has no provisions to require spatial prioritisation testing of the geographical blocks that become available for oil and gas search and production. That means that the North Sea Transition Authority will be able to grant new licences in areas of the sea where the cumulative impact of activities is incompatible with the achievement of Government targets in the Climate Change Act 2008 and the Environment Act 2021.
John Redwood
Does my hon. Friend accept that in several cases potentially useful oil and gas deposits in the North sea are adjacent to existing pipes and existing development production platforms, so one great advantage would be that the infrastructure is already in place and it has spare capacity because of the decline of traditional fields? That would be far less intrusive, would it not?
Selaine Saxby
My right hon. Friend makes a valid point. However, for me, this is about opening up that conversation and making sure that these things are considered in the round. If we are going to put an extra pipe in, we should consider what we are offsetting somewhere else.
Polling found that 80% of the UK public believe our ocean protection laws must be strengthened, and I know how important our waters are to the residents of North Devon and the wider UK. We must ensure that we do all we can on this, while understanding the vital role that oil and gas plays and will play in our energy security. Spatial prioritisation is important to ensure that continuing to drive forward our new green energies is not done at the expense of our traditional industries, such as fishing, and gives due consideration to the marine environment, which we on land owe so much to and are still finding out more about. Balance and optimisation are the objective of this amendment, and I hope the Minister will consider this opportunity, so that we really can have it all and decarbonise our energy, improve our biodiversity, support our fishermen and improve our energy security.
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Scottish National party spokesman.
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
I rise to speak to amendments 7, 8 and 10, which have been tabled by the SNP. I note that no substantive changes have been made to the Bill’s provisions since we discussed it some weeks ago in this place; it is no more responsive to the needs of the climate, the energy sector in Scotland or bill payers who are haemorrhaging money on their energy bills. We know, from the appropriation of Scotland’s energy wealth by Thatcher in the 1980s, Cameron’s “Cut the green crap” at the beginning of this Conservative regime, and the weak-minded and politically naive rolling back of the green transition measures by the current Prime Minister, that time and time again, the Tories will never look after ordinary workers, Scotland or the environment.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent start to his speech. Does he agree that it is outrageous that the Prime Minister has masqueraded this legislation as a way of reducing energy bills for consumers, given that even the Secretary of State could not defend those claims? Does he also agree that this Government’s only intention is to unlock as much tax revenue from the North sea oil and gas sector as possible and that no consideration has been given to reducing domestic energy bills, to energy security or to reaching our climate commitments?
Dave Doogan
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. She touches on some of the key elements that I will address in this speech.
In order to salvage some semblance of responsibility and/or equity from this Bill, I urge Members to support the SNP’s amendments. They seek to amend the provisions to facilitate licence issuance on a case-by-case basis, rather than it being done annually and by prescription. That is a reasonable improvement to the Bill by any measure. We would also like to incorporate a real test for new issuance that would require the North Sea Transition Authority to assess whether new licences will: lower energy bills for bill payers; deliver energy security and reduce reliance on imported fuel sources for domestic consumption; enhance sustained job security for the oil and gas workforce in areas of the UK that are economically reliant on the oil and gas sector; guarantee funding for domestic refineries to increase capacity to process sustainable fuel sources; and stimulate the North sea oil and gas sector to meet commitments set out in the North sea transition deal.
The SNP also wishes to ensure that, henceforth, 100% of tax revenues from oil and gas are invested in the just transition. A “just transition” test would have to be met for any given relevant year, under which the NSTA would issue new licences only if it assesses that: they will support the delivery of the North sea transition deal’s greenhouse gas emission reduction targets of 10% by 2025, 25% by 2027 and 50% by 2030 against a 2018 baseline, in order to meet the sector’s aim of a net zero basin by 2050; and the Secretary of State has provided funding to support the development of the renewable energy sector in areas of the UK that are economically dependent on the oil and gas sector, equivalent to tax revenues collected from UK oil and gas production. That amendment means that new licences cannot be issued unless it can be shown that the licence will meet the North sea transition deal’s greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, and unless the UK Government are funding the renewables sector in oil and gas dependent areas to at least the value of oil and gas revenues.
Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is speaking about conditions for granting new licences, but the SNP’s draft energy strategy includes a presumption against any new licences—is that his position? Is the SNP’s position that there should be no new licences for oil and gas exploration?
Dave Doogan
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that. It is lovely to see him in his place; we know that he is a busy man with his other two jobs. I am sure that Hansard will correct me if my memory does not serve me correctly, but I believe that we rehearsed this issue on Second Reading. Let me point out to the hon. Gentleman, who I am certain is an ardent Unionist, that the position of the devolved Government, and whoever they are, is irrelevant in debating what we do with oil and gas licences in the UK because, sadly, Scotland’s oil and gas endowment, as he well knows—he makes excuses for this regularly—is controlled remotely by a dysfunctional UK Government, whoever they are. So the point is moot.
Douglas Ross
Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to intervene, just to provide clarity?
Dave Doogan
No, I will not.
The last SNP amendment will prevent this Government and the soon-to-be-installed Labour Government from simply using Scotland’s North sea oil and gas revenues to fund tax cuts in the UK, a state that is demonstrably not paying its way in the world. Both Labour and Tory —two cheeks of the same face, where Scotland is concerned —will sacrifice Scotland’s economic, industrial and material welfare, and those working in the energy sector, if it will win them a few more seats in this place. They have done it before and they will do it again while we remain in this broken and discredited Union. The prosperity that comes from oil and gas in Scotland is finite.
David Duguid
I was not sure if the hon. Gentleman had moved on from his glowing appraisal of the North sea transition deal, but can I take it from his reference to that deal that the SNP’s position is to support and welcome it in its entirety?
Dave Doogan
I am not going to meet the hon. Gentleman’s ambition to nail those colours to the mast, but I will tell him that through the Bill, the UK Government are turning a blind eye to the implications of a free-for-all when it comes to emissions and who benefits from revenue receipts. I am sorry if he finds that difficult, but he will to have to deal with it.
The prosperity that comes from oil and gas in Scotland is finite, as we know all too well. We have seen what deindustrialisation with no transition plan looks like—we witnessed it at first hand in the 1980s, when coal, steel and heavy industries were all torn asunder on the altar of monetarism and share prices in the City of London. That is set to happen again for oil and gas, under Thatcher’s willing disciples, the Leader of the Labour party and the Prime Minister. We cannot allow that to happen again. It is therefore essential that north-east Scotland and other areas reliant on oil and gas are afforded the investment required. That is what our amendment speaks to; it is about creating new jobs and transitioning in a managed, strategic fashion to accelerate our post-carbon future.
Dave Doogan
No.
That is a just ambition for a just transition. The billions of pounds still to be yielded from oil and gas revenue must not be wasted on doomed capital infrastructure projects, such as HS2, or used to fund exorbitant false economies, such as nuclear power stations in England. It is a moral and economic imperative that revenue be used to accelerate a genuine just transition, to protect jobs.
Douglas Ross
In response to my previous intervention, the hon. Gentleman said that the Scottish National party position on this issue was “irrelevant”, but of course it is not; it is vitally important. The SNP’s draft energy strategy says there is a presumption against new exploration for oil and gas. Does he support that?
Dave Doogan
That question speaks to a mis-representation. There is no point in giving way to the hon. Gentleman if he is going to misrepresent me in that way. What I actually said was that it does not matter who is in government in a devolved Assembly where energy policy is decided by remote control from a dysfunctional Westminster Government. That is the beginning and the end of it. If the hon. Gentleman does not like it, then he is welcome to join the SNP—well, perhaps not.
We know the facts on the ground: the oil and gas sector is in decline because of finite reserves, and because it is to be considered an industry with a limited future, whereas the green transition has an unlimited future. Jobs have already decreased in the sector. Government Members are giving the impression that with unlimited licensing there will be unlimited jobs, but that is not the case. Jobs have decreased by 228,000 since 2013, despite 400 new drilling licences in five separate auction rounds. Production of gas in the North sea has already fallen by two thirds since 2000 and will fall a further 95% with new licences, as opposed to 97% without.
The issuance of new licences in and of itself will not shift the dial, especially if the revenues from Scottish oil and gas continue to disappear into the black hole that is the Treasury. What is needed is a wholesale redistribution of fiscal receipts from Scottish oil and gas to the renewable transition, ringfenced and guaranteed by statute. In Scotland, we are apt to wonder what we got for the £300 billion in tax receipts from Scotland’s oil—a question now being mirrored for our renewable endowment.
I note that Members on the Government Benches have desisted from repeating the nonsense that energy bills will be lowered if we grant unlimited licences—and not before time. What will lower bills is ensuring that the renewable energy we generate can find its way to consumers without needing to be turned off because the grid cannot cope after 14 years of non-investment by the Tories. New grid infrastructure will lower bills by dialling gas out of the system. Government Members talk about the relentless need for more and more gas, as if that does not speak to a flaky ambition on a just transition; it exposes it and lays it bare. We will dial gas out of the system by having a network that can connect Scotland’s renewable energy to the market where that is required, and we will do so with proper investment in sub-sea lines, rather than by scarring Scotland with 80-metre pylons. It is a pity that the UK Government would not invest the billions that they are ploughing into nuclear into environmentally optimal grid improvements, instead of defaulting to pylons and overhead lines.
The Bill is part of an ill-fated Tory miscalculation on making a just transition a wedge issue. We know that, because the Bill is a non-existent solution to a non-existent problem. Some 27 new licences were granted in 2023, and a licensing round has been held by the North Sea Transition Authority every year and a half since 2016. If the Bill is the answer, then I am not certain what the question is. It undermines the independence of the NSTA by forcing it to hold new oil licensing rounds every year, whereas currently the NSTA undertakes licensing rounds when it deems that they are required. It is a challenge so unwelcome that the NSTA board unanimously agreed that this legislation and the annual licensing rounds were unnecessary. This is what happens when the energy sector, so vital to a broad-based, developed economy like Scotland’s, is subject to remote control.
Renewables already account for the equivalent of 113% of Scotland’s gross electricity consumption, yet we still pay sky-high energy bills because of the amount of gas required for generation in England, due in no small part to the Tories small-minded hysteria surrounding onshore wind, and their 10-year-old ban on development of onshore. Investing further in the green hydrogen sector in Scotland could support up to 300,000 jobs—it is a pity that Members on the Government Benches will not focus on that opportunity—and it would add up to £25 billion to Scotland’s gross value added by 2045. Further development of our renewable sector represents an extraordinary export opportunity for Scotland—one that we must grab much more, instead of looking back; we should look to the enterprises of the future.
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Ind)
The hon. Gentleman rightly mentions the sky-high energy prices that people in Scotland face, even though Scotland generates so much energy. What role does he think zonal and modal energy market modelling, rather than a one-size-fits-all, UK-wide approach, would play in substantially reducing energy costs in the likes of Sutherland in Scotland, and also in England, in places like Surrey? Everybody would be a winner if we moved away from the UK-wide model and towards the zonal and modal method.
Dave Doogan
The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting question. There has been a lack of investment, and the network that delivers energy around GB was designed for a small number of very large generators. It is ill-equipped to deal with many smaller systems of generation. That is why we find ourselves switching off wind turbines and, where the demand still exits, replacing them with gas, much to all our constituents’ cost and misery. The failure to transition in the electricity distribution network across GB is exactly the same failure we see in our dependency and desire to keep looking backwards. We should transition from hydrocarbons to renewables in a way that respects communities.
In closing, we should grasp Scotland’s bright future with both hands. In so doing, we will rid ourselves of the mismanagement of successive UK Governments in Westminster.
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Before I bring in some of those who may not have tabled amendments, I remind Members that we are at Committee stage, so discussion is of the amendments. However, as we are also discussing clauses 1 and 2 stand part, there is perhaps a little more scope.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
As I mentioned on Second Reading, the Bill is of particular interest to me because the oil and gas industry has played a significant role as a major employer in the Waveney and Lowestoft area for nearly 60 years. Moreover, the offshore wind industry and other low-carbon energy technologies, such as nuclear and hydrogen, will provide exciting local job-creating opportunities for generations to come. Dame Rosie, I also chair the British offshore oil and gas industry all-party parliamentary group.
David Duguid
My hon. Friend mentioned the role of the NSTA in the facilitation and delivery of the North sea transition deal, which, as he said, was negotiated between industry and the UK Government. Does he agree that what he is advocating is precisely the purpose of the North sea transition deal—to facilitate the delivery of energy transition to net zero?
Peter Aldous
My hon. Friend is quite right: the North sea transition deal is the foundation stone on which we should be building, involving industry, involving the NSTA and giving industry the confidence to make the significant investment that we need.
The North sea transition deal includes the target to cut greenhouse gases and emissions by 10% by 2025 and by 25% by 2027. The NSTA wants to halve emissions by 2030. It is also committed to all new developments having no routine flaring and venting, with zero routine flaring across all North sea platforms, whether new or existing, by 2030 at the latest. Good progress is being made. Although figures are not yet available for 2023, emissions were reduced by 23% between 2018 and 2022, while flaring has been reduced by 50% over the same period. In addition to tracking, monitoring and reporting performance, the NSTA closely scrutinises operators’ applications for flaring consents, pushes back against requests to increase flaring, and has ordered operators to restrict production to stay within agreed limits. It has, where necessary, issued fines for breaches.
On marine spatial planning, the NSTA follows a precautionary approach and is acutely aware of the need for co-ordination and collaboration in what are increasingly crowded and sometimes very sensitive and precious waters. It is thus working closely with such organisations as the Crown Estate and the Marine Management Organisation in delivering the marine spatial prioritisation programme of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
In conclusion, the Bill and the amendments raise very important matters, but to tackle them properly, we need to adopt a long-term approach that transcends the four-to-five-year political cycle and that fully involves business.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
I rise to support amendments 17 and 19, and to speak to my amendments 22 and 24 on energy efficiency tests and amendments 23 and 25 on the energy charter treaty.
Let me start with amendment 25. At the moment, the energy charter treaty, of which we are a member, is a failed international treaty. It binds us to any contract that we sign for oil, gas or any energy. Once it is signed, we cannot get out of it without paying the hope value of that contract. What I mean by the hope value is that a member does not pay the actual material value if it wants to stop that contract now; it has to pay all the potential value of that contract if the oilfield, for example, were fully exploited.
The treaty has cost other European countries billions and billions of pounds when they have tried to implement climate mitigation policies. It is dangerous, because the decisions are made not by British courts or by international courts with a British judge, but by secretive tribunals where the corporations get to appoint the people who make the deliberations. It is so outrageous that European Union members have agreed to withdraw en masse—they are currently negotiating on how to do so in a co-ordinated way—and to do side letters with each other to ensure they are not bound by the 25-year clause under which any extant licences that have been signed must continue to be honoured, even after withdrawal.
The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)
What has that got to do with this?
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
Because if we sign more licences while we are still part of the energy charter treaty, the Minister is binding the hands of future generations. If we withdrew from the energy charter treaty, as our allies and partners are trying to do, and then decided to award new licences, future Governments and generations could, without penalty, withdraw or reduce those licences. That very much relates to the Bill, because I am saying: “If you want to do this for short-term gain”—I do not believe the Government’s premise to start with—“at least allow future generations and Governments to come and fix your mess; do not bind their hands under international treaties.” I think that that is relevant to the awarding of new licences.
The fact that so many countries are fleeing the energy charter treaty means that this is the moment to negotiate with our partners to work out a new way forward. The British Government themselves accept that the energy charter treaty has failed. They have tried to make significant amendments to it to allow flexibility on climate change goals. It has not been possible to amend it, which is why European partners are trying to withdraw. This test would do two things. Not only would it avoid binding future generations, but it would put a rocket up the derrière of our Ministers and Departments to ensure that they fulfil the pledge of reform or withdrawal, which is a pledge that we have already made.
Let me address amendments 22 and 24 on the energy efficiency test for home heating. In reality, the biggest proportion of domestic energy is spent on home heating. Huge domestic bills will not be solved one iota by the Bill, as the Minister has admitted, because the product will be sold on the international market and the marginal price at which we buy it back will still be inflated. Our electricity market, which is linked to that marginal price, will continue to be inflated. The best and most efficient way to reduce energy bills and the demand and need for gas—the way that we all know needs to happen—is to ensure that our homes meet decent energy efficiency standards.
The amendments set out that the Government need to redouble their efforts to ensure energy efficiency before we commit to and invest in new licences for offshore drilling, and that we need a median rating of band B in energy performance. At the moment, C is seen as standard and D is common in private rentals. Privately let homes are the worst in the sector, and greater help is needed. We cannot continue to rely on Government programmes that do not touch the sides. We need a proper approach in which we go street by street with councils and local government, fully funded by central Government, with clawbacks in future years.
However, we cannot expect our citizens to pay a penny out of their pockets up front. Homeowners are already overstretched, with huge additional bills, in a mortgage market that has been destroyed by the Government. They cannot afford an extra cent, an extra penny, for home improvements. That all needs to be covered by the Government. My amendments would incentivise the Government to do that and to ensure that we have made every effort to reduce gas demand before we go ahead with the foolish endeavour of drilling more oil and gas, which will not reduce prices, will not stop fuel poverty in this country and will not deal with any of our long-lasting problems. It would be a sticking plaster that does not even stick.
I worked with the Opposition Front Benchers on amendment 17, which sets out the climate change test, so I am delighted that they have tabled it. A similar amendment has been tabled by my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). It is important to say that we cannot meet our climate targets if we do not honour and respect the IPCC’s work and reports. We are on a hiding to nothing if we think that we can keep drilling and extracting more while meeting our energy targets.
David Duguid
I rise to speak in support of the Bill and of all the employees of companies right across the country, including in my Banff and Buchan constituency, that will play a critical and successful role in the UK’s ongoing energy transition to net zero by 2050.
I remind the Committee that, for 25 years prior to being elected in 2017, I worked in the energy sector—in the oil and gas sector specifically—in a wide range of roles for several different companies and in various places around the world. I also declare that I have a close family member with a financial interest in one of those companies, which is below the threshold required for registering interests. I can also assure the Committee that that financial interest has never had, and will never have, any bearing on my contributions in this or any other debate.
On Second Reading, I spoke about the potential for increased confidence and certainty that the Bill brings to the energy industry. For many people watching, including a few hon. and right hon. Members in this place, there would appear to be a perfectly polarised distinction between maximising oil and gas on one hand and promoting renewables on the other. The truth exists on a continuum between those two extremes, however. We have in fact been on a transition away from the most polluting of fossil fuels towards cleaner, lower-carbon, renewable sources of energy for a number of decades now. That transition is happening at various rates in different parts of the world, but it is fair to say that the United Kingdom is at the forefront, as the first major economy not only to legislate for net zero but to set the most stringent decarbonisation targets.
The Conservative Government have presided over the UK’s becoming the first major economy to have reduced carbon emissions by 50% from 1990 levels. That compares to only 7% that had been achieved by the time the Conservatives came to power in 2010. We have effectively transitioned away completely from coal power, and continue to reduce our demand for oil and gas and increase our renewable and low-carbon capacity, but not as fast as our domestic supplies will continue to decline, even with new production.
A critical point that needs to be reinforced in considering this legislation is that new oil and gas does not mean more oil and gas—a mistake that I heard in the speech of the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle). Even with new production, the North Sea Transition Authority predicts that UK oil and gas production will decline, not by the 3% to 4% suggested by the International Energy Authority to stay within the global 1.5°C target, but by twice that rate of decline, at around 7%. We are today 75% dependent on oil and gas for our energy needs, and not just for electricity generation, but for heat and transportation as well. Of that 75%, about 50% is produced domestically with the rest having to be imported.
The arguments for producing our own oil and gas closer to home have been well rehearsed. There is the obvious benefit of having that source of energy under our control, not that of other states and countries that are not always friendly. We have also heard how liquefying natural gas for transportation and shipping that LNG halfway around the world to then be de-liquefied back into gas when it arrives in the UK can produce up to four times the carbon emissions of domestically produced gas. We know from the Climate Change Committee that we are likely still to be up to 25% dependent on oil and gas by 2050. It therefore follows that carbon capture, utilisation and storage will be required for the UK to reach net zero by 2050. That includes, of course, the Acorn CCS and hydrogen project at St Fergus in my constituency, and in particular the role it will play in decarbonising gas-fired power generation at Peterhead.
What will also be required to get to net zero are precisely those skills, technologies and supply chains that currently exist and will, no doubt, continue to be developed within the oil and gas industry. However, those critical elements would sadly no longer be available to us if we shut down our domestic oil and gas industry prematurely, which is what would happen if the Opposition parties had their way, whether it is the SNP’s “presumption of no new exploration” for oil and gas—a direct quote of the SNP’s draft energy strategy—or Labour’s “just stop oil” approach.
I am seeing some nods of agreement from across the Floor, but there has recently been something of a war of words between the two main parties—I am referring to Labour and the SNP—in Scotland following Labour’s screeching U-turn on its £28 billion a year green investment plan. Of course, we on the Conservative Benches always saw that plan as undeliverable without massive tax increases. Labour announced that it would not only increase the energy profits levy and make it last longer, but remove the investment allowance.
David Duguid
Before I give way, I will gently point out to Opposition Front Benchers—I am not sure whether they are aware of this—that the 78% tax rate they are so keen to copy from Norway comes with an equivalent 78% investment allowance in that country. Labour’s plans would remove the investment allowance, putting future investment across the energy sector even further at risk.
Of course, as we heard earlier, Labour still maintains its position of banning all new oil and gas licences, which has inevitably led to an outcry from the sector in recent weeks. Among others, Offshore Energies UK’s chief executive David Whitehouse has said:
“We remain deeply concerned about what Labour’s proposals could do to our people. If we can’t get companies to invest here, there are no jobs. It’s that simple.”
He went on to describe Labour’s proposals as
“a hammer blow to the energy we need today and to the homegrown transition to cleaner energies that everyone in the UK wants to see.”
That is the key point, which often goes over the heads of so many on the Opposition Benches: the skills and technologies to deliver net zero are not going to appear magically over the horizon, and the talent and expertise in what would become a defunct oil and gas industry will not automatically and immediately transfer across to the renewables sector. More likely, companies and their employees who will find themselves squeezed out of oil and gas in the UK will simply move overseas to deliver someone else’s energy security and someone else’s energy transition—and, no doubt, deliver oil and gas that we would end up having to import.
Of course, the SNP has come out of the woodwork to jump on the bandwagon, criticising Labour’s approach while completely contradicting its previous stance and—more than likely—that of its Scottish Green coalition partners in Holyrood. SNP leader Humza Yousaf said last September that he did not want Scotland to be Europe’s oil and gas capital, presumably wishing to pass that mantle to our North sea neighbours in Norway. A little over a year ago in its draft energy strategy, the SNP stated—I quote again—that there should be a “presumption” against new exploration for oil and gas. I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan) is still looking to intervene, but I wonder whether he would take this opportunity to answer that question.
Dave Doogan
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for taking my intervention, even though it was about five minutes ago on a different subject. He made a really interesting point in his speech: that new licences do not mean more oil and gas. Conversely, having a more circumspect and rational approach to licence issuance—taking it out of the political arena and putting it into the bureaucratic space—does not mean less oil and gas. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will accept that if that is true for one, it is true for the other. Does he not agree with my position, and that of my party, that as the oil and gas industry continues on its journey to its natural conclusion of a much reduced industry, for whatever reason—the transition to renewables, or depleted resources—it is much more important, and in fact elegant, to make sure that those tax receipts are invested in the energy of the future, not squandered by His Majesty’s Treasury?
David Duguid
I find myself looking for a point that I might agree with in the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, and sadly failing. However, his point about the decline of oil and gas in the UK has been made time and time again. Ever since 2004 we have been a net importer of oil and gas, so my point about new oil and gas not being more oil and gas is about managing that decline to make up for the fact that we are not replacing that oil and gas generation with renewables as fast as we would like. I will address that point in more detail in a moment.
Those comments from the SNP leader just go to show the staggering hypocrisy and inconsistency of the SNP, but neither the industry nor the electorate are so easily fooled, particularly in the north-east of Scotland. If asked whether they support new oil and gas licences, as we have seen today, some SNP Members—and, I dare say, some Labour Members as well—may find it difficult to commit to a position, particularly when facing their constituents in the north-east of Scotland. However, this Conservative Government and, in particular, the Scottish Conservatives have maintained consistent support for the oil and gas industry—the companies, and the tens of thousands employed from right across the UK. We recognise, as this Bill does, the potential for the people in this industry not just to keep our lights on and keep the economy moving in the near term, but to lead the world in showing how a successful energy transition from oil and gas to renewables can be done. Sadly, as has been confirmed a couple of times today, all His Majesty’s Opposition seem able to offer is to lead the world in virtue signalling.
Caroline Lucas
In following the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid), I have to say that his speech was one of startling complacency, which still seems to be based on the misunderstanding that just because we exploit oil and gas in the North sea, that somehow means that it is ours—that it gets used here, rather than being sold on global markets at international prices. So many of us have said that so many times in this Chamber, but it still does not seem to have penetrated.
I rise to speak in support of my amendments that have been selected for debate: amendments 2, 3, 13 and 14. Before I begin in earnest, I want to emphasise that seeking to amend this sham of a Bill in no way legitimises what is nothing more than a political stunt. It is not a serious piece of legislation; rather, it is a desperate and dangerous attempt to create yet another culture war. It will make no practical difference at all, given that there have been annual licensing rounds for most of the past decade, with even the board of the North Sea Transition Authority expressing the unanimous view that this legislation is not needed. The amendments I have tabled are designed to expose the falsehoods that have been told by the Government in attempting to justify new fossil fuel extraction in the midst of a climate emergency. The first is that new oil and gas licences can in any way be compatible with delivering our climate targets, and the second is that propping up oil and gas can possibly be in the interests of workers, rather than genuinely engaging with the need for a just transition and the practicalities of how it is delivered.
I will first address my amendments 2 and 3. Taken together, those amendments would insert a new climate test into the Bill alongside the Government’s carbon intensity test and the net importer test, which as we know are not so much robust assessments as they are free passes to pollute. The climate test is very simple: it would be met in a given year only if the IPCC finds that current global fossil fuel infrastructure will not emit more greenhouse gas emissions than is compatible with limiting global heating to 1.5°. According to the climate Minister, the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), that critical threshold is supposedly the Government’s “north star”—a threshold that, as we all know, was passed for the first time across the entirety of last year. I therefore hope that the Minister will support my amendments, which would ensure that proposed licensing rounds do not undermine global efforts to secure a safe and liveable planet for the future and keep that north star shining.
Indeed, as I mentioned earlier, the UN production gap report has warned that Governments already plan to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting heating to 1.5°. If we look at what the IPCC itself has said, its sixth assessment report was clear:
“Projected CO2 emissions from existing fossil fuel infrastructure without additional abatement would exceed the remaining carbon budget for 1.5°C”.
Closer to home, the Climate Change Committee observed in its latest progress report:
“Expansion of fossil fuel production is not in line with Net Zero.”
Regardless of the claims from Conservative Members that the UK will continue to need some oil and gas up to 2050, this, and I again use the words of the Climate Change Committee,
“does not in itself justify the development of new North Sea fields.”
Indeed, last month its interim chair, Professor Piers Forster, was forced to correct the Chancellor on this front, reiterating:
“UK oil and gas consumption needs to fall by over 80% to meet UK targets.”
David Duguid
I am very familiar with the report the hon. Member has just quoted. Does she recognise that what Offshore Energies UK is referring to—the Goldilocks zone, as I have heard it described—is the point at which we need to make maximum benefit of the skills, supply chains and technologies that currently exist in the oil and gas industry, so that we can make the best use of those skills to deliver net zero?
Caroline Lucas
The best way to make use of those skills is by making sure that we put resources behind those workers so that they can make the transition, which so many of them want to do, into renewables. Right now, those workers are actually having to pay to make that transition themselves. They have to pay for the training. [Interruption.] They do. I tabled an amendment to a previous piece of legislation on education and training to try to make it much less onerous for oil and gas workers to shift into, say, the renewables sector. We need to have those plans, and we need the resources behind them to make that a lot easier than it is today.
The result and the reality is that the number of jobs in the oil and gas sector has already dropped by more than half over the past decade, despite hundreds of drilling licences being issued. The just transition plans test would be met in a year if the Oil and Gas Authority assessed that all existing seaward area production licence holders have published just transition plans for their workforce that are compatible with limiting global heating to 1.5°. Amendment 14 specifies that those plans must be agreed through formalised collective agreements with unions, and that they apply to all workers whether they are directly or indirectly employed—or, self employed, which is vital with the heavy casualisation in the oil and gas workforce.
Indeed, a report in 2020 revealed a high level of concern about job security and working conditions in the oil and gas industry, and that 80% of surveyed workers would consider moving to a job outside that particular sector. Furthermore, given the opportunity to retrain to work elsewhere in the energy sector, more than half would be interested in renewables and offshore wind. Workers are ready to lead a just transition, yet a more recent report has revealed that
“companies are increasingly announcing net zero targets—but there is no example in the UK oil and gas sector of worker involvement in decision-making on decarbonisation.”
That must change.
This amendment would be a step towards delivering a just transition that would see workers at the centre of transition planning, with a clear and accessible pathway out of high-carbon jobs. Rather than propping up jobs that we know are not going to exist in the future, the Government should be actively supporting workers to transition out of the oil and gas sector now, while also addressing their very real concerns, such as the cost of retraining, which is often borne by workers themselves, or the inferior employment protections offshore, which can lead to wage under-cutting. There are even some cases of seafarers working in the offshore wind sector being paid below the minimum wage. That is a scandal, and the Government should urgently establish a wage floor to apply to all offshore energy workers, regardless of nationality, who are carrying out any work on the UK continental shelf. The failure to deliver a just transition is not an inevitability, but a political choice. If the Government are serious about listening to workers and protecting jobs, they should have no problem supporting this amendment, which puts job security at the heart of the transition.
I note that the hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan) has tabled amendments 10 and 11 on a just transition, but I have to say that I do have two serious concerns. First, according to the drafting of amendment 11, the SNP test will be met
“if the OGA assesses that…new licences will support the delivery of the North Sea Transition Deal’s…emission reduction targets”.
Yet, as we know, the 50% reduction by 2030 which is in the NSTD proposal, against a 2018 baseline, is far weaker than the 68% reduction recommended by the Climate Change Committee, which it says is achievable. It is also important to note that this only includes scope 1 and 2 emissions, so it fails to take account of emissions produced when oil and gas is burned. Secondly, there is no provision to consult workers as part of this test. Therefore, given that it would fail to deliver a worker-led transition and it also exceeds the advice of the CCC, I sadly cannot vote for that.
Before concluding, I offer my support to a number of other amendments. First, I support amendment 12, on banning flaring and venting, tabled by the right hon. Member for Reading West (Sir Alok Sharma). As others have mentioned, Norway banned routine flaring back in 1971, giving the lie to the Government’s claim that UK gas has lower emissions.
Secondly, I support amendments 19 and 20, tabled by the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), to amend the carbon intensity test and to include all gas, not just LNG. Given that we import most of our gas through a pipeline, it is utterly ridiculous to compare UK production with LNG that is vastly more polluting.
Barry Gardiner
There has been much debate today about the alternative of LNG from Qatar, but there has been a failure to take into account whether our being more dependent on LNG from Qatar would in any way change what Qatar does about its own production. It has been recorded that Qatar will increase its production by 67% by 2027, which means that that energy will be produced and will have certain emissions. At the end of the process, we might have produced something with fewer carbon emissions, but it would be better not to produce them at all.
Caroline Lucas
The hon. Member makes a characteristically wise and useful point. That figure of 67% is startling and deeply worrying.
Thirdly, I support amendments 22 and 24, tabled by the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle)—I hope I can call him an hon. Friend—setting out a home energy efficiency test. As we all know by now, that is the most effective way of delivering real energy security for households that are struggling so much to pay their bills.
Fourthly, I support amendments 23 and 25, again tabled by the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown, requiring the UK to have made arrangements to withdraw from the energy charter treaty before new licences can be awarded. It is totally unacceptable that the Government are mandating annual licensing rounds without having withdrawn from a treaty that allows companies to sue for lost profits. The Government previously committed to reviewing the UK’s membership of the ECT, including consideration of withdrawal from the treaty if proposed modernisation reforms were not agreed at November’s energy charter conference. As I understand it, those proposals were not even discussed at the conference, so may I ask the Minister, when he sums up, to say what is holding up their withdrawing from that treaty, given that they acknowledge that
“there is now no clear route for modernisation to progress.”
Finally, last week it was reported that British Gas profits soared tenfold last year following the changes Ofgem had made to the price cap. In the same week Government figures showed that almost 9 million households—well over a third—spent more than 10% of their income after housing costs on domestic energy bills, and it was also revealed that not a single new proposal for public onshore wind was made in England last year despite the Government’s policy changes. Those three examples are all from just one single week; this week and next week there will be more, and together they demonstrate the utter failure of this Government to make decisions that would benefit people and planet and to unleash our abundant renewables, massively upscale energy efficiency installations and work to get us off expensive and volatile gas altogether. Instead, each week we see yet more evidence that this tired and divisive Government are prioritising increasingly desperate attempts to save their own skin over measures that would improve all our lives by ensuring that everyone has a warm and comfortable home to live in, communities have been supported to make the most of the green transition and our one precious and infinitely fragile planet is finally restored.
Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)
I rise to speak to amendment 15 tabled on behalf of the Alba party.
The choice we face is not between shutting down North sea oil and gas and carrying on regardless but how to make its continued exploitation compatible with the environmental challenges and to acknowledge the role that oil can and will play in a sustainable future for the planet. I do not disagree with the four broad objectives of the UK Government proposals, and amendment 15 would strengthen those ambitions on energy independence, safeguarding domestic energy supplies, energy security, reducing higher emission imports, protecting domestic oil and gas industry jobs and working towards our net zero target in a pragmatic, proportionate and realistic way. But I am not convinced that the Bill—and certainly Government policy as it is currently being delivered—will meet those ambitions.
If the provisions are to be truly applied to all parts of the UK as the Government state, then Scotland, the source of oil and gas and whose waters contain the lion’s share of carbon storage sites, cannot be left out of the action. Depleting Scotland’s industrial capacity has increasingly been the direction of travel from this Government in recent years and this strategy will not strengthen the Union as they claim they wish to do. They should be aware that eroding our industry and jobs will further drive up support for independence. They should also be aware that 74% of the Scottish population support domestic oil and gas exploitation and 54% of the Scottish public support new licences being granted for that purpose. Our amendment is without question helpful to all those ambitions, and indeed others, and should be supported by all sides. Its proposals are pragmatic, realistic, responsible and, most importantly, fair.
The infrastructure in Scotland is already in place to meet these objectives. In the north-east we have St Fergus and the Acorn project, in my Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency we have at Mossmoran one of Europe’s four cracker plants alongside an LNG plant operated by Exxon and Shell, and at Grangemouth we have one of the UK’s current oil refineries. I reference the points made by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) with regard to the environmental impact of exporting oil and gas abroad, which should dissuade the Government from even considering closing the refinery at Grangemouth. All those operations have interconnecting pipelines that are bi-directional, so the infrastructure is all there and it is completely feasible to transport carbon from Grangemouth and Mossmorran north to St Fergus for offshore storage.
From my discussions with the operators in my constituency, I know their carbon reduction teams have been willing and ready to look at the opportunities since I was elected. Exxon has recently made a multi-million-pound investment in Mossmorran, securing its future. That is particularly relevant to some earlier comments on amendment 12 with regard to flaring. That was a persistent problem at Mossmorran where we had an elevated flare that caused light, noise, vibration and pollution, not to mention the environmental impact of the flaring. That investment has reduced flaring significantly, and all plants should seriously consider that to reduce the impact on the communities and the environment around them. That investment from Exxon is well in excess of the modest amount that is required to keep Grangemouth going; it is a multimillion-pound investment and significantly more than what is required to keep the refinery operating at Grangemouth.
David Duguid
I am reluctant to intervene, because the hon. Gentleman is making some interesting points, many of which I agree with, but I have a burning question. He makes a point about the amount of storage we have around the UK, which is equivalent to more than we have produced out of the North sea, and we must take advantage of that. In his amendment, he refers to licensing conditions for specific fields been tied to having a net zero effect through carbon capture and storage. He has already explained that carbon capture and storage is typically taken from flue gas from the likes of Mossmorran in his constituency, or Peterhead power station in mine, so how does he make that link between offshore exploration licences and the resultant carbon capture, which will be way down the production line?
Neale Hanvey
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Many of the operators are serious about exploiting the resource not just in Scottish or UK waters but in other countries, and other countries can leverage those types of concessions when they grant licences. The UK Government can therefore make no serious argument that they cannot do that.
One of the refrains we heard during the Brexit debate was about the reclaiming of national sovereignty. It was one of the reasons for Brexit. One of the most limiting factors for job creation in renewables was that contracts for difference and European rules prevented conditionality from being applied to the granting of oil, renewables and other licences. If the UK now has that sovereignty, why not use it to ensure that the communities that are part of the supply line get some form of benefit out of the process? One of the most obvious benefits is to reduce at source, through a levy on any licence, the carbon footprint of the exploitation of that resource. That would seem a reasonable expectation, and certainly we feel it is essential in granting any future licences.
Amendment 15 would create a requirement for a specific field commitment of a net zero carbon footprint, as we have just discussed. That would be achieved mainly through connection to the carbon capture network. The prize is to be a world leader in research and development, with an economy built on renewable energy, of which Scotland has an absolute abundance. The UK Government’s dither and delay on Acorn has gone on for far too long. It is time for Scots Members on the Government Benches and their Government colleagues to back a secure future for Scotland’s North sea oil and gas sector and to back this amendment.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
This February is on course to break an unprecedented number of heat records, and the dangers of failing to reach net zero are staring us in the face. This Bill flies in the face of our climate change commitments, and it will do nothing to secure energy security and nothing to lower energy bills, and we Liberal Democrats continue to oppose it.
I will mention two amendments that we strongly support, as they are on areas where we Liberal Democrats have tabled amendments in the past. The Bill is silent about methane and needs amending. We therefore strongly support new clause 12 to prevent methane flaring. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas with 80 times the warming effect of CO2. It accounts for 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions. It has often been seen as a quick win. Methane stays for much less time in the atmosphere, but it is still there. Reducing methane emissions is such an obvious thing to do.
The UK has signed a global pledge to cut methane levels by 30%, and a ban on oil and gas flaring and venting in the North sea would dramatically reduce methane emissions. The International Energy Agency has said that UK oil and gas operators could reduce methane emissions by more than 70% by tackling venting, flaring and leaking. That is supported by the Environmental Audit Committee and the Government-commissioned independent review of net zero. However, the Government’s track record is not good enough. In his last few days in office, the former Energy Secretary, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), unconditionally approved the new Affleck oil and gas field, whose operators will be able to burn methane until 2037.
We must also mandate monthly leak detection and repair activity. As we have said in the past, it is incomprehensible why the Government are on the one hand saying one thing, but on the other not acting. We must do something about methane. It is a complete dereliction of duty if we do not support that new clause.
The other amendment I want to speak to new clause 23, which would insert a new energy charter test. Many of my constituents have voiced strong concerns about our continuing to be part of the energy charter treaty. That energy charter test would be met if we withdrew from the treaty. As it stands, remaining part of the treaty leaves the UK vulnerable to compensation claims from investors for the early closure of coal, oil and gas plants. Attempts to modernise the ECT to protect countries from libel and to drive investment in renewables have failed. Denmark, France, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Spain and the Netherlands have all announced their intention to withdraw. Italy withdrew back in 2016. Why should we not join them? The new clause provides a vehicle to do that. It is incomprehensible that we have to discuss this Bill. It is a bad Bill, but the amendments I have just mentioned would make it a little better.
Barry Gardiner
I wish to speak primarily to amendments 13 and 14, but I also support the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), the right hon. Member for Reading West (Sir Alok Sharma), my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) and the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). May I begin by paying tribute to the newly elected Member, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Damien Egan)? His electoral victory shows that parties with ambitious climate policies win elections, and those that choose to pursue culture wars are punished at the ballot box. I hope the Government can learn that lesson in relation to this Bill, which is a textbook example of performative politics.
This Bill will not secure British energy independence or help to meet UK or global climate targets. We know, because the Energy Secretary told us so herself, that this Bill will not lower energy bills, yet here we are debating this Bill instead of focusing our minds and time on real solutions that will accelerate the energy transition that is already happening all around us. That energy transition is not only underpinned by a strong scientific consensus to address climate change, but founded in a mission to make energy affordable and to unleash new economic opportunities across Britain, particularly in the regions left behind by previous energy transitions.
I pay tribute to all the workers in oil and gas, who help to keep Britain’s lights on. Their hard work over many years powers our country, and their skills will be essential in making Britain a clean energy superpower. That is why we must respect those workers, and why we should be truthful with them. They deserve no less than that, and we in the labour movement remember only too well what happens when communities are faced with the sudden loss of jobs. We remember the closure of the pits and the communities that were left with nothing, because Government failed to put in place genuine alternatives and a just transition.
I know that British exceptionalism is almost an article of faith or mantra with this Government, but being the first country that sells the last drop of oil is not a feasible strategy. That is not just because the world signed up to transition away from fossil fuels at COP 28, but because the North sea is a declining basin that is nearly empty. New licences between now and 2050 will only provide 103 days of gas. That is just four days of gas every year. Saying that we will expand oil and gas licences in a declining basin and pretending that that will make any real difference to jobs in the North sea is nothing short of dishonest. It may provide campaigning material to pretend otherwise, but people’s livelihoods are more important than political game playing, and we ought to stick to the facts.
David Duguid
I feel almost obliged to intervene, if only to agree totally with what the hon. Member just said. The Aberdeen University study relates specifically to the decline over previous decades. We have lost a lot of workers in the industry, not just because of the decline in production, but because of new technology and the desire to remotely operate offshore platforms in the interest of safety. There has been decline. What he seems to be missing is that we are talking not about a return to the glory days of peak production in the late ’90s, but managing that decline with reference to how much energy we need. As was mentioned, we need to promote a Goldilocks period in which we make the most of the skills and technologies in that industry for the renewables-based future.
Barry Gardiner
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that we must manage the decline, but we must manage the decline in the community’s livelihood, which is not necessarily the same thing. If we make sure that we have a just transition, and introducing support for retraining and gaining skills, as outlined in the amendments that I am supporting, he will find that his constituents and many others around the country will much better weather that decline and prepare for the sort of future that we want.
The Bill, unfortunately, does the opposite. It ignores the 30,000 hard-working people directly employed in today’s oil and gas industry, and the further 100,000 individuals supported by the supply chain. It provides false hope. It sends confusing signals to energy companies, to investors, to the global community, and indeed to unions and the workers they represent. It pretends that nothing needs to change—that business can continue as usual, and that jobs in oil and gas are safe. The Government are acting as if maxing out the North sea can happen indefinitely, or at least until they are no longer in office and therefore do not have to pick up the pieces.
Amendment 14 sets out the need for formalised collective agreements with unions and the workforce to create just transition plans. In Spain, we have seen what can be achieved when Governments, businesses, workers and unions come together. The just transition agreement that the Spanish Government have negotiated with affected workers, unions and businesses is popular, economically responsible and environmentally sound. It is a settlement for all involved. That is the approach that ought to be taken in the North sea. The region needs a new settlement, in which: there is an increase in domestic manufacturing; a new generation of renewables, such as green hydrogen, turbocharges employment in energy-intensive industries; the technology of carbon capture, usage and storage and the UK’s unique storage capacity for sequestering carbon can provide a new service that is exportable to the world; the benefits of the energy system are shared fairly; jobs are truly safe and secure; and, above all, those communities who were once the proud purveyors of our fossil fuel energy become our proud sequesterers of the world’s emissions and the champions of the renewable powerhouse of the future.
Before I conclude, I want to mention one further spurious reason that the Government have put forward to justify the Bill: that it stops us from being dependent on oil and gas from dictatorial regimes such as Russia. Yesterday in the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) pointed out that a loophole in our sanctions regime means that countries such as China and India import Russian crude oil, process it and then sell it to the UK as refined oil. In 2023, we imported 5.2 million barrels of that oil. That means we sent something like £141 million in tax revenue to the Kremlin’s war chest. Britain is also the biggest insurer of Russian oil moved by sea, most of which is sold at prices well above the price cap, again violating sanctions. If the Government really wanted to stop such dependence, they could tighten the sanctions regime—they know how to do so, but they do not.
I will not vote for this piece of 20th-century legislation that instructs the House to look backwards and not forwards. I will not vote to make Britain colder and poorer. I will not vote to increase flooding. I will not vote to leave communities and workers behind. I will not vote to lock volatile fossil fuels into our already broken energy system. Sadly, we must wait for a future Parliament—and, I trust, a future Government. I look forward to working with Members from across the House in pursuit of those goals.
Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)
I rise to support amendment 15 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey), and in particular subsection (b) to proposed new section (1ZA), which relates to Grangemouth. There is something perverse and absurd about using Scottish oil if Scotland’s refinery is to close.
We have to transition. It has to be a just transition, which cannot just be a glib phrase. It must also be paced, because we cannot get there overnight. In my constituency of East Lothian, we can see the turbines on the Lammermuirs, and we can see them growing in number daily, and the growth in the number of columns, as offshore wind capacity comes. But we require fossil fuels to deliver that renewable capacity. We require diesel for the trucks, and marine diesel for the ships, out setting the columns and turbines. We also require the plastics that go with much of that. So we need to continue using and exploiting oil to get to a renewable future. We have to do so at a pace that is appropriate, but also ensure that our country benefits. That is why subsection (b) is so important.
There is something perverse in the fact that Scotland is energy-rich, yet people face fuel poverty. In my constituency, we are not seeing the benefits in employment that should come from being in a county that is so energy-rich. The county faces the same problem as Scotland: it is energy-rich, yet people can only look wistfully at the turbines offshore, while they are unable to pay their bills. We must ensure that we get jobs and work here. The refinery at Grangemouth is pivotal to that.
I grew up not in East Lothian but in West Lothian. The Grangemouth refinery has been there for a century—since 1924—not for North sea oil but for its precursor: the shale industry, which was centred in West Lothian, from which came BP, Paraffin Young and others. BP was the centrepiece, along with Imperial Chemical Industries in its various iterations; it is now Petroineos. The refinery initially dealt with the shale industry, but, once North sea oil was discovered, we used it for that oil.
The Forties pipeline comes ashore from the North sea at Cruden Bay, and oil is piped down to Grangemouth because it was meant to be refined there. Grangemouth is also capable of refining oil from elsewhere: a pipeline runs from Finnart in Argyll through to Grangemouth, which allows oil imported from abroad to be refined in Scotland. Yet we face a situation where unless we support the amendment, Grangemouth refinery will likely close. Although a spat has been going on between the SNP, Labour and the Tories about the North sea and its oil, little has been said about what is happening at Grangemouth. The threat has been growing, and action from the Government both here and in Scotland has been in inverse proportion to that.
Dave Doogan
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will have heard me reference Grangemouth and its future in my contribution. I support his ambition to maintain our hydrocarbon future at Grangemouth, as long as it can be sustained economically and environmentally. Does he agree that if we are to prevent the jeopardy that workers at Grangemouth face from ever re-emerging, we need to make sure that sustainable aviation fuel, biofuels and hydrogen are an integral part of Grangemouth’s output? We need to ensure that they overlap with hydrocarbons and leave them behind.
Kenny MacAskill
I have had discussions with the shop stewards and unions, whom the Scottish Government may wish to follow and not brush off with cursory meetings. We want a biofuel strategy for Grangemouth, but that is for some significant time in the future. Unless we act now, the refinery could close in 2025. Biofuels will not be refined in Grangemouth or anywhere else in 2025. The shop stewards and the unions wish us to get to biofuels, and Grangemouth must be declared a hub for that, but if it is to survive until then, we must ensure that it is a refinery, not simply a terminal, and that we maintain those skills.
It is absurd that we will continue to exploit Scotland’s oil, yet its refinery will close. There is something perverse about that. Scotland will be the only major oil-producing nation in the world—we are ranked No. 21 along with the UK in the top 25 oil producers—that does not have a refinery capacity. That will put us with large developing countries that produce less oil. We will join a club hosted by the likes of the Republic of Congo and Trinidad and Tobago. I am sure that they are lovely countries—I have never visited—but they are not developed nations with an industrial economy. The danger is that we will become a developing nation, in terms of our industrial base.
Graham Stuart
It is a pleasure to take part in the debate this afternoon, which has been wide-ranging, well informed and genuinely interesting. I thank Members from across the Committee for their participation and for playing an important role in scrutinising this important piece of legislation.
Before I move on to specific amendments I will, if you allow me, Dame Rosie, briefly outline the importance of this Bill. The UK leads the world on tackling climate change, and is the first major economy to halve emissions. The Bill will protect jobs, tax receipts and sovereign capability, so that we can continue that world leadership. As one of the world’s most decarbonised major economies, the UK remains dependent on oil and gas and will continue to be, albeit in reducing amounts, according to the Climate Change Committee. Even when we are at net zero in 2050, we will require oil and gas. However, we are a net importer and, as has been discussed, UK production is falling fast.
The ambition of the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) to destroy UK supply ignores industry, the unions and his own Back Benchers, and would simply replace UK oil and gas with higher-emission imports. That is at the heart of this; that is why we want to pass this legislation—it is because of the policies of the parties opposite. The hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan) looks a little confused. The parties opposite are very clear that they want to end new licensing, and we would thus have to import more from abroad. It is as simple as that. That would mean more LNG, which has four times the embedded emissions of domestically produced gas. That is the reality. That is at the heart of the Bill; that is why it is so important that we legislate today to send a signal to industry that continued fast-declining production in the North sea is the right thing to do environmentally, economically, in terms of tax—on every front. If it was not, we should not and would not do it.
Graham Stuart
I will make a little more progress.
Annual licensing will improve our energy security and that of our neighbours. It will support 200,000 jobs and safeguard billions in tax revenue and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) set out so well, it will safeguard the skills needed for successful energy transition. Hon. Members can listen to everyone from Offshore Energies UK to Robert Gordon University for evidence of the need for that. These things are not in tension; they mutually complement each other and need to be supported.
Graham Stuart
I promise to come to the hon. Gentleman before I finish.
Turning to the amendments selected today, I first thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Sir Alok Sharma) for amendment 12 on flaring and venting. As has been discussed, the guidance from the North Sea Transition Authority is clear that all new developments should be planned on the basis of zero routine flaring and venting. The Government have already committed to ending routine flaring and venting by 2030, going further than the World Bank’s zero routine flaring initiative. That voluntary North sea transition deal is reaping rewards. Based on the latest data, North sea flaring is down 50% since 2018, and the sector is on track to deliver the 2030 target.
I fear that the amendment would risk replacing voluntary momentum with a slower, compliance-based, more resistant approach from industry. However, I will continue to engage with my right hon. Friend as the Bill moves to the other place, with a view to delivering the end of flaring and venting by 2030 at the latest, which is an ambition he and I share, as do the Government.
With that, if the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) has not lost his mojo and his moment, I shall give way to him.
Barry Gardiner
I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way, and no—I would not lose my mojo on this. We all know that there is 110% more oil and gas already in the world than we can use if we are to remain within the 1.5°C threshold. Does the Minister think the climate really cares where that oil and gas are used? His argument about imports implies that he does believe that the atmosphere cares. The damage will be done; the only way we can reduce its impact is by ensuring that the proposed additional exploration licences are not achieved.
Graham Stuart
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. He has taken a long and deep interest in this issue, for which I pay him respect. It is the burning of oil and gas that is the primary issue. He mentions 110%—we probably have 200%, 300% or 400%. There are countries setting out to massively increase their production. That is all driven by demand. If we—as a species, as a globe—are to get to net zero, we will have to cap wells all over the world. We will have to leave it in the ground. The most important thing is to ensure that the demand curve is going in the right direction. Despite all the issues, challenges and difficulties of maintaining our role as the leading major economy in cutting emissions, the UK’s biggest challenge in dealing with climate change is not domestic, despite the difficulty of that; it is to get others to join us on a net zero pathway. The idea of producing our own emissions to ever-lower standards and replacing them with higher-emission products from abroad is for the birds. It makes no sense.
Graham Stuart
I am going to press on. [Interruption.] I do not mean to be rude, but I think I am unlikely, given his previous performance, to be terribly afeared of hearing from the hon. Member for Angus.
I turn to a series of amendments that seek to place conditions on when oil and gas licensing rounds are run. Amendment 15 relates to carbon capture, usage and storage, and the Grangemouth refinery. The oil and gas sector provides a significant portion of the investment that the UK needs to go into wind, CCUS and hydrogen, and I fear that the amendment would drive that investment elsewhere. It would also tie UK production of oil and natural gas to the refining activities of one refinery—Grangemouth—which I am sure Members across the House would agree is neither practical nor desirable.
Amendments 22 and 24 would result in an inconsistent approach between oil and gas licensing and our ambition for domestic energy efficiency. The Government already have a clear aim for as many homes as possible to reach energy performance certificate band C by 2035 where cost-effective, affordable and practical. That is the minimum standard required to replace fossil fuel boilers with low-carbon heating such as heat pumps.
On amendments 23 and 25, we are already reviewing our energy charter treaty membership. As far as we are concerned, there is no longer a clear route for modernisation. We will update the House in due course.
New clause 2 was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), who was right to highlight the importance of achieving strategic co-existence between different uses while maintaining environmental protection. Work is under way to ensure that we strike the right balance between our different marine priorities. The soon-to-be-commissioned strategic spatial energy plan and cross-Government marine spatial prioritisation programme will ensure, as she rightly outlines, that we take a strategic approach to identifying future sites for marine developments and energy infrastructure, and that these can co-exist with our environmental and wider marine priorities. I appreciate what my hon. Friend seeks to achieve and assure her that the Government share her desire to protect the marine environment—not least, of course, in the Celtic sea.
Amendments 2, 3, 13 and 18 seek to add an additional climate test to the Bill. The UK produces far less oil and gas than we need, and even with new licences, production is expected to decline faster than the average that is required globally to align with the UN’s 1.5°C pathways. All that this test would do is stop licensing and increase dependence on imported products like LNG, which has production emissions that are four times higher than those of domestically produced gas. The right hon. Member for Doncaster North knows this—he must—so what, other than ideology and a desire to please his Just Stop Oil backers, could lead him to table an amendment that could raise emissions, lose British jobs and hammer our economy? Truly, it is a mystery.
Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Is the reality not that reducing producer emissions in this country only to increase reliance on imported consumer emissions is entirely counterproductive for the environment and very damaging in terms of public support for the direction of travel?
Graham Stuart
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is the absurdity: ending licences will simply increase our imports. It will not change our consumption. If imports such as liquefied natural gas have higher emissions embedded in them, they are counter to our net zero aims.
I now turn to amendments 8 and 9, which together add a new energy and job security test to the Bill. The test, with its complex set of criteria, would damage investor confidence and cause confusion for industry, risking our energy security, jobs, and the skills and investment needed for the green transition we all want to see. It would make our system of administration of this area as opaque as the answers the hon. Member for Angus gave to straightforward questions earlier.
Amendments 10, 11, 13 and 14 introduce additional just transition tests to the Bill. We are absolutely clear on the importance of achieving a net zero basin by 2050 and are on track to deliver that. We need the skills, expertise and resources of the oil and gas industry to support our transition to cleaner technologies, maintaining oil and gas jobs so that they are not lost before renewables and other clean technologies grow to take up those skills.
Sir Alok Sharma
I have listened intently to the Minister and I welcome his willingness to work together on the issue of flaring and venting. What I did not hear from him was the clarity that I wanted on whether Government would look to introducing an amendment similar to amendment 12 in the other place. Perhaps that is something we can discuss before the Bill returns to this House.
Sir Alok Sharma
I am delighted to see the Minister nodding. I would just point out that even if the Government do not support a similar amendment in the other place, I am fairly confident that a similar amendment will be moved and I expect supported in the other place. This place will then have the opportunity to opine on that particular amendment, so I will not divide the Committee on this occasion. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment proposed: 10, page 1, line 6, at end insert—
“(aa) the just transition test (see section 4ZD)”.—(Dave Doogan.)
This paving amendment, together with Amendment 11, introduces a new test to be applied by the OGA before inviting applications for seaward new production licences.
Graham Stuart
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
It is my great pleasure to thank everyone who has supported the progress of the Bill. I recognise the excellent contributions of Members from across the House who have engaged closely with this important piece of legislation. I thank those on the Government Benches who spoke for their engagement with the Bill. In particular, I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Sir Alok Sharma), and my hon. Friends the Members for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), for Waveney (Peter Aldous), and for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid), for their contributions and the excellent points that they have raised in Committee.
I also welcome the robust scrutiny from the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), the hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan), who spoke for the Scottish nationalists, the hon. Members for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey), and for East Lothian (Kenny MacAskill), who represent the Alba party, and others. I thank them all for their participation. I also pay tribute to my officials for their work over these past months, as well to Parliamentary Counsel for their commendable work, the House authorities, parliamentary staff, Clerks and Doorkeepers.
The Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill will give industry the certainty that it needs to continue to invest in the North sea, to strengthen our energy security and to support the transition to net zero. The UK is leading the world on our journey to net zero emissions. We have the fastest reduction in emissions of any major economy —of any member of the G20 on the planet. In fact, we recently celebrated not only fulfilling and even exceeding the targets of the sixth carbon budget coming out of the landmark Climate Change Act 2008, but officially halving our emissions since 1990; we are the first major economy on the planet to do so.
Even when we have reached net zero in 2050, oil and gas will still play an important part in meeting our energy needs, as data from the Climate Change Committee shows. As the most decarbonised major economy in the world, 75% of our primary energy comes from oil and gas. Those who work in the North sea producing oil and gas—there are 200,000 jobs supported by the industry—should not be ashamed of what they do. It is the demand end—our cars, our homes and our factories—that we need to change. We need to meet that challenge; like Don Quixote, we will be tilting at windmills if we, a net importer, try to make our production the problem, rather than demand. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), who could not be with us earlier, but is very welcome now, asks me for the evidence of that. The evidence is that we have cut our emissions more than any other major economy.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
That was not what I was asking. The Minister says that we need to look at demand; where is the national insulation programme, so that we can insulate all our homes and reduce demand in that way? There isn’t one.
Graham Stuart
The hon. Lady may not have been present for the previous stage of this Bill, but as she has been present for other debates in this House, I cannot claim that she is an absentee Member, so it is extraordinary that she is unaware of the amazing transformation in insulation in this country since 2010. Is she not aware that, in 2010, just 14% of homes were decently insulated? Today, the figure is well over 50%. We are spending £6.5 billion in this Parliament, and will commit another £6 billion between 2025 and 2028, precisely to deliver the transformation that she calls for. On top of that, we have the eco schemes, and obligations on industry. That is how we have taken ourselves from the parlous, shameful situation left behind by the Labour party in 2010 to one where, although there is still much more to do, 50% of homes are decently insulated.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The Minister was very kind to come to my constituency in Northern Ireland to look at the potential schemes for sea turbines and the contract for difference arrangements. At the time, he indicated that, whenever the Assembly was up and running, the contract for difference scheme would be the responsibility of the Northern Ireland Assembly. He was very keen and eager to assist the Assembly. Is it his intention to contact the Northern Ireland Assembly to ensure that the CfD scheme can be promoted? His input into that will make a big difference.
Graham Stuart
I thank the hon. Gentleman, who is a consistent champion not only for his constituents but for the clean transition. I look forward to meeting and working with the new Minister for the Economy, who I believe has the energy portfolio in Northern Ireland.
The Bill will give industry the certainty that it needs to continue investing in the North sea, to strengthen our energy security, and to support the transition to net zero. The Government’s position is clear: we should, as far as possible, seek to meet continued UK demand for oil and gas from the UK’s own sources. That means continuing to use the North sea—a UK success story that has contributed billions of pounds in tax revenue and supports an industry of around 200,000 workers. The oil and gas industry, with its strong supply chains, expertise and skills, is vital to driving forward the net zero transition and the investment in clean technologies that we need to meet our net zero targets.
We all want the energy transition delivered in an orderly way that does not risk thousands of those jobs. Artificially reducing our production from the North sea or banning new licensing would do just that and jeopardise the energy transition, our progress towards net zero and our climate leadership, not to mention the billions of pounds in lost tax revenue. The Bill is about ensuring a smooth and orderly transition. New licences awarded under the Bill will manage the decline in domestic oil and gas production, rather than increase production above current levels, and they will give industry certainty by sending a strong signal of support for continued investment in the sector—investment that is necessary both for our energy security and to help deliver the energy transition. I commend the Bill to the House.
Dr Whitehead
It is customary on Third Reading to start with thanks, and I would like to thank two groups of people. First, I thank the civil servants who held their noses to write this pile of rubbish for the House’s consideration. Secondly, I thank the Government for introducing the Bill, because as a number of people will know, it has led directly to the election of a new Labour Member of Parliament for Kingswood, following the resignation of the former Government climate tsar, who wrote the net zero report and had this to say about the Bill:
“This bill would in effect allow more frequent new oil and gas licences and the increased production of new fossil fuels in the North Sea… I can also no longer condone nor continue to support a government that is committed to a course of action that I know is wrong and will cause future harm.”
He then resigned, and the rest is history. Thank you, Minister, for increasing Labour’s representation in this Chamber by one seat. Although we hope to have a lot more seats in the very near future, that is progress.
The Minister has form on this. He was the Minister in the Adjournment debate on fracking some while ago—
Dr Whitehead
Sorry; the Opposition day debate on fracking, which effectively brought down the Truss Government as a result of the various prevarications at the time. I thank the Minister for that.
What I do not thank the Minister for is the completely misleading and almost erroneous way in which he has characterised the future under the Bill. On licences, the Bill will do things that are already done, and it will not make any change. It will not suddenly increase confidence across the sector, because the sector knows that the Bill is just a piece of performative theatre; and it will do nothing—contrary to what the Minister and others have claimed—to cut energy bills, tackle the cost of living or improve our energy security.
At a time when people across this country have suffered two years of crushing energy costs and an inflationary crisis driven in large part by our significant exposure to gas prices—which, as we all know by now, are set internationally—the Bill offers no solutions. The Secretary of State herself admitted that it would not cut bills, and Lord Browne, the former chief executive officer of British Petroleum, said that it was
“not going to not make any difference”
to energy security. The board of the North Sea Transition Authority, which is responsible for giving out licences, unanimously agreed that the Bill is unnecessary and would challenge its independence. However, even though the Bill will achieve none of its stated aims, it is far from consequence-free.
Graham Stuart
Offshore Energies UK has said that if Labour’s policy was implemented, it could cost this country 42,000 jobs and £26 billion of economic value. Perhaps the shadow Minister will respond to that consequence.
Dr Whitehead
We are talking about what the Government are doing through this policy—that is what we are concentrating on today. I hope we will have another much wider debate about the effect that a comprehensive transition policy for the whole North sea field would have, with associated arrangements for the transition of investment, energy security and worker and job security, in the context of future jobs and future energy security. Many people in the industry have already said that that is exactly what we need to secure the future of the North sea. It is a declining basin; its output will not change greatly as a result of the measures that the Government are proposing. On the other hand, unless urgent action is taken to secure a holistic transition for the North sea, it certainly will not have the investment and the future that so many of us want to see. We need to put that overall consideration alongside some people’s shorter-term concerns about what will happen to the oil and gas industry right this minute.
Douglas Ross
This has been an extremely crucial issue in the north-east of Scotland, particularly this week. Does the shadow Minister think it is a small, short-term problem that 42,000 highly skilled workers in that area could lose their jobs under Labour’s plans?
Dr Whitehead
They will not. I have tried to make it very clear, against what is, frankly, misinformed scaremongering by Government Members, that under Labour’s plans the North sea will, of course, continue to produce efficiently and effectively over a very long period of time. We know that the North sea is a very mature field and is in decline, and all authorities have said that the Government’s proposals would make no difference to that overall pattern.
We are looking at how to make sure that the North sea continues to produce well and efficiently the oil and gas we will need for the future in declining amounts, while at the same time transforming that economy to produce new forms of energy for the future and maintaining security of production. That will be the big task for the future Labour Government—I am pleased that the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) is envisaging what the new Labour Government will shortly have to do. The long-term task in the North sea is not to pump every last drop of oil and gas it contains, but to give it a new lease of life. New industries can come into the North sea alongside the infrastructure that already exists, making it a new energy powerhouse for the UK in the future.
Douglas Ross
I cannot let that go unchallenged. This letter from the Aberdeen and Grampian chamber of commerce to the Leader of the Opposition—the leader of the Labour party in the UK—says that
“if North Sea production is to cease prematurely—a certain outcome of this”
Labour
“policy—then our entire energy transition is undermined.”
This has massive consequences, and I have to say that the reaction of the shadow Minister is quite telling.
Dr Whitehead
The hon. Member rather gives himself away by the first sentence he read out:
“if North Sea production is to cease”.
North sea production will not cease—
Dr Whitehead
North sea production will not cease over a long period of time, and Labour is committed to making sure that that production continues at the appropriate level for the maturity of the North sea basin. That is something that all sensible people understand to be the case, although it is unfortunate that certain Conservative Members pretend it is not the case for their own political purposes.
Dr Whitehead
I will make some progress.
The Bill, as I have said, will achieve none of its stated aims, but it is far from consequence-free. The consequence is that it makes a mockery of our country’s commitments to take serious and responsible action on climate change. That is exactly the point the former right hon. Member for Kingswood, Chris Skidmore, made in his resignation letter to the Prime Minister. That point should not be a partisan point. Indeed, it has not been a partisan point, because a number of Members on all sides of the House, including a number of Conservative Members, can see the direction in which this short-sighted Prime Minister and Government are going, and want no part of it.
Some Members are trying to make changes to the Bill. As I have said, one has resigned, and a number are working hard to turn around the direction of this Government in resiling from our country’s climate change commitments—commitments they so recently signed up to, at the recent COP—on moving away from oil and gas. Regrettably, the Prime Minister and the Government, including this Minister, are not having any part of that. I am particularly disappointed that the Minister is not having any part of it, because of his long and honourable commitment to these matters on the international stage over such a long time.
The right hon. Member for Reading West (Sir Alok Sharma), the man who led this country’s climate negotiations at COP26 in Glasgow, has called the Bill “smoke and mirrors”, and a “distraction” that will
“reinforce the unfortunate perception of the UK’s rowing back from climate action”.—[Official Report, 22 January 2024; Vol. 744, c. 52.]
The right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), the former Prime Minister—she signed this country’s net zero commitment into law and understood, as the current Prime Minister sadly does not, the value of cross-party consensus on the science of climate change—has said that she takes a different view from the Government on oil and gas licences, and that they will not provide for our energy security. Away from this Chamber, every credible independent expert has taken a dim view of the Bill. Lord Stern, one of the UK’s foremost experts on climate change, whose work has shaped how the world understands the costs of inaction, has called the Bill a “deeply damaging mistake”.
The reality is that the cost of living crisis we are in is to a large extent caused by our country’s deep exposure to the volatile international price of gas. The International Monetary Fund has said that this exposure meant the UK was harder hit by the crisis than any other western nation. Just today, the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit has found that this country has spent an additional—in addition to normal spending—£75 billion on gas since the energy crisis began. Four extra days of gas supply by 2050 cannot possibly make the slightest bit of difference to this price. As I have highlighted, the Secretary of State herself conceded that point on the very day the Bill was announced.
The supposed arguments on energy security and jobs are similarly flimsy. The reality is that, as we have begun to discuss this afternoon, the North sea is an extremely mature and declining basin. Gas production will fall by 95% by 2050, even with new licences. The notion that this is a firm basis on which to build our energy security or protect jobs is clearly absurd. As I have outlined, we need a fair and balanced transition for North sea oil and gas workers that recognises the essential role they will continue to play in operating existing fields, which no one disputes will remain a vital part of our energy mix, and puts them at the heart of our clean energy future.
To safeguard the jobs, skills and livelihoods of the communities that have been the backbone of our energy system for decades, we need a Government with a proper industrial strategy to maximise the low-carbon economic potential of the North sea. Labour will create a national wealth fund to invest in low-carbon industries, it will launch a British jobs bonus to ensure that the supply chain benefits of renewable investment finally come to our shores, and it will create a new publicly owned energy company, GB Energy, headquartered in Scotland, to invest in home-grown clean energy and give us real energy independence. That is the answer that the country needs and that the communities who have served as the backbone of our energy systems for decades need. Political theatre, whether in Westminster or Holyrood, helps no one and does a disservice to the people looking to us for answers to the very real challenges we all face.
The final argument that the Government have made in favour of the Bill is that it is somehow, as we have begun to unwrap, a climate-positive piece of legislation. This argument rests on a series of partial and deliberately gameable tests, as we discussed in Committee, with skewed conditions that look only at a narrow band of emissions, ignoring methane for example; that look only at production emissions, ignoring the impact of actually burning the fuels we are extracting; and that look only at liquefied natural gas, ignoring the fact that the majority of our imports are pipeline-delivered. It includes no test whatsoever for oil, which makes up the majority of remaining reserves. That is why I have sympathy for the civil servants who wrote the Bill, who had to squeeze various things into it such as ignoring gas that was coming into pipeline, only having tests against liquefied gas and ignoring the methane emissions in the various versions of the arrangements in place for measuring emissions from production. I was very disappointed that the Minister gave no reaction at all this afternoon to that particular point on methane.
Graham Stuart
The data simply does not exist, as I think I set out. It does not exist and we cannot make a comparison if the data does not exist. We are world-leading in having that data; others do not have it. On the methane comparison, we are already below the internationally set goal; we have very low methane emissions in the North sea. On the comparison with LNG— which is the buffer fuel, which is why it is the true comparator, rather than Norwegian gas, which the hon. Gentleman is failing to admit—methane is emitted as it is shipped, so the methane story would make it even worse for LNG versus domestically produced fuel. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would put that into his argument.
Dr Whitehead
I would not put it into my argument, but I am a little puzzled under those circumstances that the North Sea Transition Authority recently published a factsheet on precisely this point about the relative emissions of various contributors to gas and oil into the UK, which looked at the contribution from various countries and at the various emissions levels of those contributions, and set out how those contributions arise. I do not know whether the Minister is quite up to date with what his own North Sea Transition Authority is doing, but perhaps he ought to have a little look at that because he would see that actually the data is there. It does exist, and we can draw the sort of conclusions I drew this afternoon from it, and indeed from a number of other international data sources that are coming in.
The argument that the marginal unit of gas must always be LNG is simply not correct, because the Bill makes no provision whatsoever for the shape of UK gas demand at the point at which the gas is extracted and used. It effectively assumes that our national demand for gas will remain unchanged in perpetuity. When we are in a crisis caused by our reliance on fossil fuels and committed to a net zero transition, that assumption is patently wrong.
Graham Stuart
I hesitate to intervene again, but to suggest that this Bill has the assumption that our gas demand remains the same is absolute nonsense. Of course it is coming right down. We are on a net zero pathway. We are leading the world in that and our demand is falling fast; it is just that our production will fall even faster. The hon. Gentleman should not mislead the House, and I am sure he would not want to do so.
Dr Whitehead
I think I have already indicated that gas production is predicted to fall by 95% by 2050. The addition of one or two licences will not make any difference at all to that precipitous fall in practice, as it will be four days more of gas over the period. That is the basis for why we say that the Government’s commitment to net zero transition while producing large amounts of additional gas and oil is patently wrong. We should be sprinting towards clean energy. We should be investing in renewables, rather than banning them, as the Conservatives have done with onshore wind. We should be saving the country billions by moving to decarbonise power systems by 2030 and making far greater efforts to insulate homes and reduce gas demand there.
On climate change, on energy security, on jobs and on bills, this Bill has nothing to offer but false promises that frankly insult the public’s intelligence. To support this Bill, we would need to believe that we can double down on the causes of the cost of living crisis and still solve it; that we can somehow defy geology in the North sea and change the fundamental nature of international energy markets; and that we can ignore all the science and credible experts on climate change and still meet our commitments, including our commitment to transition away from fossil fuels made by the Minister at COP28 a few short months ago. It is clearly nonsense, but it is emblematic of a Government who have run out of ideas and run out of road—a Government who can see the many real challenges our country faces, but have no answer to them beyond confected political drama. In their misguided pursuit of a political dividing line, they have shrunk our country on the international stage, made us hypocrites in the eyes of the world and opened the door in this country to a new divisive politics on climate change that I sincerely believe the Ministers sitting opposite me today are not comfortable with, do not want as their legacy and will come to regret profoundly. This Bill will deliver nothing, but it threatens much. For that reason, I urge the House to vote against it.
Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)
It has been interesting following the process of this Bill. I spoke on Second Reading, and I sat through most of the Committee today, and I am pleased to speak on Third Reading to support the proposals brought forward by this UK Conservative Government—the only party supporting our vital oil and gas industry across the United Kingdom, and particularly in the north of Scotland. My constituents in Moray, many of whom work in the oil and gas industry, will be shocked and annoyed by what we have heard today from those on the SNP Benches and by the deeply disappointing remarks we have just heard from the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) on the Labour Front Bench. If he thinks that “misinformed scaremongering” from Offshore Energies UK and from Aberdeen chamber of commerce does not deserve to be raised in this Chamber, he is gravely wrong. I think it is an indication of Labour’s position. It has already turned its back on the oil and gas industry in Scotland, and by the sound of things it will only get worse. [Interruption.] He is looking quizzical, but let us just look at what is happening in Scotland now and at some of the coverage.
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is a regular reader of The Press and Journal, but its front page made clear what people in the north-east of Scotland think about Labour’s proposals. The Scottish Sun said that people in Scotland could wave goodbye to tens of thousands of jobs. That is not the papers or the Opposition just saying that; it is papers reporting what experts in the field are saying. We know that the Labour party changes its policies quickly, and I can only hope this is another of those, because its actions are having a deeply damaging effect. Were these policies ever implemented, they would have a huge impact on the oil and gas sector and the people who work in it and rely on that oil and gas production. Tens of thousands of jobs and livelihoods are at risk.
As we often want to articulate our own views in this Chamber, I think it is only right that we repeat some of the concerns raised by the industry. Offshore Energies UK’s chief executive Dave Whitehouse is someone who must be listened to on this subject. I met him recently on a visit to Aberdeen. He said that Labour’s proposals
“would deliver a hammer blow to the energy we need today and to the homegrown transition”.
He also said:
“These are not faceless numbers but decent, hardworking people working across the UK to provide the energy we will need today and in the future.”
That is an expert view on the Labour proposals.
Aberdeen chamber of commerce has described Labour’s plans as a “betrayal”. Chris Wheaton, an oil and gas analyst, said:
“The uncertainty created by threatening new windfall taxes is as bad as the tax itself.”
Perhaps most powerfully of all, last week, more than 800 individuals, firms and trade groups wrote to the Leader of the Opposition to express their deep concerns about what is being spoken about by the Labour party.
Sadly, in Scotland, we cannot get a cigarette paper between the Labour party and the SNP. It is almost as if they are in a race to decimate our oil and gas industry and want to outmanoeuvre each other. Both support a windfall tax. Both oppose the Rosebank field. Both are speaking about dangerous proposals—[Interruption.] Liberal Democrat Members think that is funny. I am sorry, but I do not think it is funny that tens of thousands of jobs across Scotland are under threat. I take that issue extremely seriously.
Speaking about the SNP, I tried to get this out on Second Reading and in Committee. I am delighted that the hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan) is still in his place, because we have to get to the bottom of this. I ask him to intervene on me and explain whether he, as the MP for Angus, representing a north-east constituency, believes further licences should or should not be granted for production of oil and gas in the North sea.
Dave Doogan
I do not know about you, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I have just about heard enough from the hon. Member today. For the fourth time, Government Members’ association between the number of licences issued and the number of oil and gas jobs protected is specious at best. We have been accused by them—including, I think, the hon. Member—of wanting to put the oil and gas industry in Scotland to the sword. There is no such plan. The leader of the SNP and Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf was in Aberdeen just yesterday talking about how Scottish oil and gas workers must never be left behind.
I am disappointed in the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid)—I thought more of him—misquoting Humza Yousaf, who said that he would rather Aberdeen was not the oil and gas capital of Europe but the renewable energy capital of the world. That promises vastly more economic opportunity for workers in Scotland. Government Members had better start dealing with that.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I remind Members that this is a Third Reading and that we should not be reopening arguments that were heard in Committee or previous stages.
Douglas Ross
I respect that ruling, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I do not think it is reopening anything, because we have not got any further. I have tried at Second Reading, in Committee, and now at Third Reading. Why is it so difficult for SNP Members who represent communities in the north-east of Scotland to say what is actually in their own draft energy strategy? It says there is a “presumption” against new “exploration” for oil and gas “in the North sea”. The fact that the hon. Member for Angus cannot simply stand up and give his own position tells us exactly how people in the north-east of Scotland feel. The SNP has breathtaking hypocrisy on this issue. It wants to run down the oil and gas sector. It is no friend of the oil and gas sector. Of course, the SNP asked the Green party into government—that tells us everything we need to know.
Sammy Wilson
Was the hon. Member as confused as I was by the answer given by the hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan): that somehow or other there is no need for a licence to drill for oil to create and protect oil jobs, and that we can protect oil jobs by not extracting any oil from the ground?
Douglas Ross
That is just one example of the mixed and confused messaging from the SNP which, sadly, we hear far too much in this Chamber. We have heard it across the north-east this week and it has dominated much of our proceedings.
Douglas Ross
I will, because this may be our final chance to hear if the hon. Gentleman believes in the SNP’s draft energy strategy, which included a presumption against licences for new oil and gas exploration.
Dave Doogan
As much as I am enjoying the hon. Member’s crocodile tears about protecting jobs in Scotland, I wonder if he could give confidence to those oil and gas workers in Scotland by highlighting an example from recent history when the Tories have protected anyone’s job anywhere?
Douglas Ross
It is only this UK Conservative Government and the Scottish Conservatives at Holyrood who are standing up for an industry that supports more than 200,000 people across the United Kingdom and 95,000 people in Scotland. We have heard that 42,000 jobs are at risk under the Labour proposals, which are almost identical to those of the SNP.
Douglas Ross
I will briefly give way, and then I will bring my remarks to a close.
Wera Hobhouse
How does the hon. Gentleman propose to get to net zero by 2050 and a temperature rise of no more than 1.5C? Our current projections exceed all that. All I hear is that we have to increase oil and gas production in the North sea, but that is the wrong path to net zero. How will we limit temperature rises to 1.5C and ensure that we do not carry on the current trajectory of well over 2C? The Government do not have an answer for that.
Douglas Ross
The hon. Lady has misinterpreted everything that I have heard during the debate. No one is saying that there will be increased production; we are looking to protect what is happening at the moment, and jobs. As my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) said in Committee, those jobs will go elsewhere. Let us make no bones about that. They will not stay in Scotland or the United Kingdom. Under the proposals of other parties, they will go to other countries in Europe and around the world. They will drill for oil and gas in those countries, they will pay their tax in other places and they will ensure that we buy that in as a nation at a higher cost and with a greater carbon footprint.
That is why I want us to maximise what we can do in the North sea, supporting tens of thousands of jobs in the north-east and right across Scotland and the United Kingdom, and work towards that just transition, which Offshore Energies UK and everyone else is fully behind. That is why I support this Bill and the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Minister, who has worked constructively across the House. I have had very useful meetings with him, the Secretary of State and others.
The Bill also sends a clear message that there is one party on the side of workers in the north-east and those in the oil and gas sector across the United Kingdom. That is the Conservative party—here in government at UK level, and the Scottish Conservatives at Holyrood and across Scotland. More and more people are starting to see that the Labour party and the SNP are turning their backs on these workers, and only the Scottish Conservatives and this UK Government are supporting them.
Dave Doogan
The Bill is completely lacking in merit. It seeks to solve a problem that does not exist. The North Sea Transition Authority can issue licences, and it has been doing so. This is a Potemkin argument; a specious debate about the issuance or otherwise of licences. When this Bill passes, which it will given the arithmetic in this House, it will change not one jot the ability to issue licences or otherwise. What it seeks to do is put on a pedestal and create conflict in what was previously broad consensus about the need for a just transition to combat a climate emergency.
In the tone and tenor of the debate today, Government Members in particular have shown a desire to weaponise that. We just heard from the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), who said in his summing up that only the Conservatives are standing up—absolute and utter nonsense, although if I was working in oil and gas, I would not want to rely too heavily on Labour, if its £28 billion plan is anything to go by. It could have included measures to offset the rapacious appetite for more and more licences to drill for every drop of oil and gas within the North sea basin and receipt every available ha’penny of tax into His Majesty’s Treasury. It could have done those things, and chucked a little bit over the wall to say, “But we’re going to put 5%, 10% or 15% of all those revenues directly into the just transition.” That would not have been brilliant, but it would have been something. But no—there is not a thing in this legislation to offset the appetite for further and further investment.
Government Members have spoken at length about the need to ensure that we do not develop a gap between that which we demand and that which we can supply—it has already passed; the UK can no longer sustain its own demand. We have to import oil and gas from elsewhere. But that is a myopic obsession with the supply side. There is not nearly enough being done by the Government after 14 years to mitigate the demand side. Supply is a function of demand; the be supply requirements are such as a result of that which is being demanded. If there had been a truly ambitious programme at any stage over the past 14 years to insulate houses, get people into electric vehicles and introduce further decarbonisation of our economies and lifestyles, we would not have the demand that we have now. The potential gap between that which can supplied domestically and that which has to be imported would inevitably be less in a zero-sum game. However, we do not have any of that.
Douglas Ross
I will not go over an issue that I am not going to get an answer to. However, the hon. Gentleman’s own party has been in government in Scotland for 17 years now, and the Scottish Government have repeatedly missed their own climate change targets, largely because they have not done what he is accusing the UK Government of not doing. How does he reflect on his own party and Government in Scotland who have not done enough to insulate homes, get more people into electric vehicles and put in the charging points that we need across the country?
Dave Doogan
Not for the first time, the hon. Gentleman has stood on a political landmine if he thinks he is going to hold me to account on the availability of charge points. What he may not know—although, knowing him, I suspect he probably does—is that someone wanting to find anywhere on these islands with more vehicle charge points than Scotland would need to come to London or the south-east of England. Scotland has many more available charge points for electric vehicles—
Dave Doogan
Well, we can sort this out later. Scotland has the third highest availability of electric vehicle chargers of all geographical areas in the United Kingdom. I think the Scottish Government’s record is exemplary—having, as we do, one hand tied behind our back due to being a member of this non-Union, with the freedom of movement and zero agency that comes from being a non-sovereign state. Any other normal country could invest into whatever it wants, and could do so using the normal levers that an independent country would have. Scotland, of course, cannot do that because it must wait for its cheque every year from Westminster. If the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) does not like that, he knows what to do.
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) for the work he did in finally grinding out some progress from his partners and colleagues in government on the Acorn project, but that just typifies the slowness—the absolute pedestrian nature—of measures to protect consumers and the environment from the largest possible demand. If we had gone into that with a proper fund and with ambition and pace five, six or seven years ago, we would not be in this situation now.
The SNP’s amendment proposed an elegant solution to invest the additional receipts from oil and gas extraction in the North sea basin directly into the renewable transition, protecting people from higher bills, insulating their homes and getting them out of their petrol and diesel cars and into electric cars. As we saw in the Prime Minister’s rolling back on heat pumps and electric vehicles—a further weaponisation of the climate emergency—that is not on the agenda of this fag end Tory Government. They are trying to scrabble around looking for votes, but that does not work. They have achieved tremendous damage with that approach and judging by recent by-election results they have gained zero political capital. On the mess that is evident before us—[Interruption.]—while I get heckled by the hon. Member for Moray, I and my SNP colleagues urge Members to decline the Bill a Third Reading.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Proceedings must finish at 40 minutes past 5. Four people are standing. Please be considerate to other Members, so that everybody can get in.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
It is hard to know what more can be said about this farcical and unnecessary Bill. It feels as if we are running out of adjectives. Taking part in this debate, listening to the ridiculous heckles from the Government Front Bench, almost legitimises this desperate and dangerous attempt to create yet another culture war out of something as serious as the climate emergency, but I put on record my deep disappointment that the Government are playing such dangerous games.
Ever since the Climate Change Act 2008 was first introduced, there has more or less been a consensus of a kind, with a recognition on both sides of the House that the climate crisis was real and that we needed to act fast to address it. Of course, there were differences on some of the detail, but not on that substantial issue. Now, however, it feels as if we have a Government who are putting all that at risk and that the legislation is all of a piece with Ministers rolling back pledges on home insulation, the boiler replacement scheme, electric vehicles and so on—the ludicrous list we had from the Prime Minister about all sorts of things he was going to scrap that were never Government policy in the first place.
I will add one further argument to those we have heard over the past few hours: projects such as Rosebank will not enhance our security, not just because the oil is mainly exported, but because public opposition to such projects and their unlawfulness mean that developments are subject to lengthy legal battles. That is a very real risk. Would it therefore not be better to accelerate the roll-out of cleaner energy, which is much more popular with the public, and not give, in this case, Rosebank’s owner Equinor nearly £3 billion in tax breaks? Lawfulness is particularly topical today, with a law case going on right now about whether the Government are meeting their climate objectives and whether the reports they have produced contain enough policy detail to persuade the population that we are on track to meet our climate targets. That also demonstrates, frankly, that the boosterism we have heard from the Minister is entirely misplaced. Complacency does not address the climate crisis or the fact that while the UK once had a leadership position on climate, it has one no longer.
When I listen to some of the voices on the Conservative Benches, I sometimes feel as if this place is on another planet from the one that is overheating. It is undeniable that we are living through what many are calling the sixth mass extinction. We are living through a risk of earth’s systems collapse. Scientists are running out of words to describe the seriousness and to try to wake up policymakers to exactly what is at stake. We have just heard that there is a risk of a total loss of late summer sea ice in the Arctic. That is now baked in and could happen as early as the 2030s. That, in turn, is likely to trigger even more extreme weather events in the northern hemisphere, through the weakening of the jet stream. In the Antarctic, melting of the sea ice has accelerated dramatically, which could lead to cascading collapses of the fresh water ice shelves, with catastrophic results for rises in global sea levels. New research in the Amazon has found what scientists call precursor signals of an approaching critical transition. Deforestation and climate breakdown could now cut off circulating rainfall in the basin, triggering a rapid flip from rainforest to savannah. This is what we are talking about here. Future generations will look back to this time—they may even look back, who knows, to this debate—and wonder what on earth we were thinking by giving a green light to more oil and gas licences.
When we ask ourselves why that is happening, we might also reflect on the role of the fossil fuel lobbyists. A few weeks ago, when I held an Adjournment debate on the subject of the fossil fuel lobbying that goes on in this place, I noted that Offshore Energies UK and its members, including BP and Shell, had
“met UK Government Ministers more than 210 times in the year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—that is nearly once every working day.”—[Official Report, 30 January 2024; Vol. 744, c. 833.]
The combined profits of Shell and BP alone have reached £75 billion, and I would suggest that that is not unrelated to the direction of the Government’s discussion today.
Let me end by quoting from a letter from more than 700 UK scientists who wrote to the Prime Minister last year urging him to halt the licensing of new oil and gas. They included Chris Rapley, a former head of the Science Museum and a professor at University College London, and Mark Maslin, a world-famous professor of earth system science at UCL, and they all warned against any new development of oil and gas. They wrote:
“if the UK allows any new development of oil and gas fields, it will severely undermine…claims of leadership by contributing to further oversupply of fossil fuels, and making it more difficult for the world to limit warming to 1.5°C. Therefore, the UK should commit to preventing any new oil and gas field development, and the Government should state this commitment clearly… There are those who might claim that stopping new developments of oil and gas fields would raise concerns about the affordability and security of future energy supplies, but there is now overwhelming evidence that the UK is far better served by a rapid transition to domestic clean energy sources, particularly renewables, and decarbonisation of our economy. Doubling down on fossil fuels will not lower energy bills or enhance our energy security… The IPCC report stated: ‘The choices and actions implemented in this decade’”—
now, at a time when we are all in decision-making positions—
“will have impacts now and for thousands of years’.”
The moment for political leadership is here and now, and I beg Ministers to rise to the occasion.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
There are about 18 minutes left. I call Wera Hobhouse.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who has made a powerful case in explaining why the Bill should never have reached the House. This month is on course to break an unprecedented number of heat records, and the dangers of failing to reach net zero are staring us in the face. I say this again and again, and the hon. Lady has made a very powerful point. This Government, in the name of “protecting jobs”, are turning their back on their net zero commitments, and I find that, and the way in which this debate is being run, incredibly dishonest. If the debate were honest, it would reflect the fact that the Government have shown their true face, and are delaying the climate action that is so necessary.
I have heard repeatedly, throughout the debate, “We are responding to demand.” Of course there will be demand for as long as we provide unlimited supply, and of course the oil and gas industry itself will want to drill for every last drop of oil for as long as it can, but it is for a responsible Government to make a responsible decision, and to look the dangers that confront us in the face. The tobacco industry says that there is demand for smoking materials, and the Government have understood their responsibility to stop that demand because smoking is dangerous, but they fail to see or understand the dangers of climate change. We need a Government who will guide the economy into the net zero future, because we need to secure a prosperous future, in the long term, for all people, rather than concentrating on a short-term election issue that may divide Members after such a long period of consensus on the need to reach net zero.
While the Government claim that new licences will improve energy security, the reality is very different. Between now and 2050, new licences are expected to provide an average of only four days of gas per annum. All that the Bill does is send a symbolic signal. It does not even meet the requirement that the Government have set themselves—securing energy for the future of this country. That is why I think the Bill is so dangerous. As I said on Second Reading, it was introduced for political reasons, not because the Government are genuinely intent on any outcome except electoral gain. That is why we should oppose the Bill and make it very clear to our citizens that it does nothing for energy security, nothing to get us to net zero, and nothing to curb energy bills. All Members of the House in their right mind should oppose this Bill.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I call Sammy Wilson. Please be cognisant of the fact that the debate will finish at 5.14 pm, and Mr Foord would like to get in, too.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
May I first say that we fully support the Bill and the objectives that have been set? As has been said time and again during the debate, we will require oil and gas for decades—and it may as well be British oil and gas, because that means jobs in Britain, tax revenue, and reducing our imports. If we are to continue to use oil, there are very good reasons why we should give licences for its production.
I find some of the arguments made today very strange. Passionate speeches have been made against this Bill on the basis that—let me paraphrase the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead)—it does not do anything that is not already being done. He went further and said that even though that is the case, civil servants must have “held their noses” when writing the Bill. If it does not do anything that is not already being done, why on earth is there such passionate opposition to it? [Interruption.] A Member asks from a sedentary position about the climate emergency. Apparently, one of the arguments against the Bill is that it will provide only another three days’ worth of oil and gas. We are hardly going to push up world temperatures if another three days’ worth of oil and gas is drilled out of the North sea, but we will ensure years of jobs for people currently working in the gas industry, guarantee years of finance for much-needed public services in this country, and guarantee that we do not have to import from other countries.
Another argument used against the Bill is that it is a confected and contrived piece of legislation, designed simply to be part of the culture wars and to drive a wedge. Indeed, the hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan) said it was “specious” and dealt with a problem that does not exist. The easy way of ensuring that the Bill does not become a confected piece of legislation or drive an artificial wedge is for those who think that it is only window dressing to make it quite clear that they would continue to allow licences to be issued. Then it would not be confected; we would know that either there is a real difference or there is no difference. I am not sure where the Labour party stands on this issue, but if, like the hon. Member for Angus, it cannot give a commitment that there would be licences granted under a Labour-controlled Administration, the Bill is not confected or specious. It is real, and people have to make a judgment: will the Bill ensure that our economy and workers can benefit from the oil we have? If so, this legislation is necessary.
Given the stance that has been adopted by the Labour party, my great worry in all this is that although the Government are trying to inject some confidence into the debate, it does not give any long-term confidence, because we will have an election this year and investors will not know whether the arguments we have heard today will lead to licences not being granted in the future.
My second concern, which has been alluded to by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), is that because we have established legally binding targets for net zero in legislation, the benefits that might come from this Bill will not be realised because they will get stuck in the courts. I have said this to the Minster before, and I say it again: legally binding targets leave the Government open to legal challenges on every piece of sensible legislation that they try to bring through this House, whether it be to alleviate the burden placed on people by their heating bills by changing the policy on heat pumps, or to reduce the impact on travel costs by not having mandatory targets for electric vehicles; I could go through a whole list of policies. This is something that we will have to revisit.
We give the Bill our support tonight. We think it is sensible, and that it gives confidence. It also shows that the Government recognise the reality: people will use oil and gas for many decades into the future, and we have to ensure that we benefit from the fact that demand is there.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
Most people in this country accept that we need energy security, that we must move away from fossil fuels to more sustainable energy sources, and that we must seek to reduce our carbon emissions to meet the challenges posed by climate change. They see the effects of climate change every day. Recently in my corner of Devon, the communities of Feniton and Cullompton showed me what it was like to experience flash flooding. It has caused terrible damage to constituents’ properties and destroyed some of their most treasured possessions. Flooding will only get worse and more frequent as the UK continues to suffer the effects of climate change.
We in the UK have shown leadership in this area. We should be setting an example to the rest of the world on the need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, but also crucially on the economic benefits that the UK can enjoy as a result. The Government claim that by mandating the North Sea Transition Authority to run regular bids for new oil extraction licences, they will protect the UK’s energy security, but that simply does not add up, because 80% of the oil is exported, so there will be no material difference to people’s energy bills, and we will still be reliant on imported liquefied natural gas. We saw that in the second invasion of Ukraine in 2022; it caused huge spikes in oil and gas prices and left consumers facing spiralling energy bills. They would not have been nearly so badly affected by that if we had continued to invest in onshore wind in the way we were doing in 2015, or if we had continued to insulate buildings in the way we were in the coalition years.
It is not UK-produced oil that would have mitigated those price rises, but UK-based renewable energy and demand avoidance, encouraged by a more progressive Government than this one. For example, Octopus Energy notes that £5 billion could have been saved by consumers if onshore wind had continued to be developed at 2015 rates, but the Conservatives were left to govern alone, and that prospect vanished.
The UK Energy Research Centre said of this Bill:
“A fixation on new licensing…is a distraction. It offers comfort in the possibility of conserving oil and gas production…rather than grasping the challenge of a rapid transition.”
To put it bluntly, this is the approach of a Government who are too scared to embrace the future and make the fundamental changes that we need to build a better future for our children. Many on the Conservative Benches have highlighted the challenges of phasing out oil and gas as we transition to renewable energy, but there are not only challenges. There are also opportunities to support new home-grown, clean energy that will power our homes and create a swathe of well paid jobs. We cannot cling to the past because we are too scared of the future.
There is an analogy here from over a century ago, when Great Britain first embraced oil. Winston Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty in a Liberal Government. He took office in 1911, a key point in the Anglo-German naval race. There was a big decision on his desk when he took on the role. How should Great Britain power its ships? Until that point, coal had been the Royal Navy’s dominant source of fuel. It was produced at home in Britain, and the saying “carrying coals to Newcastle” reminds us that there was an abundance of coal in Britain, but that did not make Churchill determined to exploit the abundant reserves of that fuel, which was powering the world’s largest navy of the day.
Churchill signed an order for the Royal Navy to be powered by the innovative energy source of the 20th century, which happened to be oil. Oil was more efficient and allowed ships to travel faster, further, with less fuel. It also allowed for the innovative design of new ships. By this Government’s logic, Churchill should have put that cutting-edge energy source on the back burner and stuck to coal. The arguments made in favour of coal then were similar to those being deployed in favour of the Bill today. Churchill believed in looking to the future and seizing the opportunities that arose, so he took the fateful decision that all new ships in the surface fleet would switch to the more innovative, more energy-efficient fuel source. As a result, the Royal Navy continued to dominate the seas and hampered Germany’s international trade and, later, its war effort.
Today, China is working on zero-emission shipping. The California-China Climate Institute at Berkeley is looking at 21st-century innovations that will power the leading economies of this century. If China tunes into BBC Parliament and sees us in our 19th-century surroundings, it would think it quaint that we are debating which 20th-century energy source we should cling to.
Churchill’s decision in 1911 put Britain at the forefront of innovation and design, allowing Britain and British talent to reshape the character of the 20th century. Do Conservative Members disagree with Mr Churchill? Are they daunted by the prospect of seizing the opportunity presented by new sources of energy, including renewable energy, to power the UK in the 21st century? Why are they seeking to take these short-term, short-sighted decisions that fly in the face of our climate commitments?
This Conservative Government already offer subsidies to the oil industries, and they are already indifferent to the price of renewable energy being tied to the price of gas. It is time for a rethink. It is time to focus on improving the national grid, boosting home-grown green energy and investing in the technologies of tomorrow.
Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
Business without Debate
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
With the leave of the House, I will put motions 3 to 5 together.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),
Social Security
That the draft Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2024, which were laid before this House on 11 January, be approved.
That the draft Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) (Specified Diseases and Prescribed Occupations) (Amendment) Regulations 2024, which were laid before this House on 14 December 2023, be approved.
That the draft Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 2024, which were laid before this House on 11 January, be approved—(Aaron Bell.)
Question agreed to.
Justice
Ordered,
That Rob Butler be discharged from the Justice Committee.—(Sir Bill Wiggin on behalf of the Committee of Selection.
Walking and Cycling: Government Support
(10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Trudy Harrison (Copeland) (Con)
Tonight, I will speak about the benefits of walking and cycling. Let me quote Proverbs 22:6:
“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Although perhaps slightly sexist, that is inscribed on the wall of Captain Shaw’s Church of England Primary School in the home village of Bootle where I live in the Lake district. It is where my four daughters all went to school, where I was a school governor, where I welcomed my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) in 2017 when she was Prime Minister, and where I, for one year only, taught Bikeability courses. As a very small school, we struggled to find an instructor back in the day. Determined that our children should not miss out on the essential life skills provided by Bikeability, I volunteered.
There are many terrifying things that we all do in life. Some might say that speaking from these Benches or from the Dispatch Box fits into that category, but let me tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that when your school has just 14 children and you have responsibility for the entirety of years 5 and 6, taking them out on the A595 really is quite terrifying. Of course the children were brilliant. They learned all about the brakes, honed their skills and mastered the basics of road safety awareness, and, verified by an independent inspector, every child passed the test at the end of the session. That provided me with a heightened appreciation of the 2,231 Bikeability instructors in this country.
Conversely, a more joyous occasion that I can just about recall was finding my own freedom. A late developer, I was about six years old when I started to ride my Raleigh Comanche, affixed with stabilisers, which I now know are more of an impediment.
Balance bikes are so much better for little ones to learn to ride, as I observed on a ministerial visit to the Netherlands with Active Travel England, where I saw so many children as young as 18 months—as young as the Minister’s little boy, Kitto—learning to ride their balance bikes in a huge municipal hall. The slightly older children would practise on a street scene, getting to grips with the highway code. The more advanced children would put me to shame with their BMX skills, complete with their mastery of narrow bridges, speedy corners, agility and fast reactions. All the while, they gained confidence and skills that last a lifetime and support healthy lifestyles.
Back to me, though. Aged six, I would enthusiastically and patiently wait for Jonti, the boy next door, to return from college or possibly work—he was about 17 years old. I would spot him coming home, pop round, knock on the door and ask, “Mrs Parr, is Jonti available to come and help me learn to ride my bike?” That poor man; I am so sorry—but I was delighted to feel the freedom of riding my own bike. I am sure that many others in this House have felt that freedom, too. However, only one in four children have a bike nowadays. Later in my speech, I will address that, and encourage the Minister to support me.
Teaching my girls to ride their bikes was a huge privilege. It was an equally amazing feeling to see them on their way on two wheels. The fact that one in four children are lucky enough to have a bike of course means that three in four do not have access to one. That has not prevented Bikeability from supporting schools by adopting the loan of fleet bikes—indeed, all eligible local authorities that applied were successful in getting fleet bikes—but if children and their parents do not have bikes at home, that is clearly a barrier not just to motivating them to undertake Bikeability courses, but to their ability to ride bikes as a normal, everyday thing to do.
Thanks to the brilliant Rich and Sue Martin at Cyclewise, 83.9% of schools in Cumbria received a level 1 and level 2 course, or at least a level 2 course—well exceeding the Active Travel England target of 80%. However, not all local authorities are doing so well. I would welcome it if the Minister took a lead on that, perhaps by writing to the poorly performing local authorities to encourage them to embrace the benefits of more active travel.
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for introducing this Adjournment debate. She was a fabulous Minister who very much promoted walking and cycling, and I am sure that the current Minister will do equally as well. Like my hon. Friend, I love my bicycle—I am pleased that antisocial behaviour orders did not exist when I was a kid, because what I did on my BMX would certainly have got me quite a few—and I continue to cycle. Does she agree that one challenge is that local authorities do not take a consistent approach to encouraging cycling, whether through investment in infrastructure, planning and design, or supporting schemes such as Bikeability?
Trudy Harrison
My hon. Friend makes an incredibly valid point. We need to encourage all local authorities to embrace the Bikeability training that is available to them, as she will know from the incredible work that she does to encourage us all. She provided huge motivation for my joining the early-morning running club, and for so many people in this House to get a bit fitter, and I am really grateful for that.
Talking of brilliant people, it is brilliant that we have appointed Chris Boardman MBE as the national commissioner for walking and cycling—a tremendous force for good, not just for sport but, even more importantly, for active travel as an everyday way of life. I hope he will not mind me quoting him. He has said that Gear Change could be one of the greatest health interventions that a Government have ever made.
As the Minister in the Department for Transport responsible for the future of transport, including walking and cycling, I was especially proud to create Active Travel England and appoint Danny Williams as its chief executive. That organisation has gone from strength to strength under the current Minister’s steering: headquartered in York, it is realising wheely great projects right across the country!
One of my most memorable visits as a Minister was to Eaglesfield Paddle Church of England primary school in my constituency. I observed the children, who were in years 5 and 6, undertaking their Bikeability training with Cyclewise. After that training, those children were so enthusiastic—they had really enjoyed the sessions— so I asked them, “Who rides their bike to school?” Unfortunately, not a single child put their hand up, so I asked them another question, “Who would like to ride their bike to school?” Everybody put their hand up. The problem was a rather nasty junction very close to their school. I encourage the Minister to prioritise schemes that will make routes from home to school safer, or perhaps ask local authorities to prioritise those schemes, because it is crucial that children are able to form healthy habits at an early age.
Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that local authorities often fall into the trap of doing the easy bits—painting white lines on the road—but not tackling those nasty junctions, which are the real disincentive that prevents people, particularly young people, from taking up more cycle opportunities?
Trudy Harrison
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need to tackle those junctions and make those improvements. It is not always about segregated or designated routes; often it is, but certainly in our rural areas where there is less traffic, tackling those quite dangerous junctions makes parents more likely to encourage their children to cycle to school and form those really important healthy habits at an early age.
Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)
I am loth to intervene on my hon. Friend’s speech, because it is quite fascinating —she has talked about the path that each of us takes into cycling and through life. In my own constituency, we have been very fortunate that the Government have invested £18.6 million of levelling-up moneys in the Môr i’r Mynydd—coastal to mountains—active travel route. Crucially, one of the benefits of that route will be enabling pedestrians, cyclists and wheelers to avoid the nasty Black Cat roundabout when getting from Glan Conwy to Conwy. That means that school pupils and students in Glan Conwy will be able to get to Aberconwy school without having to navigate that roundabout, which is exactly what my hon. Friend is talking about. My question, though, is about rurality. In rural areas, those busy A roads are very difficult to get past or get around, so does my hon. Friend agree that along with Bikeability and the ambassadors, the provision of designated active travel routes is a key part of getting more people on to their bikes?
Trudy Harrison
Yes again. There is a lot of agreement in the House tonight, and enabling those routes to schools and tackling those junctions is primarily what Active Travel England will be looking at. Having routes that comply with local transport note 1/20 is really important, but where that is not possible, we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good; we should enable as many children as is physically possible to get on to their bikes or walk to school, to form early healthy habits so that they grow into healthier adults.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way. I am particularly pleased that she has focused on young people in her debate, which is very impressive, but of course, some of the infrastructure for active travel is also needed by older people. On 18 January this year, sadly, an air ambulance evacuated a constituent of mine; it was reported that there had been a collision with a van on the B3440. Does the hon. Member agree that sound cycling infrastructure is needed not only for young people, but for older people?
Trudy Harrison
Of course that is needed for all ages; I welcome the hon. Member’s intervention. My point is that when resources are stretched and priorities need to be made, we should prioritise those early habits, because those children will grow into adults. It is an absolutely crying shame that in this country an average of about 25 limbs are amputated every day as a result of diabetes. I think it is a national disgrace that we have the third highest population living with obesity in Europe. While we are very good in Cumbria at teaching Bikeability training, we are, sadly, woefully inadequate when it comes to children getting out and riding their bikes, with, unsurprisingly, the health inequalities that follow. Those statistics are national statistics, but they are even worse in Cumbria.
Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)
The conversation at the moment is very much about cycling, but I think we need to remember walking as well. In Trimdon, one of my villages, we have a road—we were talking about A roads, but this is a B road—that goes straight through the village at pace. The village is one side and the play area is the other side, and a little stepping stone to get across has been proposed many times. If we could get such things put in place, it would build the habit of walking, which builds the habit of enjoyment in moving around. Is that part of the agenda my hon. Friend is trying to get to?
Trudy Harrison
Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have been focusing on cycling so far, but I will come on to walking. I will entertain the House with my walking adventure, all the way from Saint Bees in my constituency right over to Robin Hood’s Bay, which is some 195 miles. The infrastructure for walking and cycling is vitally important.
We are having a debate about active travel, which is a very important debate to have, but I think an even more pressing issue—and I ask the Minister to have discussions about this with his counterparts in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—is the growing mountain of ultra-processed foods we now consume in this country. It is perhaps 60% to 80% of our diet, which drives profit away from the local farmer, because this stuff is not really food; it is feedstuff fed into mechanised processes and fiddled with for huge commercial gain, at great cost to our life quality and our life chances. So rather than the local farmer benefiting from food produced sustainably, big pharma profits from the pills and potions prescribed to patch the problem. Thank God for social prescribing, which I think is a fantastic intervention by the Government. I am also delighted to work with people such as Andrew Denton, Jim Burt and William Bird, who are just a few of the geniuses I have had the pleasure of working with recently in trying to create a more naturally healthy Britain.
As part of the Routes 2 Roots campaign, the ask of the Department for Transport includes changing the funding model so that 5% of the road budget is dedicated to supporting active travel; creating safer walking and cycling routes, including better lighting and surfacing, and repairing potholes, which are a menace to all road users; and adopting “20’s Plenty”—not everywhere, but outside schools where it really matters. This would have multiple benefits, such as improving air quality around schools, which are usually in the centre of communities, and making available more of the road space and pavement space that is so important for walking. Importantly, it will develop in young children healthy and active habits that will last them a lifetime.
About a quarter of children in this country are living with obesity when they start school at about four or five. However, the real tragedy is that 35%—over a third—of children are leaving primary school living with obesity. Those figures are alarming, but in Cumbria, again unfortunately, it is even worse. The vast majority of those children will grow into adults who suffer further health issues as a result of their formative years.
I might be asking this Transport Minister to overstep his mark, but it would be helpful if he perhaps wrote to Ofsted, because I think it would be incredibly powerful if, during Ofsted visits, the inspectors asked schools how many of the children are walking or cycling to school. I think that would encourage schools to work with parents to develop safer routes, with things such as side-road zebra crossings and other ways in which we can improve the routes from home to school. That would mean that children get to school and are more able to concentrate, and perhaps that they get in the daily mile in one day from getting to and leaving school. It would also ensure they have formed the early habits of living more healthily that will last them a lifetime.
Tracey Crouch
I am listening to my hon. Friend’s contribution with great interest because I spend most of my time scrolling through social media looking at Cumbria and trail running or walking and cycling there, and I find it astonishing that many people who live there do not access her constituency, which I have the desire to visit every day, as she knows. Why is there a disconnect between those of us who do not live in Cumbria and who want to go there to participate in these activities and the local community itself?
Trudy Harrison
My hon. Friend raises a very good point about rurality, which was also raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar). People in rural areas are more dependent on cars; we have less public transport so our roads are busier and there are perhaps more roads with a 60 mph speed limit. I am delighted with the highway code changes. I can really tell the difference; I was out on my bike at the weekend and could really tell the difference. Those motorists who knew about the changes and knew they needed to give cyclists more space made me feel so much safer. It is very disconcerting when a motorist passes a cyclist quite closely. That is one issue, as is the distance that people need to travel. But if I am honest, I do not know the answer to the very valid question that my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) asks. I do not know why more people do not feel able to make use of 32 miles of rugged coastline and of the mountains, the fells and the countryside that is so accessible in the Lake district. The most important thing we can do is enable the little children, and even the pregnant mums, and focus the effort. That is why I will be seeking a conversation with my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (David Johnston) the Minister responsible for babies; as I have said many times, it is important that we support the formation of lifetime healthy habits at an early age so that they last into adulthood.
I want us to crack the issue of the far too cheap and easily available ultra-processed foods and to stick with the really great “Gear change” programme—in case the Minister did not get that the first time. I want us to ensure that Active Travel England is resourced and supported as it has been into the future, and Bikeability has the ability to teach all children those essential skills, and I want us to value the work of Cycling UK, Sustrans, British Cycling and the Conservative Environment Network. There are so many brilliant organisations who are doing so much good to roll out better networks, better education and more encouragement.
There are huge benefits to the economy as well from having a healthier population, reduced air pollution and less congestion. That means fewer sick days, more work days and longer life expectancy. It means more start-ups, more scale-ups and more exports by brilliant British businesses making fantastic state-of-the-art bikes like Ribble, which is the make of my own brilliant gravel bike, and the companies that are making technical clothing, equipment, cargo bikes and trikes of all kinds. There are so many brilliant British brands. I had the joy today of speaking with the founder of Frog Bikes. Its products are a great example of tackling a problem, ridding young children of the need for stabilisers and enabling them to harness balance bikes instead. It is a great company, which is growing by the year.
The commitment in the Environment Act 2021 that everyone should live within 15 minutes of a blue or green space, is a fantastic one. I wholeheartedly welcome the formation of national trails within the national landscapes portfolio in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I know full well that the Minister works very collaboratively and I ask him to meet with Ministers from other Departments. On this subject, we can achieve a sum greater than its parts by working together. Clearly there is a key role for the Department for Transport, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department of Health and Social Care. If the Minister were willing to convene his counterparts, that might be incredibly effective, not least because he is an incredibly effective Minister. I understand that there is already an inter-ministerial group focused on physical activity, which is good, but a focus on how we can achieve a naturally healthy Britain across transport, the environment, homes and communities, levelling up, health and the prevention agenda, education and lifelong learning of healthier habits, the sports strategy and supporting a visitor economy to embrace the great outdoors would be truly transformational.
On tourism, in my constituency we host part of the Sustrans sea-to-sea cycle route, which goes from Whitehaven to Sunderland. We also have Wainwright’s coast-to-coast, which is soon to be a national trail, from St Bees to Robin Hood’s Bay. We conquered the latter last year—all 194 miles—carrying everything on our backs across the Lake District, the Yorkshire dales and the North York Moors, spending money as we went. Later this year, again with my husband Keith—an avid lifelong cyclist—we will be cycling the Atlantic coast between Porto and Lisbon along part of Eurovelo 1. That is just a flavour of the tourism benefits of walking and cycling.
Our target in government is for half of all short journeys in towns and cities to be walked or cycled by 2030, and for 55% of five to 10-year-olds to walk to school by 2025. In urban areas, we are nearly there, but much improvement is needed in rural areas, where only 17% of school journeys are walked and hardly any are cycled. While a distance of a mile or two may be too long to walk in the modern world, it is perfectly possible to warm up on a bike.
May I also give a huge shout-out to the technology advancements of e-cycles as well, because hills are no problem—she says, living in Cumbria, home of the highest mountain in England—with an electric bike? One can carry cargo or the kids. When I was in the Netherlands on a ministerial visit, I stood in awe in the car park in Utrecht, I think, which was one of the cities we visited. There was an aisle of bikes adorned with carriers of all kinds for children—on the front, on the back, on the crossbar, with a tow hook and with a trailer. There were all manner of ways of carrying one’s children. I was so impressed, and we could learn so much from the Netherlands. If he has not been already, I recommend that the Minister undertake a visit. Danny Williams came with me when I went, and I recommend the Minister take him once again, because it was an inspirational visit. It is part of why I am speaking with such enthusiasm today.
Let us look at why more children are not cycling or, perhaps, why more parents are not encouraging or allowing their children to cycle to school. Sadly, in Cumbria we have rates above the national average of children being killed or seriously injured, so parents’ reluctance is justified. While great safety improvements have been made, they have been predominately benefiting the car occupant, rather than the more vulnerable pedestrian or cyclist. We also have the fact that most road injuries are happening during school commute times.
Then we have the real barriers of affordability. That is not just the bike and helmet, but having somewhere to conveniently, safely and securely store the bike. Having access to the right bike is even more expensive. Storage at home, en route, such as at train stations, and at destinations, such as schools, colleges, work, essential services, shops and recreational places, is required. While bikes remain a cheaper form of transport than private cars, bikes in the UK are increasingly state of the art and are often highly prized. They are costly feats of engineering, so security is a key factor.
It is brilliant to witness the resurgence of manufacturers making bikes, from the Frogs I mentioned earlier, which are made in Wales, to my own great choice of gravel bike, the Ribble, from Lancashire. There are many more, along with equivalent clothing from Restrap in Yorkshire to Endura in Scotland. It is fantastic that we have the Sustrans national network, but Sustrans found that 42% of households with children have no children’s bikes. Sustrans route 72 is a mostly traffic-free route from Seascale to Whitehaven and on to Workington. The brilliant route 727, which is more fondly known as the Viking way, is a project that I was involved with when I worked as a regeneration officer at Copeland Borough Council. Thanks to the then Cumbria County Council, Sellafield and Sustrans, the villages of Seascale and Gosforth are now connected by a superb, segregated, designated route, which is well used by people walking and cycling alike, and by children and adults.
Sustrans reports that just 52% of adults feel that their areas are safe for cycling. Even worse, only 29% feel that their areas are safe for children to ride their bikes. That is why seven out of 10 adults say they will never cycle, with safety cited as the main reason. Our gear change strategy, which as I said is one of the greatest health interventions, really is the way forward. We should stick with the programme.
I am pleased that we have strengthened the highway code and thank everybody involved with promoting that. I also thank Cycling UK for its great work. As it said to me, in Cumbria, only 12% of young people meet the World Health Organisation recommended amount of daily exercise, but just 14% of parents feel confident to teach their child to cycle on the road, so the work of Active Travel England is vital, creating routes that are local transport note-compliant wherever possible and creating an atmosphere and environment that is more conducive to walking and cycling.
We have come so far in creating Active Travel England, but there are real barriers in affordability and, of course, storage, and local authorities need to prioritise those healthy habits. I think that I have pretty much summed up the opportunities if we get this right, the barriers currently faced, the progress we are already making, and the benefits of working together. My overriding ask of the Minister is that he joins with other Government Departments—the Department of Health, which has the most to gain; the Department for Education, which can make possible the formation of early habits; and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which can think about how we pay farmers for access to their land—in recognising that the sports strategy should embrace the great outdoors, as well as the visitor economy benefits from walking and cycling. I very much look forward to his response.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Guy Opperman)
What an honour and a privilege it is to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison), who is a former Minister for active travel and a good friend of mine. I was delighted to campaign to get her into the House—I think I visited Copeland on 14 separate occasions during a very long wet and wintry by-election—where she has been a transformational influence. Her legacy is massive, not least because she was an outstanding Minister for active travel.
I thank my hon. Friend for visiting Northumberland when she came to see the benefits of the Tynedale superhighway. Madam Deputy Speaker, I must be careful not to talk for the next hour and a half about the amazing cycling and walking projects that exist in Northumberland and to take my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) to task on why she particularly favours Cumbria over what is clearly a better county in Northumberland. However, the long and the short must surely be that my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland has done a massive amount to drive forward active travel, and she should be extraordinarily proud of that.
Tracey Crouch
As Madam Deputy Speaker cannot say this herself, it is only right to note that RideLondon now goes through her constituency, which is an excellent part of the country to cycle in.
Guy Opperman
My hon. Friend has done a very good Radio 2 link to what I was going to talk about. As the Minister for active travel, I am delighted to say that I have done RideLondon. On several occasions I have done the Haydon Hundred in my constituency. The most interesting of all is the Dunwich Dynamo, which is undoubtedly the most iconic cycling race of all time. It is an attempt by more than 5,000 people to leave a Hackney pub on the shortest night of the year and cycle, totally unsupported, from Hackney all the way to Dunwich in Suffolk—120 miles—through the night. The instructions are literally an envelope. Without a shadow of a doubt, it is the most fearsome and amazing cycle trip to be part of. RideLondon is a massive boost to the local economy, and extols various local virtues.
My hon. Friend the Member for Copeland asked me to go to Holland on a cycle trip with Danny Williams, the amazing chief executive, and I endorse her assessment of him. I must confess that about 20 years ago, long before I came to this place, I did the trip from Zandvoort on the coast to Amsterdam on a bike, and I have cycled extensively in Holland. We in this House should be excited because although we might say, “Our infrastructure is not quite there. We want to do more cycling and walking, and we want things to be better. We want active travel to be more impressive and for the opportunities to be better,” we only have to look back at the situation in Holland only 30 or 40 years ago to see the degree to which its infrastructure has transformed the nation and how its populus gets about. That is totally tangible. We are some years behind it in that change, but we should strive to emulate that objective.
My hon. Friend spoke glowingly about the coast-to-coast, the quality of which I endorse, having done it. I trump her 190 miles with the 268 miles of the Pennine way, the first part of which I was delighted to do with my good friend the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), who sadly is also standing down, when we were raising money for brain tumours, having both suffered from them. The transformation of the visitor economy and the tourism boost from cycling and walking is game changing. There is no doubt whatsoever about that. We should be fully behind that. That is why I invited my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland to Northumberland to get behind the Tynedale superhighway, and why this Government have given £9 million for the Hexham to Corbridge cycle route, the work on which is ongoing. The LCWIPs that she talked so glowingly about are clearly the way ahead.
Richard Foord
The Minister talked about LCWIPs at the last Adjournment debate of 2023 on transport infrastructure in Cullompton. I remember him saying that the LCWIPs for Cullompton would be consulted on, which is true—that consultation concluded earlier this month. Can his Department work with Devon County Council to ensure that the walking and cycling infrastructure around Cullompton extends all the way to Tiverton, Willand and Uffculme?
Guy Opperman
I will await the information put forward by the local authority, but it is unquestionably the case that we are trying to take forward the LCWIPs and to ensure the best usage, enhancement and improvement of local infrastructure. I await what the local authority has proposed.
On the point my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland made about schools, surely we can all get behind the 20 mph zone around them. It is unquestionable that where local authorities can prioritise LCWIPs around schools, they should do so. If the message has not gone out, I am happy to make that point.
I have been asked to do an awful lot of writing to an awful lot of people, and let me address those points. First and foremost, all cycling and walking has a massive benefit and impact on health. My hon. Friend identified that if we want a healthier Britain, more people need to be cycling and walking. The evidence is overwhelming that regular physical activity of any shape or form reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes by up to 40% and cardiovascular disease by up to 35%. My hon. Friend is right that there are sadly far too many obese children in our schools and far too many people who are not taking advantage of the great outdoors, much to the consternation of my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford. We have to change that. We have to try to change those perceptions and get this country out of the torpor that it descended into slightly during covid.
Trudy Harrison
The Minister is making an excellent point on the value of the great outdoors and being active. I know that this is not his Department’s responsibility, but does he agree that approximately 80% of that ill health is related to diet, and that ultra-processed foods have a part to play in the state of the nation’s health?
Guy Opperman
As a Government Minister, I am not allowed to endorse a particular book or approach; that would be genuinely wrong. A bit like the BBC, we think that all organisations, institutions and authors have merit and everything like that. However, having been given as a present “Ultra-Processed People”, Chris van Tulleken’s book on the science behind food that is not food, I have to say that I utterly endorse the point my hon. Friend is making. We have a genuine problem in this country: we are allowing the production of food that is neither supporting our farmers nor necessarily good for our population.
This is not my Department’s responsibility, so I could not possibly comment on the efficacy of evidence or on changes that should be made. However, there is a growing body of evidence that says that Government really have to look at what we are doing about ultra-processed food and how to put out better messaging. That is difficult, and pretending it is not is naive. However, I utterly endorse the message that we need to eat more healthily if at all possible, and taking out of the game some of those ultra-processed foods and their impact seems to be a no-brainer to me. More particularly, it cannot be a good thing for this country that we are allowing our population to eat food that will inevitably give them diabetes and allow them to put on weight without, in most cases, people realising that that is what is going to happen. That just cannot be right, in my humble opinion, and we should do something about it.
There are a few things that I can do about it. My hon. Friend the Member for Copeland challenged me on a number of points. The first relates to an inter-ministerial group that I am part of. As anyone who has been a Minister will know, there are some inter-ministerial groups that are really important and worthy, and some that are interesting, to say the very least. The national physical activity taskforce, which is run by the Sport Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), is meeting on 25 March at 2 pm, by chance. My hon. Friend the Member for Copeland might want to send a copy of her speech and an itemised agenda to the Sport Minister and invite him to treat that as the agenda for the meeting at 2 pm on 25 March at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. That is merely a suggestion that she could, in theory, contemplate.
As for bringing together all the Departments to address national physical activity, I think it is entirely the right thing to do. It is wider than just saying, “We want people to do sport. We want them to get physically active.” Of course, that is right, and individual Members of Parliament can make a real difference on this. There is no doubt about that. They can meet with Sport England—I recently met both the chief executive and my local representatives—and drive forward the sporting infrastructure that we all want to see; they can get local representatives in their constituency. I should put on record my thanks to the amazing Rob Aubrook—whom my hon. Friend met when, as the Minister with responsibility for cycling, she came to Northumberland—who has driven forward more cycling infrastructure and other local infrastructure projects, just as my hon. Friend made sure the infrastructure was improved in her local area when she was just a humble campaigner from Bootle. That surely is what we should all aspire to.
There is more we can do, and many colleagues put forward proposals. I agree with much of what my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Sir Robert Goodwill) said. I answered the point from the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord). My hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar) made a point about his amazing coast-to-mountains route, of which I am exceptionally jealous and which I am keen to try. It obviously comes third in the batting order of places to visit, after Cumbria and Northumberland. My hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell) rightly made the point that small pieces of infrastructure, in this case a crossing, enable people to access all the benefits that only one part of the village may otherwise have. I urge him to seek the extra local transport funding in Durham that will flow from the Prime Minister’s decision on HS2; it will release infrastructure funding for certain transport projects. I will take that up with him separately.
This is a good opportunity to put on record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford for her service in this House, because sadly she has decided to step down. She was an outstanding sports Minister. We troll each other in a very polite way on the extent of our Saturday morning cycling or racing activity. Both of us have suffered cancer and have made a remarkable recovery. She is a good example of never letting the past define you, and always looking onwards and forwards. We will miss her desperately. She raised a key point, which is: what more can we get local authorities to do? Bluntly, a lot more.
The first point is surely this. Every MP will see a new housing development come into existence. Said housing development will always have a section 106 agreement on local infrastructure and support. Too often, however, only after its development will there be a thought about cycling infrastructure, accessibility, accessible transport, buses and so on. I am genuinely trying to change that, because what we presently have is unacceptable. It is just not good government to allow a situation in which local authorities do not grasp that there is so much more they could do.
We are trying to retrofit old infrastructure. My hon. Friend the Member for Copeland talked about York. I was lucky enough to go to Active Travel and meet Danny and all the amazing team. Everywhere I go with Active Travel I always get on a bike, so we cycled around the medieval and Roman town of York, with all the difficulties there are there in ensuring cycling infrastructure on the very narrow streets that Harry Potter was delighted to use. But for modern housing, we surely must get it right. When it comes to modern housing, section 106 should provide for all the necessary cycling infrastructure. The best part of 10,000 people are moving to Barrow for the AUKUS project—my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell) is doing great work on that—and we are trying to ensure that where we do big housing, the infrastructure is part of the development. That is the first and key point of education for local authorities.
Secondly, we have set up an amazing scheme called Bikeability. It is fundamentally a success story, as my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland rightly outlined, because it encourages more and more children to cycle on an ongoing basis, get training and so on. The honest truth is that some local authorities are very good at that—Cumbria is a great example—and some local authorities are shockers. I am strongly urged by officials not to name and shame them, but I will certainly write to every single local authority and extol those that are doing well, and ask why that is not 100% of them when there is this amazing, free Government scheme to encourage our population to get healthier, get fitter, get outdoors and learn how brilliant it is to be on a bicycle. I give my hon. Friend an undertaking that I will definitely do that.
My hon. Friend rightly raised the issue of schools. It is true that I am not an Education Minister—some would say that that is a very good thing—but I will write to Ofsted, as she invited me to, to establish the extent to which we can drive forward an assessment. I take comfort from the daily mile, a project that originated in Scotland and has percolated southwards. It is a massive success story: every single headteacher at the schools that do the daily mile will genuinely say to those who visit them that it transforms the way that the kids are educated. It transforms their attention, their fitness and their engagement, and does them a world of good in a host of social and other ways. A natural extension of what schools are doing would be for there to be an assessment of, or at the very least inquiry into, how schools are trying to improve rates of walking and cycling, both at school and in the journey to school. We have a Walk to School Week, which is part of a programme organised by the Department for Education, but the blunt truth is that it is not very successful. Far too few kids walk to school, and we must try to do more about that.
My hon. Friend invited me to comment on social prescribing. On her watch, that started with a £13.9 million budget, which has been invested in 11 local authority pilots over three years. One of them is of course in Cumbria; the others range from Suffolk to Bath and from Gateshead to Plymouth. The pilots are expected to engage tens of thousands of people in walking, wheeling and cycling, and we will assess their impact in 2025, at the end of the three-year project. However, I can tell her that if I have anything whatsoever to do with it, we will continue that project, which has my hearty endorsement and support.
I come to our approach to rural areas, and I speak as the Member representing the largest constituency in the country. Rory Stewart and I used to have a dispute over whose was larger. I told him that size did not matter, but that Hexham was larger. The long and short of it is that rurality in general is very difficult, and trying to establish a rural cycling infrastructure is very difficult. Off-road is often better: I can extol, without a shadow of a doubt, the Sandstone Way, which runs from Hexham to Berwick in Northumberland, and the work that we are doing in Kielder Forest. However, it is hard to secure taxpayer funding for more rural routes because the Treasury operates on a bang-for-your-buck, Green Book basis and so tries to get more ongoing funds for urban beneficiaries.
Let me end by saying a bit more about the key issue of funding. Ten or 15 years ago, £30 million, £25 million or less was spent on cycling and walking. I look at the budgets of up to £300 million over the last four or five years, and the ongoing £200 million investment in active travel, and I see that we have come a long way. Do we have further to go? Of course we do, but the direction of travel—and in a debate about cycling and walking, the direction of travel is surely important—is utterly clear. We are investing more than any previous Government. Our projection is that over the period up to 2025, £3 billion will be invested across Government in active travel, including investment from the city region sustainable transport settlements and the levelling-up fund. There will also be further funding opportunities through Network North in future years.
It is important to note that whatever the original active travel budget may have been, the HS2 money—whether through the city region sustainable transport settlements or the levelling-up fund additions—and any further local transport funding that may or may not result in the next few months can be used to support walking and, in particular, cycling schemes, and we would encourage Mayors, where appropriate, to pursue those opportunities.
In September last year, we announced £60 million of revenue funding for supporting active travel to school, including through Walk to School, the Big Bike Revival, Modeshift STARS and, obviously, Bikeability. I have had a Bikeability meeting with Emily Cherry, the brilliant chief executive of Bikeability Trust, who is very well known to my hon. Friend. I endorse the support for that initiative, and we think that more can be done, but 500,000 places with £21 million of support is not to be sneered at. We have reached 51% of year 6 children in 60% of primary schools. I would love to do more, and we are trying to make it happen.
Trudy Harrison
May I congratulate the Department, Bikeability and the wonderful Emily Cherry on recognising the difference that it can make to children with special educational needs and disabilities to learn to ride a bike or trike that is right for them? Huge improvements have been made in creating a more accessible Bikeability.
Guy Opperman
My hon. Friend is right: Bikeability is transformational. We need to do it bigger and better, and more widely, but it also requires a change in the Great British public. First and foremost, it requires mums and dads, headteachers and local authorities to say, “We want to get behind this.” I think we can do that, and the direction of travel is good. She is right to praise Emily Cherry, Danny Williams and all the Active Travel team. I met the vast majority of them when I went to York. They are doing God’s work in transforming hundreds of projects up and down the country. I have not mentioned Mr Boardman—probably because I owe him a beer, which is always a worry—but it is great to have the opportunity to work with one’s heroes. I grew up watching Chris Boardman in various races, including when he famously led the Tour de France and came off his bike. That was one of the tragedies of my sporting TV career.
What is happening with active travel is genuinely transformational, and we continue to support it. I believe that the record of this Government is good, but we can do more. It has been an honour and a privilege to respond to my hon. Friend and her very important debate tonight.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Bank of England Levy (Amount of Levy) Regulations 2024
(10 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Bim Afolami)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Bank of England Levy (Amount of Levy Payable) Regulations 2024.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell. The Bank of England undertakes vital work in pursuit of its monetary policy and financial stability objectives, in line with primary legislation. To ensure that the Bank can recover fully and efficiently the costs of funding its important functions, it is necessary that the mechanism it employs to do so is reliable and stable.
The Bank’s current monetary policy and financial stability functions are funded by what is known as the cash ratio deposit scheme. Under the scheme, banks and building societies with eligible liabilities greater than £600 million are required to place a proportion of their deposit base with the Bank on a non-interest bearing basis. The Bank then invests those funds in gilts, and the income generated from such gilts is used to meet the cost of its monetary policy and financial stability functions. The scheme has resulted in significantly higher deposit sizes than were initially forecast and a lack of predictability for payers of a cash ratio deposit. Deposit sizes change in line with gilt yields, which have been lower than expected, meaning that the cash ratio deposit scheme has not been able to generate its target income from the investment of deposits and has therefore failed to fund fully the Bank’s policy functions. The shortfall to date has been funded from the Bank’s capital and reserves, meaning that it has not paid a dividend to the Treasury as Bank capital levels have fallen below target.
Following a review of the scheme in 2021, the Government set out their intent to replace the scheme with a Bank of England levy to provide greater certainty to firms on their contributions and to create a simpler and more transparent funding mechanism for the Bank. Sections 70 and 71 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 made provision for that. The regulations before us make provision under the auspices of FSMA for the eligible institutions that do not have to pay a levy on how the cost is apportioned between eligible institutions that must pay a levy and how appropriate adjustments will be made for years in which a new levy is paid.
The Bank of England levy aims to create a simpler and more stable funding mechanism for the Bank’s policy functions. Under the new levy, for each year the Bank will estimate the amount that it needs to meet its policy costs; it will add any shortfall from the previous year and deduct any surplus. That is the anticipated levy requirement. The Bank will require institutions to submit data about their eligible liabilities and will usually take an average of the data provided between 1 October and 31 December in the previous year to calculate an institution’s eligible liabilities. The three-month reference period mirrors that used for the Prudential Regulation Authority levy, ensuring greater consistency across the levies and a simplification of the process for recovering the Bank’s costs. That is simpler for the institutions involved.
As under the cash ratio deposit scheme, if an institution has an average liability base up to and including £600 million, it will not pay any levy that year. If an institution’s average liability base exceeds £600 million, it will pay the levy. That ensures that the payment mechanism is fair, as only the largest institutions that benefit most significantly from the Bank’s monetary policy and financial stability functions will pay the levy. The cost paid by an institution under the levy will be apportioned according to the size of an institution’s eligible liabilities, meaning that larger institutions will pay a larger share of the costs. That is the same as under the cash ratio deposit scheme, so introducing the new levy does not mean that there will be relative winners or losers between the institutions that pay.
If an institution did not meet the threshold for paying the levy in the previous year, but it meets the threshold in a new year, the regulations deal with that as well. They stipulate that the firm would be treated as a new levy payer. This statutory instrument allows the Bank to treat new levy payers differently so that they contribute to the estimated policy costs for the specific year and do not have to contribute to any shortfall from the previous year or gain any benefit from surplus from the previous year. I hope the Committee will agree that that is a fair and proportionate approach.
The regulations will replace the cash ratio deposit scheme with a Bank of England levy—a simpler and more stable funding mechanism—while ensuring that no changes are made to the threshold at which firms will pay the levy or the broader important principle that larger firms will pay more.
Sir Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)
Presumably there could be an argument over whether someone has to pay the levy or what levy they have to pay. Is there an appeal process?
Bim Afolami
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. It is my understanding that there is not an appeal process, but the reason for that is that there is an agreed formula for when it occurs; the amount of levy that people will pay is not an art, but a science. As I say, it will depend on the size of the institution, just as the cash ratio deposit levy did, but this system is simpler and more stable. I hope colleagues will join me in supporting the regulations and I commend them to the Committee.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Bardell. I am supportive of the plan to replace the current cash ratio deposit, as the Minister will probably know, and of the proposed mechanics of the levy. Therefore, Labour will support this statutory instrument.
I have some technical questions on the implementation, although I understand that the Minister might not be able to answer them now and I am happy to receive answers in writing if he wants to send them to me later. Will the Bank of England be determining, as part of its formal review, whether non-bank financial institutions should be considered eligible for the levy in future? If so, what is the timeline for that review? What discussions has the Treasury had with the Bank about the adoption of a rolling five-year budget to help eligible banks to plan their own budgets? I am sure the Minister has also heard time and again that it is the lack of planning that gives banks uncertainty, so any plans he has for a rolling five-year budget would be helpful to know.
Finally, I am sure the Minister will agree that providing the banking sector with certainty is essential to securing the confidence needed to incentivise investment in the real economy. Could he therefore provide clarity on whether this SI will come into force by the beginning of March?
Bim Afolami
I shall do my best to answer the hon. Lady’s questions in the Committee. On her first question, there is no current plan to introduce non-bank financial institutions as part of this process; of course such questions are always under review, but I want to be clear with the Committee that there is no current plan in that regard. On the five-year budgetary plan, I will write to her, because I want to be precise with the answer but I am not equipped to answer right now. On the question of when the SI will come into force, I do not want to commit to a precise time, but I can assure her that we wish to that to happen at the earliest possible time.
If there are no more questions, I thank colleagues for this useful debate and I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (Pension Scheme Amendment) Regulations 2024
(10 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Andrew Bowie)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (Pension Scheme Amendment) Regulations 2024.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship this afternoon, Dame Maria. The regulations were laid before the House on 19 December 2023.
Lord Hutton’s 2011 report into public sector pensions fired the starting gun on a long process of reform. While the Public Service Pensions Act 2013 made wide-ranging and important changes, it did not cover all public sector bodies, including those within the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority group.
The NDA was created in 2005 as the statutory body responsible for the decommissioning and safe handling of the UK’s nuclear legacy. It has 17 sites located across the UK, including Sellafield in Cumbria, the world’s first civil nuclear power station. That means that Sellafield and many parts of the NDA’s other sites pre-date the formation of the NDA by several decades, leading to a complicated set of pension arrangements, including two pension schemes closed to new entrants in 2008 that provide for final salary pensions, which are in scope of the reforms. These are the Combined Nuclear Pension Plan and the Site Licence Company section of the Magnox Electric Group of the Electricity Supply Pension Scheme.
The complexities of the schemes clearly required tailored reforms, which is why in 2017, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the NDA worked with trade unions to agree a reformed pension scheme that maintained valuable benefits for its members while bringing it into line with the rest of the public sector. The result was the proposal of a bespoke career average revalued earnings, or CARE, scheme.
In terms of timing, before bringing forward the provisions we required primary powers in the Energy Act 2023 before secondary legislation could be brought forward. I appreciate that the process has taken rather longer than hoped, but we are confident that the reform will yield financial savings, bolstering the NDA’s mission of responsibly decommissioning the UK’s nuclear legacy.
Following statutory consultation with NDA employees and a ballot of union members, the CARE scheme was formally accepted by the trade unions. A formal Government consultation was launched in May 2018, with the Government publishing a response to the consultation in December 2018, confirming the proposed changes. Now, thanks to primary powers introduced in the Energy Act 2023, we are able to bring secondary legislation forward.
The reformed scheme offers excellent benefits to its members. Unlike most other reformed schemes, it still includes provision for members to retire at their current retirement age. For nearly all, that will be 60—most other public sector pension schemes only allow a full pension at 67. Once the CARE scheme is introduced, contributions will increase on average by 3.05%, phased in over three years.
A statutory framework that applies pension benefits across the NDA estate meant that specific legislation was needed to implement this reformed scheme. This secondary legislation is being made to require NDA and Magnox Ltd to amend the relevant NDA pension schemes and implement this CARE-based pension reform. It will also modify the statutory pension protections contained in the Energy Act 2023 and the Electricity (Protected Pensions) (England and Wales) Pension Regulations 1990, in support of the reforms.
These measures will make the NDA group’s final salary pensions fairer and more efficient by aligning them with wider public sector pensions. They will also deliver crucial savings to the NDA budget at a time when it is needed, more than ever, to support the decommissioning of this country’s proud nuclear legacy.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dame Maria. As the Minister has said, this delegated legislation brings the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s pensions into line with wider public sector pensions, as a result of the Public Sector Pensions Act 2013, by moving from a final salary scheme to a career average scheme.
We do not object to the broad objectives—as the Minister will recall, we had this discussion during the passage of the Energy Act 2023—but we have a few issues with the way the consultation has been run and how long the process has taken, which have been raised by unions and affected members. I pay tribute to everyone who works at the NDA. They are integral to keeping the public safe, and they should be recognised when determining legislation. We do not want to build in disincentives through watered down pensions for the people who work there.
I want to address a couple of points that have been raised. The unions did vote in favour of the reforms, but that was because they were worried about what the alternative would be; it was not an overwhelming endorsement. Legislation is needed to implement the proposals because the members of these schemes currently have statutory protection against detrimental changes under the Electricity Act 1989 or the Energy Act 2004. Although, as I said, union members voted in favour of the reforms, albeit a little reluctantly, there is concern about these protections being broken again. That was not helped by the fact that during the consultation many respondents felt that the terminology used to describe the application of the powers was too broad or unclear.
Another question has been raised: why are the Government not applying the Hutton reforms to public service pensions in full? Lord Hutton ruled out providing pensions on a defined contribution basis, but the Government refuse to apply that recommendation to the many thousands of employees in the NDA estate who are in the defined contribution section of the CNPP.
Finally, the Minister talked about the starting gun being fired in 2011; that has been a hell of a long time to get off the starting line. I know that the Minister is a speedy marathon runner, as well as being a speedy talker—it is not like him to drag his feet. Members of the scheme were first balloted on the reforms back in 2017, with the Government taking the decision to bring forward this statutory instrument in December 2018. I know that it required the Energy Act as paving legislation but the fact that it has taken until 2024 to reach implementation is not optimal, to put it mildly.
It is said that the estimated total savings are expected to be about £200 million. What impact has the delay had on the estimated savings?
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
I have a couple of questions for the Minister. Will he talk us through why the age remains at 60? Was that a negotiation position that had to be taken? I understand that those in the fire service or police force may not be able to work until 67, but it seems very generous for the taxpayer to fund a retirement seven years early in this situation. Is there a labour reason for that?
My second question is about what the shadow Minister just referred to. We get an estimate of savings over the long run, although they are not costed in the actual cost-benefit analysis, but it is seven years old. We know from two years ago that the pension funding position is dramatically improved, by hundreds of billions of pounds, for all final salary schemes across the economy, so presumably the estimate is incredibly out of date and the saving is likely to be a lot higher. Will the Minister let us know if he has any update about what the actual impact of the decision that we are taking here is?
Andrew Bowie
I thank the shadow Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley for their questions. The hon. Lady asked about the time it has taken for us to bring the changes forward. She is absolutely right: it is sub-optimal that it has taken this long. Having met the unions in the latter part of last year, I am aware of the concern and the not inconsiderable worry caused by how long it has taken us to bring this forward. However, we did need to wait for parliamentary time and the actions that we brought forward through the Energy Act to allow us to make the changes required to bring the NDA’s pension schemes into a much better place than where they were.
It should be recognised that the pension is very good. Allowing a full pension award at 60 for the majority of members when most public pensions are linked to a state retirement age of 67, as my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley mentioned, was a considerable win for workers at the NDA and something we are proud to have achieved. It means that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority—a vital part of our effort to maintain a safe, sustainable nuclear estate in this country—will continue to be attractive to the best and brightest. We all agree that that should be an ambition.
The NDA will, of course, continue to engage extensively in communicating the reform to employees affected by the changes and the trade unions that provide representations across the NDA group. Of course we are always happy to look at the impact of the changes once they have been implemented. There is the ability after the implementation of this secondary legislation to make changes to how the schemes operate.
Kerry McCarthy
Did the Minister address the point about the £200 million savings or did I miss that?
Andrew Bowie
No, the hon. Lady is absolutely right. Sorry, I had forgotten that she asked. There will be significant savings, of course, for the NDA and that is a good thing. We have reached a good settlement on the new pension scheme. It is a good pension for members. We will continue to attract the brightest and best into the organisation and give people certainty about where they are going to be when they hit retirement age, while providing significant savings for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which will allow it to carry on with its important work for this country, at Sellafield and the other nuclear sites in which it is engaged across the UK. That work is only set to grow, by the way, as more of our civil nuclear fleet reaches the stage of having to consider moving into decommissioning mode. The NDA’s work is about to increase exponentially so the savings made by the changes will be important and allow it to do more and do it effectively.
The Government remain committed to ensuring that pension schemes are fair, efficient and in line with the wider public sector. The regulations are essential to the successful implementation of a CARE-based pension reform of the NDA group. Crucially, they preserve commitments to excellent benefits, including provisions for members to retire at the current retirement age. They also yield financial savings that will be used to bolster the NDA’s mission of responsibly decommissioning the UK’s nuclear legacy. I urge the Committee to support the draft Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (Pension Scheme Amendment) Regulations 2024.
Question put and agreed to.
2.41 pm
Committee rose.
Draft Bank of England Levy (Amount of Levy Payable) Regulations 2024
(10 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Bim Afolami)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Bank of England Levy (Amount of Levy Payable) Regulations 2024.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell. The Bank of England undertakes vital work in pursuit of its monetary policy and financial stability objectives, in line with primary legislation. To ensure that the Bank can recover fully and efficiently the costs of funding its important functions, it is necessary that the mechanism it employs to do so is reliable and stable.
The Bank’s current monetary policy and financial stability functions are funded by what is known as the cash ratio deposit scheme. Under the scheme, banks and building societies with eligible liabilities greater than £600 million are required to place a proportion of their deposit base with the Bank on a non-interest bearing basis. The Bank then invests those funds in gilts, and the income generated from such gilts is used to meet the cost of its monetary policy and financial stability functions. The scheme has resulted in significantly higher deposit sizes than were initially forecast and a lack of predictability for payers of a cash ratio deposit. Deposit sizes change in line with gilt yields, which have been lower than expected, meaning that the cash ratio deposit scheme has not been able to generate its target income from the investment of deposits and has therefore failed to fund fully the Bank’s policy functions. The shortfall to date has been funded from the Bank’s capital and reserves, meaning that it has not paid a dividend to the Treasury as Bank capital levels have fallen below target.
Following a review of the scheme in 2021, the Government set out their intent to replace the scheme with a Bank of England levy to provide greater certainty to firms on their contributions and to create a simpler and more transparent funding mechanism for the Bank. Sections 70 and 71 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 made provision for that. The regulations before us make provision under the auspices of FSMA for the eligible institutions that do not have to pay a levy on how the cost is apportioned between eligible institutions that must pay a levy and how appropriate adjustments will be made for years in which a new levy is paid.
The Bank of England levy aims to create a simpler and more stable funding mechanism for the Bank’s policy functions. Under the new levy, for each year the Bank will estimate the amount that it needs to meet its policy costs; it will add any shortfall from the previous year and deduct any surplus. That is the anticipated levy requirement. The Bank will require institutions to submit data about their eligible liabilities and will usually take an average of the data provided between 1 October and 31 December in the previous year to calculate an institution’s eligible liabilities. The three-month reference period mirrors that used for the Prudential Regulation Authority levy, ensuring greater consistency across the levies and a simplification of the process for recovering the Bank’s costs. That is simpler for the institutions involved.
As under the cash ratio deposit scheme, if an institution has an average liability base up to and including £600 million, it will not pay any levy that year. If an institution’s average liability base exceeds £600 million, it will pay the levy. That ensures that the payment mechanism is fair, as only the largest institutions that benefit most significantly from the Bank’s monetary policy and financial stability functions will pay the levy. The cost paid by an institution under the levy will be apportioned according to the size of an institution’s eligible liabilities, meaning that larger institutions will pay a larger share of the costs. That is the same as under the cash ratio deposit scheme, so introducing the new levy does not mean that there will be relative winners or losers between the institutions that pay.
If an institution did not meet the threshold for paying the levy in the previous year, but it meets the threshold in a new year, the regulations deal with that as well. They stipulate that the firm would be treated as a new levy payer. This statutory instrument allows the Bank to treat new levy payers differently so that they contribute to the estimated policy costs for the specific year and do not have to contribute to any shortfall from the previous year or gain any benefit from surplus from the previous year. I hope the Committee will agree that that is a fair and proportionate approach.
The regulations will replace the cash ratio deposit scheme with a Bank of England levy—a simpler and more stable funding mechanism—while ensuring that no changes are made to the threshold at which firms will pay the levy or the broader important principle that larger firms will pay more.
Sir Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)
Presumably there could be an argument over whether someone has to pay the levy or what levy they have to pay. Is there an appeal process?
Bim Afolami
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. It is my understanding that there is not an appeal process, but the reason for that is that there is an agreed formula for when it occurs; the amount of levy that people will pay is not an art, but a science. As I say, it will depend on the size of the institution, just as the cash ratio deposit levy did, but this system is simpler and more stable. I hope colleagues will join me in supporting the regulations and I commend them to the Committee.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Bardell. I am supportive of the plan to replace the current cash ratio deposit, as the Minister will probably know, and of the proposed mechanics of the levy. Therefore, Labour will support this statutory instrument.
I have some technical questions on the implementation, although I understand that the Minister might not be able to answer them now and I am happy to receive answers in writing if he wants to send them to me later. Will the Bank of England be determining, as part of its formal review, whether non-bank financial institutions should be considered eligible for the levy in future? If so, what is the timeline for that review? What discussions has the Treasury had with the Bank about the adoption of a rolling five-year budget to help eligible banks to plan their own budgets? I am sure the Minister has also heard time and again that it is the lack of planning that gives banks uncertainty, so any plans he has for a rolling five-year budget would be helpful to know.
Finally, I am sure the Minister will agree that providing the banking sector with certainty is essential to securing the confidence needed to incentivise investment in the real economy. Could he therefore provide clarity on whether this SI will come into force by the beginning of March?
Bim Afolami
I shall do my best to answer the hon. Lady’s questions in the Committee. On her first question, there is no current plan to introduce non-bank financial institutions as part of this process; of course such questions are always under review, but I want to be clear with the Committee that there is no current plan in that regard. On the five-year budgetary plan, I will write to her, because I want to be precise with the answer but I am not equipped to answer right now. On the question of when the SI will come into force, I do not want to commit to a precise time, but I can assure her that we wish to that to happen at the earliest possible time.
If there are no more questions, I thank colleagues for this useful debate and I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)
Tuesday 20th February 2024
(10 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Act 2024 View all Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Act 2024 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 20 February 2024 - (20 Feb 2024)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
I have a few preliminary announcements. Members should send their speaking notes by email to hansardnotes@parliament.uk; please switch electronic devices to silent; and tea and coffee are not allowed during sittings. We will first consider the programme motion on the amendment paper. We will then consider a motion to enable the reporting of written evidence for publication. I hope that we may take those matters formally, without debate. I call the Minister to move the programme motion standing in his name, which was discussed yesterday by the Programming Sub-Committee for the Bill.
Ordered,
That—
1. the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 9.25 am on Tuesday 20 February) meet—
(a) at 2.00 pm on Tuesday 20 February;
(b) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 22 February;
2. the proceedings shall be taken in the following order: Clauses 1 to 3; Schedule; Clauses 4 to 8; new Clauses; new Schedules; remaining proceedings on the Bill;
3. the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 5.00 pm on Thursday 22 February. —(Greg Hands.)
Resolved,
That, subject to the discretion of the Chair, any written evidence received by the Committee shall be reported to the House for publication.—(Greg Hands.)
The Chair
Copies of written evidence that the Committee receives will be made available in the Committee Room and will be circulated to Members by email.
We will now begin line-by-line consideration of the Bill. The selection and grouping list for today’s sittings is available in the room. It shows how the clauses and selected amendments have been grouped together for debate. Amendments grouped together are generally on the same or a similar issue. Please note that decisions on amendments do not take place in the order in which they are debated, but in the order in which they appear on the amendment paper. The selection and grouping list shows the order of debates. Decisions on each amendment and on whether each clause should stand part of the Bill are taken when we come to the relevant clause.
A Member who has put their name to the leading amendment in the group is called first. Other Members are then free to catch my eye to speak on all or any of the amendments in that group by standing in the normal fashion. A Member may speak more than once in a single debate. At the end of a debate on a group of amendments, I shall call the Member who moved the leading amendment again. Before they sit down, they will need to indicate whether they wish to withdraw the amendment or to seek a decision. If any Member wishes to press any other amendment in a group to a vote, they will need to let me know in advance.
Clause 1
Meaning of the “CPTPP”
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies.
As we commence examination of the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, or CPTPP, the Labour party is sharply focused on its wide-ranging implications for the United Kingdom. Our commitment transcends merely increasing trade volumes; it extends to enhancing the welfare of our industries and to improving the wellbeing of our citizens, pivotal to safeguarding our nation’s interests.
Despite the insights provided during previous debates in the Chamber by Government Members, who championed the agreement as a gateway to market access and economic prosperity, we observe a disconnect in our approaches towards trade, in particular regarding its broader societal and economic repercussions. The CPTPP introduces extensive modifications in key areas such as procurement, intellectual property and the regulation of conformity assessment bodies. However, the Government’s depiction seems to gloss over the profound and complex impacts of those provisions. Our steadfast dedication to promoting trade development is matched by our resolve to maintain high environmental standards, to protect workers’ rights and to uphold the sovereignty of our legal and regulatory frameworks.
In addressing clause 1, it is pivotal to reference the discourse from the Minister for Trade Policy and the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch), who in the Chamber espoused the agreement as a beacon for market access and economic opportunity. However, that optimistic portrayal does not encapsulate the nuanced and potentially adverse socioeconomic and environmental consequences. The Office for Budget Responsibility’s adjustment of the GDP boost projection to a mere 0.06% necessitates an exhaustive assessment of its tangible benefits, directly conflicting with the Government’s depiction of substantial gain. That projection is a stark downgrade from the initial Government claim of a 0.08% GDP boost over 10 years, now halved to a mere 0.04% in the long run. The Trades Union Congress emphasises that CPTPP could
“significantly threatens workers’ rights, regulatory standards…and democratic decision making”,
providing a stark contrast to the Government’s optimistic economic forecast.
Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
As members of this Committee, we have been lucky enough to have had the Business and Trade Committee publish its report on the UK’s accession to CPTPP. In that, one of the explicit recommendations—it would be good to hear from the Minister whether he will accept it—is that the Government should
“provide a revised impact assessment, setting out its current expectations of the gains from CPTPP”.
The report goes on to say that the Department should
“explain what steps it is going to take to help ensure that UK business exploits the treaty to the full.”
My hon. Friend is right to say that the Secretary of State was trying to run away from the estimates of the little, albeit important none the less, benefits that might accrue from CPTPP, so why should we not have that revised impact assessment now if Ministers think that it will lead to a huge increase in benefits for the UK?
Mr Dhesi
I thank my hon. Friend the shadow Minister, who speaks with a great deal of knowledge and experience of the issue, having been involved in various meetings. I fully agree with him: we need transparency. We need that impact assessment, and I do not understand why the Government are stepping back from that. Indeed, the clause compels us to dissect the real economic benefit of joining the CPTPP, challenging the buoyant economic forecast.
Clause 2 looks at parliamentary approval and democratic oversight. The proposed Labour amendments carve a pathway towards safeguarding our national interest. In advocating for parliamentary approval of regulations under the clause, we underscore our dedication—
The Chair
Order. We are not yet discussing clause 2; there will be time enough to come on to that. We are discussing clause 1, which is about the definition and the meaning.
Gareth Thomas
This is probably one of those rare occasions when we are actually fortunate to have the hon. Member for Totnes on the Committee with us, because he is a member of the Business and Trade Committee, which brought out the report this week. As I understand it, he was one of those who supported the idea that the Government should provide a revised impact assessment. One can only hope that he will have the courage of his convictions to speak in this stand part debate to underline why he thinks that the Government should provide the revised impact assessment. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Slough will join me in encouraging him to have the courage of his convictions and speak.
Mr Dhesi
I thank my hon. Friend the shadow Minister again for his intervention. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes was kind enough to intervene on me in the Chamber on Second Reading, and no doubt he will be contributing on the need for an impact assessment and requesting that the Minister and the Government follow that course of action.
As I was saying on clauses 1 and 2, there are certain intertwined aspects of what we are discussing today that must be brought out, including the fact that we must ensure that Parliament remains committed to rigorous scrutiny and transparency when it comes to regulatory changes. Our concerns on this clause extend to intellectual property rights under the CPTPP and the controversial investor-state dispute settlement—ISDS —mechanism.
We remain particularly concerned about the inclusion of provisions for ISDS and its implications for the NHS, the environment and workers’ rights. We are concerned about how this provision in particular could increase the risks that this association brings to jobs, workers’ rights and sovereignty. Transform Trade, for example, has highlighted that restrictions on farmers’ rights to seeds under the CPTPP could severely impact biodiversity and the livelihoods of small-scale farmers, contradicting the UK’s commitments under international agreements such as the Paris climate agreement and the sustainable development goals.
Gareth Thomas
My hon. Friend is setting out nicely the series of concerns that we in the Opposition have, which it would be good to hear the Minister address when he winds up the debate. One of the particular questions related to ISDS, which it would be good to hear the Minister deal with early in his response, is why Ministers, on the one hand, have supported ISDS staying in the CPTPP treaty, but were actively trying to have it excluded from the bilateral free trade agreement with Canada, before those negotiations were collapsed by the Secretary of State.
Mr Dhesi
My hon. Friend the shadow Minister makes an excellent point. It is these anomalies that are of concern, and the more we delve into the inclusion of ISDS in the agreement, the more we recognise the fact that it poses a formidable challenge to our national sovereignty and regulatory autonomy, enabling corporations to sue Governments over policies designed to protect public health, the environment and social welfare.
My hon. Friend the shadow Minister highlighted the issues around Canada, and indeed, in our recent meeting with the Minister and the lead negotiator for Canada, we looked at various aspects. I know that the trade deal with Canada has itself now arrived at a very rocky and bumpy interval, given the fact that we have now stopped—or paused, as the Minister would like to convince us— those negotiations, but these aspects, such as why it is one rule regarding the CPTPP and another regarding our negotiations with Canada, are things that need to be clarified during the deliberations today in Committee.
That is why, while I know that we will be discussing ISDS in full detail later on, it is important that the Minister provides the answers on that. Market analysis has shown instances where corporations have leveraged ISDS to challenge essential socioeconomic reforms, which underscores the mechanism’s potential to undermine democratic governance and public policy. Therefore, this particular amendment is pivotal, embodying our commitment to transparency and ensuring that regulatory changes introduced by the CPTPP are subject to rigorous parliamentary scrutiny.
Gareth Thomas
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way—again; it is early in the morning. One of the concerns, surely, about the Government’s insistence that ISDS should stay part of the CPTPP treaty that we are acceding to, is the inconsistency with the approach taken to ISDS by other parts of Government, such as by Ministers in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. The Minister will remember his experience there and the energy charter treaty in particular. Britain has paused its use of the energy charter treaty, because of widespread concerns internationally about the use of ISDS provisions. As I understand it, Ministers have also acknowledged the risk of ISDS to the Paris agreement objectives. That therefore begs the question posed by my hon. Friend even more so: why are Ministers so adamant that we as a country should support ISDS—
Mr Dhesi
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, because it seems as if we are in almost telepathic agreement: that was the very thing that I was coming on to in a short while. He firmly and eloquently made various points about the anomalies to which I hope the Minister will provide answers. Our concerns extend to intellectual property rights under the CPTPP and the controversial ISDS mechanism.
Transform Trade has highlighted the CPTPP’s adherence to the 1991 international convention for the protection of new varieties of plants. The agreement severely restricts farmers’ rights to save, exchange and use seeds, potentially impacting on biodiversity and the livelihoods of small-scale farmers. That restriction stands in stark contrast to the UK’s obligations under the Paris climate agreement, referenced by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West—the shadow Minister—and the sustainable development goals that are aimed at promoting sustainable agriculture and protecting biodiversity.
Furthermore, the inclusion of ISDS in the CPTPP poses a significant challenge to our national sovereignty and regulatory autonomy. The mechanism allows corporations to sue Governments for enacting policies intended to safeguard public health, the environment and social welfare. The Trade Justice Movement has pointed out cases in which corporations have used ISDS to contest socioeconomic reforms vital to public wellbeing, thereby threatening democratic governance and public policy-making processes.
Additionally, the CPTPP’s potential to remove tariffs on palm oil without regard to the environmental consequences of the palm oil trade exacerbates concerns about deforestation and its cascading effects on climate change and wildlife. Nearly 90% of global palm oil production occurs in Malaysia and Indonesia, where deforestation attributed to agricultural expansion is a pressing environmental crisis. The deforestation contributes significantly to global carbon emissions, threatens indigenous wildlife such as orangutans and Sumatran tigers, and undermines the UK’s commitment to combating climate change and preserving biodiversity.
Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)
I am sorry for interrupting the hon. Gentleman, but this debate is about the clause and the meaning of “CPTPP”. Will he tell us whether he is going to agree or disagree with that meaning, so that we may move on to other clauses?
Mr Dhesi
I thank the hon. Gentleman, my hon. friend from Totnes, but patience is a virtue. As I said in my introduction, during our deliberations it is important that we look at the multifaceted nature of what is going on, including with regard to the definition. However, I am glad that he has come to life, and I look forward to hearing from him very soon about the impact assessment nature of the Bill.
Gareth Thomas
As my hon. Friend was talking about deforestation, I was almost excited to see the hon. Member for Totnes leap to his feet: in the Select Committee report, which I understand the hon. Gentleman fully supports, is a significant reference to deforestation linked to palm oil, as my hon. Friend was rightly pointing out. Professor Bartels, the chair of the Trade and Agriculture Commission, noted that one reason why it appears that a high proportion of current UK imports of palm oil from Malaysia meet a voluntary standard higher than the current Malaysian national standard may be the impact of the EU’s deforestation regulations, which are much tougher than the UK’s certification requirements.
I gently suggest that the Select Committee, and perhaps Professor Bartels, had a nagging concern that the provisions of CPTPP may actually lead, in the long run, to more deforestation than we might as a country be comfortable with.
The Chair
Order. Before the hon. Member for Slough resumes, I should say that I have given him a great deal of latitude so far, but he is in danger of covering all his new clauses and amendments in his opening speech. I do not know whether that is what he is planning—not to speak to any of the amendments but just to cover them off at the beginning—but I am not prepared to let that happen. The amendments and new clauses are down in a specific order, and the hon. Gentleman or his colleague will be able to speak to them at the relevant time. We do not need to rehearse what will be debated later on.
I also do not want to get into a rehash of a Second Reading debate. I have given the hon. Gentleman a lot of latitude, but I urge him to stick to clause 1, rather than giving us advance notice of all the future amendments and new clauses that he might wish to move at a later date.
Mr Dhesi
Mr Davies, I thank your good self for your sage advice. This is all important, as I am setting the scene with regard to clause 1 and the Labour party’s perspective on what is happening under the Bill. That is why I was setting the scene. Later in the debate, I will delve into great detail; I do intend to speak, with your permission, on subsequent clauses. I will be contributing in detail, but I think that it was important for me to set out the scene at the very beginning.
Another reason is that the Trade Justice Movement and Transform Trade have urged careful consideration of the environmental implications, advocating for trade policies that align with the UK’s international commitments to environmental conservation and sustainable development. Labour’s amendments—in due course, Mr Davies—are a vision for equitable trade.
In conclusion, it is important to note that the Labour party’s stance on the CPTPP is founded on a principled approach to trade policy that prioritises collective wellbeing over narrow economic interests. Our amendments, which we will debate, reflect a comprehensive strategy to ensure that trade serves as a force for good, enhancing our national and global standing without sacrificing our core values and commitments.
As we contemplate the future of UK trade policy, let us be guided by the vision of fairness, sustainability and inclusivity. The Labour party calls for a cautious and considered approach to the CPTPP, and advocates for trade policies that benefit the many. In doing so, we champion a future where the UK not only engages with the world but leads by example in establishing fair, equitable and sustainable trade relations.
Gareth Thomas
I am grateful to you, Mr Davies, for calling me, and for the opportunity to serve again under your chairmanship. I have noted your advice—or instruction —not to go into the detail of the amendments, but I do wish to ask a number of questions of the Minister to help to guide the points that I will make on some of those measures further down the selection list.
One concern raised on Second Reading was about the collapse of the bilateral talks with Canada. That specific issue is perhaps not directly germane to this Bill, but it raises the question of whether relations with the Canadians have been affected by the collapse of those talks such that Canada may not want to ratify Britain’s accession to CPTPP. It would be good to hear from the Minister how he sees the progress among other countries of accepting that accession. I say in passing that we have still not had a clear explanation of the timing of the decision by the Secretary of State to collapse talks with Canada, given that we are still some two months away from the deadline to negotiate a rollover of the EU cumulation rules of origin that were so important for British manufacturing, notably cars.
Also on Second Reading, we heard the Secretary of State querying her own Department’s figures about the 0.08% lift to economic growth after 10 years, which was downgraded to just 0.04% by the Office for Budget Responsibility. I take the opportunity again to underline the recommendation of the Business and Trade Committee in its report this week for the Department to bring out a revised impact assessment. It also called for an urgent debate on the benefits—or not—of acceding to CPTPP. If Ministers were willing to support such a debate, it would be good to have that impact assessment brought out urgently. As I said, I hope that the hon. Member for Totnes, who is a member of the Committee, does not resile from those recommendations.
Given that, sadly, our country is now in recession after mismanagement by the Conservative party, and given that exports are set to rise by just 0.1% on average over the next three years, any increase in the modest gains that CPTPP is currently set to offer will be very welcome. However, as part of the discussion about our accession to CPTPP, I want to take the Minister back to debates we had some three years ago on the Trade Act 2021, when he was adamant that there should be no improvement in the scrutiny processes available for the discussion of trade treaties. He will be aware of the concerns raised by a series of organisations—from trade unions all the way through to the slightly less left-wing, one would suggest, noble Lord Frost—about the lack of scrutiny for trade treaties, notably CPTPP. It would be good to hear how the Minister thinks scrutiny of the impact of CPTPP could be improved even a little.
Mr Dhesi
As my hon. Friend is delving into the issue of workers’ rights, does he share my concern that the Trades Union Congress has voiced significant anxieties regarding the impact of the CPTPP on workers’ rights, particularly in sectors vulnerable to increased exports from countries where labour standards may be compromised to lower production costs? Does he agree that that could potentially threaten the livelihoods of British workers and undercut our domestic industries?
Gareth Thomas
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I hope that we will get on to some of the concerns that the TUC has raised about labour standards, which I think would be in order during a later debate on clause 3. It would be good to hear whether the Minister shares any of the concerns of the TUC, which has often struggled somewhat to get a hearing with Ministers. I believe that the situation has improved a little recently, but it was certainly pretty grim when the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) was Secretary of State for International Trade.
In his opening remarks, my hon. Friend the Member for Slough rightly drew attention to concerns about ISDS, and I will touch on those a little. Concerns were also raised about issues to do with performers’ rights. I accept that there is an opportunity to go into detail about some of those concerns during debates on clause 5, but I wish to ask the Minister a couple of questions, which I hope will inform better the debate on performers’ rights in clause 5.
Concerns were raised on Second Reading about environmental and animal welfare issues. Again, there will be an opportunity to talk about some of those a little later. One issue that there might not be such a good opportunity to discuss later, which I gently suggest is appropriate for this clause 1 stand part debate, is the question of future membership of CPTPP. One of my excellent staff discovered an article that the Minister wrote on 24 November 2022, where he hints at the United States rejoining CPTPP. That could have huge implications for the use of ISDS and animal welfare and environmental concerns, and would probably make a nonsense of the current impact assessment, so that is all the more reason for a revised impact assessment to be made.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech and doing a very good job of highlighting the issues that sit within this area of policy. Is he going to come on to the more detailed concerns around the environment and animal welfare in relation to the United States should it become a member of the CPTPP? Many British consumers have significant concerns about hormone-treated beef, standards of animal welfare and a range of other consumer and environmental issues.
Gareth Thomas
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is absolutely right to raise those concerns. I hope to touch on them in this clause 1 stand part debate, but I do not want to upset the Chair by delving into too much detail. But the RSPCA has raised concerns about the lack of explicit language on animal welfare in CPTPP. It has drawn the Committee’s attention to that and has raised a series of concerns around eggs, pig meat, chickens, animal health and genetically-engineered products. Will the Minister respond to the concerns of the RSPCA, which is in order in these debates? It would be good to hear the Minister respond to the concerns of an organisation as reputable as the RSPCA.
Mr Dhesi
My hon. Friend the shadow Minister has spoken up about the USA, but does he agree with me that during the previous debate we did not get clarification from the Government regarding the potential membership of China? We need to determine, within our definitions, the Government’s stance on the potential membership of China.
Gareth Thomas
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that issue. I explored whether there was any way to table an amendment that might allow us to probe the Minister about not just China but any new country acceding to CPTPP. Unfortunately, it did not appear to be appropriate or in order to table such an amendment in Committee, but I hope to revisit the issue on Report—indeed, I understand that it was discussed on Report in the Lords.
The Chair
Order. I should say to the hon. Gentleman that clause 5 is specifically entitled “Performers’ rights”. There will be a debate on whether or not clause 5 should stand part of the Bill. He said that he did not want to upset me too much; I advise him to try not to upset me at all. I gently suggest to him that a debate on “Performers’ rights” would perhaps be better suited to when we are considering clause 5.
Gareth Thomas
I hear the Chair’s sage advice; I think my hon. Friend the Member for Slough used that term. I will attempt to pick up all my concerns about the Minister’s letter and about performers’ rights more generally during a later debate.
I will briefly touch on ISDS, which my hon. Friend referred to in some detail. The Minister has previously claimed that Britain has never lost an ISDS case and that that explains the determination of Ministers to keep ISDS within the CPTPP. My understanding is that that is not entirely accurate and that we lost a case involving Eurotunnel some years ago and had to pay out significant costs. It would be good to have clarity from the Minister about that when he winds up on this clause, to help to inform our later debates around ISDS. It would also be useful to hear whether Britain has ever been threatened with an ISDS claim by other organisations—again, that would help us understand just how much of a threat ISDS being within the CPTTP is at the moment.
The concern is that Britain is, in general, a net exporter of capital at the moment, which is perhaps why we have not been hit with so many ISDS claims as a series of other countries have been. Obviously, however, with Canada a significant player in the CPTTP, and with the US, as the Minister said, potentially rejoining the CPTTP, that would not necessarily be the case. The question is this: would we not be more vulnerable in those circumstances? I gently suggest that that is a material concern, so it would be useful to hear at this stage from the Minister about it before we address the other concerns later. On that note, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)
May I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Davies, and welcome all members to this Committee for line-by-line consideration of this important Bill? Over 40 extraordinary minutes, we have heard an attempt by the Labour Front Bench to reopen the Second Reading debate, but I will try to answer the questions put to me.
Clause 1 is a non-controversial clause that defines the terms used in the Bill. “The CPTPP” means the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership signed at Santiago on 8 March 2018, including the UK accession protocol as it has effect in the United Kingdom from time to time. “The UK accession protocol” means the protocol on the accession of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the CPTPP, signed at Auckland and Bandar Seri Begawan on 16 July 2023.
We heard on Second Reading that the official Labour party position is to support the accession of the United Kingdom to the CPTPP, but over the past 40 minutes we have heard a series of speeches that give the opposite impression. That is often the case in today’s Labour party: there is a diktat from the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) up above, but below him something different is done, particularly by Members who were active when the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) was the party leader. The hon. Member for Harrow West reminded us of his time on the Trade Bill Committee, when he was opposed to all UK trade agreements. Without myself embarking on a Second Reading speech, I wonder how much of that dichotomy is still there in today’s Labour party.
Mr Dhesi
I caution the Minister that there is no dichotomy here. As we said in the Chamber on Second Reading, although we are in favour of acceding to the CPTPP, the job of His Majesty’s Opposition is to go through the Bill line by line and point out the various anomalies, issues and concerns—not just our own, but those of movements including the Trades Union Congress and other voluntary and civil society organisations. Otherwise, we would be heading towards another car crash. Given that the governing party has managed to crash the economy, does the Minister agree that we need safeguards from the Opposition?
Greg Hands
I thank the hon. Gentleman for drawing attention to the fact that this is all about line-by-line scrutiny. I certainly welcome that, if it is indeed the approach that he will be taking. None the less, I feel that I should answer the questions that he and the hon. Member for Harrow West have raised.
Having been an Opposition Front-Bench spokesperson myself, I should point out that the way a Bill Committee generally works is that Members table amendments about things they wish to speak about, rather than seeking on clause 1 to shoehorn in all kinds of additional questions and issues on which they have not tabled amendments. The Labour party has been in opposition for some time now—close to 14 years—and one might have thought that it would have learned some lessons about how to be a more effective Opposition. None the less, I will respond to the questions in the spirit in which they were asked.
The first question was about Canada. Of course, the hon. Member for Harrow West was a frequent rebel when it came to the UK and EU trade agreement with Canada, so he has a bit of form here. He said that there is an important roll-over of the rules of origin, and he is absolutely right, but what he did not tell us is that he opposed those rules of origin in the first place when the comprehensive economic and trade agreement was passed in this very Committee Room seven years ago. It is a bit rich for him now to say that something is important today when he was one of a small minority of Labour Front Benchers who opposed it.
Greg Hands
Of course, if the hon. Gentleman is going to explain whether he has changed his mind. Is he still opposed to CETA? I am sure he is going to tell us.
Gareth Thomas
First, I thank the Minister for describing me as a frequent rebel. I am hugely grateful to him for that characterisation: it will appear on my election leaflets for years to come. He has raised my vote on CETA many times, and I suspect he will do so many times in future; I do hope so. I gently make the point that he promised us he would help to negotiate a better deal with Canada, but he has not done so. In fact, we have worse terms of trade with Canada than when we were in the EU .
Greg Hands
I do not think that this is the time to discuss the whole future and present of our overall trading relations with Canada, but I gently remind the hon. Gentleman that he has form on this. We remain open to restarting the bilateral talks; of course, that rolled-over agreement remains in place and nothing has been undone by the pause on the bilateral talks. We continue to work with Canada on its CPTPP ratification.
The hon. Member for Harrow West called for an urgent debate—we support having one, if parliamentary time can be found—under the CRaG process. I think he has grown to dislike the CRaG process, but I point out that he is one of the few members of this Committee who voted in favour of the process back in 2010.
Gareth Thomas
I well understand the Minister wanting to reach for a piece of Labour legislation for comfort in the difficult circumstances of this particular Bill. I gently point out to him, however, that we have now left the European Union, which the CRaG process, when put into legislation, assumed we would continue to be a part of. I therefore gently suggest that we need to update the scrutiny processes. The Minister appears to be one of the last people on the Government Benches who is opposed to improving parliamentary scrutiny. With an election coming, given that he might be sitting on the Opposition Benches—if he survives—he should appreciate better scrutiny arrangements. Perhaps he is willing to seek the advice of the hon. Member for Totnes on how scrutiny arrangements might be improved.
Greg Hands
The hon. Gentleman and I were in Parliament—as you were, Mr Davies—when CRaG was passed, and it was not dependent on or linked to the UK’s membership of the European Union. It was a process for the parliamentary ratification of all international treaties. I gently remind the hon. Gentleman of that.
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman mentions parliamentary scrutiny, because I have looked back through the annals of time. As the Committee may know, I have been closely involved with CPTPP for a long time—since I first became Minister of State with responsibility for international trade back in 2016. I checked back on the parliamentary scrutiny that we have had over the years, as I was specifically asked to.
In June 2021, we published our negotiation objectives. We have provided regular updates to Parliament on CPTPP: two oral statements and, extraordinarily, 16 written ministerial statements. I do not think that there has been a lack of parliamentary scrutiny. Ministers and the chief negotiator have appeared before five separate Select Committees to discuss CPTPP and to answer questions about it. We had the Trade and Agriculture Commission’s report in December 2023 and the section 42 report in January 2024, and the CRaG process has now started. There has been no shortage of parliamentary scrutiny.
The hon. Member for Harrow West asked about future membership. I will not be drawn on that subject, but I refer him to the Auckland principles; he can check out what those are all about. Had he really wanted to talk about future membership, he could have tabled an amendment. I will certainly look at the RSPCA concerns, but, again, he has not tabled an amendment on them.
As for the Select Committee, the hon. Gentleman has been trying to get it to do his job for him. He cited a recommendation from the Select Committee that we have a fresh impact assessment, but I note that that is not a recommendation on which he himself has tabled an amendment. Had he done his homework over the past couple of weeks, he need not have made a speech today covering all kinds of new areas on which he has failed to table an amendment.
As for ISDS and palm oil, we will come on to debate them with new clauses 5 and 1. I think the hon. Gentleman floated something about a Eurotunnel case from many years ago; if he wants to give some detail on that, he can write to me as to what that may have all been about. Of course, it may well have been in his own time as Trade Minister under the last Labour Government.
Gareth Thomas
On the Eurotunnel question, the Minister might like to check with Lord Johnson, because he seemed to know a little bit more about the case than the Minister appears to. Perhaps when the Minister goes back to his Department he might seek out his noble Friend and get some background from him.
The problem with ISDS, particularly in the Eurotunnel case, is that War on Want had to table a freedom of information request to find out what had happened. That level of secrecy is one of the problems with ISDS. As the Minister has access to those records, it would be useful if he published or made clear what happened in that case. That would help us, as a country, to learn how we might avoid such claims in future.
Greg Hands
Again, if the hon. Gentleman had wished to debate that, he might have tabled an amendment on it. Maybe he will do so later in the Bill’s passage.
Gareth Thomas
On a point of order, Mr Davies. I gently ask whether you might draw the Minister’s attention to new clause 5, which is specifically about ISDS.
The Chair
As the hon. Gentleman knows, that was not a point of order. I should say that he was leading with his chin by pointing that out, because his remarks should have been confined to our debate on new clause 5.
Greg Hands
In conclusion, I urge that this short, technical and non-controversial clause stand part of the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 2
Treatment of conformity assessment bodies etc
Gareth Thomas
I beg to move amendment 1, in clause 2, page 1, line 19, leave out from “subject to” to the end of the subsection and insert
“approval by resolution of each House of Parliament”.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 2, in clause 2, page 2, line 2, at end insert—
“(5) Regulations under subsection (1) may not be made before completion of such public consultation as the appropriate authority considers appropriate with the relevant—
(a) Scottish ministers,
(b) Welsh ministers,
(c) department of the Northern Ireland Executive, and
(d) representatives of the English Regions.”
Clause stand part.
Gareth Thomas
Clause 2 is about the treatment of conformity assessment bodies, and who certificates or provides assurance that products meet necessary regulatory requirements. Testing, certification and inspection are all conformity assessment procedures, usually carried out by third-party organisations called conformity assessment bodies. At the moment, our legislation requires there to be based in Great Britain, or in a country with whom the UK has a mutual recognition agreement, conformity assessment bodies that carry out those processes for goods and services sold in the UK. Under article 8.6 of the CPTPP treaty, conformity assessment bodies established in the territories of CPTPP parties are to be treated no less favourably than conformity assessment bodies located domestically.
The Opposition accept that the UK will have to amend its legislation to allow conformity assessment bodies established in other CPTPP countries to apply for approval and accreditation for the Great Britain market. That is clearly not the case in Northern Ireland, where, under the Windsor framework, EU rules around conformity assessment bodies still apply. It would be good to hear from the Minister how the approval and accreditation process for conformity assessment bodies established, for example, in Canada, Malaysia, Japan or Brunei for the British market might work in practice.
Many conformity assessment bodies are very well established, particularly those in the UK. None the less, I gently suggest that there is a need for better consultation about future approval of conformity assessment bodies that might operate in other CPTPP countries, but want to operate within our markets. There is also a need for a stronger role for Parliament in general, specifically around conformity assessment of new technologies such as artificial intelligence.
Amendment 1 would make the negative procedure a positive one, to make a debate more likely. Amendment 2 would require more consultation with Scottish and Welsh Ministers, with Northern Ireland and with representatives of the English regions, before regulations are introduced. Let me explain why the amendments could usefully be made to the Bill; I will give an example from another regime that demonstrates why conformity assessment bodies are likely to be needed for artificial intelligence and why, therefore, my amendments on such bodies from CPTPP countries being registered here in the UK are appropriate.
Current EU rules appear to require conformity assessments for high-risk artificial intelligence systems that cover machinery, radio equipment, toys, civil aviation, medical devices, cars, railway applications and appliances burning gaseous earth fuels. Surely we would want to know that conformity assessment bodies approving high-risk artificial intelligence systems know what they are doing when they operate in the UK. To ensure that they do—certainly until the technology is well established and its risks and benefits are well understood—there ought to be wide consultation and significant parliamentary debate whenever a new artificial intelligence conformity assessment body seeks accreditation in the UK, given the potential security issues around artificial intelligence. That seems even more important given the potential for new applicant countries to join the CPTPP. As I understand it, China is well advanced in artificial intelligence development, as is the US. Can the Minister set out what discussions Ministers have had about the possibility of new artificial intelligence conformity assessment bodies emerging from other CPTPP countries wanting accreditation to operate in Great Britain?
I certainly would not want to hold back the development of artificial intelligence in any way, given its exciting potential to transform our country and others for the better. It enables the simulation of human-like intelligence to make decisions, solve problems and analyse information, among other things. It allows various applications such as voice recognition, image creation and autonomous vehicles. As I hope I have hinted at, it has the potential to revolutionise industries from healthcare to finance by automating tasks, imparting efficiency and enabling all sorts of new capabilities. It is quite clear that more and more businesses are looking at artificial intelligence options to see whether there is potential for their operations to improve their products and services and help with cost reduction, revenue growth and so on.
At the moment, artificial intelligence regulation is relatively limited, but there is an active and growing debate about how and when to regulate artificial intelligence and how to go about that process. There are active debates in the EU and China, as I hinted at, as well as in Canada and Brazil, along with the other example I gave earlier in the US. In the EU, for example, conformity assessments of AI products or services are defined as the process of verifying and/or demonstrating that a high-risk system complies with certain requirements, such as good risk management, good data governance, good technical documentation, proper human oversight, accuracy, robustness, good cyber-security and good record keeping. CPTPP evolves, so it is surely possible that artificial intelligence conformity assessment bodies will be established in other CPTPP member states, and will want approval and accreditation to operate in our markets.
Lawyers are beginning to look at these issues in detail. For example, one anticipated that the focus will be on testing such systems for bias and discriminatory or disparate impacts. The conformity assessments might in some cases just mean an internal assessment, but in other cases might require an assessment conducted by an independent third party, which would then issue a certificate to confirm the artificial intelligence system’s compliance. In short, that third party would be a conformity assessment body.
As artificial intelligence is such a new and innovative product or service, the way in which particularly high- risk forms of artificial intelligence are regulated may vary from one country to the next. Therefore, the way that conformity assessment bodies operate—what they expect of artificial intelligence firms—may differ widely too. There is surely a more active role for Parliament than the Bill currently envisages to consider directly whether each artificial intelligence conformity assessment body meets the standards that we and our constituents would expect.
Mr Dhesi
My hon. Friend the shadow Minister is making a very important point. Given the profound impact that artificial intelligence will have on all our lives, it is important that we are a beacon for its regulation around the world. Does he agree that we cannot merely leave it to Ministers to administer AI regulation? There must be a comprehensive role for Parliament, which is why amendment 1, which seeks to insert
“approval by resolution of each House of Parliament”,
is so incredibly important.
Gareth Thomas
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his support. I am sure that in the years to come there will be a considerable amount of debate in Parliament on both the potential for artificial intelligence, and where and when regulation of AI is required. To be fair to the Minister, the negative resolution process currently in the Bill does give Parliament some role, but I think a more active role for Parliament is required, particularly as this exciting and new—but potentially risky in some circumstances—technology is developed.
Given the important role that conformity assessment bodies for other products and services play in keeping us safe, conformity assessment bodies for artificial intelligence are likely to have a very important role in the future. We need to ensure that the way in which CPTPP is affected by artificial intelligence, in terms of its impact on the UK, is fit for purpose going forward. I know that the Minister is an enthusiast for not having much scrutiny of trade treaties, so there are likely to be relatively few opportunities to return to this CPTPP legislation and the conformity assessment bodies section within. Let us take the opportunity in this Committee to look to the future and recognise both the benefits and the risks of artificial intelligence. Let us also recognise that one way to ensure additional safety is by ensuring more parliamentary scrutiny of new conformity assessment bodies from CPTPP member countries that might operate here in the UK.
Mr Dhesi
I want to dwell on this point, because the Labour party believes firmly in devolution. Amendment 2 would require consultation with other, devolved Governments and with our Metro Mayors, because we need to harness the talent and potential from across our United Kingdom—whether in regulation or conformity, particularly with respect to artificial intelligence—rather than being more Whitehall-centric. Does my hon. Friend therefore agree that amendment 2 is particularly important?
Gareth Thomas
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention, and he is absolutely right. It is striking that the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government’s submissions on CPTPP raised concerns about scrutiny and consultation. For example, the Scottish Government’s written evidence noted
“the continued lack of data disaggregation for Scotland”
in the Government’s assessment of the benefits of CPTPP. They noted that
“an estimate of long-run changes to Scotland’s Gross-Value Added was provided,”
but that
“specific impacts according to sector, region and protected group within Scotland were not included in the assessments and so potentially significant impacts could have been missed.”
I would not want to suggest that our amendments will solve all those problems, but if they begin to embed better consultation with the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government, Northern Ireland and the English regions even a little bit, then I gently suggest that that can only be to the good.
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
I want to re-emphasise my hon. Friend’s point about consulting and working closely with the Welsh and Scottish Governments and the devolved regions to ensure that the next steps are taken in collaboration. As we know, this Government are renowned for not working closely with the devolved nations and not having those conversations with devolved Governments. That has been my experience of working in the devolved regions and the Welsh Government. The amendment is vital to ensure that consultation is put in statute.
Gareth Thomas
I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention and the experience of working in the Welsh Government that she brings to our considerations. It is striking that the Welsh Government raised a series of concerns, which they felt the Government had not addressed properly. For example, they noted that consultation with the Government had been mixed; at various times, it had been quite poor and had got better. In the last few weeks, before accession was announced, it had deteriorated again. I suspect that is about Ministers not wanting to hear different points of view and challenges to their ideological standpoint. For the benefit of the country, we need to ensure that we move forward together. Surely we are stronger together if we have better consultation and parliamentary scrutiny. On that basis, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
Greg Hands
I thank the hon. Members for Harrow West, for Slough and for City of Chester for tabling the amendments in the group. Again, I noticed that the greater part of the speech by the hon. Member for Harrow West was about things that were not actually in the amendment. I gently remind Members that he perhaps used AI to help him to table his amendments in the first place—in which case he shows some of the limitations of following a slavish approach when it comes to artificial intelligence. None the less, I will speak to the amendments before us.
First, I will briefly outline clause 2 and conformity assessment bodies. To comply with the requirement on our accession, we need to change some of the UK’s subordinate legislation, which requires conformity assessment bodies to be established in this country or in countries with which the UK has a mutual recognition agreement. The legislative changes do not alter the regulatory requirements for products entering this country—that is really important to understand. Any overseas conformity assessment bodies approved by the UK will carry out assessment against regulations that apply in this country, not those regulations applying in the CPTPP party in which they are established.
The changes do not mean that conformity assessment bodies established in other CPTPP parties’ territories will gain automatic approval. Instead, all CPTPP-based conformity assessment bodies will need to demonstrate that they meet the relevant UK requirements, such as being accredited by the UK’s national accreditation body, UKAS—not as familiar a UKAS as UCAS. The obligation also applies to other parties to the agreement. It is obviously a treaty with multiple countries, which means that UK conformity assessment bodies will be able to apply for approval from CPTPP parties to carry out conformity assessment against their regulations.
Before I mention the term “CPTPP parties” again, I should explain that they are countries that have acceded to the CPTPP. That would allow UK manufacturers exporting to CPTPP parties to have their products tested in the UK rather than overseas, which could save our exporters considerable time and money. It also means that UK conformity assessment bodies could enter lucrative new markets with their services, as approximately £10 billion in UK exports to CPTPP parties were covered by conformity assessment procedures in 2021. This clause is necessary to allow the UK to comply with the technical barriers to trade, or TBT, chapter of CPTPP, to meet our international obligations upon accession and to accede to CPTPP.
I will turn first to amendment 1, which concerns the scrutiny of secondary legislation made under the Bill, before speaking to amendment 2, which concerns the devolved Administrations and what it calls “regional government”. Let me emphasise how seriously the Government take their commitment to keep Parliament and the public apprised of the Government’s negotiations for new free trade agreements. I read out a whole series of consultative interactions with Parliament that have happened during our commitment for the UK to accede to CPTPP. Let me be clear that amendment 1 would mean a vote not on the agreement—which we worked hard to keep Parliament informed of through various debates, ministerial statements and Select Committee appearances—but on the secondary legislation regarding the implementation of the trade agreement. Parliament now has the opportunity to formally scrutinise the UK’s accession protocol to the CPTPP through the usual procedure under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act, or CRaG. The Secretary of State has also written to the Leader of the House to request a general debate during the sitting days of CRaG. CRaG, which commenced yesterday, is the main avenue for scrutiny of this deal, not specific secondary legislation made under the power in this Bill.
Anthony Mangnall
I apologise for interrupting the Minister, but I think it is important, as a member of the Business and Trade Committee, to say how far we have come in the scrutiny of trade agreements. When the Secretary of State came in front of the Business and Trade Committee recently, she made it clear that we would have the debate that he alluded to during the CRaG’s 21 days and that the House would have a chance to properly scrutinise the trade agreement. I hope that will be the form for all future agreements.
Greg Hands
I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention. Of course, it is not entirely within my gift to ensure that that debate takes place. That will be down to the business managers and the usual channels, as is usual for scheduling parliamentary business. However, I welcome his recognition of how much extra effort the Government have put into ensuring parliamentary scrutiny—earlier I mentioned the 16 written ministerial statements and appearances between before five different Select Committees.
On the secondary legislation in question, the power in clause 2 would ensure that conformity assessment bodies established in CPTPP party territories will be treated no less favourably than ones located in the UK in relation to conformity assessments for products supplied in this country, pursuant to article 8.6 of CPTPP. This is a narrow power that is designed to make minor technical amendments to existing secondary legislation and some assimilated law.
The negative procedure is reasonable and appropriate for such amendments. That is a position supported by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, or DPRRC—the experts in this area, at least from a parliamentary perspective. It indicated that there was nothing in the Bill to which it wished to draw the House’s attention. The powers in the Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Act 2023 were similarly subject to the negative procedure, and the DPRRC raised no concerns in relation to the delegated powers in that Act either.
Amendment 2 deals with consultation on the treatment of conformity assessment bodies under clause 2. I am grateful to hon. Members for the opportunity to discuss the important issues raised by this amendment. The breadth of modern free trade agreements means that some policy issues will fall within the competence of devolved Administrations. It has been clear from the inception of the UK’s independent trade policy—as indeed it was when we were members of the European Union—that aspects of trade policy would impinge on areas that were within the devolved competence of the nations, agriculture being the most obvious example. That is why my Department has established a significant programme of engagement with the devolved Administrations. I meet quarterly with the Ministers in a ministerial forum for trade, for example, and our officials speak all the time.
However, it is vital for the UK’s ability to meet its commitments under CPTPP that CPTPP and protocol obligations should be implemented in the UK. Adding a consultation requirement before secondary legislation can be made pursuant to clause 2 could delay ratification of the agreement. Going back to earlier comments, I am never entirely sure whether Opposition Front Benchers are in favour of this agreement. They keep trying to introduce new ways to delay ratification, which makes me suspect that, when it comes to it, rather a lot of them do not. If implementing legislation is not in place, the UK would be in breach of CPTPP on day one of entry into force of the accession protocol, as the UK would not be in compliance with the terms of CPTPP.
Gareth Thomas
I am grateful to the Minister for his characteristically bombastic assessment of our amendments. I also enjoyed the intervention from the hon. Member for Totnes. I think the gist of his remarks was that we have come a long way on scrutiny. I recognise that he has come a long way back into the Government fold, but I am not sure that we have come a long way on scrutiny of trade agreements. Perhaps he was still a little bit traumatised by a previous Secretary of State failing to turn up to a Select Committee to answer questions on eight occasions, and therefore grateful that the current Secretary of State did actually manage to turn up to answer questions on trade. While he might think that we have come a long way on scrutiny of trade agreements, the Select Committee on Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs does not. I was struck by the lack of any reference to the Government’s response to that Committee in his comments.
Let me be clear again at the outset: we support accession to the CPTPP. However, it is our role as a responsible Opposition to raise the concerns of all sorts of stakeholders and to require those representing the Executive and the Treasury Bench to respond to those concerns. If the scrutiny arrangements for trade treaties were better, Opposition Members would perhaps have slightly less work to do to raise all the concerns.
Matt Rodda
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Would he like to comment on some of the stakeholders the Minister brushed off somewhat, particularly the RSPCA, which is a hugely respected body raising concerns about animal welfare? I wondered whether my hon. Friend wanted to address that.
Gareth Thomas
I am afraid that it is rather characteristic of the tired Government we have that they are not always particularly interested in addressing seriously the concerns of organisations with such a long and cross-party track record as the RSPCA.
Anthony Mangnall
I intervene just because I feel that the hon. Gentleman might be trying to bait me at this point. Does he not pay any attention to the Trade and Agriculture Commission and its membership? It deals in full in its report with the issue of animal welfare and animal health and the sanitary and phytosanitary rules that have been alluded to by Opposition colleagues. Indeed, there is also the section 42 report that the Government have published in response to the Trade and Agriculture Commission, so this is not a tired Government; this is a Government who are addressing the concerns and are alive and well within our trade negotiations.
Gareth Thomas
I would never dare to try to bait any Member of this House. I gently say to the hon. Member for Totnes that the Trade and Agriculture Commission’s report is an example of how scrutiny arrangements could improve. If he tracks back to when the report was published by the Trade and Agriculture Commission, he will be aware that it was published after Second Reading in the House of Lords. Again, I am gently suggesting that we still have some way to go to get scrutiny arrangements much better than they are. I hope to come on to some of the specific concerns and issues that the Trade and Agriculture Commission raised in debates on other amendments.
I am sure that the Minister, if he tracks back to the debates that he and I had during the passage of, I think, the 2021 Trade Bill, will remember that the Opposition pressed for better consultation with Scottish and Welsh Ministers, with Northern Ireland, and with representatives of the English regions. I gently say to him that he might wish to start a whole series of scare stories running, which has been his wont in various guises, I have noticed, down the years, but I do not think it is beyond the wit of Government to speak to local representatives in the English regions in a way that is not bureaucratic but which ensures that all the views across our great country are heard.
Lastly, on the Minister’s point about the apparently wonderful meetings that he has with the devolved Administrations, I gently draw his attention to the ministerial foreword to the Welsh Government’s comments on CPTPP accession. Vaughan Gething, Minister for Economy, said:
“The engagement with UK government has varied throughout the accession process. Whilst there was a lack of engagement at the beginning of the process,”
engagement did begin to “improve over time”. However, he says at the end of the foreword:
“However, the engagement in the period between the announcement of the agreement in principle through to signature was less positive, particularly when it came to discussions around the UK government analysis on the impact of the deal.”
The Scottish Government echoed some of those concerns in their remarks. Therefore it is clear that we could improve the scrutiny process for trade deals.
I would like to be convinced by the Minister’s response. Sadly, I am not, so I therefore seek your permission, Mr Davies, to divide the Committee on both amendment 1 and on amendment 2.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
The schedule.
New clause 1—Assessment of the impact of the CPTPP Chapter on government procurement–environment—
“The Secretary of State must, within three years of Royal Assent to this Act, lay before Parliament assessments of the impact of the implementation of the CPTPP Chapter on government procurement on—
(a) the Government’s plans to tackle climate change;
(b) the sustainable production of forest risk commodities, including palm oil, within UK supply chains,
(c) deforestation, and
(d) the Government’s environmental targets and environmental improvement plans established under the Environment Act 2021.”
New clause 2—Assessment of the impact of the CPTPP Chapter on government procurement–employment and industry—
“The Secretary of State must, within three years of Royal Assent to this Act, lay before Parliament assessments of the impact of the implementation of the CPTPP Chapter on government procurement on—
(a) manufacturing in the United Kingdom;
(b) the job market in the United Kingdom, including but not limited to gender inequality therein;
(c) the level of procurement by local authorities from businesses in their local authority area;
(d) the delivery of public services in the United Kingdom; and
(e) the Government's commitments to the conventions of the International Labour Organisation.”
New clause 7—Impact assessment of implementation of the CPTPP Chapter on Government Procurement on developing country trading partners—
“(1) The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of the passing of this Act and every 12 months thereafter, publish a report on the impact of the implementation of the Government Procurement chapter of the CPTPP on developing country trading partners of the United Kingdom.
(2) The impact assessment under subsection (1) must include an assessment of—
(a) social, environmental, and economic impact on countries with high levels of dependence on the UK market;
(b) steps that have been taken to consult with affected trading partners;
(c) proposed remediation measures for potential economic damage;
(d) how the experience and impact of implementation might inform negotiation of future trade agreements.”
Greg Hands
Clause 3 is vital to ensure that we bring procurement legislation into compliance with the Government procurement chapter of CPTPP to ensure that the UK is ready to accede. Clause 3 and, accordingly, the schedule amend domestic procurement legislation, namely the existing procurement regulations that regulate procurement and the Procurement Act 2023, which will regulate procurement for England, Wales and Northern Ireland when that Act substantively commences in October 2024. Those amendments extend the UK’s market access obligations to suppliers from CPTPP parties and introduce two minor technical measures, which will ensure full implementation of the requirements of the Government procurement chapter of CPTPP. Joining CPTPP will build on the existing comprehensive agreements that the UK has with most parties by providing UK businesses with even greater legally guaranteed access to opportunities in their Government procurement markets in several areas.
Samantha Dixon (City of Chester) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I ask for your indulgence and that of hon. Members as this is my first Bill Committee since my election in December 2022.
New clause 1 focuses on the environmental impact of the Bill and aims to keep the Government accountable for their plans to tackle climate change—something we should all be mindful of at this time. It is important to seek further clarification on the environmental impact of the CPTPP agreement and how the Government intend to mitigate detrimental environmental impacts of the UK’s accession to the bloc.
Around 90% of the world’s oil palm trees are grown on a few islands in Malaysia and Indonesia, and just 1% of Malaysian palm oil smallholdings are certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. That 1% constitutes around 40% of all palm oil plantations in Malaysia. When it comes to palm oil, education is key. We continue to see ongoing misconceptions around sustainable palm oil. Despite 60% of people in the UK knowing about palm oil, a recent Kantar report found that more than 85% did not know about sustainable palm oil, which is an efficient crop with significantly less environmental impact on the land than other vegetable oils. Replacing it with another oil would mean using up to eight times more land for oils such as rapeseed or sunflower. Sustainable palm oil can be beneficial for biodiversity and to protect, conserve and enhance ecosystems. There is still widespread concern about the effect of reduced tariffs, for example, on expanding palm oil imports leading to deforestation. This is a major environmental crisis and it is the second largest contributor to climate change globally after burning fossil fuels.
Nearly 90% of deforestation is attributed to agricultural expansion. The impact of that is not only having an effect on our climate but has resulted in a sharp decline in precious native wildlife such as orangutans, rhinoceroses, hornbills, tigers and elephants, pushing them to the brink of extinction. Indeed, there are now more MPs in Westminster than there are Sumatran tigers on the planet, and deforestation has played a major role in that dreadful statistic.
Mr Dhesi
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point about deforestation and environmental consequences. She might also be aware of Transform Trade’s analysis of the restriction of farmers’ rights to seeds, which underlines the CPTPP’s potential to come into conflict with the UK’s environmental and sustainability goals. There are fears, for example, that the mandatory adoption of the international convention for the protection of new varieties of plants 1991 by CPTPP signatories could severely affect biodiversity and undermine small-scale farming, contradicting commitments under international agreements such as the Paris agreement and the sustainable development goals. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important both to protect farmers’ rights and to promote agricultural biodiversity?
Samantha Dixon
Absolutely. I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He makes an important point, which underlines why the review needs to be timely. Lord Johnson said in the other place that he would be surprised if the evaluation and monitoring reports did not cover information on environmental standards, reduction of the risk of deforestation and many other areas. However, we need more clarity on that point. Specifically, what will the Government include in the reviews?
The review should consider how CPTPP membership has affected the sustainable production of forest risk commodities, including palm oil, within the UK supply chain. Further, the review specifically needs to investigate the impact of membership on deforestation. The Government have yet to outline the details of how they will progress. They have promised to involve conservation experts, but how will that work?
I hope that the Government will engage with expert environmentalists, such as Chester zoo in my constituency, which has been at the forefront of championing sustainable palm oil, both in the UK and in Malaysia, throughout the environmental impact evaluation process from its planning stages to giving evidence. I will take the opportunity to thank Chester zoo for all its work on conservation, biodiversity and environmental issues. Indeed, it is thanks to its hard work, along with Ferrero, that Chester became the first sustainable palm oil city in the UK in 2019, sourcing its palm oil entirely from sustainable sources.
Working with Chester zoo, the international company Ferrero, which for 70 years has made products such as Nutella, Kinder chocolate and Thorntons—as well as what is believed to be the ambassadorial favourite, Ferrero Rocher—was one of the first global companies to source 100% responsible, sustainable, certified and segregated palm oil, and has been recognised by the WWF as the No. 1 manufacturer for sustainable palm oil. Ferrero not only uses sustainable palm oil itself but encourages its use by others. In partnership with Chester zoo through its sustainable palm oil communities project and the SPO education programme, Ferrero helps to educate communities and schools on the role of sustainable palm oil. I thank Ferrero for all it does to raise awareness and bring others along the sustainable palm oil journey.
The Government have not set out what they expect to happen once the review has been completed. Will they commit to a regular review of the environmental impact of the trade deal to ensure that it aligns with our global obligations, such as the targets set under the global biodiversity framework, long into the future? Finally, and more widely on the review, it is important that the Government commit to parliamentary oversight of its findings. Where will the review be published and what level of scrutiny will be enabled? Those details are all missing from the Government’s reassurances so far; clarifications are much needed, hence our new clause.
Looking forward, I know that Chester zoo and others would like to see the Government working to link preferential trade tariffs to sustainable practices. A good example is the free trade agreement between the European Free Trade Association and Indonesia signed in 2021, which included a commitment that palm and other vegetable oils that have been produced protecting primary forests, peatlands and related ecosystems will get preferential market access. This initiative is clearly possible, and something that future trade deals should consider within the primary agreement.
The CPTPP is a great opportunity for the UK to take a position on actively promoting the use of sustainable palm oil and other environmental issues. The agreement will increase UK influence in the region, so we must ensure that we bring it to bear on all these vital issues. I commend the new clause to the Committee.
Anna McMorrin
As it stands, this trade agreement makes a mockery of the Government’s own environmental commitments. On the impact of the CPTPP on the environment, environmental provisions in trade agreements are given significant importance these days. Australia, Malaysia, Mexico and Peru are incredibly diverse; they are defined as mega-diverse regions for supporting more than 70% of biological diversity on the planet. However, we know that the carbon footprint within trade can be significant and deforestation can be exacerbated.
At COP26, held in Glasgow and chaired by the UK, the UK Government spearheaded a global forest initiative aimed at halting deforestation. I am not sure how this agreement, as it stands without this new clause, meets this Government’s own objectives and initiatives. Could the Minister clarify that?
The Trade Secretary previously said,
“you have to make trade-offs”
in signing trade deals, and that palm oil was “a great product”. However, we know that reducing tariffs on palm oil could cause huge problems—that product is directly linked to deforestation and damage to habitats, such as that of the orangutan. As it stands, the risks of this trade deal’s rewarding environmental destruction are huge. That is why it is so important to include safeguards, and this new clause.
This trade deal encourages trading products made with pesticides that are banned in the UK, it encourages trade in deforestation-linked palm oil and it rewards environmentally-destructive practices that harm our farmers here at home. Therefore, we need safeguards in the form of impact assessments. We need safeguards on climate—the biggest challenge facing this planet—on deforestation, and on the sustainable production of forest-risk commodities, including palm oil, in UK supply chains.
Gareth Thomas
My hon. Friend is making a very interesting speech. One of the environmental concerns that has been raised with me and others on the Committee by a whole series of green groups is around the use of the investor-state dispute settlement. Thus far, the Minister has ducked answering questions around ISDS. One hopes that in responding to my hon. Friend he might take the opportunity to explain why Ministers are so supportive of ISDS in this context, given the damage it could potentially do in setting back our climate change aspirations under the Paris agreement, and why they were so determined to try and stop ISDS being included in the bilateral free trade agreement with Canada.
Anna McMorrin
My hon. Friend makes some very important points, and I hope the Minister will directly address them.
We need to ensure there are safeguards, and that environmental targets and improvement plans are there to be looked at and addressed. We need those safeguards in the form of impact assessments. We need to make sure that environmental standards are there for the produce that we import within this CPTPP agreement, and that rewards and incentives to encourage destructive practices are not there. We need a level playing field for British farmers, organisations and companies—that are already producing to higher standards, and that are on the path to much more sustainable farming. We need to make sure those practices are not undermined.
I hope the Minister will respond to those points, and that he will vote for this new clause to make sure those standards are upheld and that this trade deal is in line with COP26 and the Government’s very own objectives and initiatives.
Mr Dhesi
As we unpack the CPTPP, a nuanced landscape emerges—especially when considering its impact on the Government’s procurement, employment and industry sectors. Our amendments aim to safeguard issues raised by the likes of the TUC and the NFU, ensuring a balanced approach to procurement that benefits our local economies and upholds sustainability.
Reflecting on the Government’s ambitious projections, compared to the stark realities presented by recent analyses, the anticipated benefits of the CPTPP for the UK might not be as significant as initially claimed. It was initially touted as delivering a substantial boost to our economy, but revised forecasts have tempered those expectations significantly, as I set out at the outset, underscoring the need for a more grounded and critical examination of the agreement. Government procurement is pivotal, as it may alter fundamentally the UK’s procurement landscape, possibly exposing local markets to increased international competition.
Gareth Thomas
Does my hon. Friend remember that once upon a time, one of the Prime Ministers not so long ago—I think his name was Boris Johnson—backed the idea that we should buy British? However, we have not heard anything recently about that concept. Certainly, the approach in the CPTPP—the lack of an enforceable labour standards provision, for example—suggests that Ministers have given up on the noble ambition of encouraging state bodies to buy British.
Mr Dhesi
My hon. Friend makes the point more eloquently than I would have done. It is pertinent to note the contributions of previous Conservative Prime Ministers that have not materialised. That is why the CPTPP must serve as a catalyst for positive economic contribution, reflecting a steadfast commitment to the values of fairness and sustainability.
The potential of the agreement to reshape the competitive landscape, particularly highlighted earlier by the implications of clause 2 for conformity assessment bodies, warrants meticulous scrutiny. The demand for detailed impact assessments on employment and industry underscores our deep comprehension of the stakes involved. Our policies must safeguard critical sectors, such as automotive manufacturing, and maintain job security and fair labour practices to foster a resilient economy ready for future challenges.
The automotive sector, which is a cornerstone of British manufacturing, faces potential challenges from the increased market access and competition brought about by the CPTPP. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has highlighted the significant contribution of the automotive industry to the UK economy, emphasising the need for trade agreements to support the growth and stability of the sector. Ensuring that the CPTPP does not disadvantage the sector is paramount in preserving the livelihoods that it supports.
Gareth Thomas
My hon. Friend is surely right to raise the concerns of the automotive sector. In particular, Ministers have failed to protect it from the loss of EU cumulation rights and rules of origin in access to Canada from 1 April. That potentially puts at risk some of the £750 million market for British cars, such has been the failure of the Secretary of State and the Minister present.
Mr Dhesi
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The British people were promised bright sunlit uplands. We were promised lots of things but, whether it is the automotive industries, our fishermen or our farmers, there are complaints galore because people feel heavily let down by this Government’s performance. That is why the emphasis on fair labour practices within the context of CPTPP is crucial. The UK’s commitment to upholding high labour standards should not be compromised by international trade agreements.
Labour rights and protections are fundamental to ensuring that the economic benefits of trade are equitably distributed, and that workers are not left vulnerable to the pressures of global competition, which is in line with Labour’s new deal for working people. We advocate for a trade environment that prioritises the protection and enhancement of workers’ rights across all sectors. That initiative aims to ensure that the prosperity derived from international trade agreements, like the CPTPP, directly contributes to improving the working conditions, pay and security of British workers, embodying the principle that fair trade must also mean fair work. In essence, as we navigate the implications of the CPTPP for employment and industry, a balanced approach that protects British jobs and industries, while embracing the opportunities of global trade, is essential.
Anna McMorrin
My hon. Friend is making excellent points. Does he agree that this trade agreement is essential in transitioning to a green economy and in working with partner countries to make that transition in the automotive sector, for example? In order to do that in the right way, we need to ensure that those environmental safeguards are put in place, otherwise we risk the destruction of our automotive workforce in this country.
Mr Dhesi
My hon. Friend makes that point powerfully, and it is essential that those considerations are put forward by the Minister in his response. Those issues around procurement and the impact on our British industries are extremely important. The broad reach of the CPTPP, encompassing countries with diverse labour practices, demands a firm commitment to enforceable labour protections. We cannot leave the door open for a race to the bottom in labour rights. The absence of a dedicated clause on labour rights is a glaring omission, reflecting the Conservatives’ faltering commitment to protecting labour rights in international treaties and highlighting the urgent need for the CPTPP to embody our shared values of fairness and ethical trade practices.
Matt Rodda
I congratulate my hon. Friend on an excellent speech in which he is highlighting a number of weaknesses in the Government’s approach. Does he agree that his points are particularly relevant, given that we have just entered a recession, and that many working people and small businesses are under increasing pressure from not just the cost of living crisis but wider economic pressure as the economy contracts? I have a number of small businesses and working people in my constituency who have raised deep concerns with me recently. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government need to be doing more at this critical time?
Mr Dhesi
I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent intervention. The Opposition are extremely concerned, whether it is about our economy going into recession, or the cost of living crisis or the various other forms of malaise that affect our society. We do not want any arrangement with the CPTPP, particularly regarding procurement, that impacts more negatively than what is already going on.
Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting)
Tuesday 20th February 2024
(10 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Act 2024 View all Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Act 2024 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 20 February 2024 - (20 Feb 2024)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Dr Huq. It is great to have you in the Chair this afternoon—it is always good to have a Member of Parliament from a neighbouring borough in the Chair.
I am raising a point of order because, in a slightly uncharacteristically shifty moment, the Minister appeared not to know anything about an investor-state dispute settlement case involving Eurotunnel that was successfully pursued against the UK Government. I used our lunch suspension productively to find the newspaper coverage of that case, which dates back to 2 February 2016. I appreciate that the Minister may not have seen the coverage at the time—he was then the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, overseeing cuts to support for getting small businesses to trade shows, among other cuts—but I have the extract with me. I wonder whether the Minister might like to see it; he could then give us an assurance that he will answer the concerns about ISDS. So far, he has been notably reluctant to do so.
The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)
Further to that point of order, Dr Huq. I welcome you to the Chair. I do not wish to be outdone by the hon. Member for Harrow West: I, too, represent a borough neighbouring yours. I am happy to go head to head with the hon. Gentleman at any time.
In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s point of order, I am happy for him to send me any evidence that he has. He said that the case was in 2016. He has been shadowing Trade and Business for most of the past eight years now, and it would appear to have taken him eight years to find the details of the case, which makes me think that it might not be the smoking gun that he thinks it is. However, I am happy for him to write to me with any details, and I will certainly have a look.
The Chair
I understand that the word “shifty” applies to the point, not to the Minister. That is correct, is it not?
The Chair
I am just checking, because otherwise the Clerks will be on me like a ton of hot bricks for allowing unparliamentary language about another Member.
Anyway, these are all points of information rather than points of order for the Chair. If the two Members are happy to swap information, let us leave it at that.
Clause 3
Procurement
Question (this day) again proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
I remind the Committee that with this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
The schedule.
New clause 1—Assessment of the impact of the CPTPP Chapter on government procurement—environment—
“The Secretary of State must, within three years of Royal Assent to this Act, lay before Parliament assessments of the impact of the implementation of the CPTPP Chapter on government procurement on—
(a) the Government’s plans to tackle climate change;
(b) the sustainable production of forest risk commodities, including palm oil, within UK supply chains,
(c) deforestation, and
(d) the Government’s environmental targets and environmental improvement plans established under the Environment Act 2021.”
New clause 2—Assessment of the impact of the CPTPP Chapter on government procurement—employment and industry—
“The Secretary of State must, within three years of Royal Assent to this Act, lay before Parliament assessments of the impact of the implementation of the CPTPP Chapter on government procurement on—
(a) manufacturing in the United Kingdom;
(b) the job market in the United Kingdom, including but not limited to gender inequality therein;
(c) the level of procurement by local authorities from businesses in their local authority area;
(d) the delivery of public services in the United Kingdom; and
(e) the Government’s commitments to the conventions of the International Labour Organisation.”
New clause 7—Impact assessment of implementation of the CPTPP Chapter on Government Procurement on developing country trading partners—
“(1) The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of the passing of this Act and every 12 months thereafter, publish a report on the impact of the implementation of the Government Procurement chapter of the CPTPP on developing country trading partners of the United Kingdom.
(2) The impact assessment under subsection (1) must include an assessment of—
(a) social, environmental, and economic impact on countries with high levels of dependence on the UK market;
(b) steps that have been taken to consult with affected trading partners;
(c) proposed remediation measures for potential economic damage;
(d) how the experience and impact of implementation might inform negotiation of future trade agreements.”
I call Tan Dhesi, who was speaking when we were rudely interrupted by lunch.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
Thank you, Dr Huq. I know it was a great disappointment to you not to be here for the opening of my speech, but at least you can be comforted by hearing its conclusion. I will carry on where I left off this morning.
The absence of specific commitments to uphold International Labour Organisation conventions in the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership framework further exacerbates the risk to labour standards. Historically, the UK has been a proponent of international labour standards, advocating for decent work and fair wages across the globe. The CPTPP, as it stands, offers little assurance that those principles will be protected, let alone advanced, in the context of increased trade liberalisation.
In the light of those challenges, it is imperative for any engagement with the CPTPP to include robust safeguards to protect labour rights and ensure that trade does not come at the expense of workers’ welfare. That includes advocating for the integration of binding labour standards in trade agreements and ensuring that all member countries commit to upholding basic rights such as freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining and the elimination of forced and child labour.
The commitment to labour standards within the context of the CPTPP must reflect a balance between facilitating trade and protecting the rights of workers. Without explicit provisions to safeguard labour rights, there is a real risk that the benefits of trade will be unevenly distributed, with workers bearing the brunt of increased competition and deregulation. Ensuring that the CPTPP promotes fair and ethical trade practices is not just a matter of economic policy, but a reflection of our values as a society committed to fairness, equity and respect for human rights.
With the right amendments and considerations, the CPTPP can offer a pathway to achieving those goals. However, it requires a concerted effort to ensure that it enhances rather than undermines the economic and social fabric of our nation. It is about creating a future in which trade contributes not only to economic prosperity but to a fairer, greener and more equitable world. The requirement for amendments stems from a recognition that the current formulation of the CPTPP may not sufficiently safeguard against potential negative impacts on local industries, workers’ rights and environmental standards. Labour’s amendments signal our dedication to a trade policy that respects our commitments under international agreements, including those aimed at combating climate change, protecting biodiversity and upholding labour rights.
Gareth Thomas
I rise to support new clauses 1, 2 and 7 and clause 3 stand part. In support of new clause 1, I will add some remarks to the excellent contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for City of Chester and for Cardiff North.
I seek further clarification from the Minister on the environmental impact of the CPTPP, to better understand how the Government intend to mitigate the detrimental environmental effects of the UK’s accession to the bloc. I understand that about 90% of the world’s oil palm trees are grown on a few islands in Malaysia and Indonesia, and just 1% of Malaysian palm oil smallholdings are certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. That 1% constitutes approximately 40% of all palm oil plantations in Malaysia.
As I think all Members—even Government Members—recognise, deforestation is a major environmental crisis. It is now the second largest contributor to climate change globally, after burning fossil fuels. Nearly 90% of deforestation is attributed to agricultural expansion. The impact has not only affected our climate, but resulted in a sharp decline in native wildlife, as my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester set out.
Crucially, once ratified, the CPTPP will remove import tariffs on palm oil, irrespective of environmental credentials. As my hon. Friend noted, that risks contradicting commitments made by the Government under schedule 17 to the Environment Act 2021 to tackle illegal deforestation in UK supply chains. It is potentially irresponsible without the safeguards of due diligence secondary legislation, which is still due. In the other place, the Government said that they would bring forward that urgent secondary legislation some time in the spring of this year, but it remains somewhat vague. Any further clarification of the timeline from the Minister would be helpful.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
I hope that my hon. Friend will also press the Minister on the wider context. My hon. Friend highlights the important point made by my hon. Friends the Members for City of Chester and for Cardiff North, which is that the Government seem to be neglecting their responsibilities. There appears to be a contradiction in Government policy between what we have heard today and other aspects of UK domestic legislation, such as the commitment to support the conference of the parties process. Will my hon. Friend press Ministers on that?
Gareth Thomas
I certainly want to press the Minister further on those issues.
To be fair to Lord Johnson, he committed to a monitoring report after two years. He said:
“I would be surprised…if the evaluation and monitoring reports did not cover information on…environmental standards, reduction of the risk of deforestation and many other areas.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 16 January 2024; Vol. 835, c. 363.]
Although I take his commitment at face value, it would be sensible to put on the face of the Bill a requirement for such a report within three years, not least because we have not seen the secondary legislation, which is urgently needed.
Perhaps the Minister can give us additional clarity about what the review to which Lord Johnson committed would include. Will it include the way in which CPTPP membership affects the sustainable production of forest risk commodities, such as palm oil, in the UK supply chain? Will it specifically investigate the impact of CPTPP membership on deforestation? Those are key questions from stakeholder groups such as the World Wide Fund for Nature and Chester zoo. It would be helpful to have additional clarity from the Minister about the review to which Lord Johnson committed and, crucially, about the secondary legislation that is due.
Has any further thought been given to the commodities that the secondary legislation will cover? The Government initially confirmed that they would look at six agricultural commodities, but now I understand that the secondary legislation will cover only non-dairy cattle, cocoa, palm oil and soy; coffee and rubber are missing. It would be helpful to know why.
I understand that the threshold for a company being required to comply is quite high: only businesses with a global annual turnover of £50 million will have to comply. It would be good to hear from the Minister why that particular figure has been set.
In the context of new clause 1, I want to raise some concerns from Pesticide Action Network UK. The hon. Member for Totnes, who sadly is not in his place, was keen to mention the Trade and Agriculture Commission report, in which Professor Bartels and his colleagues outlined their concern that more goods using pesticides that are not currently allowed in the UK will be imported as a result of CPTPP. Indeed, PAN UK has made clear its belief that membership of CPTPP is likely to increase food imports from CPTPP member countries, all of which have weaker pesticide standards than the UK’s. There are genuine concerns that there will not be sufficient controls on food imports to the UK, and consequently that weaker pesticide standards will develop here. I am sure that the Minister recognises that that will worry many people.
Greg Hands
I will try to be as convincing as possible. I thank the hon. Members for Slough and for City of Chester for tabling new clauses 1, 2 and 7, which would necessitate further assessments and reviews across various areas related to our accession to CPTPP. However, let me deal first, in a little more detail, with the point of order from the hon. Member for Harrow West, which related to the Eurotunnel case, because I think it needs to be clarified.
The UK was subject to a contractual dispute regarding the specific terms of a concession agreement—this was under the last Labour Government—under a specific treaty between France and the UK on the construction and operation of a channel link. This contractual dispute is different from more traditional ISDS claims, such as the ones that can potentially be brought under CPTPP, which are open to the more general category of investors under an investment treaty. The UK has investment agreements containing ISDS provisions with about 90 trading partners. I reiterate that it has never been subject to a successful claim under these agreements.
However, I note the hon. Gentleman’s enthusiasm for talking about ISDS. He has been a Member for some 27 years, so I thought I would go back and see where his enthusiasm for speaking about this came from. He has spoken about ISDS six times in his 27 years, but the first mention of his concern about ISDS came on 18 June 2020. It took him some 23 years here to first voice his concern about this issue, so I am not entirely sure about his enthusiasm for raising it.
Greg Hands
I ask the hon. Gentleman to let me finish, because it does not end there. He was Trade Minister for two years, between 2007 and 2009. I thought that when he was Trade Minister he might have said something about ISDS, which he is so passionately against. He actually had the opportunity to do something about it then, but he did not mention ISDS in that time. Perhaps he can explain his silence for some 23 years on this issue about which he feels so passionately.
Gareth Thomas
I am grateful to the Minister for finally giving us some answers about the Eurotunnel tribunal case and about ISDS in that context. One of the other questions I asked him about ISDS and, particularly in the context of new clause 1, about its potential impact on the environment was why he supports ISDS in the context of CPTPP but not in the context of negotiations with Canada over a bilateral free trade agreement. He has yet to give an answer to that question. Perhaps he can do so now.
Greg Hands
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, but we have a debate on ISDS coming up under new clause 5, so I will be happy to talk further about it then. We are also having a debate on where CPTPP interacts with other trade agreements, but quite often, if a different trade agreement has ISDS provisions, it may or may not be desirable to include ISDS provisions in a further trade agreement. It would be worth looking at how ISDS works in each of the trade agreements.
The Government have demonstrated that we take parliamentary scrutiny of our FTA agenda seriously. A full impact assessment for the UK’s accession to CPTPP was published at signature in July 2023, alongside the accession protocol text and a draft explanatory memorandum. That included assessments of the potential economic impact on UK GDP and, indeed, the environmental impacts. As has been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes, the independent Trade and Agriculture Commission was commissioned to scrutinise the accession protocol and to produce a report on whether the measures are consistent with the maintenance of UK statutory protections in relation to animal and plant health and life, animal welfare and the environment. The TAC concluded in its advice published on 7 December 2023 that
“CPTPP does not require the UK to change its levels of statutory protection in relation to (a) animal or plant life or health, (b) animal welfare, or (c) environmental protection”
and even that it
“strengthens the UK’s ability to maintain its levels of statutory environmental protection.”
I think the hon. Member for Slough claimed that farmers were against it or are sceptical. I can give him a quote because , on this occasion at least, the president of the National Farmers Union, Minette Batters, was supportive of CPTPP, saying that the
“government continues to maintain its commitment to our food safety standards.”
She further stated that the UK achieved a
“balanced outcome, particularly with respect to managing market access in our most vulnerable sectors.”
Mr Dhesi
To clarify, I did not say that farmers are against CPTPP, just as the Labour party is not against the CPTPP agreement. However, there were significant concerns around seeds, plants and the wider agricultural industry. It is those concerns that we are bringing to the table. It is up to the Minister to address those concerns.
Greg Hands
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, but the NFU is not shy in coming forward to criticise free trade agreements from time to time—I think the NFU would agree with that. Here the NFU has given a clear endorsement of CPTPP, partly because it offers the opportunity for UK agriculture to sell their fantastic products abroad. That is part of the point of doing this: so that UK agriculture can access these fast-growing markets around the Asia-Pacific and the Pacific rim and sell high-quality British produce to those markets. That is why the support overall from the farming community is there for the UK joining CPTPP.
Looking to the future, the Government intend to produce a biennial monitoring report and publish a comprehensive ex post evaluation for the agreement within five years of the UK’s accession. I confirm to the hon. Member for City of Chester that the evaluation will include an assessment of the environmental impact. An inclusive and participatory process will be at the heart of the evaluation, providing structured opportunities for a wide range of stakeholders to share their views and provide evidence. However, those impacts cannot be disaggregated by individual chapters. That goes to the heart of many of the Opposition’s amendments. They want to have an impact assessment for different factors within CPTPP, but the Government already have a firm process in place to consider the agreement, its impact and its effects as a whole. That is the right thing for us to do. Additional impact assessments of the type being proposed would cost the taxpayer without showing the effects of the agreement as a whole.
On new clause 1 on deforestation and the environment, I can provide assurance that the UK will continue to uphold our very high environmental standards in all our trade agreements. CPTPP does not affect the UK’s ability to take social value or environmental considerations into account in procurements where they are relevant and do not discriminate. The procurement chapter of CPTPP includes a provision also found in the World Trade Organisation agreement on Government procurement, the GPA, and in our other free trade agreements that exempts measures necessary to protect human, animal or plant life or health, understood to include environmental measures as well.
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
The Minister made the point that the NFU supports the agreement and that its president Minette Batters said that joining the CPTPP provides “some good opportunities”. However, she also said:
“It is an absolute red line for us that food produced using practices that are illegal here—for instance, the use of hormones in beef and pork production and chemical washes for carcases—should not be allowed on our market”,
and that
“domestic policies are aimed at improving the competitiveness of British farming”—
that is what I said in my speech this morning—
“and strengthening our domestic food security.”
How can the Minister ensure that that happens without the proper impact assessments? I have no idea, nor, it seems, does the NFU.
Greg Hands
The impact assessment was published last July. We have been absolutely clear, right the way through since 2016 with the inception of the Department for International Trade, that nothing in free trade agreements has an impact on our right to regulate domestically and our domestic food and animal welfare standards, which must also apply to imported products. We have been through this many times in different Trade Bills and different free trade agreements. Each time, I have to remind hon. Members that nothing in an FTA changes our domestic right to regulate.
Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
The Minister has answered the point made by the hon. Member for Cardiff North on many occasions when I have raised this question. The Secretary of State did so the other day, on Second Reading. The UK Government reserve the right to maintain the ban on the importation of products that do not meet our standards such as hormone-treated beef, ractopamine-treated pork and chlorine-washed poultry. The Secretary of State was clear at the end of January that that ban remains in place and the Minister has confirmed that. The UK Government are standing firm and that should reassure the Opposition and the NFU that we will uphold our animal welfare standards.
Greg Hands
I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent intervention. His point goes back to the pause in the Canada negotiation. If one wants to understand the seriousness with which the UK Government treat those obligations and our domestic standards, that was one of the reasons for pausing the Canada negotiation. Many Opposition Members never agreed with being part of the agreement in the first place precisely because Canada was becoming a demandeur, particularly when it came to things such as hormone-treated beef. That was one of the reasons for pausing that negotiation.
Mr Dhesi
The Minister is being generous with his time. We had a similar fanfare when the Australia trade deal was announced. However, the former Environment Secretary no less, the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), said that Britain gave away too much for too little in return in the Australia deal negotiations. That is why we have such protestations and complaints from various farmers and farming unions. What protections have Ministers put in place to ensure that farmers and other agricultural producers are better protected in the CPTPP agreement?
Greg Hands
If I may say so, I think that is a slight mischaracterisation of the former Environment Secretary’s critique of the Australia and New Zealand free trade agreement. I was in the main Chamber when this was debated in, I think, the early part of 2023. I think his critique was directed more at the tariff reduction and the tariff schedule than any reference to standards on animal welfare and food production. My impression was that, in his view, the tariff reduction was too rapid on Australian produce coming in.
I will say to the hon. Member for Slough that CPTPP also includes an extensive environment chapter, which recognises parties’ sovereign right to establish their own levels of domestic environment protection and priorities. This includes measures in the pursuit of reaching net zero and other environmental goals. The parties also affirm their commitment to implement multilateral environment agreements to which they are party. All the CPTPP members are signatories to the Paris agreement, as well as multilateral environment agreements covering wider environmental areas such as biodiversity, ozone-layer protection and pollution. The parties further recognise the importance of trade in environmental goods and services in the environment chapter. Parties are committed to endeavour to address any barriers to trade raised in this context. For example, under the CPTPP there will be no tariffs on UK exports of new electric vehicles and wind turbine towers, which support the UK and the CPTPP parties’ transition to low-carbon economies.
Gareth Thomas
I will endeavour to be brief and to the point. Given his reference to all the parties being signatories to the Paris agreement, I will gently bring the Minister back to the question of ISDS, on which I know he is always enthusiastic to answer questions. Can he be absolutely clear today with the Committee that no ISDS claim is likely to be successful where environmental considerations have been a factor in a Government taking a particular decision?
Greg Hands
The hon. Gentleman invites me to go down a hypothetical road where possible court cases may or may not be successful. I reiterate that the UK has never lost an ISDS case, and CPTPP does not prevent a domestic right to regulate, so I am confident in our position on that. I do not think speculating on future court cases would be appropriate for any of us in this Committee Room.
We remain committed to our environmental and sustainability goals, including forest protection. We will continue to work domestically and with partners internationally to pursue our ambitions for nature, climate and sustainable development, including in CPTPP and multilateral fora such as the WTO, climate and biodiversity COPs—I was proud to represent the UK at COP26 as an environment and climate Minister—and through the forest, agriculture and commodity trade dialogue. The hon. Member for City of Chester asked specifically about this, as did the hon. Member for Cardiff North. I can answer that in spring of this year, the Government will be laying our forest risk commodities legislation under the Environment Act. It will make it illegal for larger businesses operating in the UK to use key forest risk commodities produced on land occupied or used illegally.
The Government have confirmed that palm oil products would be included under the regulated commodities. Do not just judge us on our words; judge us on our deeds. It is encouraging that 86% of UK imports of palm oil were certified as sustainable in 2022. That is up from 16% in 2010 under the last Labour Government, when the hon. Member for Harrow West was the Minister for International Development. He might have had more concern with these issues than perhaps he showed at the time; he is saying that he does now. Deforestation related to palm oil in Malaysia has fallen by 60% since 2012, in the latest available figures, which were in 2018. We would like to see more recent figures, but none the less we are seeing a really encouraging trend. The UK in particular has gone from 16% under the last Labour Government to 86% being certified as sustainable. We will keep working with countries such as Malaysia, which is a party to CPTPP, to build on that work.
The CPTPP environment chapter strengthens co-operation on addressing deforestation and forest degradation and allows parties to co-operate through the FTA’s dedicated environment committee. We have also agreed a joint statement with Malaysia setting out our shared commitment to work together to promote the sustainable production of commodities and to protect forests. Moreover, the UK and Malaysia are signatories to the Glasgow leaders’ declaration on forests and land use, and we are committed to halting and reversing deforestation by 2030. I refer once again to the report of the independent Trade and Agriculture Commission, which concluded that
“it is unlikely that CPTPP will lead to an increase in palm oil being grown on deforested land.”
I remind Opposition Members that they are continually having to tell us that they are in favour of joining CPTPP, yet at every single moment available they make speeches against the UK joining it. The hon. Member for Cardiff North said that it “makes a mockery” of the UK's environment commitments. If she thinks that it makes a mockery of our commitments, why on earth is she in favour of it? I welcome her being in favour and voting for or not voting against it on Second Reading, but if she thinks that something is making a mockery of this country, why on earth is she in favour of it? Perhaps she can explain that dichotomy.
Anna McMorrin
I thank the Minister for giving me the opportunity to explain. I am saying that as it stands, it is making a mockery of environmental commitments that were agreed at COP26 in Glasgow. Without new clause 1, there is no environmental climate impact assessment. The sustainability of this puts into question all our trade agreements in CPTPP. That is why the impact assessments are so important and why the Government should support the new clauses and vote for them.
Greg Hands
I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, but, as I have already made clear regarding new clauses and previous amendments, we already have a comprehensive impact assessment process in place. I confirmed earlier in my speech that the environment will be part of that. Additional subject impact assessments would be duplicative, unnecessary and expensive, and it might prevent the good operation of the UK’s accession to CPTPP.
Anna McMorrin
Actually, it might be the reverse: spending money on the impact assessments, which would be a relatively small amount, would save money in terms of our marketability, trade and business right across the UK and internationally.
Greg Hands
I accept the hon. Lady’s intervention but, as I have pointed out, the impact assessment is already being made as part of the biennial monitoring and the comprehensive evaluation in that period. It is in the UK’s overall impact assessment, which, as I have already outlined, will of course include the environment.
I will turn to the issue of pesticides, which was raised. The UK has not lowered its standards to accede to CPTPP. All food and drink products imported to the UK, irrespective of the purpose for which they will be used, must comply with our import requirements and regulatory standards for food safety. That point has been made continually in trade debates for the last eight years, and that includes the maximum residue levels of pesticides. As the Trade and Agriculture Commission report confirms, all food and drink products imported to the UK must still meet our existing import requirements. A range of Government Departments, agencies and bodies continue to ensure that standards are met, including the Food Standards Agency, the Animal and Plant Health Agency, the Veterinary Medicines Directorate and the Health and Safety Executive. There is a comprehensive Government programme of monitoring pesticide residues in food to determine whether food available to UK consumers complies with the statutory residue levels and is safe. The results of the monitoring are published following consideration by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs expert committee on pesticide residues in food.
On new clause 2, on employment and industry, the Government want UK businesses to be successful in competing for public contracts, both in the UK and in other countries around the world, and UK businesses can and do—of course—achieve success in winning domestic contracts. The reciprocal guaranteeing of market access through CPTPP means treating each other’s suppliers in the same way that we treat domestic suppliers. The UK’s international commitments have never affected our ability to deliver public services effectively, and encouraging greater competition in public sector procurement can and does drive down prices for the taxpayer and improve value for money for the UK public sector.
Matt Rodda
The Minister is very confident in his marshalling of evidence this afternoon. The Opposition remain deeply sceptical; would he like to give us—and the public—a reassurance, regarding the NHS and other key public services, that the new agreement will not lead to foreign providers undermining standards of care and replacing domestic or indeed NHS suppliers?
Greg Hands
Well, absolutely. We have given that commitment time and again, regarding not just this trade agreement, but previous trade agreements and our overall commitments to the NHS and to public sector procurement.
On the question of buying British, which I think the hon. Member for Harrow West raised, the UK Government’s policy, as reflected in our current international obligations and domestic law, is that Government procurement should be non-discriminatory, as this provides the best value for money for the taxpayer. Public sector contracting authorities across the UK, including in devolved Administrations, will continue to comply with the UK’s international commitments. Fair and open competition between suppliers, including those of our trade partners, delivers the best value for money for UK taxpayers.
I think that the hon. Member for Harrow West asked about the general review, which is different from the UK Government’s review. CPTPP was, of course, conceived as a living agreement designed to evolve to maintain its high standards, and the CPTPP text states that there should be a general review of the agreement at least every five years. The first general review will begin in 2024, and the hon. Gentleman could even make a submission to that general review. It closes tomorrow, so perhaps he may be able to put forward his submission just in time to get it in. I am sure that my officials will be waiting with great trepidation about what he may have to say, including perhaps on some of his favourite recent topics, such as ISDS.
On new clause 7, Members have raised an important point regarding the impacts of trade agreements on developing countries. We know that free trade agreements have the potential to contribute to preference erosion. When negotiating trade agreements, the Government analyse the impacts of preference erosion as part of a balanced approach to the negotiations. The impact assessment for CPTPP estimated a minimal impact of the UK’s accession on the GDP of a selection of neighbouring countries and least-developed countries.
The UK continues to monitor the third-party impacts of trade policy, and will continue to promote trade with developing countries through our new developing countries trading scheme—the DCTS—which was launched last summer, and economic partnership agreements, or EPAs. Our trade-related technical assistance, funded by our official development assistance—or ODA—helps developing countries to take advantage of trading opportunities.
The Government recognise the need to closely consider potential impacts on developing countries as we continue to evolve our trade policies and take forward FTA negotiations. We continue to balance the domestic interests of UK consumers and businesses with delivering on our FTA agenda, while maintaining a strong commitment to supporting developing countries and reducing poverty through trade.
To conclude, new clauses 1, 2 and 7 cover important topics such as labour, the environment and developing countries, but the impacts cannot be disaggregated by individual chapters. Additional impact assessments of the type being proposed would be duplicative of the overall assessment of the agreement, to which the Government are already committed. I therefore ask the hon. Members not to press new clauses 1, 2 and 7.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 3 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule agreed to.
Clause 4
Designations of origin and geographical indications
Gareth Thomas
I beg to move amendment 3, in clause 4, page 3, line 24, at end insert—
“1AA. The Secretary of State may only cancel the registration of a protected designation of origin or a protected geographical indication under paragraph 1A after—
(a) an impact assessment has been published, and
(b) a three month consultation process has been undertaken.”.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 4, in clause 4, page 4, line 36, at end insert—
“(11A) The Secretary of State must, within three years of Royal Assent to this Act, publish an assessment of the impact of the CPTPP on the operation of Geographical Indications in the United Kingdom.”.
Clause stand part.
Gareth Thomas
The Opposition support clause 4 standing part of the Bill, but we wish to probe the Minister a little, hence amendments 3 and 4.
The intellectual property chapter in CPTPP includes provisions for the protection and enforcement of geographical indicators. We have had the privilege of an intervention from the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border. He might be particularly interested to know that two particular very interesting products from the north-west have secured GI status in the UK. The first is traditional Cumberland sausage; the second is Beacon Fell Lancashire cheese. I will come back to those a little later on.
The intellectual property chapter builds on present international intellectual property agreements in relation to rules on transparent and fair administrative systems for the protection of GIs, including rules for opposing GI status being granted to a particular product and the cancellation of GI status. I understand that the NFU thinks that the scope of the provisions for GIs in the CPTPP intellectual property chapter is fairly limited, and that a number of CPTPP countries are fundamentally opposed to food GIs. The only GI protections currently administered within CPTPP have been agreed on through bilateral side letters and ascribed to spirits and wines. It would be helpful to hear whether the Minister shares that somewhat bleak assessment.
Clause 4 seeks to amend specified pieces of retained EU law, as I understand it, so that an application to register a GI case can be opposed on the grounds that it is likely to cause confusion with a pre-existing trademark or the application for such a trademark. I understand the clause also expands the grounds on which the registration of an agrifood GI can be cancelled. Could the Minister give us an example of where such a decision might be made? What consultation would take place before such a decision were taken?
GIs are proven to boost export returns to primary producers—our farmers—and the UK has more than 80 products with some form of protected GI status. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister when a UK Minister last spoke to the UK Protected Food Names Association, the trade body for products with GI status. Beyond Scotch whisky, I cannot find any obvious sign that promoting GIs is a significant part of the Minister’s departmental work plan. I would be delighted to be proved wrong.
What plans do Ministers have to use the CPTPP review to try to break down opposition in other CPTPP countries to British GIs? Clearly, promoting British products with a geographical indicator could help to secure greater export returns for the UK agrifood industry and, specifically, for our hard-pressed farmers.
Will accession to CPTPP help to secure GI status in countries such as Japan? I ask because the then Secretary of State for Trade, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), as a result of what she called a “historic” trade deal with Japan, promised that some 70 iconic British foods, from Cornish pasties, Welsh lamb, Melton Mowbray pork pies, to the traditional Cumberland sausage and the Beacon Fell Lancashire cheese, would secure GI status, unless there were exceptional circumstances, within five months in Japan. That was more than three and a half years ago. When I wrote to the current Secretary of State to remind her of that commitment back in late November, the Minister who replied said that he was unable to provide an exact timeframe for products such as Whitstable oysters, Scottish wild salmon, Carmarthen ham and Yorkshire forced rhubarb to secure protected status.
Can the Minister explain why there was such a great fanfare and promise of GI status in Japan within five months for those great, iconic British products from across the United Kingdom, and yet here we are, three and a half years on, and I can find no clarity as to whether any of the 70 UK GIs have now secured protected status in Japan? Our amendments are probing amendments, but the issues I raise are serious. I look forward to a considered reply from the Minister.
Greg Hands
Clause 4 relates to designations of origin and geographical indicators. As with other clauses in the Bill, it is necessary to ensure that the UK can comply with the CPTPP when it accedes. The clause amends the domestic legislative framework that regulates agrifood geographical indications.
Let me start by assuring all members of the Committee that the Government are committed to transparency. On amendment 3, the Secretary of State already has a duty under existing GI legislation to publish a list of names for which a cancellation application has been received and to publish applications in cases where, following scrutiny, the Secretary of State is satisfied that the conditions for cancelling the GI have been met. Applications are published on gov.uk and a three-month period is allowed for those with a legitimate interest to lodge a notice of opposition. Those arrangements will continue to apply to cancellation applications in the future, including cancellation applications made under the new cancellation grounds created by the changes the Government are making through the Bill.
I also point out to the Committee that the process of publishing a list of applications received and publishing applications to cancel a GI following successful scrutiny is the same as when an application to register a new GI is submitted. It seems to me that those equivalent processes should be subject to equivalent levels of scrutiny. In other words, the registering of a GI should have the same scrutiny as a proposal to cancel a GI. Undertaking an impact assessment, as the Opposition propose yet again, and a new three-month consultation process on top, in addition to the existing opposition process for the cancellation of GIs, which already includes a three-month period for opposition from those with a legitimate interest, would duplicate and unbalance these processes.
In summary, amendment 3 is unnecessary and would cause unwarranted delays given that transparent and public procedures already exist under domestic GI legislation. Those with a legitimate interest are already given the opportunity to oppose the cancellation of a GI, and that will not be changed by the Bill.
Turning to amendment 4 on impact assessments, I would like to reassure hon. and right hon. Members that the Government take parliamentary scrutiny of their FTA agenda and domestic implementation seriously. With that in mind, a full impact assessment for the UK’s accession to CPTPP was published at signature in July 2023 alongside the accession protocol text and a draft explanatory memorandum. As has already been said, the Government also intend to publish a biennial monitoring report and a comprehensive evaluation report for the whole agreement within five years of the UK’s accession that will include, in addition to an assessment related to environmental impacts, under which GIs are covered, an assessment relating to intellectual property. An inclusive and participatory process will be at the heart of that evaluation, providing structured opportunities for a wide range of stakeholders to share their views and provide evidence. Therefore, additional impact assessments of the type being proposed would cost the taxpayer and entirely duplicate the existing impact assessments without showing the effects of the agreement as a whole.
The hon. Member for Harrow West asked about countries taking different approaches to GI protection. That is indeed correct. Not all parties around the world have the same approach to geographical indicators, trademarks, intellectual property and so on. Crucially, the CPTPP will not have an impact on the UK’s domestic scheme of geographical indicators. The Government’s objective in any trade negotiations will be to support the best possible outcome for the UK’s geographical indicators and the UK economy as a whole. The aim in trade negotiations is to ensure the high standards of our domestic GI schemes continue to be upheld. CPTPP enables new dialogue on standards of GI protection with parties, which we will use to further the protection of our GIs abroad.
GIs are included in many of our new free trade agreements, and the hon. Member for Harrow West already mentioned the ones with Japan, Australia and New Zealand. When I go around the world, I am always keeping an eye out for products such as Cumberland sausages, Melton Mowbray pork pies, even Stornoway black pudding, English sparkling wine, Scotch whisky and Irish whiskey. It is great to see such fantastic British food and drink produce being available on plates right the way around the world, including in Totnes. I know my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes particularly enjoys something with a fine geographical indicator attached to it; indeed, he may have just returned from enjoying such produce.
Greg Hands
I will give way because I know the hon. Member for Harrow West had a tough lunch break researching a Eurotunnel case from under the last Labour Government. I doubt if he had any chance to eat anything with a geographical indicator attached to it, so of course I will give way to a final point from him.
Gareth Thomas
I am grateful to the Minister for allowing me to intervene. Can he give us an update on what happened to all the products that were promised GI status in Japan? Has there been any progress on securing those since his letter to me in November, whether for traditional Cumberland sausage, Beacon Fell Lancashire cheese, Gloucestershire cider or Gloucestershire perry, which might appeal to the hon. Member for Totnes? The last Trade Secretary but one promised they would have GI status in Japan and yet not much progress seems to have been made.
Greg Hands
There is a process domestically in Japan, which the hon. Member will be aware of from our debates on that free trade agreement. I would be happy to have a look again at the letter I wrote to him in November and see what progress has been made. This is a work in progress to make sure that our fine food and drink continues to arrive on dinner tables in Japan, where I know that it will be eagerly devoured by our allies and friends in the Pacific.
On the impact of CPTPP on the operation of geographical indicators in the United Kingdom, the Bill relates only to the Government’s agrifood scheme in Britain, where the high standards of our domestic GI scheme will continue to be upheld. For all the reasons I have outlined, I ask the hon. Member for Harrow West to withdraw his amendment.
Gareth Thomas
As I indicated in my initial remarks, amendments 3 and 4 were tabled as probing amendments. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 5
Performers’ rights
Gareth Thomas
I beg to move amendment 5, in clause 5, page 5, line 23, after “country” insert
“which is a member of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership”.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clause stand part.
Amendment 6, in clause 7, page 7, line 17, leave out sub-subsection (c).
Amendment 7, in clause 7, page 7, line 28, at end insert—
“(5) Section 5 comes into force twelve months after the day on which this Bill is passed.”
Gareth Thomas
I am grateful for the opportunity to move amendments 5, 6 and 7, which go to the heart of the controversy that has developed around clause 5 and the issue of performers’ rights.
The Minister has attempted to bounce through the House of Lords and appears to be attempting to bounce through the House of Commons, using the Bill, changes to the way that those who make music are paid from broadcasting and the public playing of music. Pressure in the other place on Second Reading forced the Minister there to agree to publish a consultation document on the issue. That document was released on 15 January. The consultation is due to close on 11 March this year.
Who at this stage knows when Ministers will be able to tell the House what policy conclusions the Ministers have reached from that consultation? What is clear is that neither the House of Commons nor the House of Lords will have been given a clear steer on which way the Government want to go on how recording labels and artists are paid when their work is broadcast before the passage of this legislation is completed and Royal Assent granted. I gently suggest to the Minister and the hon. Member for Totnes that this is a further example of the scrutiny of this trade treaty being less than optimal.
Given that the issue could have significant consequences for one of the most significant parts of our economy, the creative industries, why did Ministers not at least publish a consultation document in good time and publish their conclusions before the start of the Bill’s passage through the House of Lords?
Ministers have also claimed that the provisions are an integral part of CPTPP. I confess to being a little sceptical about that, despite the Minister’s letter to me after the Second Reading debate in which he again made that claim. Many industry groups certainly do not believe that any of the text in CPTPP requires the Government to make the changes to increase the rights of foreign performers that the Bill provides for. I gently suggest that the truth is that the Intellectual Property Office has convinced Ministers that, putting CPTPP accession to one side, Britain is not currently compliant with the Rome convention for the protection of performers, producers of phonograms and broadcasting organisations and/or the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s performances and phonograms treaty. Again, it would be good to hear the Minister’s assessment of that.
The industry clearly believes that what Ministers want to do, via the clause and the very late associated consultation, would turn down the tap of investment that has supported recently the likes of new British music stars Olivia Dean, Dave, and The Last Dinner Party in launching their careers, in favour of foreign artists such as those who were up for the Grammys at the beginning of this month. Talented winners there were aplenty at the Grammys, but Ministers appear to want to disadvantage our homegrown talent and support their global competitors instead.
As I have alluded to, Ministers have implied that they have to make these changes to be compliant with CPTPP, but it is interesting that there is no reference to CPTPP in the impact assessment that I have here. I am looking at the policy objectives on page 1 that the impact assessment seeks to cover. It seeks to
“ensure UK copyright law is consistent with the requirements of the Rome Convention and WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) Performances and Phonograms Treaty”,
to
“reduce costs to UK users of foreign music”
and to
“increase revenues for the UK creative industries where this can be done without significant costs to UK users or consumers”.
There is no mention at all of compliance with CPTPP. Indeed, the talk in the impact assessment is of US labels and US artists and not CPTPP countries.
On the amendment specifically, which seeks to limit the rights under clause 5 to CPTPP countries, business groups do not believe that any of the text in the CPTPP requires the Government to make such changes to increase the rights of foreign performers that the Bill provides for. The Minister claimed exactly that in his letter, but he added a crucial phrase—“and the performance also meets further eligibility criteria set out in the treaties on performers’ rights”—so it would appear that, in essence, no new rights are granted by the CPTPP. It is just that the Intellectual Property Office and Ministers now believe that the Rome convention, one of those crucial treaties on performance rights, has been implemented wrongly in the UK.
I understand, too, that the European Court has found on a case in Europe that may have some bearing on the attitude of Ministers and the Intellectual Property Office: the so-called RAAP—Recorded Artists, Actors, Performers —decision. Again, however, it would appear odd if the RAAP decision were motivating the change, given that we are no longer in the European Union and that UK courts are now free to deviate from EU law. It will be useful to hear from the Minister the real reason behind the clause.
Let me ask as well, why are we giving all international performers those rights? Malaysia, for example, a member of the CPTPP, has not even signed the Rome convention, which provides for those rights. It would be interesting to know which page or part of CPTPP means that these legal changes have to be to be made. I ask that because when we signed bilateral free trade agreements with Japan and Australia, both of which are signatories to CPTPP and have signed the Rome convention and the WPP treaty, changes such as those set out in clause 5 were not required. Will the Minister state, too, whether any of those changes were asked for by CPTPP countries?
On amendments 6 and 7, it would be helpful to understand whether the Minister accepts that it is unhelpful that the Government’s decision following the consultation will occur only after the passage of the Bill. In his letter to me, the Minister appeared to deny that some of the options in the impact assessment could lead to a £100 million impact on British performers. Others predict a lower impact. One of the options appears to suggest that there would be no impact, but at this stage it is difficult for any member of the Committee to be certain exactly what the impact will be, because the consultation has not been completed and we have no idea how Ministers intend to move forward on the changes.
The Minister is asking all in Committee and indeed those outside the House to take it on considerable trust that the Government will consider their views properly and make the right decisions on behalf of the British music industry and all those new potential artists that might emerge in the shadow of the Stormzys and the Dua Lipas, and be central to the UK creative industry going forward. Amendments 5 and 6 are probing amendments. Amendment 7 might be a probing amendment, but I think it could be reasonable to delay the implementation of this particular part of the Bill in order that we may understand fully the direction that Ministers want to take once the consultation has been completed.
Greg Hands
I turn to amendments 5 to 7 to the provisions on performers’ rights. As we have heard, the amendments would do several things. I will deal them in turn, but I first reiterate the purpose and necessity of clause 5. The intellectual property chapter of CPTPP sets the minimum standards of protection that parties must provide in their law and specifies who they must extend the protections to. The requirements are not unique to CPTPP: they are based on the standards in multilateral treaties on copyright and performers’ rights. UK law already exceeds the minimum standards of CPTPP and generally makes rights available to foreign nationals. However, the basis on which performers qualify for rights in UK law is not fully consistent with CPTPP or some of the treaties on which the IP chapter of CPTPP builds. The measures in the Bill, along with the secondary legislation that will be laid at the end of this month, will fix that. They will ensure that every creator who is entitled to rights in CPTPP will enjoy them in UK law. That is a necessary part of our accession to CPTPP.
Gareth Thomas
The Minister says that our rights are not compliant with the Rome treaty. However, that treaty has been in place for more than 40 years, and there has never been any suggestion until now that we as a country are not compliant with the rules set out in it. Why are we now suddenly not compliant?
Greg Hands
The reasons are that the Bill implements some of the provisions in CPTPP. For example, clause 5 implements articles 18.8 and 18.62 of CPTPP. The provisions require parties to provide the rights in CPTPP to performers if they are a national of another CPTPP party and the performance meets further eligibility criteria set out in the treaties on performers’ rights or is first published or recorded in another CPTPP party, regardless of whether the performer is a national of a CPTPP party. This is all about being able to accede to CPTPP. Existing UK law does not provide for all the eligibility criteria in the treaties on performers’ rights and does not take account of where a performance is published.
Greg Hands
Let me finish. This is about ensuring that our regime is aligned and consistent with CPTPP—the international treaty to which we are acceding. The Bill amends UK law to implement the additional criteria. I think the hon. Gentleman is going to ask if the Government can confirm that they are making only the changes necessary for the UK to comply with CPTPP. The UK’s accession to CPTPP requires that we expand the criteria by which foreign performers can qualify for rights in UK law, and that is what the Bill does. The changes in the Bill will also apply to performers from other countries that are a party to a relevant treaty on performers’ rights for consistency with the UK’s obligations under those treaties.
Gareth Thomas
I draw the Minister back to the impact assessment, which makes no mention of CPTPP. All the talk in the impact assessment that came out with the consultation document is of US performers and businesses. If the consultation is so much required by clause 5 and our accession to CPTPP, one would surely expect the impact assessment to make some reference to artists and their rights from CPTPP countries, but it does not: it references just US performers.
Greg Hands
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He raises a good point, but if I am not mistaken he is referring to the IPO consultation, rather than the CPTPP consultation. The IPO consultation was already planned and is not directly or exclusively about our accession to CPTPP. The IPO consultation is fundamentally different from the CPTPP accession process, although they treat of a similar issue. He asked whether the amendments were asked for by CPTPP parties. The answer is no—they are necessary for the UK to join CPTPP. One of the most important things to understand in reference to CPTPP is that it is a pre-existing agreement; it is not negotiating new text. This needs to be done for the UK to join CPTPP.
Greg Hands
The hon. Gentleman is misunderstanding how the process works. The comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership is an existing treaty, signed in 2018. The UK is acceding to the existing text. Nobody would be sitting down with us negotiating whether we might do something or not do something, because we are acceding to a pre-existing text. It would not necessarily have been appropriate for all 11 of the CPTPP parties to sit down at negotiations saying, “Are you agreeing to this? Are you not agreeing to this?” We are agreeing to accede to the deal as it stands. UK law already exceeds the minimum standards in CPTPP, and generally makes rights available to foreign nationals. This is a necessary part of our accession to CPTPP.
Amendment 5 would limit the application of some parts of clause 5 only to CPTPP parties. It would mean ceasing to provide protection to some other foreign performers. This would conflict with the requirements of those treaties on performers’ rights I have already mentioned, and would put the UK in breach of its international obligations. The Government therefore cannot support amendment 5, as it would put the UK in breach of our international obligations.
Amendment 6 would delay the amendments that this Bill makes to existing powers in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Those existing powers allow the making of secondary legislation to extend or restrict the protections to particular countries—for example, to restrict the rights extended to a country that fails to provide equivalent protection to British performers. The amendments that the Government are making to this power are merely about ensuring that its scope is not inadvertently eroded by the other changes in clause 5 —that the power can continue to be exercised to the same effect as under the status quo. It is not about introducing new powers.
Under clause 7, the amendments to that power take effect as soon as the Bill comes into force. That is the commencement clause of the CPTPP Bill and ensures that the power can be used in preparation for the other provisions of clause 5 coming into effect, avoiding the unnecessary disruption that might otherwise arise if we could only modify the impacts of the Bill after it had already taken effect. It effectively prevents there being, shall we say, a two-stage process in terms of how we ensure that we are compliant.
Mr Dhesi
Can the Minister confirm how the Government are considering the Intellectual Property Office consultation on the right to be paid from broad-casting and public playing of music, which is not due to close until March? Will that allow sufficient time for the Government to adapt the IP provisions in this Bill to ensure that there is a positive impact on Britain’s creative industries?
Greg Hands
We are all looking for a positive impact on Britain’s creative industries. It is one of our key asks, and one of the key things that we market abroad as a whole Government, ensuring that our creative industries get marketed well—especially in CPTPP countries. The fast-growing markets of the Asia-Pacific and the Pacific rim are exactly the sort of places we want to reach. I will come on to describe in a moment the interaction with the IPO consultation and where that might take the provisions we are talking about today.
I return to amendment 6, which would prevent the avoidance of unnecessary disruption and the multi-stage process that I was talking about. It would make disruptive, successive changes to the law on this area much more likely. It would introduce risks to the creative industries, which we all wish to support. I am sure the Opposition would not wish to do anything that created additional risks to the creative industries and to consumers, with no upside.
Amendment 7 would apply even more widely. It would delay the commencement of all the performers’ rights provisions until
“twelve months after the day on which this Bill is passed.”
We cannot accede to CPTPP until our law meets its requirements. That requires that we make the changes in the Bill. Delaying those measures means delaying our accession and delaying its benefits to UK businesses, including in the creative industry sectors, and to consumers.
For the reasons that I have set out, the Government cannot support the amendments. However, I understand that they reflect concerns about the scope of clause 5 and the possible impact on creative industries. Although we must make these changes, there is a possibility of modifying the impact of the Bill in one important area: the right of performers to be paid royalties when their performances are broadcast or played in public. I understand that that issue has been of most concern to some in the creative sectors. For that right and the equivalent right for producers of sound recordings, we have some flexibility under CPTPP and other treaties to modify our approach. Powers in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 will allow us to do so through secondary legislation.
As has been mentioned, the Intellectual Property Office is consulting publicly on the question of how we provide those rights to foreign nationals. The consultation is ongoing until 11 March, and we aim to implement its outcome in parallel with the Bill coming into effect. The consultation process will ensure that there is sufficient opportunity for stakeholders to consider, prepare for and influence the outcome in that area.
There is no benefit to delaying the changes to the law, as the amendments seek to do; as I have set out, there are clear risks in doing so. I hope I have made it clear why we cannot support the amendments, which are unnecessary and in some cases damaging. I ask the hon. Member for Harrow West to withdraw his amendment.
Gareth Thomas
I am grateful for the Minister’s reply. As I indicated, amendments 5 and 6 are probing amendments reflecting the concerns in the industry; I am grateful to hear that he recognises them.
On amendment 7, I struggle to be entirely convinced that a slight delay so that we could understand the results of the IPO consultation and the policy direction that will flow from it would frustrate the whole CPTPP accession process. I will not press amendment 7 to a vote for now, but we will certainly return to the matter on Report.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw amendment 5.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 6 to 8 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
New Clause 1
Assessment of the impact of the CPTPP Chapter on government procurement—environment
“The Secretary of State must, within three years of Royal Assent to this Act, lay before Parliament assessments of the impact of the implementation of the CPTPP Chapter on government procurement on—
(a) the Government’s plans to tackle climate change;
(b) the sustainable production of forest risk commodities, including palm oil, within UK supply chains,
(c) deforestation, and
(d) the Government’s environmental targets and environmental improvement plans established under the Environment Act 2021.”—(Gareth Thomas.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 4—Review of negotiation and implementation of Intellectual Property Chapter—
“Within one year of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must publish—
(a) a review of the lessons learned from the negotiation and implementation of the CPTPP Chapter on intellectual property, and
(b) an assessment of how this experience might inform negotiation and implementation of future free trade agreements.”
Gareth Thomas
New clauses 3 and 4 are both probing amendments. On new clause 3, I refer the Minister to the evidence that Albert Sanchez-Graells, professor of economic law at the University of Bristol, gave to the Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill Committee some 16 months ago. He raised concerns about the potential implications of the differences between the procurement rules under CPTPP and those to which Britain was already committed under the WTO agreement on Government procurement, the GPA. His evidence was also accepted by the International Trade Committee as a significant concern.
Professor Sanchez-Graells also argued that seeking to improve procurement opportunities for British businesses via the CPTPP to get a GPA-plus arrangement would mean legal uncertainty about the remedies available to British businesses if they ran into problems, because the CPTPP procurement chapter seeks to incorporate the current WTO GPA and then amend its provisions. In comparison, our trade deal with Europe incorporates the GPA in full and then builds upwards from it.
Professor Sanchez-Graells argued that there were
“two main areas of problem: one is the national treatment rules on access to markets, which applies in particular to suppliers in different jurisdictions, and the other is access to remedies.”—[Official Report, Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Public Bill Committee, 12 October 2022; c. 41, Q51.]
It was access to remedies that particularly concerned him. At column 41 of his evidence to the Bill Committee, he noted that among the provisions of the procurement chapter in the Australia FTA—he confirmed at column 43 that this is replicated in the CPTPP procurement chapter—is a clause allowing the exclusion of legal remedies completely on the basis of public interest. He made it clear that, for a high-profile project, that could mean that the courts might set aside any claims for suspension of the procedure or even for the compensation for damages, if it were believed to be in the national interest of the country in question.
Gareth Thomas
At first glance, UPOV 91 appears to require relatively tight and inflexible national intellectual property regimes, which in some cases can lead to heavy fines or even the imprisonment of farmers who violate them, often unknowingly. In countries such as Malaysia and Chile, UPOV 91 has been controversial, with often decades of resistance from civil society, farmers and environmental groups that feel that a much tighter patent regime on seeds will lead to the loss of indigenous knowledge and biodiversity. We should surely tread carefully when trade agreements place obligations on member states that could damage livelihoods and/or the environment and consider, if necessary, how to mitigate those impacts as much as possible.
Is the Minister willing to say now, or via a letter to the Committee, what assessment he has made of the UK’s commitment to UPOV 91 and its impacts on our Paris agreement, our climate, the sustainable development goals and other UN treaty commitments? What assessment has been made of the impact of CPTPP on small farmers, who are so vital to the world’s food and environment? Did he consider a side letter, following the example of New Zealand, which disapplies the UPOV 91 requirements between the UK and other member states? It would be interesting to hear his views on those questions. As I made clear, new clauses 3 and 4 are probing amendments, but none the less the issues raised are serious concerns that have been put to us. It would be good to hear the Minister’s response.
Greg Hands
I thank the hon. Members for tabling the amendments, which regard reviews of the Government procurement and intellectual property chapters of the CPTPP. I confess that I will not spend long on this, as once again the amendments are all about impact assessments.
Once again, I assure the Committee that the Government intend to publish a biennial monitoring report and a comprehensive evaluation report of the agreement within five years of our accession. As I mentioned, the impacts cannot be disaggregated by individual chapters, and doing so through additional impact assessments would cost the taxpayer, be unnecessarily duplicative and not show the effects of the agreement as a whole. The CPTPP was of course conceived as a living agreement designed to evolve to maintain its high standards. Its text states that there should be a general review of the agreement periodically; the first general review is expected to begin shortly, in spring 2024. As I mentioned earlier, there is a UK consultation on this, and we will engage with each issue raised in the review in a way that seeks to promote and protect UK interests.
To be frank, the two specific points raised by the hon. Gentleman do not seem particularly close to the wording of the amendments. However, I have had a chance to look at his references to Professor Sanchez Graells. I understand that the hon. Gentleman has already received correspondence on the points that he raised—I think he mentioned that—as part of the passage of the Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Act 2023. That is a rarity: it was passed while I was not a Minister in the Department. That is a rare event, but I will look at it. The Government continue to disagree with Professor Graells, and I refer the hon. Gentleman to the correspondence he has already received on the matter. However, if he thinks that anything arises from that correspondence and wishes to write to me, I will have a look at it.
Similarly, I feel that the passage of the regime on seeds, UPOV 91, is fairly deeply in the scope of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I will undertake to write to the Committee about UPOV 91 and the patent regime on seeds. None the less, my point remains that the impact assessments we have already done—the biennial monitoring report and the comprehensive evaluation report of the agreement—are still the right approach to working out and assessing the impact of CPTPP. I therefore ask the hon. Member to withdraw his new clause.
Gareth Thomas
I am grateful to the Minister for those replies. I will reflect on the points he has made, and may return to these on Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 5
Review: Investor-State Dispute Settlement
“The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a review of the financial risk of the implementation of the Investor-State Dispute Settlement aspect of the Investment Chapter of the CPTPP, not more than 18 months after the day on which this Act is passed.” —(Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Mr Dhesi
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. [Interruption.] I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West for his remarks from a sedentary position. Were he speaking to this new clause, I am sure he would do a much better job. As we delve deeper into the considerations of the CPTPP, our focus now shifts to the investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms. We must pay close attention to the safeguarding of national sovereignty, public welfare and environmental integrity. We in the Labour party have listened to the voices of numerous stakeholders, including the Trades Union Congress, the Trade Justice Movement and Greenpeace, which all express concern at the impact of the ISDS mechanism, particularly highlighting its disproportionate impact on democratic governance and policy autonomy.
As hon. Members will know, the ISDS mechanisms allow private investors to sue Governments for alleged discriminatory practices. I wish to flag concerns about ISDS’s potential to challenge environmental regulations. A poignant example is the 2021 case of Eco Oro Minerals Corp. v. Republic of Colombia, which illustrates the tension between corporate interests and environmental conservation. Colombia’s efforts to protect the páramos—a crucial ecosystem supplying 70% of the nation’s water—were countered by Eco Oro with a substantial legal claim of $696 million in damages due to a mining ban. This case highlights the potential for ISDS mechanisms to be wielded against Government actions aimed at preserving the environment, thereby urging the UK to tread cautiously as we navigate the intricacies of international trade agreements like the CPTPP.
We are particularly wary of how these mechanisms might impede our nation’s progress towards meeting climate targets. Furthermore, the potential jeopardy ISDS poses to public services cannot be overstated. The TUC has raised concerns that the prospect of foreign investors suing over the nationalisation of services, or the introduction of new public health regulations threatens our capacity to govern in the public interest, potentially having dire consequences for essential services such as the NHS and education.
For example, the case of Veolia v. Egypt, which concluded in 2018 after six years of litigation, where Veolia sued over wage increase policies, underscores the risk of ISDS mechanisms being used to challenge policies aimed at improving public welfare, with legal proceedings that can last years and entail substantial financial costs for Governments. Although Veolia eventually lost that case, it is still the case that Governments lose even if they win, because the Egyptian Government had to spend six years defending the case and pay millions of dollars in arbitration and legal costs. Although the costs of that case have not been made public, studies from the OECD show that average costs are $8 million to $10 million, and they can be as high as $30 million. That case serves as a reminder of the potential for ISDS to prioritise profits over the wellbeing of citizens, making it imperative to reform those mechanisms to enhance transparency and fairness in the dispute resolution process.
Historical precedents starkly illustrate the contentious nature of ISDS mechanisms. The shadow Minister for international trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), proposed amendments, inspired by real world cases like Philip Morris’s challenge against Australia, that highlight the pressing need for stringent scrutiny and limitations on ISDS provisions to prevent corporate interests from unduly influencing national policy. Those instances demonstrate a pattern where ISDS is utilised to contest national policies and regulations, emphasising the need for enhanced parliamentary oversight and public consultation, as proposed in our amendments. Such cases vividly underscore the threat that ISDS poses to environmental policies and actions crucial for combating climate change and protecting biodiversity. Those examples highlight the pressing need for that scrutiny, which is why that enhanced parliamentary oversight is important.
I also want to delve into data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, which indicates that disputes involving environmental regulations are on the rise, emphasising the vulnerability of environmental policies under ISDS. It is imperative to note that, between 1993 and 2020, UNCTAD reported a staggering 1,104 known ISDS cases globally, with a significant number of challenging environmental regulations. That necessitates implementing safeguards in the CPTPP Bill to prevent challenges to measures protecting biodiversity or reducing carbon emissions. That trend once again underscores the urgency of implementing safeguards within the CPTPP Bill to protect against ISDS overreach, ensuring that measures taken to protect biodiversity or reduce carbon emissions are not contested, thus preserving our commitments under international agreements, like the Paris climate agreement.
I also want to discuss public services at risk. A study by the European Federation of Public Service Unions highlights that ISDS mechanisms have been used to challenge public interest measures, such as environmental regulations, health and safety standards, showing a clear conflict with public service provision. The ability for foreign investors to sue over the nationalisation of services or the introduction of new regulations to protect public health poses a threat to our ability to govern in the public interest. That could have dire consequences for the NHS, education and other critical public services, restricting our ability to implement policies without the spectre of costly legal challenges.
None the less, it is also crucial to acknowledge the perspective that ISDS provisions, when applied judiciously, can offer a level of legal protection to investors against genuine cases of expropriation or unfair treatment by host states, thereby contributing to a stable investment environment. The challenge lies in ensuring that those mechanisms do not infringe upon the legitimate policy space of Governments to enact regulations in the public interest.
Considering the critical examination of the ISDS provisions within the CPTPP, it is essential to underscore that ISDS mechanisms can significantly impact the regulatory sovereignty of nations, allowing private corporations to challenge public policies and regulations designed to protect public health, the environment and welfare. I am sure the Minister is aware that we have had several debates over the last few years, and especially over the seven years that I have been in Parliament, around sovereignty and the need to protect national sovereignty, so I hope he will address these concerns.
Our proposed amendments, such as that to clause 2 for enhanced parliamentary oversight, and the requirement for public consultation on ISDS provisions, are informed by the analysis of cases like Veolia v. Egypt and Philip Morris v. Australia, which demonstrate the tangible risks ISDS poses to public welfare and environmental protection. Our amendment to clause 2 for enhanced parliamentary oversight proposes mandating parliamentary approval for regulations relating to ISDS mechanisms by resolution of each House of Parliament, reflecting our commitment to democratic oversight. This step ensures that the ISDS mechanism within the CPTPP undergoes thorough scrutiny, reflecting our dedication to maintaining the integrity of our legislative process.
With regard to public consultation requirements on ISDS provisions, in alignment with our principles of transparency and public engagement we propose adding a requirement for comprehensive public consultations specifically on the ISDS provisions within the CPTPP. This amendment ensures that the diverse viewpoints and concerns of our society, including those from trade unions, environmental groups and sectors potentially affected by our ISDS claims, are duly recognised and addressed.
In relation to safeguard amendments against ISDS overreach, inspired by the consolidated list of amendments by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West, the shadow Minister for Business and Trade—he has done a great deal of hard work on this—we advocate for safeguards within the CPTPP Bill to protect against the overreach of ISDS mechanisms. That includes stipulations that prevent ISDS claims from undermining the UK’s legislative autonomy in areas such as public health, environmental protection and labour rights, thereby preserving the UK’s regulatory autonomy and ensuring that ISDS mechanisms cannot be used to challenge legislative and regulatory actions taken in the public interest in our Parliament.
By proposing these focused amendments to the CPTPP Bill, we aim to address the legitimate concerns surrounding ISDS mechanisms and their potential implications for our country. These proposals are founded on our unwavering commitment to upholding the principles of fairness, environmental stewardship and social justice in our trade policy. This ensures that our trade agreements not only pursue economic objectives, but safeguard the broader interests of our society and the protection of our democratic processes.
Matt Rodda
I commend my hon. Friend’s speech. He is making an excellent point. This issue has been raised with me a number of times in my time as an MP, by both charities and other civil society groups. There is a great deal of concern about ISDS in the community, particularly, in my experience, from charities involved in development. My hon. Friend is making an excellent point in trying to address some of those legitimate concerns about the nature of trade policy.
Mr Dhesi
The contributions of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East and other hon. Members in the Chamber on Second Reading underlined serious, legitimate concerns around ISDS and how it has been utilised around the world. I fear that the Government have not fully addressed those concerns. That is why I have gone to great lengths to delineate the problem. I hope that the Minister will address those points in his concluding remarks.
In conclusion, while recognising the potential economic benefits of the CPTPP, the Labour party remains steadfast in its commitment to protecting the UK’s sovereignty, public welfare and environmental integrity. Our call for a balanced approach to the ISDS mechanism is underpinned by substantial evidence of its potential misuse in challenging public interest measures, necessitating reforms to ensure that trade agreements such as the CPTPP do not undermine democratic governance or the ability of Government to regulate in the public interest. As we proceed in Committee, let us ensure that our trade policies reflect our collective aspirations for a fairer, more sustainable future.
Greg Hands
On new clause 5 on ISDS, I can provide assurance to the Committee that the UK already has investment agreements retaining ISDS provisions with about 90 trading partners, including seven of the 11 CPTPP parties. The UK provides a welcoming investment environment, with a non-discriminatory regime, strong rule of law and good governance. I remind members of the Committee that we have never been a recipient of a successful ISDS case—we have already disposed of the Eurotunnel red herring—from any investors from CPTPP parties or investors from any other country with which the UK has ISDS commitments through its investment agreements.
We are also clear that where we do negotiate investment protection and ISDS provisions in FTAs, we will not hinder our inherent right to regulate in the public interest, including in areas such as the environment, climate and labour standards. The right to regulate is recognised in international law, and CPTPP expressly reaffirms states’ rights to regulate proportionately, fairly and in the public interest.
May I take issue with the hon. Member for Slough and his very unbalanced views on ISDS, which reflect an old-fashioned view in the Labour party, perhaps from a few years ago, that business is always bad? Whatever the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) or the right hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) might say now, I think that today we are still seeing that attitude that business is always bad.
Greg Hands
Let me finish my argument. ISDS can be of great benefit to British companies abroad, and it protects jobs and livelihoods at home at the same time. It can make the UK a more attractive market to invest in—we are the Europe’s No. 1 destination for foreign direct investment—and it is important that the atmosphere for foreign investors remains strong. It generates jobs and prosperity here in the UK. And yet I hear increasingly in Committee rather the opposite. Contrary to the Labour party centrally saying that it is a pro-business party, I am hearing a very anti-business attitude and that business is always wrong.
Greg Hands
I am not going to give way. We have a balanced approach. ISDS does not prevent a right to regulate. It cannot force a change in domestic regulation, but it does prevent arbitrary discrimination against foreign companies, which in the case of CPTPP means—
Mr Dhesi
On a point of order, Dr Huq. I seek your advice about when a Minister of the Crown mischaracterises what has been said by someone, especially with regards to business. As someone who started and ran my own small business, I do not need lectures from Conservative Ministers about how to operate in business. The mischaracterisation also relates not only to whether our party is pro-business, but to the fact that I gave very balanced pros and cons of ISDS. May I seek your advice as to how that can be remedied in the record?
The Chair
The hon. Member has made his point. To be fair, it is not compulsory for anyone to take any interventions, but as the Member who moved the new clause, you will give a response in a moment, when the Minister has concluded.
Greg Hands
I thank you, Dr Huq, and the hon. Member for Slough for his point of order. None the less, we have to be clear that ISDS can prevent arbitrary discrimination against foreign companies. In the case of CPTPP, that can mean the same for British companies operating in those 11 existing parties. I just say to the Opposition Front Benchers that if they want Labour to pose as a pro-business party, they should take great care while parroting the arguments of groups like—
Gareth Thomas
On a point of order, Dr Huq. Again I seek your advice. Have you had any indication as to whether the Minister will answer the question why Britain is not seeking to have ISDS provisions in the Canada FTA but is seeking to have them in the CPTPP?
The Chair
I am being informed by my learned Clerks that that is a point of information, not a point of order for the Chair to adjudicate. The Minister was concluding, I believe.
Greg Hands
Thank you, Dr Huq. I will answer the hon Gentleman’s point about Canada in due course, but let me finish my point about Labour posing as the party of business when its Front Benchers are parroting the arguments of far-left bodies such as the Rosa-Luxemburg Stiftung and the Trade Justice Movement, which have railed against ISDS for years.
When it comes to why we did not agree an aside with Canada to disapply ISDS in CPTPP, upon the UK’s accession to CPTPP, British investments in Canada, which totalled £40.6 billion in 2021—investments worth protecting by the pro-business party that we are—will now be covered by these protections for the first time. In the light of our CPTPP accession, our bilateral negotiations with Canada will focus on stakeholder priorities, including in market access. That is very important for us.
I understand that there are concerns over the use of ISDS, but I want to be clear to the Committee that when we negotiate investment protection, and ISDS provisions within FTAs, we will not hinder our right to regulate in the public interest, including in areas such as the environment and labour standards. That right to regulate is recognised in international law. The CPTPP protects member states’ rights to regulate proportionately, fairly and in the public interest. That is done in a number of ways, including expressly reaffirming member states’ rights to regulate, as outlined in article 9.16.
Additionally, the UK has investment agreements containing ISDS provisions with seven of the 11 CPTPP countries and 90 countries worldwide. This is not a new issue. The UK has never received a successful claim from any investors of CPTPP countries or of any other country that it has ISDS commitments with. None the less, it protects British businesses abroad and makes Britain a more attractive environment for foreign companies to invest in.
That is why the UK will take a pragmatic approach to ISDS provisions, not the condemnatory, anti-business approach that we hear from the Labour party. I assure members of the Committee that the Government intend to publish an impact assessment in any case, and a comprehensive evaluation report of the agreement within five years of our accession. I therefore ask the hon. Members to withdraw their new clause.
Mr Dhesi
Thank you, Dr Huq. I would have thought that new clause 5 was sensible, and something that the Government should accept. All we are asking is that, no more than 18 months after the date on which the Act is passed, we have a review of the financial risk. However, if the Government are not willing to cede on that, we will seek to divide on the new clause.
For the record, I want to state that Labour is not only the party of business, but the party of working people. The Minister gesticulates from a sedentary position, but I think it is incredible that the Labour party’s business conference was sold out within four hours, which is more than I can say for the lacklustre performance from the governing party in terms of its abilities to woo the business community. We cannot dismiss at hand, as the Minister has done, the legitimate concerns of working people, as illustrated by the TUC and other organisations. It is important that those concerns are addressed.
I also note that the Minister did not answer the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West about why the Government are not seeking to have ISDS provisions within the Canada agreement. Perhaps the Minister would like to rise now. He said that he would address that point in due course. That due course has not unfortunately arrived, but it is for those reasons that we believe new clause 5 is important.
Greg Hands
I think the hon. Gentleman was perhaps distracted, but I did actually go into some detail about Canada and listed the fact that £40.6 billion-worth of British investments in Canada should now be covered by these protections for the first time. I did actually give quite a comprehensive answer when it came to Canada, the UK and ISDS.
Mr Dhesi
That still does not deflect from the point that, with respect to ISDS, it is one rule for one nation and another for the rest. That is why it is important that those ISDS provisions are looked at, because they are of serious concern when we are embarking upon this agreement. New clause 5 is very important and I therefore wish to push it to a vote.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Greg Hands
On a point of order, Dr Huq. I just wanted to take this opportunity to say a few words of thanks here on the Committee. I extend my appreciation to the Clerks of the House for their invaluable advice, and to the Doorkeepers who, as always, ensure order is maintained well throughout proceedings. My thanks also go to my departmental officials and my private office, all of whom provide me with a tremendous amount of support behind the scenes. The piece of legislation is narrow yet significant, as it will help ensure the UK can successfully accede to the CPTPP and access all the benefits associated with membership.
I would like to thank His Majesty’s loyal Opposition for their active participation in this debate. It has been interesting, and testy at times, but always worth while. I was surprised not to hear a contribution from the SNP during the course of this Committee debate, but perhaps they will reflect on that when it comes to Report stage later on. As we await Report stage and Third Reading, I am sure hon. Members will continue to raise any concerns they may have, and I strongly encourage them to do so. I thank you, Dr Huq, and Mr Davies, for chairing the Committee so capably and ably. My door is always open, and I look forward to continuing to engage with Members from across the House to help ensure that the Bill is passed in a timely manner, so that all our constituents can begin to benefit from the impact of the UK’s acceding to the comprehensive and progressive trans-Pacific partnership.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly to be reported, without amendment.
Westminster Hall
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Register of Children not in School
(10 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the potential merits of a register of not-in-school children.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. The Prime Minister describes a good education as
“the closest thing we have to a silver bullet”,
and he is right. Education unlocks the door of opportunity, raises aspiration and sets children up for future success. The Conservatives have delivered on education. After successive Conservative Governments, we have more schools rated good or outstanding, we have improved our standing in the international league tables, and the progress made on phonics has been monumental.
However, as the legacy of the pandemic continues to blight our children’s lives, the education system is grappling with huge challenges that could leave untold damage done to the future of our children, society and economy, if left unresolved. Absence rates are at crisis point, suspensions are at record levels and some children are falling off the school roll altogether. The Government have shown leadership in tackling many of those challenges. Last year we outlined an ambitious vision in the “Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan”. We are piloting attendance mentors, rolling out attendance hubs, and increasing the number of mental health support teams working across schools and colleges. But what is of huge concern to me and many colleagues in this House, and what this debate seeks to address, is that no one—not Government, local authorities or schools—can honestly answer the question: how many children are missing from school?
A good education is pivotal to a child’s future success, yet we do not know how many children are not in school, where they are and what quality of education they are receiving, if any. We do not even know if they are safe. That is not acceptable.
From the limited data available, we know that children who are moved out of school are disproportionately likely to be from a low-income household, need SEN support and have a history of school absence and exclusions. Those children and families desperately need our support, but we are unable to offer it because we simply do not know who they are or where they are. While we do not have the data to fully understand where those children are and how many there are, it is thought that many not on a school roll are in home education.
In England, parents rightfully have a choice over where to educate their child, which school to send them to, or even to not send their child to a school but to home educate them instead. The fundamental right to home educate is enshrined in law and always should be, with many home educating parents providing a high-quality home education for their child. However, owing to a lack of oversight, we have no way of knowing whether that is the case for every child in home education. Nine in 10 local authorities believe that they have not been able to identify every child in home education. With vulnerable children disproportionately likely not to be in school, it raises serious questions about whether every child in home education is there because it is in their best interests.
Research by the Centre for Social Justice has uncovered a growing number of parents opting for home education because they feel that they have no other option because of their child’s needs not being met in school. That could be the result of unmet SEND needs, a lack of support for mental health or bullying. Of particular concern is the number of parents who have felt coerced into home education through the scourge of off-rolling. Those parents can be left deliberately uninformed about the consequences of moving off roll and ill-prepared to deliver a suitable home education. That cannot be allowed to continue.
As Conservatives we must make sure that all parents can freely and informedly choose how to best educate their child and that every child thrives in their education, whether in school or the home. A register of children not in school is the first step to achieving that.
Educating children at home is no small task for anyone. I thank the many parents who are doing an admirable job providing their children with a high quality home education. I want to reassure those parents that a register would not seek to disrupt their right to home educate or add extra burden. Quite the contrary, it would allow us to offer assistance and resources to those who are home educating at great personal cost, time and effort, should they want such support. But not every child is your child. Not every child is in home education because it is in their best interest. Not every parent feels equipped to provide the quality of education they feel their child needs. Not every child is safe at home.
For a parent who felt coerced into removing their child into home education against their better wishes, the prospect of home educating their child, without any support or advice, can feel overwhelming. A number of organisations, including Ofsted, the Children’s Commissioner and the Centre for Social Justice, have uncovered worrying reports of home-educated pupils being left without access to an appropriate quality of education, and of parents left struggling to cope with the demands of home education.
A register would allow us to find and support those families who have been left on the fringes of the education system. Most importantly, it would help us uncover those children whose safety is at risk. In 2020, the child safeguarding practice review panel uncovered 15 incidents of harm involving children reported to be in home education. Those included severe harm, such as serious neglect, emotional abuse and intrafamilial harm. In three of those cases, the children had died. The panel concluded that those children were often invisible. They were not in school and did not receive home visits.
Such safeguarding concerns have been echoed by local authorities, which have spoken about a range of concerns, including county lines involvement, gangs and exploitation, as well as child employment. We cannot continue as we are, unable to guarantee the safety, welfare and basic educational progress of every child. Across Europe, oversight of educational progress is commonplace. England is an international outlier in that respect, and this change is well overdue.
The limited data available suggest that home education is on the rise. As the number of home-educated children increases, so should our drive to ensure that parents are able to exercise their right to choose how best to educate their child, that every child is supported to achieve the best educational outcome, and that all children are protected equally, whether at home or at school.
That is not to infringe on a parent’s right to home education or to add any extra burden to those who are doing it well. A register of children not in school would not change much for those families who are already doing an excellent job, but it would make a big difference to the small number of children on the fringes of our education system, who may be at risk of harm. It is time to bring those children who are out of sight and out of mind back into view.
This is not just an educational issue but one of social justice and national economic importance. Education is a major route out of poverty, opening doors to greater employment and lifelong learning. If children do not receive a suitable education that allows them to develop the skills to gain meaningful employment, that will cast a long shadow over their lives and over the economic wellbeing of the country. Education is key to the country’s continued prosperity and must remain the focus of any Government. I hope, therefore, that all colleagues will back my private Member’s Bill to introduce a register for children not in school, due for Second Reading on 15 March.
I am grateful that education Ministers have repeatedly voiced their support for such a register. It is time to turn those words into action. I call on the Minister to confirm that the Government will fully back my Bill, which would allow us to legislate for a register of children not in school, without any further delay. By implementing that register, which is so important for ensuring the welfare and education of every child, we will continue to build on the success of driving up standards, and unlock that all-important door of opportunity and aspiration for all children.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher. I thank the hon. Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) for bringing forward this debate. We had a wee chat beforehand to discuss our thoughts, and she and I are very much on the same page in what we are trying to achieve.
As you know, Sir Christopher, I always give a Northern Ireland perspective; I think that it adds value to the debate. I know the Minister does not have responsibility for that, but the idea is to support the hon. Member for Meon Valley and give some examples and stats about what happens in Northern Ireland. This issue is really important. I have many constituents—I suppose when we add on the education numbers it is perhaps not that many, but I will speak about the figures later—who come to me who want to self-school. There are issues that occur through that, so I am pleased to be here.
Education is an essential component of every childhood. Some of my fondest childhood memories are those in the schoolyard in Ballywalter. Some Members may ask whether I can remember that far back. It was a long time ago, but I remember with fondness Ballywalter Primary School in the early ’60s, so I can give my perspective. I would refer to it as a rite of passage. My parents were determined to send me away to boarding school, as they did, when I was 11 years old. I remember it quite well. That was a big decision for my parents, because ultimately it meant that they could not have a holiday, and had to keep their old banger of a car forever and use their money to educate me. I am eternally grateful to my parents for making that happen when they were on a financial budget that made it increasingly difficult.
Boarding school, by its very nature, can make you or break you. My brother also went there, but unfortunately he did not like it. He left after about a year and a half. I did my five years. It was almost like a penance, but I loved it. I would never send my children to boarding school, by the way, just for the record, because it can build you or bring you down.
I have watched my children go through school, enjoying their formals and school trips, and now my grand- children—six of them, of course—are waiting to see what schools they get into after their transfer test. It is all very exciting, but incredibly worrying as well. We want the best for our children and grandchildren; that is what parents and grandparents do. However, I am also aware that that is not the journey that all families follow. The hon. Member for Meon Valley has set that scene, and I am going to give some examples of what they have to go through.
I know of several families personally who have made the decision to home school—I say these things very gently, but I think that they have to be said—due to the increasingly secular manner of teaching. One parent said to me that if they want their children to go to school, they have to accept that they do relaxation yoga, mimicking sun god poses, and that they are taught in a manner that they do not agree with. That family considered sending their child to a small private Christian school due to concerns about the push of ideologies in schools, yet the cost was prohibitive and it could never happen, so they are now in home schooling.
I was able to put that family in contact with a group of home schoolers. One idea that I want to put forward to the hon. Lady and the Minister is that some home schoolers can collectively work together. They may be on their own when they are at home at school, but collectively they can come together to do things. To give an example, in my area of Strangford, home schoolers collectively are able to undertake trips to places of interest, such as the council chambers and local museums. When I asked parents what they had to do to register their children, they told me, “We are asked for nothing.” I think it is important that there is a register, and it does not seem to be the case in Northern Ireland as far as I am aware. Many people are registered, but not everybody is, and I will give some stats later that illustrate that only too well.
Parents said to me that they told the GP that their children were not going to school, and they get their injections and dental checks at home, through the GP surgeries or through the dental practices rather than school. They are not neglected for any health issues, so it is important that home schooling does not deprive children of any opportunities and safeguards. However, they have no support and no help, and there is no register. That is where we are.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that wider society understands the distinction drawn by the hon. Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond), and by my hon. Friend himself, between the very small number of children who have been, and may well be, at risk because of neglect shown by parents, and the very effective home schooling that is the choice of parents whose only concern is the future wellbeing of their children?
Jim Shannon
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention; he is absolutely right and has highlighted one of the issues that I wish to refer to as well.
In past years, home schooling was important to some people due to their health issues. In my capacity as a Member of the Legislative Assembly, and latterly as an MP, I was able to make that happen—I helped people go through the process to have the self-schooling that they wanted. All those young boys and girls from those days now have very active adult lives because they got the opportunity of home schooling through their disabilities and medical issues.
Regarding the register, it is all well and good for the family who purchase their curriculum online and steadfastly teach their children in a structured way that suits the needs of the family. On the other side—and I mention this to the hon. Member for Meon Valley as an example— I was once approached by a local church asking for help to ascertain how it could ensure that a child who was attending its youth groups was being taught at home. That 10-year-old child could neither read nor write, and she told her leader in the youth group that her mummy did not believe she needed to do that. Therefore, there is unfortunately a need to have a register for the purposes of ensuring that things are progressing in the way that they should.
I wholeheartedly support the mechanism for children retaining the right to be home schooled, because I see the benefits of that. But I also believe that there should be help and support to ensure that children are getting the education that they need and deserve. I believe the first step is to create an online register so that someone is able to know that a child is being home schooled, and to monitor their progress. It is not about intrusion or about Big Brother keeping an eye; it is about ensuring that a child’s progress is happening in the way that it should.
The daughter of one of my staff members is a trained teacher who runs a forest school. This is another great example of collective home schooling that I often tell. She was recently vetted by Ofsted and received the level of outstanding, such is her talent and ability. She teaches children their early years development through nature, come rain or shine, and does a phenomenal job. She is registered and vetted; and the process works, and works well. Collectively, the school brings together all the children from families who home school them individually, and it teaches them well.
For that reason, I believe that children who are home schooled should have help and support to ensure they receive an education that will help them in the future. It is so important—and when we say that, we mean it. All the Members who are here, and many others who unfortunately could not make it, are convinced that the early years of a child’s schooling are vital.
While home schooling used to be obscure in Northern Ireland, the number of home-schooled children has steadily been increasing—indeed, it has trebled in the last five years. The stats are as follows: there were 287 children recorded by the Education Authority as home educated in 2017-18. That number had risen to 796 children in the 2021-22 school year—an increase of 175%. I do not know whether it was due to covid—it probably was partially—that home schooling became an objective for many parents. However, we think that the true figure is much higher, as parents are not legally required to register with the Education Authority if they want to home educate their child.
In 2021, a total of 710 children were recorded by the Education Authority as being taught at home. Three hundred and thirty nine were of primary age, and 371 were of post-primary age. In the most recent school year of 2021-22, that number rose to 796, with 329 children being of primary age, and 467 being of post-primary age. Clearly, therefore, parents have a deep interest in, and commitment to, home schooling.
To conclude, I just want to say how important this debate is. It is clear that we must begin to look at this matter to ensure that a register system is in place, although not for monitoring alone. It is not about breathing down somebody’s neck and ensuring that education is happening. It is about support, help and guidance and how we can make the situation better. Every parent has the right to provide education, but every child has the right to be educated, and we must ensure that that takes place.
Well done to all the home schoolers in my constituency, in that of the hon. Member for Meon Valley and across this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is not something that I could manage; unfortunately, I probably do not have the patience, but well done to all those co-ordinated groups that meet to share information and experiences and work collectively. That engagement and interaction is a vital school in, and a vital part of, the home-schooling journey.
Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Sir Christoper. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) on securing this debate.
Parents are responsible for ensuring that their child receives an appropriate full-time education, and when a child is registered at a school, parents are responsible for securing their child’s attendance. Children can be taught at home full or part time, but no legislation deals with home education as a specific approach.
A not-in-school register is needed specifically to target children who are not enrolled in formal educational institutions. This will address the gaps in our education system and ensure that every child receives the opportunity that they deserve. Legislation matters, as it provides accountability and oversight. A not-in-school register would provide a systematic way to track children who are not attending school and it would ensure that parents, guardians and local authorities were aware of their educational choices. By having a centralised record, we could identify patterns, intervene early and prevent children from slipping through the cracks.
Legislation would also safeguard children’s rights. Education is a fundamental right. A register would ensure that no child was left behind because of circumstances beyond their control. A register would allow us to monitor vulnerable populations, such as those with disabilities, refugees or those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Legislation would improve data and data-driven decision making, because accurate data would enable policymakers to allocate resources effectively. By understanding the scale of the issue, we could tailor interventions.
Elective home education is one of the fastest growing forms of schooling in the UK. In East Sussex, the number of children being home educated rose by 50% in the five years to 2022. Most parents do an incredible job in this endeavour, and I take my hat off to them for doing it in the best interests of their children. Many children perform much better if home schooled, and are happier. Figures show that more than 1,500 East Sussex children were educated at home in the last academic year. Data suggest that the number of home schooled children has increased across England since the coronavirus pandemic, although the figures are incomplete—that is the issue. However, it appears that covid is not behind the rise. Philosophical reasons accounted for the largest number of children being withdrawn from school. That was the main motivation for home schooling in East Sussex, with about 460 children involved. Concerningly, the reasons for home schooling were not known in 39% of cases. I know from my inbox that far too many parents cannot get the right SEND provision for their children and therefore home educate them. Data also show that older children are more likely to be taught at home across England. In East Sussex, 68% were of secondary-school age, compared with 32% at primary level.
Hastings and Rye is a unique blend of coastal beauty and historical significance. However, it still faces huge educational challenges. Despite its rich heritage, some children still struggle to access quality education. In one school in Hastings, 47% of children were persistently absent before the current head came in and took a grip of the situation; but at least there is a register for that. We do not really know whether home educated children are receiving an education at all, or whether they are safe. Sadly, it is all too common for some parents to put no value on education because they cannot see what benefits it would bring their children. It is our job—my job—to change that in Hastings and Rye.
There are other reasons, too: economic hardship, physical and mental health issues, and so on. Hastings and Rye has a diverse demographic, including families with varying needs. Legislation would allow us to tailor support services, ensuring that every child has equal access to education. Requiring parents or guardians to register their child with the local authority if they are not enrolled in state-funded schools would ensure transparency and accountability, as well as safeguarding children. The register would enable outreach programmes that could provide support and address barriers, and schools, social services and community organisations could collaborate to identify and assist children who fall through the gaps. We can learn from successful models in other areas or countries and adapt them to our local context.
A school register for children not in school is not just a bureaucratic formality, it is a lifeline for our future generations. Let us champion the legislation, which ensures every child’s right to education regardless of their circumstances, and together we can build a stronger, more inclusive society where no child is left behind. The great man, Churchill, said:
“Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.”
I would add that educated, healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I had not intended to speak in this debate, but I was inspired to do so by the opening speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond). I congratulate her not just on securing today’s debate, but on her Children Not in School (Registers, Support and Orders) Bill, which I will certainly support and which I hope the Government will pick up.
I should declare an interest: I chair the safeguarding board of the National Fostering Group, which is relevant because of the access of children in care to education. One of the things we do is monitor the attendance in school of children in foster care. We have consistently had well above the national average, which shows that even more challenging children in the care system, when properly monitored, can get a full education, and it is perhaps even more important that they do.
This subject is really important, so it is somewhat surprising that there is not a single Labour Back Bencher or Liberal Democrat MP here, such is their constant criticism of the Government’s education policy, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley set out at the beginning of the debate, has been a largely unsung success story for literacy and numeracy rates and the improvements that we have seen over the last 14 years. That was helped substantially by the drive for phonics and making sure that children in schools have a grasp of the basic skills that are needed for every job and for success in life.
I am glad to report that in my constituency, every single primary and secondary school bar one is rated “good” or “outstanding”. Across the UK, and certainly across England, the figures are now something like 86% or 88% against 66% back in 2010, so there is good progress there—but it is not progress for everybody. We must be particularly concerned for children whose progress is much more difficult to monitor because they are not within the conventional, mainstream school sector. That is the purpose of this debate.
That problem has absolutely been exacerbated during and since covid. The Children’s Commissioner has done work on identifying more than 100,000 so-called ghost children who are at school less often than they are absent from school, and in some cases are not at school at all. That is a really worrying phenomenon. We have only just started to see the consequences of lockdown and the closure of our schools. That was such an error, which the Government were forced into. I have to say, there was triumphalism—I remember it well, receiving the press releases from the National Education Union, which forced its members not to turn up at school. I think something like 8,000 schools had to close simply because the NEU staff did not turn up. That was the beginning of a slippery slope, supported by the Labour Opposition, of keeping our schools closed.
There was no evidential base on which children were more vulnerable than anybody else; indeed, they were far less vulnerable. The consequences for their education, socialising and mental health of not being in a regular school setting are only now coming out of the woodwork. The impact of that will be with those children for many years to come. It is deeply worrying that, quite aside from the academic catch-up, there are many other consequences. It has led to a lot of children not going back into mainstream school since covid. They are supposedly being home educated in most cases, but we are not sure how well they are being home educated, and if they are getting any reasonable education at all.
The problem of children not in school and, hopefully, being educated outside a school setting is not new, although it has been exacerbated since covid. When I was the Children’s Minister some while ago, we looked at regulating out-of-school provision and keeping tabs on children who were not attending school, particularly from a safeguarding point of view. I absolutely echo the points made earlier by my hon. Friends the Members for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) and for Meon Valley about the generally high quality of care, and hopefully education standards that go with it, provided by parents who choose actively to home educate their children for whatever reason. There are some, however, who cannot and do not sufficiently, adequately and appropriately provide that education to their children.
There are also establishments setting themselves up as unregulated schools, often with a religious bent. Some years ago, there was a big scandal about madrassahs exposed, I think, by “Panorama”. There was some really worrying treatment of children attending those schools, either in place of regular school or as religious schools available at weekends and evenings, in completely unregulated settings. It applies to other unofficial faith schools as well. I was keen to bring in some form of regulation of those establishments at the time, but alas I was thwarted. The issue has returned, but I am pleased to note that the Government are at last taking action on it.
There is also the issue of what we more formally know as alternative provision. Again, there are some really good examples of this—I can cite some in my own constituency—but they are not regulated. Many of them actually want to be regulated, but there is not the facility to do that. It would give them a degree of respectability and status, from which many of them would benefit. It is a bit of a wild west out there, and it absolutely needs to be addressed.
The reasons parents choose to home educate, as my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley has said, are varied. In some cases, they do not want to send their children to faith schools, and there are no alternatives available. Increasingly, it is because of problems with special educational needs. Despite the good reforms that the Government have brought in, with the use of education, health and care plans, there is still a serious problem with the number of children identified with special educational needs who are waiting to be assessed for an EHCP. If it goes to appeal, the vast majority of appeals by parents are upheld. There has been something like a 24% increase in appeals between 2022 and 2023, and parents usually win them. Even when they get that status, the support that is supposed to come with it is not always forthcoming, and certainly not to the level that certain children need. It is no wonder that some parents choose to take their children out of school because their special educational needs are not being provided for in those schools.
I recently held a summit with the heads of SEN provision for every primary school in the Adur district in my constituency. Most of the heads turned up as well, such was the seriousness of the subject. I arranged a follow-up meeting with the cabinet member for schools and the director of children’s services in West Sussex because this is a real problem, and it is driving more children out of the mainstream system.
There are other reasons why parents keep their children out of school—for example, because their child is suffering from mental health problems. We know how bad that has gotten—again, exacerbated by covid. Something like one in six school-age children now demonstrate some form of mental illness. Again, the Government have done good work on mental health support in schools, but they are not keeping up with the demand. The threshold for identifying children with mental health requirements is quite high. Even when a child does reach it, they need to access the support in a timely manner, and it is not always as forthcoming, and certainly not as urgent, as it needs to be.
There are also problems with bullying and the impact of social media, which is why I very much welcomed the announced yesterday by the Secretary of State for Education about limitations on mobile phones, which have an awful lot to answer for in our schools. Good schools, such as Worthing High School, which the Secretary of State visited yesterday in launching the new programme, have been practising that for some time, and it is clear for all to see how it has benefited the children. Another reason is eating disorders—a fast-growing phenomenon. Again, that was exacerbated by the pandemic for those children who now feel they cannot attend school because of it. There is a whole raft of reasons why children are being home educated and effectively going under the radar.
There is also the question of parents not being able to get their children into their school of choice. I have a particular problem, which I have raised in this Chamber before—and my right hon. Friend the Minister of State has agreed to meet me shortly to discuss it—as children in Adur, in Shoreham, in particular, have to go out of district because the county council has effectively messed up its calculation of secondary school place need in the area. A lot of parents—from one school, about 50 children are faced with this—have chosen to home educate their children rather than sending them to a school they know little about and which is a long way from home. It is important that we can monitor how many and which children are being home educated, what sort of home education they are getting and who is providing it.
Mrs Drummond
Part of the Bill that I propose to introduce will give support to parents who are home educating and put the burden on local authorities to provide that support and funding. I assume that that would help my hon. Friend’s constituents.
Tim Loughton
I hope so. I hope those parents will be helped because the local authority will get its figures right and provide the number of places needed, because by and large they want their children to go to one of our excellent local secondary schools; it is just that the places are not there. They have almost been forced to make the decision to home educate their children.
It is important that we get a handle on this matter. We closely regulate our schools—some would say over-regulate, and some of the recent problems regarding Ofsted have raised the question of whether we are regulating the right things—and impose stiff penalties on parents who fail to send their children to school on a regular basis without good reason. Once a child is deemed to be home educated, all that regulation and all those checks fall away, and it is down to trust with the parents.
As I say, it is important that we identify what is going on outside of the school setting because there is a safeguarding issue. That was highlighted during lockdown, when social workers with children on their radar were in many cases unable to make home visits, and the amount of abuse against children behind closed doors went up substantially—the number of calls to Childline and other services absolutely skyrocketed. I am in no way trying to say that all home educated children are subject to safeguarding concerns, but there is a high propensity for children who are out of the sight of teachers, who can spot signs that something is not quite right at home, to suffer safeguarding issues under the radar, so we need to be absolutely assured that they are safe.
The point of having a register and greater sight of those children is to ensure their parents receive appropriate support. Statutorily, they are entitled to just five hours of supported education at home, if it is available and they choose to take it. That does not go far, and its quality is rather patchy. There are also serious question marks about children accessing public exams. A lot of parents of home educated children have complained to me that they cannot access schools to take public exams—GCSEs, A-levels or whatever—and if they can, they have to pay a substantial premium.
There is also an issue with access to the very successful Government school holiday programme. The additional support available for school meals, and the activities, exercise and everything else that goes with it, are again not automatically available to home educated children. Children are not just missing out on the academic advantages of being at school; being at school is also about socialising, integrating, engaging with other children, learning to work as a team, regulating one’s mental health, and getting involved in sport and all sorts of other physical activities. Team games do not appear to be readily available to home educated children, so there is much more to this issue than just academic achievement. As I say, it is also about ensuring children are safe and on the radar.
When we provide that support to parents, it is important that we ensure that flexible arrangements are available too. Some children may not be able to go into mainstream school full time because of mental health challenges, bullying or whatever, but they may be able to have a blend whereby they combine home or alternative-provision learning with going to regular school for one or two days or sessions a week to gradually get them back to a full-time school schedule. That flexibility is just not there, but a full register that tells us what the child’s standard is, what their problems are and what support is and is not being provided would enable us to provide a much better wraparound solution.
Last year, the fantastic Red Balloon school charity, which I dealt with a lot when I was a Minister, set up a new school in Worthing. That was largely down to the munificence of one of my constituents, Nick Munday, whose daughter benefited from an alternative provision school. The charity has a small number of schools throughout the country and offers places to kids who cannot go into mainstream school for all sorts of reasons. It gives them a really good education and, in many cases, enables them to go back into school part time and, hopefully, ultimately full time. We need more places like that.
Like other alternative provision establishments, Red Balloon would love to be regulated. Part of this debate is about ensuring that we have eyes on the support that every child is getting, on what alternative provision establishments and others are able to offer and on whether they are up to the task. There are something like 40,900 children in alternative provision across the United Kingdom. Ultimately, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, this is not about intruding or meddling: it is about supporting, monitoring and tracking. Even if children are not on the school register, and are not presenting at school on a daily basis and getting all the advantages school offers, because they are unable for the sorts of reasons I have set out, we must ensure that they are being properly looked after and that the appropriate support is provided to them and their parents. They should not be prevented from getting the very best start in life simply because they are not in a physical school establishment; they deserve that just as anybody else does.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I congratulate the hon. Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) on securing this important debate and on her campaigning work on the issue of persistent school absence. She rightly highlighted the lack of transparency about the numbers of children not in school and some of the wider drivers of that in our education system, such as the damaging use of off-rolling by some schools. She was right to point out that a register would have little impact on the families of children receiving a high quality of home education.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) took us down memory lane to his own childhood, and spoke about the importance of having a register so that help and support can be provided to families whose children who are not in school, where that is needed.
The hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) highlighted the situation in her constituency, where there is a school in which 47% of the children were persistently absent. That highlights the shocking scale of this issue and the urgency of addressing it.
We heard from the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), for whom I have a huge respect due to his long experience and his work in this field. However, I have to say that he gave a disappointingly partisan speech on an issue on which there is a broad cross-party consensus. It was his Government who chose to reopen pubs before schools during the covid-19 pandemic, so the Opposition will take no lectures from him on schools policy during the pandemic. Nevertheless, he rightly highlighted that significant problems with the SEND system and with poor mental health are factors that contribute to persistent absence. On that, we can agree.
Everyone who has spoken agrees on the importance of children and young people accessing a high-quality education. Education is vital in giving them the best start in life and opening up future opportunities, whether through employment or discovering new interests and passions, yet increasing numbers of children and young people are out of school. The rate of persistent absence has doubled in just six years, with more than one in five children missing at least 10% of the school year in 2022-2023.
The situation could not be more urgent. On the current trajectory, developed using Department for Education data, more than 2 million children will be persistently absent from school by 2025-26—a generation tragically lost from England’s schools. More than 130,000 children are already missing more than half their time in school, and recent research by the Children’s Commissioner found that pupils who are persistently absent in years 10 and 11 are half as likely to pass five GCSEs as their peers with good attendance records. That is embedding lifelong disadvantage and limiting the opportunities that young people can pursue later in life.
Although many parents throughout the country lawfully and properly deliver an effective and high standard of education at home, far too many children are now falling through the cracks and not getting the education they need. We need action to ensure that if a child is not in school, the local authority is clear about where they are and what education they are receiving. Members have raised their support for a register of children not in school; the Opposition are clear that we support this objective. As this debate has evidenced, there is broad cross-party support for legislating for a register.
Earlier this month, a motion tabled by the shadow Secretary of State for Education—my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson)—and the Leader of the Opposition sought to make parliamentary time available to legislate for a Bill as soon as possible. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham raised the question of the attendance of Opposition Members at this debate. I gently say to him that all Opposition MPs voted for our motion earlier this month; that is the indication he needs of the strength of commitment and support for this matter on this side of the House. It is extremely disappointing that, despite voicing their support this morning, when they were faced with that motion in that debate, Government Members voted it down.
Mrs Drummond
One of the reasons why I did not vote for the Labour party’s motion was that it conflated persistent absence with the not-in-school register. Children with persistent absence are on the school register already, and the local authority knows exactly where they are. A register of children not in school is for those children who are not on any other register. That is why I was unable to support the Labour motion: because it was not correct.
Helen Hayes
I am grateful for that intervention. On persistent absence, it is not enough to say that schools know who those children are; a more comprehensive strategy is needed, and that is what I will move on to talk about.
We will of course study carefully the wording of the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Meon Valley when it is published, but it should not be the responsibility of Back Benchers to force the Government to act. There have been plenty of opportunities for Ministers to act. The only thing missing is the sense of urgency and ambition for our country’s children.
We must also be honest that the crisis of persistent absence requires much wider action. We need a comprehensive strategy to address the challenges to children attending school. The Opposition has set out our fully funded plans to break down the barriers. We will introduce free breakfast clubs for every primary school pupil in England, providing every child with a nutritious meal at the start of the day. We know that breakfast clubs can improve children’s learning and development, boost their concentration and help to improve behaviour. They take the pressure off parents in the morning and give children a chance to play and socialise.
Helen Hayes
I will not; the hon. Gentleman has had plenty of time this morning.
Good mental health and wellbeing are vital for school attendance. We will ensure that there is mental health support available in every school and that children and young people can visit an open-access mental health hub in every community, no matter where they live.
Absence rates are highest for children with special educational needs and disabilities and we recognise that that is often because the needs of children with SEND are not being properly met. Labour will work with parents and schools to make mainstream schools inclusive, and to make inclusivity part of the Ofsted inspection framework. We will ensure that teachers have the skills and training they need to support children with complex needs and we will introduce a new annual continuing professional development entitlement for teachers, to boost their expertise.
We will reform the school curriculum and, as part of our reforms to Ofsted, we will move away from the outdated and unhelpful one-word judgment. We will empower Ofsted to look at absence as part of the annual safeguarding spot checks.
Labour is committed to ensuring that every child receives a first-class education, but children need to be in school to access that education. We will break down the barriers to opportunity that are keeping so many children and young people out of education and, as the previous Labour Government did, we will put children first, prioritising their education and their wellbeing.
The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
It is a great pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Christopher— I think for the first time. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond), my constituency neighbour, on securing this debate on a topic that is a Government priority. I thank her for all her work in this policy area and her continued interest in introducing legislation for registers of children not in school. As she knows, we share that ambition. Both I and the Secretary of State for Education look forward to working with my hon. Friend as she takes her Children Not in School (Registers, Support and Orders) Bill through Parliament. It is vital that we ensure that the rights of all children are upheld. In the case of children not in school, that is the fundamental right to a suitable education, which is in children’s best interests.
In the majority of cases, children not in school will likely be those who are home educated. It is important that we recognise that, in most cases, parents will be doing home education well and for all the right reasons. Home education is not easy and parents will often put in extensive time and resource to provide suitable education for their children, sometimes in challenging circumstances. I pay tribute again to all those parents who have made the difficult decision to home educate when the education of their child is at the centre of that decision. Home education is a parental right that the Government will continue to defend. Any form of registration of children not in school will not infringe that right. Registration will, however, better ensure that we defend children’s rights to a suitable education.
Over recent years, as various colleagues have alluded to, the number of home educating families has continued to increase. In summer 2023, the Department for Education estimated that 97,600 children were home educated in England—about 1% of all school-age children. Although such an increase is not necessarily an issue, we know from local authorities and the data on children missing education that not all children are in receipt of a suitable education when they are at home. I cannot stress enough that registration is not intended to impact parents who are home educating with good intentions and, as I said, often making numerous sacrifices to do it well. By knowing where the families are, we can better ensure that we target support to those who need it most and are not receiving a suitable education.
Without a statutory register of children not in school and the accompanying duties on parents and certain out-of-school education providers to supply information to it, we cannot know for certain the scale of how many children are missing education. We cannot know for sure how many children are in home education and what subset are in home education but not receiving a suitable education, or how many are receiving no education at all. Although we have taken steps, through our termly data collection from local authorities on electively home educated children and children missing education, to increase our understanding of that cohort and improve the accuracy of local authority data, that alone will not suffice. That is why the Department continues to remain committed to legislating for statutory registers.
The Department for Education’s commitment to establishing a local authority-administered registration system was first set out in our “Children not in school” consultation response, published in February 2022. That policy intention led to the children not in school measures that were part of the 2022 Schools Bill. The measures proposed the creation of duties on local authorities to maintain registers of eligible children and a duty on local authorities to provide support to home educating families when that was requested.
The measures did not include any proposals to extend local authorities’ powers to monitor the quality of the education being received, and that continues to be the case. The Government do not see the need for greater monitoring powers. We believe that local authorities’ existing powers, when they are used in the way set out in our elective home education guidance—which is currently being reviewed—are already sufficient to enable a local authority to determine whether the education is suitable.
I do not yet know the full detail of the private Member’s Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley. As colleagues know, the Government cannot support a private Member’s Bill prior to Second Reading, but I can say that the Government remain committed to introducing statutory local authority registers as well as a duty for local authorities to provide support to home educating families. Clearly, that which my hon. Friend seeks to do and what the Government wish to do coincide.
There are three main benefits to measures for children not in school. First, local authorities having registers of children not in school would help local authorities to better identify eligible children and help those missing education. New duties on parents to proactively provide to the local authority their name, their child’s name, their address and the means of education—such as where and who provides their child’s education—as well as new duties on certain providers of out-of-school education to reactively provide information on eligible children, such as their name and address, will help to identify more eligible children than is currently possible. The new information in the registers would help authorities to undertake their existing responsibilities for the purpose of ensuring that education is suitable and that children are safe.
Secondly, as I have already mentioned, that will ensure that both local authorities and the Department for Education have the necessary data to understand the scale and needs of this cohort of children, including the reasons why parents may choose to home educate. I will come back to that in a moment, in response to comments made by a number of colleagues.
Thirdly, those children and parents who want it will be able to benefit from additional support from the local authority. Our measures contained a duty on local authorities to provide or secure such support where requested to registered home-educating families to promote the education of a child. We felt that the support element of the measures was a vital component in encouraging positive engagement between local authorities and home educators and helping to ensure good-quality education. The support could have included advice about education; information about sources of assistance; provision of facilities, services or assistance; or access to non-educational services or benefits, such as to support home-educating parents to access exams or online teaching resources, for example through the Oak National Academy.
Jim Shannon
I am grateful to the Minister for that response. I suggested to him some of the things that my constituents did in Strangford. Although they were individually home schooling, they came together collectively for visits—every child loves a visit—to the council, the museum, the leisure centre or wherever, and that was something that was encouraged. Is there any possibility that the Minister, who is putting forward very positive thoughts, could consider that suggestion?
Damian Hinds
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, as ever. I was coming to that point, but as he has brought it forward I will say now that the guidance already encourages collaboration between home educators. As he says, in coming together often we can achieve more, and it is possible in principle that that could be enhanced further through the provisions on additional support. He makes a good point.
The measures would have ensured consistency of approach across local authorities through regulations and new statutory guidance, and it remains our intention to work closely with home educators, local authorities and other key stakeholders prior to the introduction of any new statutory system to ensure that it is implemented in a way that works both for home-educating parents and for local authorities. In the meantime, the Government continue to work with local authorities to improve their existing non-statutory registers and to support local authorities to ensure that all children in their area receive a suitable education.
The Department’s consultation on revised guidance on elective home education for local authorities and parents closed on 18 January. We received more than 4,000 responses, which are being analysed. We will of course publish our consultation response along with the revised guidance in the coming months. The Department has worked closely with stakeholders, including home educators, to develop that guidance, which aims to help parents and local authorities better understand what they are required to do and what should be done to ensure that all children receive a suitable education. That includes improving aspects of the guidance to make clearer the processes for when preliminary notices and school attendance orders should be issued, encouraging a more collaborative approach between local authorities and home-educating parents, and focusing more on available support for home-educating families.
Through our termly local authority data collection on elective home education and on children missing education, we are also increasing the accuracy of all local authority non-statutory registers and improving local authority and departmental understanding of children not in school. However, as I have already set out, true data accuracy will be gained only with mandatory registers, which would specify the data to be recorded. The accompanying duty on parents to inform local authorities when they are home educating and the duty on out-of-school education providers to provide information on request are necessary to ensure that we identify all eligible children. We have recently conducted a call for evidence on improving support for children not receiving any education—some of the most vulnerable children in our society—and held webinars for local authorities on meeting their duties to identify those children, and we continue to collect data on children missing education to increase transparency and identify where further support is needed.
I thank all colleagues who have taken part in the debate for bringing to the House their expertise, constituency reflections and experiences. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley, who led the way. Since she came to Parliament, she has devoted her sharp mind and strong advocacy to a number of causes, but education has always been extremely high on her list. She explained clearly what motivated her to support this cause and introduce her private Member’s Bill. She paid warm tribute to parents who make great sacrifices and go to great lengths to home educate their children, and she put it pithily when she said “not every child is your child”—other children are in completely different circumstances. That in no way undermines what any parent is doing, and it does not conflate any two sets of circumstances. That point came up in a number of Members’ contributions. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made that case, as did his colleague, the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell). The hon. Member for Strangford also spoke about the importance of support; in responding to his intervention, I covered some of his points.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) spoke about a number of issues, including looked-after children and children in care. Since his time as Children’s Minister, he has maintained a close interest in that issue and has been very active on it. He also spoke about our largely or partly unsung success—the great strides we have made in education in this country since 2010. I pay tribute to his contribution to that through the great work he did at the Department for Education.
Our guiding philosophy since 2010 has been that we must drive up standards while closing the attainment gap. Great strides have been made in both areas, as can be seen in the international comparisons. Between 1997 and 2010, although results were ostensibly going up domestically, in fact England was coming down the international comparison tables. Since 2010, that has reversed, and crucially—as I say, this has been at the heart of our philosophy—that has been accompanied by other things we have been doing, such as the pupil premium. Great progress was made in narrowing the gap, but of course covid put a dent in education overall—that is true right across the world—and produced new challenges with the attainment gap. The attainment gap is also in part related to differential rates of attendance among different groups in the school community. That is just one of the reasons why we have a laser-like focus on attendance as we ensure we continue to raise standards in school.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart), my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham raised some of the wider factors and spoke about the different settings in the system and the challenges and issues. Although those are not the subject of today’s debate—I will not try your patience by going there, Sir Christopher—those are very important points.
As always, my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye brought to bear her experience in East Sussex and Hastings and Rye, and the hard work she does for her community. She spoke about the partial link between what we are talking about today and what happened during the pandemic. She also talked about SEND provision and, like my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, some of the wider factors. The crucial point my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye made was that having a register would enable us to understand those things better, and enable local authorities to tailor support and ensure they are responding well to the circumstances of different families. I thank her for that contribution.
The hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), who spoke for the Opposition, talked about persistent absence, which, as I just said, is a significant issue that we are grappling with. She did not mention the international nature of the increase in absence from school since the pandemic. She also did not mention the progress made since 2010, before the pandemic, including the tightening of the definition of persistent absence in order to raise the bar, which possibly happened shortly before my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham was in the Department for Education.
It is true that since covid there has been a renewed challenge in multiple countries. I am pleased to say that progress is being made. Absence overall for the 2023-24 autumn term was 6.8%, compared with 7.5% the previous year. The trend is moving in the right direction, but we need it to go further. I ask the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood not to conflate entirely different subjects. By definition, home-educated children cannot be persistently absent from school, because they are not on the school roll. We went through that at the Opposition day debate, which put completely different things together in one composite motion. That does not help provide the clarity we need on the subject, and how such debates play out with the public.
Damian Hinds
If the hon. Lady is able to correct me on that point, I will be delighted to hear from her.
Helen Hayes
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. “Conflate” is the wrong word, because these issues are linked. For many parents, the causes of persistent absence, which we have talked about—poor mental health, poor SEND support, off-rolling and pressures on families—result in their decision to home educate. Theirs could be the home-educated children about which local authorities know nothing. The issues are linked and we need a comprehensive strategy, including a register of children not in school. That is our position.
Damian Hinds
I suppose I am grateful to the hon. Lady for saying that. If she believes that having a register of children not in school will do something about persistent absence, I am afraid she may have higher expectations than will be delivered.
Helen Hayes
The register would enable intervention on the quality of the education being received by children at home. Knowing who those children are enables local authorities to understand how they are being educated and to make a determination about the quality of that education. That can help local authorities to support some families to return their children to school, where the choice to home educate was not a positive choice to do that and do it well, but was made due to the unacceptable pressure that those families have been under.
Damian Hinds
These are both very important subjects, and there is some linkage at some level, but I do not think that what the hon. Lady just said is a sequitur. We are bearing down on persistent absence, with a support-first approach, to ensure that children get the benefit of being in school as many days as possible. No child can be in school every day throughout their school years—every child will be ill at some point—but there is a huge benefit to being at school. We recognise, of course, that some children are in more difficult circumstances than others. The question of the register of children not in school is a separate matter, though both are important.
I want to return to a couple of things that the hon. Lady mentioned on the Opposition’s proposed, or supposed, strategy on dealing with attendance. While in principle I do not disagree with a number of those things, that is largely because they sound very like Government policy. I do, however, disagree with some of the detail and supposed changes. For example, if we are trying to improve attendance at school, I think it is wrong to focus a breakfast club policy specifically on primary school, because we know that absence is more acute in secondary school. If we target a breakfast club programme to areas where it is needed most, we can have most impact on absence.
On mental health, I believe we might have heard a new spending commitment from the hon. Lady this morning. Previously, when the Opposition have talked about mental health counsellors, it has generally been in respect of secondary schools. I was not sure if she was saying that this was to be in every one of 22,000 schools.
Helen Hayes
I am very happy to clarify our position, which is well publicised. A mental health professional will be based in every secondary school in the country, with mental health support available to every primary school in the country. Perhaps the Minister might say what he is doing in the same area to improve the mental health of our children and young people.
Damian Hinds
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for enlightening me on that subject. She should know that we are investing in creating a network of mental health support teams throughout the country. It is a gradual deployment, as these things always must be, but importantly it includes primary schools as well as secondary schools. Finally, on what the hon. Lady said about Ofsted, I will just say that Ofsted already quite rightly looks at absence.
I want to reiterate that any form of registration of children not in school would not fundamentally alter the status quo when it comes to the parental right to choose home education. Home education is a right, and we are not seeking to change that right. It forms a core part of the English education system, which allows parents choice in how to educate their child. I pay tribute once again to all those parents who make significant sacrifices to provide a suitable education for their child.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley for bringing this topic to the House today. My colleagues in the Department for Education and I warmly welcome her Bill on the same subject. We look forward to its Second Reading on Friday 15 March, and to working closely with her as she takes it through the House.
Mrs Drummond
I thank everybody for their contributions today, and again pay tribute to all home educators, including my niece, Emma Loder-Symonds, who runs a farm school to bring home-educated children together. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned that that happens in his constituency too.
The Bill is backed by local authorities, which currently do not have the statutory power to meet face to face with children who are out of school to identify whether they are receiving an effective education, or where families may benefit from additional support. I mentioned those children who are invisible and may be at risk of harm, Sara Sharif being a recent example. A young man who had had to educate himself wrote to me to say that the Bill will help people like him get the necessary support. I look forward to bringing this important Bill through Parliament, and particularly to working with the Department for Education and Ministers to ensure that we get it absolutely correct.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the potential merits of a register of not-in-school children.
Balochistan: Human Rights
(10 months ago)
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John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered human rights in Balochistan, Pakistan.
This debate is about the human rights abuses in Balochistan. We have had a discussion already, before the debate started, about the pronunciation, and I am sure that those constituents attending the debate will advise us. I apologise if we have, collectively, got the pronunciation wrong today.
I will briefly give some background for those who are listening or want to read the record of the debate later and are not familiar with the area. Balochistan is situated at the eastern extremity of the Iranian plateau and is currently divided nearly equally between Pakistan’s Balochistan province and Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province. Additionally, certain parts of Afghanistan’s Nimruz, Helmand and Kandahar provinces historically belong to the Balochistan region.
The strategic significance of Balochistan, both geopolitically and geostrategically, has often placed it at the forefront of major global events, and its location offers the potential to provide access to the energy-rich regions of central Asia, making it vital to the whole south Asian area. I will briefly give its history. The name “Balochistan” is drawn from the Baloch people, who have been its inhabitants for centuries and who predominantly speak the Balochi and Brahui languages. In antiquity, the region found itself part of the Persian empire. The foundations of the modern Baloch state can be traced back to the 17th century when Mir Ahmed Khan established the khanate.
The Kalat state, characterised as a princely state, persisted until the British invaded in 1839. Kalat became an associated state of the British, and by 1877 the establishment of the Balochistan Agency signalled direct British rule over the northern half of Balochistan, including Quetta, the capital. With the British departure from the subcontinent, Balochistan was briefly declared an independent nation on 11 August 1947. Although Pakistan’s founding leader, Jinnah, had supported an independent Balochistan, he underwent a change of view and perspective, and the Pakistan army invaded and forced the accession of Balochistan into Pakistan.
Since then—we have debated this over a number of years—there has been a saga of struggles for independence, marked by persistent resistance and repeated insurgencies. The trigger for the renewed phase was the murder of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, a prominent Baloch leader, in 2006. That event sparked widespread unrest, leading to growing momentum for the Baloch independence movement.
The campaign for self-determination has been fuelled, I have to say, by the suppression by the Pakistani state of Baloch culture and language. Balochistan’s rich cultural heritage is woven into the fabric of its society and reflects its history, traditions and way of life. The Baloch people, with their distinct cultural identity, have maintained their unique traditions and customs over centuries. However, the vitality of their culture faces significant challenges, due particularly to the suppression of their language. The Baloch people speak the Balochi and Brahui languages, both of which are integral to their cultural identity. Despite the importance of those languages in preserving Baloch culture, they have faced marginalisation and neglect by official institutions. In Pakistan-occupied Balochistan, the Balochi and Brahui languages are not recognised as official languages, despite being the mother tongues of the local population. Education in those languages is limited, and their use in the media and official communication is minimal. That undermines the Baloch people’s ability to express themselves and, yes, maintain their cultural identity.
There are also concerns about the hard facts of what is described as dispossession. Balochistan’s vast natural resources—natural gas and minerals—have made it a region of strategic importance, yet its inhabitants face significant economic challenges, including extensive poverty. The exploitation of the province’s resources has not translated into prosperity for the local population. Despite the abundance of those resources, Balochistan remains one of the poorest areas in the region, which feeds discontent and uncertainty about the future for many people.
In addition, in recent years, the imposition of major development projects without the consultation or consent of the Baloch people has led to widespread discontent and feelings of dispossession. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or the CPEC, is a flagship project that has raised concerns about the potential displacement of local communities and about the lack of transparency on the distribution of the benefits of these projects.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) for bringing us this debate; I congratulate him for always bringing us important issues. I would go a stage further than the right hon. Gentleman. We have all heard of the historic march of the Baloch women to demand an end to the practice of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial murders, military operations and state brutality against the Balochs in Balochistan by the Pakistan army. These shocking atrocities must immediately be stopped. Does the right hon. Member agree that we need to use every possible diplomatic tactic to highlight the fact that respect for women must be a priority right and that it should not dismissed as a western ideal?
John McDonnell
I absolutely concur with the sentiment of that intervention and am grateful for it. Let me move on to that issue of human rights now that it has been raised. We must recognise that the situation in Balochistan is marked by severe human rights violations that demand the attention of this Parliament and the international community. Evidence of systematic abuses and disregard for human rights is mounting. A number of human rights organisations that all of us have worked with over the years, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have documented and condemned the widespread abuses taking place in the region. They have also highlighted the impunity enjoyed by the security forces responsible for these violations, and they have called for accountability.
The hon. Gentleman made reference to this: one of the most alarming aspects of the situation is the frequency of abductions and enforced disappearances. Activists, intellectuals, students, lawyers, journalists and other individuals have been subjected to what can only be described as horrific practices, which are often carried out by the Pakistani security forces. These individuals are often taken without any due process, held incommunicado and subjected to torture. Tragically, many of the victims that have been forcibly disappeared are later found dead, their bodies bearing signs of torture. This brutality—what is described as the “kill and dump” policy—has left families shattered and communities traumatised. It has created an atmosphere of fear and silence in many areas.
The other aspect of human rights is freedom of expression and assembly, and they have also been severely curtailed. Journalists face violence, censorship and threats, which inhibits their ability to report on issues affecting the province. People are denied the space to peacefully assemble and express their grievances. Recently, a historic and powerful long march was led from the capital of Quetta to Islamabad by Baloch women, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said. That purpose of that march was to demand an end to the practice of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial murders and the state brutality of the Pakistan army. The marchers faced violence by the state authorities and were abused and arrested after reaching Islamabad. During a 32-day sit-in to demand that those who had been forcibly abducted were produced in courts, the marchers, mainly women and children, faced threats, intimidation and harassment on a daily basis. They were forced to return to Quetta after this level of intimidation and harassment from state agencies, and now the families who participated in the march are receiving threats and cases are being registered against them. Dr Mahrang Baloch, who led the march, is receiving serious death threats and her life is in danger. There has been a recent increase in enforced disappearances—in fact, the tragedy is that enforced disappearances of Baloch political activists, students and teachers has almost become the norm now. Dead bodies of the forcibly abducted are constantly being found as a result of these extrajudicial murders.
Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)
I would like to echo my right hon. Friend’s admiration for the courage of the women leading the long march to Islamabad from across Balochistan, raising awareness of human rights abuses in the region. Does he also share my grave concerns about Pakistan’s treatment of Afghan refugees who have fled to the country? There are reports that Pakistani authorities have subjected them to arbitrary arrest, detention, harassment and ill-treatment. Will he join in calling on our Government to not just end the cruel treatment of refugees who come to Britain, but urge Pakistani authorities to end their inhumane treatment of Afghan refugees?
John McDonnell
A pattern of impunity seems to have developed with regard to the Pakistan security and state forces, which is reflected in what is happening in Balochistan and what is happening to Afghan refugees in particular. Many of us have constituents whose families are still facing severe intimidation in Pakistan, although they have fled from Afghanistan, and are now being forced back across the border, putting their lives at risk. There is a real issue here. I know the Government have taken up these issues, and we need to ensure that we maintain those representations on the Pakistan authority. The political instability within Pakistan over the recent elections does not help. The point made by my hon. Friend is extremely valid.
As I said, it is now a regular occurrence for the dead bodies of those forcibly abducted to be dumped as part of the “kill and dump” policy. I wrote to the Foreign Secretary to raise my concerns about the wave of recent human rights abuses, and I am grateful to Lord Ahmad, the Minister of State, for his positive response expressing the Government’s concerns and the serious representations the Government have made to the Pakistan authorities. His letter was extremely helpful and deserves wider publicity. He has made it absolutely clear that he has discussed the need to uphold human rights in meetings with the caretaker Foreign Minister in Pakistan, and he has raised the issue of the enforced disappearances directly as well. We hope that the Pakistan authorities are listening, but unfortunately, to date, despite the strength of our representations, the pattern of behaviour goes on.
The Baloch diaspora, human rights organisations and activists across the globe in many countries have called for independent investigations into the human rights abuses and the holding to account of those found responsible. Despite the challenges and risks, Baloch activists have taken to various platforms to raise awareness of their cause. They have used social media, international conferences, and dialogue with human rights organisations, and worked assiduously to shed light on the situation as it now is. The goal is to garner international attention, support and solidarity to press for their demands. That is what this debate is about.
The demands are straightforward: an end to the military operations, emphasising the need for a peaceful resolution of disputes as they now are; human rights protection and an end to human rights abuses, particularly enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings; resource rights for the Baloch people to gain the benefits from their natural resources of natural gas, minerals and their strategic location; and cultural preservation and the protection of culture, language and heritage, which are integral to the Baloch identity. The demand for freedom has also risen again—the movement that seeks complete independence of Balochistan from all occupying powers. The Baloch people aspire to participate in governance and policymaking and determination of their own destiny. The vision for Balochistan’s future that many hold to is one of a community that is empowered, prosperous and resilient, but founded on the principles of justice, human rights and the realisation of the Baloch people’s long-awaited aspirations for self-determination.
However, those are the objectives. The immediate issue is the deterioration of the situation in Balochistan, which demands immediate attention from our Government and other Governments across the globe. The plight of the Baloch people cannot be overlooked any longer. We therefore need concerted efforts to address their grievances.
I am pleased with the Government’s actions so far, and I would like to briefly raise a number of other issues with the Minister. On bilateral aid and development projects, how is the UK’s foreign aid to Pakistan being utilised, especially in the promotion of human rights and democracy? Can we make sure that safeguards are in place to ensure that aid does not indirectly support or enable human rights abuses? Given the recent marches and protests against the disappearances in Balochistan, what further steps can the UK Government and Parliament take to ensure the safety and rights of the protesters and march participants? Could the Government exert further pressure on the Pakistani authorities to respect the rights to peacefully assemble and to expression, and to respond to the demands of the marchers with dialogue rather than crackdowns?
On international collaboration for human rights monitoring, will the UK Government work with international partners and organisations to monitor human rights in Pakistan more effectively? Maybe the UK Government could take a role in co-ordinating the application of international pressure to ensure accountability for human rights violations. What measures can the UK Government take to support civil society organisations and human rights defenders in Pakistan, and how can their safety and freedom of operation be ensured?
How do UK-Pakistan trade policies consider human rights issues? Should trade agreements include clauses that promote human rights and require regular assessments of the human rights situation, particularly when we have seen perpetrators like Pakistan ignore many of the basic foundations of international law? How can we support international human rights bodies, such as the UN Human Rights Council, to investigate and address human rights abuses in Balochistan? Could the UK advocate for a special session or resolution focusing on Balochistan?
Finally, on the protection of refugees and asylum seekers, could we look at how asylum policies are being applied to those coming from Balochistan, who are in fear of their lives? On that basis, can we also look at the ways in which we can co-operate with others on security matters with regard to the protection of human rights, particularly of those people fleeing to come here?
I hope the debate will be the start of an ongoing dialogue to secure the human rights of the people of Balochistan. I thank the Government for their work so far. I think the concerns I have raised are shared by the Government and by all political parties across the House. The issue for us now is how we move forward to have effective influence on the Pakistani Government to ensure that the freedoms of the Balochi people are protected.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) for this important debate and his focus on raising awareness of the challenges faced by the people of Balochistan. As he said, the Minister of State for South Asia, Lord Ahmad, is unable to take part in the debate, so I am happy to respond on behalf of the Government, noting the right hon. Member’s questions. There are some to which I may not be able to provide a detailed answer today, but I will ensure that Lord Ahmad does so.
Specifically on the question of aid, we have a rolling programme—the AAWAZ II programme—that brings together influential community and faith leaders and minority representatives to work on resolving local issues and to change behaviours. The programme works with the Government to try to improve protection and justice services for victims of gender-based violence. In particular, the focus on women and girls’ rights and gender equality in Pakistan is at the centre of that ongoing programme, which has so far reached over 24 million people.
I will start with a few words on Pakistan. Of course, the UK and Pakistan enjoy a close and long-standing relationship, underpinned by strong links between our people. Less than two weeks ago, the people of Pakistan voted in long-awaited elections for both their national and provincial assemblies. The following day, on 9 February, the Foreign Secretary issued a statement in which he highlighted serious concerns about the fairness and the lack of inclusivity of those elections. He urged the authorities in Pakistan to uphold fundamental human rights, including free access to information and the rule of law. That includes the right to a fair trial, and to an independent and transparent judicial system.
Members will be aware that Pakistan is one of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s human rights priority countries due to our concerns over the challenges facing many of its citizens. As the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington highlighted, disturbing practices, such as enforced disappearances, torture while in custody and extrajudicial killings, are reported across Pakistan. Many of those credible reports of human rights abuses come from Balochistan, which is the subject of this debate.
Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest and most sparsely populated province. While it is rich in natural resources, it also has the highest levels of illiteracy, malnutrition and infant mortality in Pakistan. The security situation is particularly challenging, and the FCDO advises against all travel to the province except for its southern coast, where we advise against all but essential travel. There are significant levels of instability and violence, including from separatist militia groups conducting terrorist acts, some in the name of Baloch independence from the Pakistani state.
The heightened terrorist threat was demonstrated recently when dozens of people were killed in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan, in attacks the day before the elections that I mentioned. On election day itself, more than 20 explosions and rocket attacks were reported outside polling stations in the province, killing four and injuring over a dozen people. Many members of Pakistan’s armed forces and police have also lost their lives in Balochistan; my thoughts are with all those affected by those acts of violence. The reality is that that fragile security situation has hampered the UK’s diplomatic and development work in the region. I will try to address that in a little more detail.
The Pakistani military maintains a strong presence in Balochistan. The Government claim that they are taking necessary action against those using violence, but local and international human rights organisations, as set out by the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, allege that the Pakistani authorities are responsible for abuses, including extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. As colleagues have mentioned, the long march by an extraordinary group of Baloch women in December to Islamabad, where they participated in a sit-in protest seeking to draw attention to the situation in Balochistan, demanding justice and calling for the UN to deploy a fact-finding investigation into the region, was an extraordinary demonstration of the power of peaceful protest at its finest.
Of course, the issue is long standing. The delegation of the UN working group on enforced or involuntary disappearances visited Pakistan back in 2012. The report from that delegation of UN experts welcomed the Government’s will to tackle the issue, but noted that serious challenges remained. The UN working group at the time received over 1,000 allegations of enforced disappearances from within Pakistan between 1980 and 2019, with more than 700 people still missing. Pakistan has made some efforts to deal with enforced disappearances. In 2010, Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior set up a committee to investigate the reports, and the following year its supreme court launched a commission of inquiry into those cases so that law enforcement agencies could listen to the concerns of the families involved. Those were of course welcome steps, but we recognise that more than a decade has passed since the introduction of those initiatives and considerable issues still remain unresolved.
Let me be clear: the UK absolutely and strongly condemns any instances of extrajudicial killings or enforced disappearances, which have such a damaging and destructive impact on families, communities and the rule of law. We cannot allow those practices to continue unchecked, and we urge Pakistan to investigate fully allegations, prosecute those responsible and provide justice to victims. The UK regularly raises our human rights concerns with the Government of Pakistan, including in support of freedom of expression, the rights of minorities and women, and the importance of an independent and transparent judicial system.
Our high commissioner is in regular touch with the caretaker Minister for Human Rights, and our political counsellor recently met senior officials in the Ministry of Human Rights to discuss the issue of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in Balochistan. The British high commission in Pakistan engages routinely with Baloch politicians based in Karachi and Islamabad to gain insights on the politics of the region and to help us to assess the security situation, and hopes to visit Quetta when the security situation allows.
Lord Ahmad raised the issue of enforced disappearances with the then Minister for Human Rights in June 2023, and he looks forward to meeting Pakistan’s new Minister in that role once the new Government are fully formed. In the meantime, we are continuing to work with our international partners, civil society and human rights defenders to raise those human rights issues with the Government of Pakistan. The security challenges and safety situation in Balochistan make supporting developing programmes there more difficult than in other parts of Pakistan, but of course some of our most important international development programmes in Pakistan support positive outcomes in Balochistan and elsewhere across the country.
Our educational initiatives in particular are helping to provide more robust data on education to improve the quality of schooling across Pakistan, including in Balochistan. In 2022, the UK Government provided humanitarian assistance in the form of emergency shelter, hygiene items and nutritional support in the province during the devastating floods.
John McDonnell
I am grateful to the Minister for what she has said so far. Can I raise two points with her? One is the issue regarding the current safety of those who have protested, particularly Dr Mahrang Baloch, whose life, I believe, is under severe threat. What representations can we make to the Pakistan authorities to ensure her safety? It is too easy for the Pakistan authorities to accuse civil society organisations of being linked with, or of supporting, terrorists. The Pakistan Government do not seem to recognise civil society organisations as being able to peacefully express their views, and therefore, unfortunately, at times they react in the way they do—by branding every organisation with the same tag.
Secondly, Lord Ahmad has done good work, and I would very grateful if a number of us could meet him to talk through some of these issues, so that we can have an ongoing dialogue—particularly on monitoring what is happening at the moment, and the threat to individuals and organisations. That is ongoing, particularly because of instability within Pakistan itself.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
I absolutely take the right hon. Gentleman’s important point on the question of Dr Mahrang Baloch’s current safety; I will pick that up with the team at the high commission and make sure he is updated. Sadly, it is not only with the Pakistani authorities that we see the inability to understand and respect the voices of civil society, their peaceful protests, and their willingness to share its concerns through peaceful means—and the constraining of those voices. I think we are all agreed that those countries that sit under the areas of concern that we highlight are often the ones that are simply not willing to understand or separate the two.
I have no doubt that I can commit Lord Ahmad to a meeting with the right hon. Gentleman and others in due course. Together they can discuss what we all agree is a continuing deep concern about the human rights abuses in Balochistan that have been highlighted today— in particular, the extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. I know that if Lord Ahmad were here, he would say the same. He is looking forward, as are the team in the high commission, to working with the new Government, as they take up their posts, across a range of shared interests, and to continuing to focus and engage on those human rights issues specifically.
To finish, I echo the Foreign Secretary’s recent statement where he set out his hope that the next Government of Pakistan will understand that they must be accountable to all the people that they serve, and indeed
“work to represent the interests of all Pakistan’s citizens and communities with equity and justice.”
Question put and agreed to.
11.29 am
Sitting suspended.
Off-road Biking
(10 months ago)
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Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of tackling off-road biking.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Latham. A core part of our role as Members of Parliament is to advocate for the safety and protection of our constituents; indeed, the principal role of Government is to ensure the safety and security of all citizens. One threat to citizens feeling safe and secure is antisocial behaviour, in particular the misuse of off-road bikes and quad bikes.
I make no apologies for raising this issue again, which has previously been raised here in the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers); in fact, it has been raised by many other Members, too, in recent years. The fact that there have been debates, parliamentary questions and now a private Member’s Bill on this subject should tell the Government that it is an issue in our communities and that although there are measures to help address the problem, it has not gone away.
Off-road bikes and quad bikes are great pieces of equipment. They are great for going scrambling on or for getting around rural farmland; essentially, those are their legal and intended purposes. They were not designed to be used on our streets by people intent on causing terror and fear; they were not designed to be used by criminals wearing balaclavas or masks to evade police detection; and they were not designed to create a noise nuisance and safety fear in our community. Yet in Darlington, those things are precisely what we see happening. Indeed, we continue to see them happening and I know, having spoken to colleagues from across the House, that they see the same issues in their constituencies.
Reckless bikers have no care for others, nor do they seem to care about themselves when they opt not to wear a helmet and instead don balaclavas, for no other reason than to conceal their identity. They sail through red lights and ride on pavements, all without lights. It is a miracle that we have not yet seen the tragic death of a pedestrian, a rider or both, such is the danger this issue poses. I will not wait around until such an event happens, which is why I continue to raise this issue.
I pay tribute to Durham constabulary and to Darlington’s civic enforcement team for their work on Operation Endurance, which focuses on this issue. Operation Endurance sees the team gather data and monitor intelligence on these people, so that we can take action to disrupt them and stop their offending. There has been a big campaign to encourage residents to report any nuisance bikers, who will then face punishment. However, poor performance of the 101 service has meant that many members of the public are losing faith with this service and are not reporting as much as they could and should, meaning that the police have less intelligence than otherwise to tackle the problem.
Op Endurance has seen more bikes seized by police and if the perpetrators are Darlington council tenants, they could potentially lose their home. Section 59 orders under the Police Reform Act 2002 enable officers to seize vehicles that are being used illegally. However, that process must be made as quick and easy to use as possible by officers.
It is absolutely right that those who disrupt civilised society pay a price, and I welcome the efficiency with which the forces in Darlington deal with such criminals. I would value hearing the Minister’s thoughts on how we can ensure that the process of dealing with these people, when they are reported, gets sorted as soon as possible, and does he agree that they should automatically have their vehicle removed and should be prevented from buying another one in the future?
We also must reflect on what to do with the seized vehicles. Currently, the police recoup the recovery and storage charges for seized vehicles by auctioning them off. However, that leads to a merry-go-round of offenders buying back vehicles. Our forces need a ring-fenced pot of money to enable them to crush these vehicles and meet the costs of recovery.
To ensure that the police can act, we must make sure that the mechanisms to report are fit for purpose. In a previous debate, I have spoken about speeding up the response times of the 101 service, because these are fast-moving incidents that require intelligence to be passed quickly to the police.
There has long been a discussion about registration schemes for off-road bikes. I understand that the Government do not believe that the introduction of a mandatory registration scheme would be the most effective way to tackle dangerous and antisocial use, but it would certainly help. As we see more e-bikes, e-scooters and various other motorised transport, the problem is only going to continue to escalate. The current view is that registration would place a burden and a cost on law-abiding citizens. I understand that view, but law-abiding insurance payers meet the cost of damage caused by those who steal and cause damage every day. It is clear to me that when vehicles are registered, the possibility of people misusing them is lower. I therefore urge the Minister to look at ways of registering these bikes, which could deter the people who misuse them and make those people easier to track, trace and ban from offending further.
I remain an advocate of compulsory insurance for off-road and quad bikes, which would dissuade the casual user from illegal use of bikes on the road. Compulsory registration of off-road bikes would make the identification of those vehicles much easier for law enforcement. Mandating manufacturers to install immobilisers on those vehicles would also help to reduce theft and misuse by unauthorised riders. We really do need to see the Home Office, the Department for Transport and the Ministry of Justice work more closely on a package of measures to tackle the antisocial behaviour associated with off-road bikes.
Sir Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate on an important subject. From what he said earlier, it sounded to me like a lot of the antisocial behaviour was taking place in inner cities, and not necessarily off road—albeit, on the pavement is off road, but not in terms of an urban or rural environment. Does he welcome the Government’s £160 million for tackling antisocial behaviour, and can he assure me that legitimate, sensible and responsible users are not dragged down by the sort of people he is referring to, who bring us all into disrepute?
Peter Gibson
Of course, I welcome any additional funding from the Government to tackle antisocial behaviour. There is a very clear distinction between lawful, legitimate users of these vehicles, who go about their business lawfully, and those who are terrorising a street by misusing them, so I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention.
Our constituents will thank us for tackling this problem and making our streets safer. The registering, insuring and tracking of vehicles would also help to protect farmers, who have thousands of quad bikes stolen every year. The National Farmers Union’s figures for 2022 estimate that this comes at a cost of some £3 million to our farmers, who are the backbones of our rural communities.
As well as deterrents and justice being served, an ongoing issue that we see in Darlington and across the country is actually catching offenders. Police are often unable to chase them as they tear through communities, making them difficult to track and trace. That is why we need to see greater investment in technology to track them. I have spent time with my local force, which is using high-powered drones that can see over considerable distances to help to track perpetrators, enabling the police to safely arrest offenders without the need to engage in dangerous chases on the street. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s thoughts on what more can be done with drones and the funding that the Government will provide for them.
In addition to the antisocial behaviour being a danger to communities like mine impacted by this issue, it is also clear that organised crime gangs are making use of cycle paths, quad bikes and off-road bikes to distribute drugs. Therefore, there is not only the crime of the behaviour of the bikers; they are often also involved in the dark trade of transporting illegal substances. That is yet another reason why we must end this abuse of the system. As well as causing a danger to other vehicles, pedestrians and livestock, by supplying drugs, these people are adding yet another layer of crime and danger to our communities.
Finally, I want to thank the Minister for the progress that has already been made on this issue and for the investment in drones and the efficiency of tracking the criminals. Equally, I urge the Minister to consider my suggestions. We must see better response times from the 101 service and the introduction of insurance, registration and tracking devices on the vehicles. We must end the merry-go-round of offenders being able to pick up another bike and take every step possible to make our communities safer.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I did not expect to be called so early, Mrs Latham, so thank you for doing so. I congratulate the hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) on securing this debate on a subject that I have some knowledge of, primarily because of my role as an MP. It is clear to me that there are people who use quads legitimately. The hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin), who intervened earlier, is probably in the same category as me. There are those who use them for a purpose, but there are others who abuse the system. I will refer to both categories.
As a landowner, I have quads on the land to help with farming and basic upkeep. They are an essential tool. We had one for the boys when they were small, probably for fun, but now we use it for a purpose. It is used on the farm almost every day of the week. I know a number of farmers who use a motorbike to help them move their livestock across their fields, and they also use a motorbike or a quad in areas that their jeeps or tractors have difficulty crossing. It is probably niftier and quicker on a quad than it is on a tractor or a four-wheel drive.
I taught my boys early to use a quad safely and to enjoy doing so. I am all for the appropriate use of scramblers and quads as needed. However, I also made it clear to my boys at an early stage, and now to my grandchildren, that those were for use on our own land, with an awareness of the impact on other people’s land. In other words, they do not use them anywhere else unless it is legitimate or permission has been granted.
Such consideration used to be universally accepted, but increasingly I come across farmers who are upset at the high level of damage to their crop land by those who come with their quads or scramblers and set up a cross-country course. This has also been a problem on council land, with actual tracks set up without permission or, indeed, insurance in place, so there is an issue if something goes wrong. Many landowners find themselves in a difficult position if they have not taken steps to stop it happening. If somebody has an accident on the land, they could find themselves culpable for any injuries.
I have been at the home of people whose peace and quiet has been destroyed by scramblers on wasteland behind them and whose fence and property have also been damaged. It is clear that councils need to have greater fines and enforcement powers to help deal with the antisocial behaviour problems that off-road bikes cause.
I also wish to put on record that Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick in the House of Lords and I pushed for legislation to have a safety roll bar over the tops of quads because a friend of ours was killed in an accident on a quad. We feel that safety is important and pertinent. That is not the Minister’s responsibility, but I want to highlight that issue and ensure that quads are safe for those who use them.
On the usage of land, I wish to differentiate between organised groups and individuals who have no care or thought for others. I offer my support to those who wish to find areas to carry out and enjoy their sport sensibly and responsibly with insurance in place. I worked with a motorbike group involved in scrambling. When I was on the council before coming to this place in 2010, I worked alongside them and other representatives to ensure that they got some land to use at the Whitespots between Newtownards and Bangor. They wanted to do it correctly and provide insurance cover. There are organisations that wish to do that, and we should work alongside them, to ensure that their sport can be delivered. That was done in partnership with Ards Borough Council, which is now known as Ards and North Down Borough Council. The council plans for Conlig and Whitespots include setting aside that portion of land for that group, which seeks safety and does not want to annoy people, in a way that is controlled, regulated and monitored. There are ways to do that.
My local council has sought to provide land to host scheduled organised events, such as the Ulster MTB XC championships, held at Whitespots, but it has neither the finances or manpower to provide good circuits and venues to help facilitate this sensible sport, without help and support from central Government. I add my voice to calls for councils to receive additional funding. That portion of land that we got from the council some time ago was land exclusively for the club’s use, so it does not match the requirements and regulations of an organised event. That is why that was unable to be taken forward.
In closing, my three boys were blessed with space to enjoy their quads. My grandchildren—the two eldest girls of eight and 14—are also blessed to have the same opportunity to use the quad on our land. I believe that the Government can step up to help provide facilities to give a standard of safety, as well as prevent farmland and livestock from being harmed by those who see a field and just want a wee jaunt.
Let us recognise that there is a valid sport, with a need to be helped, but those who have no care must be held accountable. Those are the people the hon. Member for Darlington referred to—those who have total disrespect. We have to draw a differential between the two: those who do it legitimately and try to work within the law, and those who disregard the law. Today’s debate is important to highlight the issue, as the hon. Member for Darlington has done, and others will do shortly. Although not responsible for Northern Ireland, the Minister is always very responsible and comes back with answers to our questions.
I always try to add a Northern Ireland perspective to a debate; colleagues would never expect anything else from an MP from Northern Ireland. I think it adds to the debate and gives an idea of what we have done in my constituency of Strangford, working alongside clubs to make it happen, while highlighting the issue of those who have no regard for landowners. We need to ensure that the law of the land is in place so that it can regulate and punish, if necessary, those who damage land or property.
Jill Mortimer (Hartlepool) (Con)
I, too, thank my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) for securing this important debate. I have spoken on this subject previously in the House, alongside colleagues, including my hon. Friend, because we are desperate to fight this blight, which causes so much damage to our communities.
Off-road bikes plague Hartlepool and are prevalent across Teesside. Although the name suggests they are normally found on farmland, they can often be seen driving around our marina, streets and even main roads. They storm through parks and playgrounds, along our headland, and even destroy constituents’ front lawns. If the appearance of a young person wearing a balaclava, riding a heavy off-road bike, heading towards a young family is not intimidating, their lack of regard for the laws of our roads will be. The bikes do not have licensing or insurance, and those riding them show no understanding of the highway code.
My main concerns, of course, lie with the safety and quality of life of Hartlepool’s residents. I am worried about the distractions posed by these young people showboating along central reservations, the constant noise pollution, and how they are completely camouflaged in the darkness, with no reflective wear or helmets. I fear for the victims of the accidents they will cause; it is only a matter of time before innocent people are seriously hurt or worse, because of the riders’ complete disregard for others’ safety.
I speak on behalf of many frustrated constituents who have shared their experiences with me, although I only need to drive from Throston to West View to experience it, or stand on the cliffs near Steetley pier to see the bikes haring up and down where people are walking with prams, pushchairs, dogs and children.
I will share an anecdote from my inbox this morning, to fill in the colour of how common an occurrence this is. I was unsurprised to receive emails from a constituent overnight, sharing photographs showing how owners of illegal off-road bikes had been spinning their back wheels on the driveway so that dirt was spread right across the road, the footpath and up the wall of their house. Another contacted me to share how they were unable to get a full night’s sleep because of roaring engines outside their bedroom window. That is just this morning’s inbox.
This is no fault of Cleveland police, who continue to provide a country-leading effort to tackle the issue, but my concern is rising, as year on year the issue only appears to get worse, despite the 267 extra police in Cleveland and funding secured towards hotspot policing. Cleveland police are leading the UK in techniques to tackle off-road bikes, but are still reliant on anonymous tips from residents coming forward to report neighbours. Operation Endurance has been ongoing since 2017, and includes techniques such as seizing vehicles and patrolling, but for a force that is already under strain, I cannot help but felt that other enforcement techniques should be put into play. Today, anyone seen riding an off-road bike in Hartlepool will have their vehicle seized on the spot by the police. I do think that those young people fear the consequences, should they be caught—but they just do not believe that they will be.
Introducing compulsory insurance would be a first step to removing off-road bikes from our roads and for those driving them to take full responsibility. The second step is to regulate the sale of the bikes, including off-road bikes, quads, electric bikes and scooters. That would make identifying illegal off-road bikes and their users much simpler for law enforcement, freeing up crucial police time.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington said, off-road bikes go hand-in-hand with antisocial behaviour, and are often used to transport drugs or to act as a quick getaway from other crime scenes. The young people riding the bikes make little effort to deny that, shielding their identities through wearing balaclavas or masks. If our police were able to quickly scan a number plate to pull up the owner’s details, that anonymity would be removed. More importantly, the bikes would be less likely to find themselves in the wrong hands from the outset.
One thing is clear: we need to do more to stop the scourge of off-road bikes. I ask the Minister to consider the steps we have suggested—insurance and a register. People who are using these bikes innocently, on farmland, as I have myself, are already insured and will not object to having bikes registered. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) pointed out, it would also be a good idea to provide facilities for riding the bikes properly. That would put some clear water between those who use them recreationally and those who use them for criminal activity. I ask the Minister to consider what more can be done and thank him for the steps already taken.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
Thank you, Mrs Latham, for calling me to speak in this debate. I did not intend to speak, but some issues have been raised that I feel strongly about. I declare that I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on motorcycling, so I take a very specific interest in the issue as a licence holder and bike rider for recreational and commuting purposes.
There are a couple of issues that the Government could grasp here. We wrestle with the issue of wayward youth, verging on criminality—and I think there are a couple of things that can be done. Young people want the exhilaration of speed and the enjoyment of a bike or a quad, and unfortunately they do not always get to do that with good parental control or wise adult supervision, so they can go wayward. It is important to try to stop it at that point.
In Northern Ireland, we developed a scheme where the Department of Justice and the police, recognising that there was a problem in parts of Belfast and County Antrim, brought together a motorcycle club and a very active individual within the motorcycle fraternity who was able to bring the young people together, speak to them on the street and encourage them to come to a track set aside for them. They were encouraged and shown how to develop their motorcycling skills, which means they have become competent riders, both off and on-road. They were then taught how to maintain and manage their motorcycle, as a lot of them are used illegally and do not have proper braking equipment or proper lighting, and are not properly regulated, licensed or looked after. They were shown how to maintain the bike and have pride in the machinery they were using, and therefore to see it not as a reckless, youthful toy but as what it should be seen as: a helpful and productive piece of machinery that can be used sensibly and help them in their daily lives.
That process has taken young people who were right on the verge of doing stupid things with their lives and lifted them into an area where they have pride in and recognise the importance of motorcycling, but also recognise the danger of both motorcycling and using quads illegally. They have become advocates and ambassadors to other young people in their areas, reaching a very hard-to-reach section of the community. That was a brilliant, one-off programme that achieved some fantastic results. I have tried to encourage the police across Northern Ireland to roll that programme out, not just in other parts of Northern Ireland but across the UK, and to learn from it. We are at the cutting edge; we are doing something important for that wayward youth element.
Unfortunately, we also have another section of people who are involved in criminality with regard to quads. They are reckless, dangerous and do not care, and they put people’s lives at risk; unfortunately, people have lost their lives. A few years ago, a lovely young woman in west Belfast lost her life when an off-road motorcycle hit her and killed her outright. Two of my constituents—two young kids—lost their lives riding motorcycles in an unlawful way, and the tragedy had such a massive and heavy impact on the housing estate where those kids were from and the local community.
We have to encourage people to stay away. The consequences of getting this wrong—one wrong turn, one broken brake lever, one gear missed and someone is hit—for the rider, the pedestrian or both are significant and life-changing. We have to make sure that that is understood. I know those quad deaths and off-road motorcycle deaths are awful for people, so we need to tackle the issue. I encourage the police here to address the issue in the way that we have tried to with the pilot programme in Northern Ireland—to lift that into the national picture.
We should look at the quantities: there are 1.5 million daily motorcycle riders in the UK and a further 3.5 million motorcycle licence holders in the UK. That is a massive section of the community—most people will know someone who rides a bike—and the subject therefore generates significant interest across society. I encourage the Minister to look at some of the programme work that has been done, and even to visit, and then to say, “Yes, this pilot could be lifted and applied elsewhere.” That way, we could start to address some of the problems identified in the very able speeches made across the Chamber and see progress.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Latham. I congratulate the hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) on securing the debate, and all those who have contributed. The hon. Member was right to make a robust case in favour of the reforms he mentioned. This is a real and significant issue. All our constituencies are of a slightly different nature, as we have heard, but the issue is having an impact in all our communities in some way, and in many of our communities in a really serious way. The recklessness that the hon. Member talked about is having everyday consequences, which I will unpack in a little bit.
I was particularly struck by the point made by the hon. Member for Darlington about the merry-go-round of auctioned-off products then being re-entered and chased again. We have clearly not reached where we need to be in deciding what the final sanction ought to be for those who misuse this technology in the ways that they do. For me, the final destination is crushing: that is the ultimate sanction, which should provide some awareness of the consequences of misusing this technology.
This issue will be hugely important over the next few years. If, even as recently as the last general election, when we were returned to this place, we had said that by the end of the Parliament we would be talking about what are now seeing—millions of illegal journeys on our roads across the whole year, and that is before we get to what the hon. Gentleman says has happened off-road—I think we would have been surprised, but that is essentially what we have now. We have new technologies that mean that people are using roads and riding off-road in ways that we were not expecting, and in ways that they are not personally covered for and that those who fall victim to them might not be either.
In my community, I think in particular of a woman from just outside my constituency, Linda Davis, who was 71 years old when she was killed by a 14-year-old riding a privately owned e-scooter on the pavements. That is a shocking story, and it is obviously terrible for her family, but as the hon. Gentleman said, we are seeing those sorts of journeys on pavements throughout the country. Indeed, as the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer) said, “off road” is perhaps not the most useful distinction, because it literally means anything that is not the road itself, yet we are seeing this across all aspects of our community, whether on the pavements, as in that case, or on the headland, as she mentioned. This place needs to catch up with that, because behaviour change and technology change are currently outpacing us.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made some important points about the legitimate uses for these technologies. Indeed, they are essential in rural communities and for those operating rural businesses, and we should recognise that those people have a long, established record of using the technology properly. He gave the example from his own family of passing it down across generations, and of responsible ownership and usage, and said that actually it can be good sport as well—he talked about an example from outside Newtownards. It should not be beyond us to promote a regime in which that is possible.
As the hon. Gentleman said, this is not just an urban-versus-rural issue. He talked about the damage that can be done to fields, crops or livestock, which would also frustrate those rural business owners who are doing the right thing. As I say, these two things do not have to be in competition; however, he also talked about disrespect, which is what I think sits at the root of this issue. I will come to this when I make some points of my own, but that brings us to what we do about antisocial behaviour in this country—how we measure it and match up against it.
The hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) talked about how we could turn this into something positive and use it as a diversionary activity. I have to say that speeding around on a motorbike is not for me, but for millions of people it is, as he says, and we know that it can be attractive for young people. We can make that work for us. I think of the wonderful Crisp Vocational Provision in my constituency, which offers alternative provision to young people for whom mainstream education is not working by using this sort of industry, and particularly motor cars, as a way to connect with them, develop their interests and channel that energy into a positive place. We can do that too, so there could already be some positives from this debate.
Just to make a few points of my own, people who are going about their business, whatever it may be, should not have to contend with people riding off-road bikes, often without helmets and with face coverings, as we have heard, or perhaps without tax and insurance, churning up public and private land and creating other sorts of damage. We know that dangerous riding can put road users and pedestrians at risk of injury if they lose control of their vehicles, which, when we think of how they are sometimes ridden—wheelies down the middle of the road—is not unforeseeable.
Again, I think of an example from my own community —which happily we have been able to resolve to a significant degree—where residents of a care home for older people said that they did not want to leave and go into town, which was just down the road. Because the road has humps, bikes would come down the pavement instead, so as not to be restricted by the humps, and in many cases they had physically knocked people over. That was having a real quality-of-life impact on those residents, and of course the same thing can play out in a countryside setting or when people are walking their dogs.
I think this myself when I am walking the dog: when he is off the lead running around and I hear that buzz, which can be hard to place, it is a moment of panic. I would like to say that I have full control of the dog and he always listens to me, but he is still a dog, and we know that the riders often do not have full control, or may not see the dog. That is a moment of real risk when I think the dog is going to get hit, so I instantly charge around, get the dog on the lead and leave, and I see various other people do that, with parents and children scattering as well. There are real consequences to this behaviour, and it is really sad.
I am not going to do too much political analysis, but I know the Minister will; we have to do a little bit each. The sense of powerlessness in communities—that these things just happen to them now and that is the reality in their towns—is a sad thing. This is an issue of antisocial behaviour, but we are still learning from the impact and experience of having 10,000 fewer police officers on the beat. They are being added back, but we have seen 20,000 overall losses, which means there are now 10,000 fewer police officers and police community support officers on the frontline.
Police officers have a huge impact on creating a deterrent but—I know the Government are moving on this, and I am sure the Minister will say something about this—our police are not crime counters. Our police should be problem solvers, and this is one of those local problems that needs to be solved. Some of the solutions may involve the physical environment and how we can configure it to make sure that people are not recklessly travelling around, but other solutions will be more positive. As the hon. Members for North Antrim and for Strangford said, those solutions should involve channelling that energy elsewhere—that is what we want to see from proper neighbourhood and community policing.
At the moment we have a situation in which 50% of the population say that they no longer see police on their streets, and we know that 90% of crimes currently go unsolved. Our police are making the best of what is available to them, but they are stretched too thinly. We need the restoration of problem solving and hotspot policing so that communities are not defenceless and powerless, and so that they can start to take that power back.
I wonder whether the Minister will make some interesting points, because we have had the conversation about registration. The case for registration is strong, but my anxiety with it is that I fear it might fall on those who do the right thing, and that those who choose not to follow law—as they are not doing in this case—will try to work round it. That loop could be closed with detection. The Minister and I had significant conversations about that during the passage of the Criminal Justice Bill—indeed, with you in the Chair, Mrs Latham.
On the use of technology, this problem is fundamentally a new and novel challenge driven by technology, and the solutions may well be there too. I know that the Minister has a short, medium and very long version of his facial recognition speech, and I am not trying to bait that longer version out of him again. Facial recognition software would not always be useful because of mask wearing, but it could be useful in many cases. Has he considered it with regard to off-road biking?
I want to take this opportunity to talk about what I think is a limiting factor in how we can tackle this problem: our data collection on antisocial behaviour. There is significant variety across the country in how antisocial behaviour is reported and dealt with, so it would be very difficult to compare even Derbyshire with Nottinghamshire—never mind the rest of our communities—when considering prioritisation. What are the Minister’s thoughts on better data collection in respect of off-road biking? We all clearly face the same problem, but I do not think we are able to understand it, in either an aggregate or comparative sense. Getting a grip of it and adequate resourcing are likely to be challenges as well, as will be building public confidence. I hope we will come back to that in due course.
I shall finish by saying that we are legislators, so there is a temptation to fall on legislation as a solution to all our problems, but I am not sure that that would work in this case. This is a behaviour problem and a respect problem. The issue is the fact that we have not competed on our streets on the side of the vast majority who do the right thing. Better and more active community policing that solves problems and is based around hotspots is a better model than the one we have had over the past 14 years. I suspect we might hear something similar from the Minister—I hope so—but there remains a resourcing issue, because we are short by 10,000 important pairs of boots. I hope we hear more from the Minister on the Government’s commitment in that respect.
This is an issue that is not going away. We will keep coming back to it because every day as we open social media or our emails, as the hon. Member for Hartlepool did, there will be more evidence of this happening, time and again. People are rightly looking to us for action, and we need to ensure that we meet that expectation.
The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
It is a pleasure to serve once again under your chairmanship, Mrs Latham. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) on securing this important debate. As has been said, this is a question that comes up quite often, and a number of hon. Members, some of whom are here and some of whom are not, have raised this issue over recent months.
I will start by making some remarks about antisocial behaviour more widely. I agree with the comments made by my hon. Friends the Members for Darlington and for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer), the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) that antisocial behaviour is something we should take extremely seriously. It causes people to feel a sense of menace in their own communities. It can create a sense of disorder and unease, and a sense that people’s local neighbourhoods, parks, high streets or other public places are not places of safety. That is why we should be taking all forms of antisocial behaviour, including the abuse of off-road bikes, extremely seriously.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
In Gwent, we have a regional roundtable that considers illegal off-road bikers. MPs, MSs, council officials, farmers and passionate bike riders come together to try to deal with this ongoing scourge. It is worth reporting that in recent months Gwent police has, with local councillors, launched a team, with shared prosperity funding, to look at this important, ongoing and growing issue. Does the Minister agree that sustained, strong enforcement is at the root of dealing with this difficulty? Illegal off-road bikers who badly damage our environment, endanger animal stock, intimidate hikers and dog walkers, and sometimes threaten farmers need to be dealt with properly. What police powers does he think can be brought to bear to beat this blight? Lots of my constituents are concerned about this issue. Will the Minister clarify why he has until now believed that registration is not necessary to help with this growing problem?
Chris Philp
I agree that strong enforcement is critical. We should have a zero-tolerance approach to off-road biking, as we should to all forms of antisocial behaviour. As I said, it is a menace. It makes people feel uneasy and unsafe, and there should be strong enforcement not sometimes but always, and I hope that is what Gwent police force is doing locally.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the police’s powers; I was going to come to this, but since he has asked about it, I will address it now. The most relevant power is the power the police have under section 59 of the Police Reform Act 2002 to seize vehicles, including off-road bikes, that are used antisocially. That can be the result of using a vehicle in a careless or inconsiderate manner or in a manner that causes alarm, distress or annoyance. A vehicle can also be seized under different provisions if it is being driven without insurance. There are, then, a number of powers, but particularly that section 59 power. I would expect all forces to use those powers to the fullest possible extent, and I know that Durham constabulary, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington referred, is doing that as part of its Operation Endurance.
The hon. Gentleman also asked about registration and, I suppose, the associated question of insurance. If an off-road bike is ridden or used on a public road, it needs to be insured and licensed. However, the Government are not convinced that it would be reasonable to introduce a requirement for insurance or licensing—the requirement to have a number plate—for off-road bikes driven only on private property such as farmland. Although there are significant problems, the vast majority of people who use off-road bikes privately on farmland or their own land do so reasonably and lawfully, and we do not want to impose on those lawful and reasonable owners the extra costs, which could be quite significant, of either having to register and get a number plate or having to insure. We would prefer to focus on those off-road bikes and all-terrain vehicles that are used illegally on the roads because they are uninsured or unlicensed or because they are being driven in an antisocial manner.
Before I come on to the specifics of tackling off-road bikes, which is the topic of the debate, let me say that we are taking antisocial behaviour more widely very seriously.
Nick Smith
The issue of registration is important and does need working through. On the mountain tops of our valleys in south Wales, we have thousands of acres of common land, and that is where the illegal off-road bikers spend the majority of their time. They create a proper mess, and it is really awful—it destroys our environment. What is the best way of dealing with off-road bikers on common land, which is found across large parts of the UK?
Chris Philp
I thank the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent for posing that question. I think that the requirement to have insurance under section 165 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 includes public places, and I will go away and find out whether common land counts as a public place, because that is potentially a relevant question. I will also look into whether the requirement to carry a licence plate applies just to those driving on public roads or whether it also applies on common land, which might be—I am not saying it is, but it might be—categorised as a public place. So I will look into the insurance and licence plate requirements for common land, which might be considered by the law as a public place, and write back to the hon. Gentleman with an answer. In relation to purely private land, I think that the comments I made earlier do stand.
Peter Gibson
The Minister referred to the disproportionate impact that may be felt by farmers who use off-road quad bikes in the management of their farm. Has any assessment of that been made by his Department or any other Department? Perhaps the National Farmers Union might be able to assist us with that. It is not uncommon for a farmer who uses his tractor primarily on his fields to have to go on a road. It is not uncommon for him to register his quad bike, because he may need to travel on roads. The impact a farmer would feel is perhaps relatively modest, and some further assessment could establish whether it is indeed a problem and a real barrier to the Government looking at registration. I appreciate that the Minister does not have the figures and statistics in front of him, but it would be great if he could come back to me on that point.
Chris Philp
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. Some tractors, off-road bikes and ATVs are used on farms and private land and also on the road, so they do need to be insured and licensed, but quite a few vehicles—off-road bikes and ATVs, in particular—are used exclusively on private land. My hon. Friend suggested that we could consult the National Farmers Union to ascertain its opinion. If through his good offices, he could facilitate the NFU making contact with me to offer its opinion, I would listen to it carefully. If the NFU said that the proposal would have minimal impact on its members, I would give that some consideration. If the NFU does want to make such a representation, I would be happy to look at it.
During that intervention, I obtained some clarification on the question asked by the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent. Common land counts as a public place for legal purposes. In a public place, which includes common land, a driver needs to carry registration plates and be insured. If someone is driving an ATV, such as a 4x4 quad bike or an off-road bike, on common land on top of a mountain or a large hill in the hon. Member’s constituency, or around the valleys, or anywhere else in the country for that matter, they should be licensed and insured. If they are not, that in itself is a breach of the law.
Jill Mortimer
I want to add to the comment made by my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) about bikes. Having been a farmer myself, I know that most farmers have a farm policy: bikes, quads and things used around the farm are covered on their vehicle policy, so those vehicles are insured anyway. It is very rare to find a farm so large that a farmer would never have to go across a lane to move things from field to field, so most things are already licensed and insured. I think that the impact would be minimal.
Chris Philp
I would be interested to hear representations from the NFU or any others on that specific question, but I am grateful to my hon. Friend for sharing her experience as a former farmer.
As I was saying, we want to have zero tolerance of antisocial behaviour more widely because it blights communities. In the spring of last year, we launched an action plan with a number of measures, which are now being rolled out. One of those is providing extra funding in England and Wales—there may be a Barnett consequential for Northern Ireland as well—over and above the regular police funding settlement to enable hotspot patrols in every police force area. There is £66 million of extra money in total, and the amounts vary between a minimum of £1 million per force up to about £8 million or £9 million for the largest, which is the Met. We expect that to deliver over 1 million hours of hotspot patrolling in the next financial year—it will start in April. Where the scheme has been piloted, it has been shown to be very effective, reducing antisocial behaviour and violent crime by up to 30%.
I strongly urge any Members present and any colleagues watching to ask their local chief constable or police and crime commissioner to select any areas where they are worried about antisocial behaviour for hotspot patrolling, which will then happen regularly throughout the next financial year. It will be visible to the public, but also catch and deter antisocial behaviour. Where it has been piloted—in places such as Lancashire, Staffordshire and Essex—it has been very effective.
Peter Gibson
The Minister is being incredibly generous with his time, and I thank him for highlighting hotspot policing. Darlington has had hotspot policing allocated to seven of our key wards. We can see that increased policing, but it does not solve our ongoing issues with off-road bikes. We have two police officers out on patrol providing visible policing, but they cannot chase these bikes and they have no means of identifying them. Although I fully welcome the additional funding, resources and visible policing that hotspot patrolling brings, it will not solve the underlying problems with this particular offence.
Chris Philp
I am glad that my hon. Friend welcomes hotspot policing, which will provide an opportunity for officers patrolling on foot to report to their colleagues if they see off-road bikes being used.
Let me turn to the question of catching off-road bikers behaving antisocially, which has been raised by a number of Members. First, as I said, hotspot patrolling will help to identify those people so that help can be called in. Secondly, my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington made a point about 101 response times, which vary greatly by police force. Some are very good, and some are frankly terrible. From March this year—next month—we will be publishing tables of 101 response times, as we do already for 999 response times, to shine a light on which forces are doing well and which are not. I hope that that will include not just the answer time but the abandon rate—what percentage of incoming calls get abandoned. I hope that that will shine a light on the 101 issue and provide an opportunity for those forces that are doing badly to improve their performance dramatically.
We then come to the question of how we catch people after the incident has been reported or noticed. I know there are different policies in different police forces around pursuit and what is sometimes called tactical contact. That is an operational matter for police chiefs, but I would urge chief constables, within the law and the realms of a proper approach to safety, to pursue people on ATVs and off-road bikes. If we do not pursue them, the problem just escalates.
I am a London MP, and we do not really have this problem so much here, but we did have a slightly different version of it a few years ago. People were using mopeds to commit crimes such as stealing mobile phones and expensive handbags or stealing from a shop. They would flee on a moped because Metropolitan police policy at the time—this was about four or five years ago—was not to pursue if the person on the moped was not wearing a helmet. Word soon got around that this was the case, and so-called moped-enabled crime went through the roof because criminals knew that if they were on a moped with no helmet, they would not get chased—they would just get away.
I remember having meetings with the then commissioner of the Met and other London MPs about this, urging the then commissioner to change the policy and consider pursuing and on occasion even using tactical contact, which means physical contact to stop the person. Eventually, the problem got so bad that they did adopt a pursue policy and a carefully calibrated tactical contact policy, and the problem rapidly and dramatically reduced. I would ask all chief constables around the country to keep that example in mind. I understand that they do not want to cause an injury, but equally, if we do nothing and do not pursue, the problem snowballs and gets worse and worse.
There is more we can do on technology, which a number of Members, including the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Nottingham North, mentioned. Using drones to pursue and track off-road bikes and ATVs is really important. We need to work with the Civil Aviation Authority to ensure that we can fly these drones beyond the line of sight. There are currently some restrictions, so I will meet the Civil Aviation Authority soon to try to get those relaxed for the purpose of law enforcement. I have met a company from America with a very interesting solution that is used by many American police departments, including the New York police department. They have autonomous drones that can fly to a specified location automatically, with a system that avoids crashing into buildings, electricity pylons, people and so on. I think they can even lock on to a target and pursue it automatically. They can provide video feedback to the control room. That technology solution will help us a lot.
Chris Philp
It is excellent; the hon. Gentleman should definitely look at it. Once we have got the Civil Aviation Authority regulations modified, this autonomous drone technology has enormous potential.
I am delighted that the shadow Minister mentioned facial recognition. If we can get a picture of the miscreants mounted on the ATV or the off-road bike, we can run that through the retrospective facial recognition database and hopefully get a match. Even if they flee the scene, at least we will know who they are. As I have explained previously, the quality of the AI algorithm is now much better than it was, so the chances of getting a match are really quite high. [Interruption.] By the way, I apologise for my hoarse voice, Mrs Latham. I have a slight cough, as you can probably tell, so I am sorry if I am a little bit croaky.
Some Members have mentioned the problems with balaclavas. We are about to make an amendment on Report to the Criminal Justice Bill to change and expand the existing police power under section 60AA of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which concerns face coverings, including balaclavas. At the moment, the police can only ask someone to take off a balaclava or a face covering. They can make the request, but they must do that proactively, and then the person can drive off and put it back on. We will amend that so that it will be possible to require face coverings to not be used at all in particular areas, unless for medical or religious purposes. If there was a particular physical area, whether it was the top of a Welsh mountain or anywhere else, where face coverings were a problem, the police could potentially use the updated section 60AA power to say to people that they could not wear balaclavas or face coverings in that area. If a police officer then saw someone driving along, even if they were initially driving lawfully and safely and were registered, licensed and insured, and they had a face covering, perhaps because they intended to behave antisocially later on, the officer would have a basis on which to stop them. I hope that that is a change that colleagues will welcome at Report stage of the Criminal Justice Bill on the Floor of the House in a few weeks’ time.
I think I have covered a number of the points that have arisen during the debate. However, I will add one point around preventing these bikes from being stolen and then misused. I pay great tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) for his private Member’s Bill, which became the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023 after receiving Royal Assent last July. Once we fully commence that Act, which we will do shortly, it will require all-terrain vehicles, among other things, to be forensically marked upon sale, with the forensic marking to be recorded in a register. It will also require an immobiliser to be fitted to such vehicles, which will make it much harder—I would not say impossible, but a lot harder—for these ATVs to be stolen and then misused for the purposes of antisocial behaviour. That would address this carousel issue, whereby ATVs or off-road bikes get stolen and then used antisocially, which the hon. Members for Strangford and for North Antrim, and my hon. Friends the Members for Hartlepool and for Darlington, all referred to.
Reference was also made to vehicle recovery charges, which are applied when a vehicle is taken off the road and seized by the police. Following a review, the Government made changes last year to increase those vehicle recovery fees by 28%, which will hopefully assist police forces in recovering the cost of taking such vehicles off the streets.
We now have record police officer numbers across England and Wales—more than we have ever had at any time in history. The numbers of officers allocated to particular local areas are also at a record level. The subset of that, which the shadow Minister likes to quote, is not 10,000 any more; it is a much, much lower figure, so he should update his figures. The number of officers allocated to local policing duties is at a record level, and we expect those officers not to be behind desks, because we are investing in technology to do a lot of the administration; we expect them to be on the street, visibly patrolling and catching criminals.
We consider all forms of crime to be serious, whether it is antisocial behaviour, criminal damage, reckless driving, as we have been discussing, or theft from shops. All of that needs to be taken seriously. The police need to patrol and make arrests for all those criminal offences. We have now given them the resources, combined with the over £900 million a year extra in the next financial year that will go to police and crime commissioners. The police have the resources and the officer numbers, and we are making sure that the law keeps up with these issues, so we expect robust action by the police on behalf of constituents.
I would like to conclude by thanking Members again for participating in the debate. There are some points to look at a little further, and I am very happy to do that. However, I conclude by again commending my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington for bringing this important issue to the attention of the House.
Mrs Pauline Latham (in the Chair)
I call Peter Gibson to wind up, but it will have to be brief, because we are going to vote soon.
Peter Gibson
Thank you, Mrs Latham, and I will be brief.
I thank everyone who has attended this debate and made a contribution. We have heard some interesting contributions from across the House, largely focused on safety. I was particularly interested in the concerns the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) raised about roll cages for quad bikes. My hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer) talked about the safety of her community, as did the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), who spoke from the Opposition Front Bench. However, the one thing I will really take away from this debate was raised in the contribution by the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley). I would love to go and see the work—the collaboration—going on in his constituency, and I hope the Minister can find the time to go again.
I am really pleased to hear that the Minister is willing and able to look at the NFU and the registration issue; I undertake to write to the NFU and to engage in that piece of collaboration with him. I look forward to continuing to tackle this issue on behalf of my constituents and to improving the safety of the streets of Darlington.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the matter of tackling off-road biking.
Mrs Pauline Latham (in the Chair)
Order. The sitting is suspended. We will probably have three votes, so it will be suspended until 4 o’clock, unless we continue to vote after that.
Robbery and Theft: Carshalton and Wallington
(10 months ago)
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Mrs Pauline Latham (in the Chair)
I will call Elliot Colburn to move the motion and then the Minister to respond. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.
Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of robbery and theft in Carshalton and Wallington constituency.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Latham. This issue pressures local people and weighs heavily on my constituents’ minds. I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss it.
I begin by examining some statistics. According to the latest Home Office data for the year ending September 2023, the Metropolitan police recorded 32,000 robberies and 430,000 thefts. When adjusted for population, London exhibited one of the highest rates of reported robbery and theft offences, with 3.6 robberies and 48.6 thefts per 1,000 people, which far surpasses the national average. Moreover, those figures represent alarming increases on the previous year, as reported by the Met.
In the past few months alone, there have been 11 incidents of people contacting me directly about their cars being broken into. That is a lot, considering that the police would obviously be the ones to take that up; for that many people to bring it forward to me clearly demonstrates that there is an issue. The most recent figures published by the Metropolitan police, in December 2023, showed that there were 50 incidents of vehicle crime, 16 cases of theft, 27 shoplifting offences, 17 burglaries and 10 robberies across Carshalton and Wallington.
My constituents are often left asking whether anything is being done about those crimes, and whether they are being taken seriously by the police. Like many colleagues, I am sure, I see on social media all the time CCTV and Ring doorbell footage of attempted incidents that the police have not seen or will not take as part of their investigations. One constituent shared details with me of two cars being stolen in the space of two weeks.
As I represent quite a diverse constituency, there is also the matter of the targeting of my Indian and Tamil constituents for Asian gold theft. Those communities are worried that they are being subjected to increased targeting due to recent surges of targeted burglaries, which have left them shaken and afraid of further strikes against their communities.
One of the things I come across most often is the issue of shoplifting. Whether on our local high streets or some of the small shopping parades around Carshalton and Wallington, it is increasingly common to see a large group of younger people go in and out of shops to steal confectionery, drinks, goods—whatever it might be. Many of the shop owners, for whatever reason, tell me they do not feel that it is worth reporting. Reports are therefore often not made to the police, so we are likely seeing slightly skewed statistics. That is a point I would like the Minister to address: the danger of reporting fatigue.
I know the police and all Government officials would want to reiterate the importance of ensuring that an official report is put in whenever someone sees a crime happening, is a victim of a crime or has anything to tell. So many times we hear of things getting shared on social media, via email or in conversation when an official report was not put in. That does not give us a full picture of what is going on. I would like to hear from the Minister what efforts the Home Office is taking, in conjunction with the Metropolitan police, to ensure that people do not get that reporting fatigue and that they file an official report, not just share it on social media.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about reporting fatigue, but many criminals perpetrating the burglaries and robberies that I have heard about on Wallington high street in his constituency are acting with impunity because they know that there are not the police officers to get there. As he will be aware, due to cuts in policing over a number of years under the Conservative Government, and with abstraction rates in Sutton in particular being at an all-time high at 25% in the last quarter of last year, there are just not the police officers there. What is he doing to put pressure on his own Front Benchers to ensure that we boost the numbers of police officers on our streets—not just in Carshalton and Wallington, but in my constituency of Twickenham? It is a problem across London.
Elliot Colburn
It might be helpful for me to remind the hon. Lady that the Liberal Democrats were in coalition with the Conservative Government for five years, which oversaw the reduction in police officer numbers. We now have 3,666 more police officers on London streets—the highest number ever recorded. That could have been 1,000 more if the Mayor of London had actually done his job and gotten to grips with the reporting.
I find it a bit odd that the Lib Dems are complaining about the lack of police officers when they were in the coalition that oversaw the reduction in police officer numbers. In City Hall, at the London Assembly, the Lib Dems have consistently voted against increasing police numbers, so I do find that a bit odd. I realise it is politically advantageous for them, but this is quite typical of the Lib Dems—say one thing and do the other. I certainly will not take any lectures from the Lib Dems on police officer numbers, considering that they consistently vote against them.
I commend the Home Office for some of the actions it has taken, particularly its work with police officers and forces to ensure that every single burglary and theft is attended by police. That has had some great successes in London in particular, which has seen hundreds, if not thousands, of new arrests being made. I very much welcome that. I welcome the development of the retail crime action plan, which seeks to address the rising tide of theft and sets out guidelines and reporting mechanisms for retailers.
I thank the Government for the safer streets fund, initiated in January 2020, that provides grants to local bodies for projects aimed at reducing neighbourhood crime. While not specifically targeting robbery or theft, those initiatives are vital for enhancing community safety. Moreover, Operation Calibre was a national week of action co-ordinated by the National Police Chiefs’ Council, which aimed to tackle personal robbery, with 30 police forces taking part last November.
It is important to stress that when it comes to policing in London, the police and crime commissioner for London is the Mayor of London. The Mayor has made a number of promises over his eight years, and he has overseen incredibly poor performance when it comes to dealing with crime in the capital. He is more concerned with jetting off round the world to promote his book or slapping ultra low emission zones on the backs of hard-working Londoners. He has not got to grips with one of the most important parts of his brief: being in charge of the Metropolitan police from a commissioner level. It is not fair on Londoners to have to deal with a Mayor who simply does not care about crime—indeed, he cares more about his own image than about crime.
I commend the Met for the steps it is taking—almost unilaterally, without any input from the Mayor—to deal with burglaries. I have mentioned that the commitment there is now that every single burglary will be attended by an officer, which is very welcome. To reiterate a point I made earlier, I also welcome the 3,600-plus new officers now working in the Metropolitan police. However, I want to draw the House’s attention to the fact that there could have been as many as 1,000 new officers on top of that if the Mayor had actually got to grips with the recruitment funding and done his job to recruit more police officers.
It was reported on 14 February that the Mayor has written to car manufacturers to say that he has become increasingly concerned about vehicle theft due to
“the security vulnerabilities in modern vehicles”.
He also said that he was seeking car manufacturers’ assurances about what they had done to address this issue. It is, of course, a very important issue, but the Mayor is several years late to it. Over the last few years, we have seen a massive rise in thefts of and from vehicles, particularly the theft of catalytic converters in outer London, so I find it very bizarre that the Mayor has only just woken up to this issue now. Also, I am not really sure what he is suggesting Londoners or car manufacturers should do, given that he is the one in charge of local policing.
We have had campaigns locally in our area to try to stop these crimes. I have had the pleasure of meeting many students and their parents, who are worried about young people being particularly targeted by criminals. I welcome the efforts of the police in just the last few weeks. Those have included the high-visibility and the plain clothes robbery patrols in Wallington High Street and Roundshaw, which the local safer neighbourhood teams are carrying out as proactive measures to target the increase in robberies in Wallington. This operation is a mix of visible policing, to deter criminals and act as a reassurance mechanism, and plain clothes officers acting as spotters.
We are waiting to hear the results of that operation, which has been conducted in the last few weeks, but the initial feedback from our local borough commander is that the results have been very positive indeed. The officers do a fantastic job locally in engaging with schoolchildren and members of the public, providing them with reassurance and advice about staying safe and reporting crimes. Officers are also undertaking a piece of work locally with premises on our local high streets, to tell businesses what they should be doing to make sure that they are kept safe and how the police can work with them to bring down shoplifting.
Nevertheless, the issue remains a pressing concern, which is why I am glad to have had the chance to have this debate here in Westminster Hall today. By implementing robust legislative measures, enhancing collaboration between law enforcement and local communities, and addressing specific vulnerabilities where we identify them, we can absolutely ensure the security and stability of people locally when it comes to burglary and theft.
I would like the Minister to reassure me and give me more information about various issues. Can he reconfirm that every single report of a theft or burglary should be attended by police and that people should be encouraged to make a report if they are a victim of crime? What work is the Home Office doing in conjunction with the Metropolitan police, so that where the Mayor is not taking his responsibilities seriously, Londoners are not at the behest of criminals and instead police are given all the tools they need to bring those criminals to justice and to ensure that further such crimes can be prevented in the future?
The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the second time in an afternoon, Mrs Latham.
Let me start by congratulating my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) on securing this debate on such an important topic. These issues affect both our constituencies, and indeed many others. I join him in referencing and thanking our local south London basic command unit specifically for its work on robberies around the border between his constituency and mine—the problem extended to Purley and south Croydon, as well as the areas in his constituency that he mentioned.
Let set the national scene for where crime trends are heading. The only reliable source of long-term crime trend data, according to the Office for National Statistics, is not police-recorded crime, because that goes up and down depending on the public’s propensity to report crime, and on how good a job the police do at recording crime—they have got better at that in recent years and have therefore recorded more crime. Rather, it is the crime survey for England and Wales.
The crime survey for England and Wales, which according to the ONS is the most reliable source of crime data, shows that since March 2010—just to pick an arbitrary date—overall crime, like for like, is down by 55%, while violence is down by 51%, criminal damage is down by 72%, theft offences are down by 46%, theft from the person is down by 40%, and vehicle-related theft is down by 39%. Crime is declining in the long term, which is very welcome indeed. Crime is still happening, and we want to go further to push down those crime figures even more. That is why we have delivered record police numbers. I was a bit mystified by the intervention that called upon my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington to lobby the Front Bench to deliver more police. We have done that. We have delivered record numbers of police—about 3,500 more than we had in 2010.
London also has record police officer numbers, but as my hon. Friend quite rightly said, London could have had an extra thousand officers, all of which would have been funded by the Government—in fact, slightly over a thousand; 1,066, to be precise—had the Mayor of London bothered to recruit them. It is a shocking indictment of Sadiq Khan’s ineptitude that he failed to recruit those thousand extra officers that would have been funded by the Government. I strongly endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington said about Sadiq Khan. As Minister for Police, I see the performance of all 43 police forces across England and Wales, and there is no question but that under Mayor Sadiq Khan’s tenure as London’s police and crime commissioner, the Met’s performance is the worst of all those 43 forces. Not only is it the only police force in the country to have missed its recruitment target; it has the worst clear-up rate of any police force in the country. Sadiq Khan should hang his head in shame, and the electors in London will no doubt have this in mind when they elect a Mayor in a few months’ time.
We are pursuing a number of initiatives to bear down on robbery and theft. The first is an agreement that we reached with the police, including the Met, to always follow all lines of inquiry for all crimes where they exist. I can answer the question my hon. Friend asked me: that applies to all crimes, including theft from shops and criminal damage—everything. There is no such thing as a minor crime in our view. Previously, some police forces had wrongly been screening out certain crimes and not investigating them, even where there was evidence, because they were perceived as minor. We have now agreed with policing nationally, and put it in writing, that that is not appropriate, and the police will always follow reasonable lines of inquiry where they exist. That includes any crime, including shop theft, for which there is video evidence showing a suspect’s face.
That also involves always running such evidence through the retrospective facial recognition database. The algorithm is driven by artificial intelligence and is now very good. Often a match can be obtained even where the suspect’s face is caught on CCTV, a Ring doorbell or a mobile phone and their face is partially obscured or the image is fuzzy or blurred. Police forces should always run those images captured at a crime scene through the police national database to see if they can get a match—and they very often do. That applies particularly to shoplifting, but to many other crimes as well. We have an action plan for shoplifting—we really ought to call it shop theft; it is theft. As I have said, the police have committed to always investigating all lines of inquiry where they exist, including for shop theft. They will attend in person where a suspect has been detained by the store security staff. They will attend in person if there has been an assault on a shop worker and they will attend in person if that is necessary to secure evidence. If there is CCTV evidence that can be emailed, that is quicker for everybody, but they will attend always in the circumstances I have set out.
The police have also agreed to identify and target prolific offenders in particular. We have done work on this: taking out a relatively small number of offenders leads to a dramatic reduction in shop theft. For example, in Sussex, the excellent police and crime commissioner Katy Bourne and her police force identified and arrested 20 or 30—I think it was—prolific shoplifters. That dramatically reduced shop theft in the towns where those arrests were made. Targeting prolific shoplifters is important. There is also a project to identify criminal gangs who are stealing from shops on an organised basis, through intelligence. That is part of the retail crime action plan as well. I hope those measures show what the police are doing to combat shop theft in particular, and all crime more widely.
The approach that I described earlier—following all reasonable lines of inquiry—was first pursed on a large scale in Greater Manchester; the relatively new chief constable, Stephen Watson, introduced that about two years. It led to a 44% increase in arrests. Some magistrates courts that had previously been closed down had to be reopened to deal with the extra volume of criminals who were being apprehended.
I would like to say a word about live facial recognition, which is an opportunity to catch wanted criminals. That is where there is a watchlist of criminals who are wanted because they are suspected of committing a criminal offence. Maybe the police have a picture from the crime scene, but they have not been able to find the individual because they have left their home address or something. Maybe they know their name, but cannot find them, and they have the photograph. They can be people who should have turned up to court, but failed to show up to the magistrates court or the Crown court on the day of their trial or hearing.
This watchlist could be thousands of people who are wanted by the police, for the reasons I just set out. The camera is set up in a place with high traffic and lots of passers-by—it has been trialled recently in Croydon town centre—and as the public walk past, they are scanned and we see if there is a match. If there is not a match, which obviously happens in the vast majority of cases, the person’s image is immediately and automatically deleted, which addresses privacy concerns. But if there is a match, the system alerts the officer operating it and they can stop the person and establish their identity.
That system has been trialled about eight times on Thursday and Friday afternoons in Croydon town centre in the last two months and has led to more than 50 arrests, including, last Friday or the Friday before last, somebody wanted for multiple rapes who had been at large—wanted—for the last seven years. It also included people who were wanted for theft and robbery offences, drug supply or violent offences including grievous bodily harm, and many people who had failed to attend court. There were more than 50 arrests—50 people who would not have been arrested were it not for that simple deployment of live facial recognition in Croydon town centre. When I explain that to my constituents—that it led to these arrests and that if someone is not on the list, their image is deleted—people understand that it is a reasonable thing to do.
My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington might want to talk to the BCU commander for south London, Chief Superintendent Andy Brittain, or his borough superintendent, and ask for the experimental deployment that we had in Croydon to be replicated in Carshalton or Wallington town centres, to see if as many wanted criminals are in circulation in Carshalton and Wallington town centres as were in Croydon town centre. The system has certainly been effective at arresting people who would otherwise have gone free.
I suggest to any Member that if they are interested in catching criminals in their constituency, they should talk to their chief constable and their PCC about this kit. Currently, the Metropolitan police and South Wales have it, but they are willing to share it with other forces. For example, Essex has borrowed it from either the Met or South Wales police—they are willing to share the equipment with other police forces around the country.
I see that colleagues are gathering for the subsequent debate; let me just conclude by thanking my constituency neighbour for calling this debate and for the work he is doing in this area standing up for his constituents. I look forward to continuing to work with him in this extremely important area. My voice is probably about to stop working, so now would be a good time to sit down.
Question put and agreed to.
Young Drivers: Government Support
(10 months ago)
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Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Government support for young drivers.
As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Latham. It is encouraging to see Members here to participate in this debate, which is of significance to many young people across the United Kingdom. It is good that young people can look to this House and see and hear that their voices are being heard. I thank the Minister in anticipation of his response, as well as his officials, who have been very helpful in this regard.
I am raising this issue following a significant number of messages on social media and WhatsApp, and conversations generally with young people and their parents across Upper Bann. We can all remember the excitement we felt at the prospect of turning 17 and finally getting on to the road to drive. Maybe, like me, other Members flicked through Auto Trader from about the age of 15, dreaming of their first car, probably unaware of the unaffordability of that choice. But we are all allowed to dream.
Those were the days of buying a Vauxhall Corsa, Ford Ka, Peugeot 106 or Citroën Saxo—the list goes on—when 17-year-olds could avail themselves of free insurance as part of a deal, or be a named driver, which helped with the premium. That incentive was a game changer for many. I am probably showing my age with my vehicle choice, but what a distant memory that feels, given that young drivers are now facing insurance premiums that are not helping them to get on the road, but are actually driving them off it.
Although I will labour the insurance element today, I am also acutely aware of the difficulties that young people face in even reaching the stage of getting out on the road, particularly with our broken test facilities, the lack of resources and manpower, the lack of appointments and the volume of young people who have to wait literally months before they even get to sit their tests.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
We have seen rural driving test centres close, such as the one in Whitchurch in my constituency. That causes a huge problem for young people, because they have to drive much further to access a test centre, to practise for and take their tests. They have to book double lessons, adding to the cost of learning to drive. They need to get in a car; there is no public transport. Does the hon. Lady agree that keeping rural test centres open is important to helping young people access jobs and opportunities around the countryside?
Carla Lockhart
Absolutely. We experience the same difficulties in Northern Ireland with the availability of testing. We find that people are ready for their test but no tests are available, and they then have to continue with lessons, or stop lessons and go back to them later. It is a dreadful situation. This is about ensuring manpower and resources are available in rural areas, as the hon. Member outlined.
What has prompted so many people to get in touch with me is specifically the exorbitant cost of insurance, particularly in the context of the cost of living crisis, where household budgets are already strained. Where once the bank of mum and dad stepped in, many parents just cannot do that to help to meet the cost of insurance. That leaves young people unable to benefit from the freedom that driving brings, which many of us enjoyed. That barrier to the road impedes access to employment, socialising, broadening their life experience and even travelling to study. The effect is particularly acute in rural areas, such as my constituency and, indeed, vast swathes of Northern Ireland, where public transport linkages are lacking in choice and frequency. Evening and weekend services are often reduced or withdrawn altogether, making the ability to travel via public transport non-existent.
The importance of driving and access to a vehicle is acute in these areas for the whole community, including our young people. I have no doubt that Members present from similar constituencies across the United Kingdom will reflect the same challenges faced by their constituents. In that context, we must look to the Government to support young drivers—to support them to get on to the road and to be safe on the road—which, in turn, will impact insurance premiums in the future.
These issues are interlinked. If we look at insurance costs, Confused.com—the price comparison firm—said that, on average, 17 to 20-year-olds had seen insurance rise by more than £1,000 compared with the same time last year.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. On insurance premiums, does she agree that it is important that not only we, but insurance companies make a significant distinction between young drivers who are careful—who take their time and learn to drive safely on the road—and those whom they punish? They punish not just those careless drivers with the higher premiums, but all young drivers, and that needs changing.
Carla Lockhart
My hon. Friend is pre-empting my speech, and I agree with everything he said. For 17-year-olds, premiums surged by an average £1,423, to £2,877. For 18-year-old drivers, the average policy price reached £3,162. Constituents have contacted me after having had quotes of between £5,000 and £7,000 for a vehicle worth half the price.
Since securing this debate, I have had positive discussions with the Association of British Insurers and local insurance brokers across Upper Bann, who are at the mercy of insurance companies across the United Kingdom. I thank Alastair Ross from ABI for his constructive engagement on this matter. The insurance industry cites a range of factors for the increase in premium costs, and it is worth highlighting those to enable us to explore how Government might help on this matter.
By way of background, insurance is based on pricing the risk of claims being made and the cost of those claims. ABI data shows that, for drivers aged 18 to 20 and 86 to 90, the frequency of claims and average cost of claims is higher, which can impact premiums for those age groups.
One of the largest elements that the pool of motor insurance premiums pays for is bodily injury to other drivers, passengers, pedestrians or the driver themselves. That is because serious collisions can mean life-changing injuries, with compensation sometimes running into millions of pounds.
The insurance industry states that young drivers are also more likely to be involved in crashes with multiple injuries and which involve a greater number of people. Insurers’ costs of dealing with associated claims can be very high. The industry view appears to be supported by data, so we are not coming to this debate without data, because we know that according to the statistics, young people, and particularly older people, are much more likely to be involved in an accident.
This is supported by statistics from the Department for Infrastructure and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, which show that young drivers are over-represented in Northern Ireland’s collision statistics. In 2021, 17 to 23-year-old drivers were responsible for 23% of all fatal or serious collisions, yet they accounted for just 7% of car-driving licence holders. They also show that young drivers were responsible for 73% of the casualties in collisions involving drivers aged between 17 and 23. The over-representation in fatal or serious collision statistics is also represented in the Department for Transport’s road safety accident statistics and Great Britain driving licence data, which was used in a House inquiry on this issue that reported in March 2021.
We must also factor in the inflationary pressures on motor repairs and claims. While like-for-like quarter 4 figures for claim costs are yet to be finalised, previous quarterly and annual claims data have shown a clear picture of spiking costs for insurers. Payouts for vehicle thefts rose 35% in quarter 3 2023 versus 2022, longer repair times drove up the costs of providing replacement vehicles by 47% in the same period, and the cost to replace written-off vehicles has increased as the average cost of new cars has risen 43% over a five-year period. However, the largest single factor is repair costs, which jumped 32% in quarter 3 to £1.6 billion of the total £2.54 billion. That reflects a mixture of labour costs, rising energy costs, which we are all too aware of, and the fact that vehicles are becoming more sophisticated, with the likes of electric vehicles requiring even more specialist expertise to repair.
I have written to the Treasury suggesting that the Government, in their engagement with the Financial Conduct Authority, press for closer scrutiny of the industry to determine whether the basis for price increases cited by the ABI and facing drivers is a fair reflection of the pressures on the insurance industry. Many insurance companies known to us have merged and have left the market as a result, exiting from even insuring in the United Kingdom because of the high claims culture and the issues that I have raised. We therefore need to create an environment for these people to come back. They must know that the Government are implementing safety measures that help to drive insurance premiums down.
I note the Government’s response to a petition on this matter, which emphatically ruled out a Government commission. The Government have ruled out any investigation or interference in the market. Although I am realistic about the prospect of a Government U-turn, I believe that other steps can and should be taken to get young drivers on to the road, and importantly, to do so safely for themselves and other road users.
Faced with an industry that provides this basis for the increase in premiums, how can the Government help young drivers towards the rite of passage that is driving? The direction taken by Government must be to support better, safer driving. Let me be clear: most young people drive responsibly and safely, but, as with so many aspects of life, the majority suffer because of the actions of the minority, and that is undoubtedly the case here.
The Government could bring forward a number of measures to help reduce the number of accidents involving young people and thereby reduce the premiums for young drivers. Many of them may not be what young drivers want to see explored, as they all bring some form of restriction on the freedom that they desire. However, given the situation with insurance costs, we must look at all ways for young drivers to force the hand of insurers to reduce those premiums.
A graduated driving licence scheme is one such initiative. A graduated driving licence is the most effective intervention in reducing incidents and fatalities for young drivers. Based on extensive analysis, the scheme could include a minimum 12-month learning period before the driving test can be taken, a ban on intensive driving courses, lowering the age at which young people can learn to drive to 16 and a half, a restriction on the number of young passengers a young driver can carry, a restriction on their driving during nighttime hours, or a lowering of the blood alcohol concentration for drivers aged 17 to 24. All those measures seem fair and compatible with getting young people on the road soon after they turn 17, but more safely. GDL has significant public support. Research shows that the savings, both in terms of lives in road accidents and financial cost, would be significant.
The Government’s 2019 road safety statement indicated a commitment to reviewing GDL in the UK, but that has not been progressed yet. It is my hope that a restored Northern Ireland Executive can progress the agreed policy of GDL in Northern Ireland soon. Indeed, as envisaged by the previous Minister, the right hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), that could be a testing ground for the policy’s effectiveness. Can the Minister outline progress towards that becoming a reality in England, so that help can be given to young drivers in relation to both safety and insurance?
The Government could also support young drivers through financial assistance for installing telematics in vehicles. Those devices can monitor driving and driving behaviour, thus helping to encourage safer driving. However, they can be expensive and, in the context of this debate, which covers cost as an inhibitor to driving, it would be good if the Government explored means of supporting the provision of those devices to young drivers.
I am conscious that other hon. Members want to contribute to the debate and I look forward to hearing other ideas about how we can assist young drivers in our constituencies. In conclusion, I stress the importance of allowing young people the freedom to drive and the necessity for that to be affordable to all. I urge the insurance industry to heed the plight of young drivers and, through transparency and fair pricing, to avoid any accusation of profiteering or unfair practices. I also urge the Government to explore the viability of providing some direct support and to look at how our licensing system can be modernised to help cut both the casualties and the cost of driving for young people.
Sir Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) on securing this excellent debate. I agree with everything she said.
This is a critically important subject because the price of insurance for some young drivers has now reached £3,000. The high costs mean that the parents pay, not the children, and so the wrong people are being penalised. In 2022, it was found that parents spent £780 on average on teaching their children to drive in the preceding 12 months. I am not going to argue with the algorithms that the insurance industry uses to calculate the price of insurance. We should just assume that they are right and that companies are underwriting an extremely expensive risk. We should therefore be somewhat sympathetic to the challenges they face, particularly as 24% of fatal collisions involve people aged between 17 and 24.
Seventy-five per cent. of the young drivers who are killed are male and a male car driver aged between 17 and 24 is four times more likely to be killed or seriously injured than a car driver aged 25 or over. That is because it is not until someone is 25—this is particularly true for men—that the frontal cortex of the brain is fully developed. That is the part of the brain that deals with hazard perception and the consequences, and we have developed that over aeons. That is why young soldiers go to war: they are not as frightened of the consequences as older soldiers. That is one of the problems that we have with hazard perception, and it is just one of those things.
We therefore need solutions that will keep our young people alive and on the road. That is why last week I held a roundtable on insuring young drivers with industry representatives, helped by Aviva, the ABI, superbly represented by Robert Rams—I do not believe he is there anymore for some reason and that is a great shame—and other agencies such as the RAC and, most importantly, IAM RoadSmart.
We discussed all the possible options. One of the most important steps forward is an industry-supported training solution so that, once someone has passed their driving text, if they go on to further training, they will get cheaper insurance because the insurance industry recognises that they are likely to be a more responsible and careful driver. The argument that came back was, “Well, that’s a self-selecting group of people.” Yes, it is, and those are the guys we want out on the road—the ones who want to be extra careful and extra well-trained. That is something we should really pay attention to.
In Australia, learner drivers are 20% less likely to be killed or seriously injured. That is because Australia does several things differently. First, people can apply for a provisional driving licence at 16 and a half, but they have to drive for 120 hours before they take their test—so they start earlier, but test later. The average in the UK is only 40 hours. Australia has seen that 20% reduction because of that rule. One of the other really simple things Australia does is not allow more than one passenger. Young people can cope with one voice gassing in the back of the car, but if there are loads of them—I think we all remember packing people into the car and popping down to the pub, or whatever, from our younger days—all that noise is bad for the decision-making process that young men’s brains go through when they perceive a hazard.
Having one passenger makes another difference to the insurance industry: on a rather dark note, it means that if there is an accident, fewer people are involved, and therefore the cost of the life-changing injuries mentioned by the hon. Member for Upper Bann is reduced. We can all do something about that right now. As our children grow up and ask if they can take people with them in cars, the advice should be, “Not until you’re a bit older—not until you’ve got more experience on the road. Please don’t fill your car with passengers. Just take one.” That is something we could do today that would not cost anything and would save lives.
Between 2012 and 2021, there was a 260% increase in the number of casualties related to driving under the influence of drugs. Some 32% of young drivers responding to an IAM RoadSmart survey said that they thought illegal drug driving was more common than driving under the influence of alcohol. So we are also dealing with changes in young people’s perception, the risks they are taking, and the risks they are tackling in their everyday lives. The solution is training courses. Training courses can teach them about driving under the influence and other topics relevant to them.
Safer roads are not just about young drivers—we need increased training for all ages. One effective measure we could take today is changing the rules on speed awareness courses. I do not know if any Members present have transgressed sufficiently to do a speed awareness course—I confess that I have, and they are brilliant. They remind us of our responsibilities and the value of education. Why are we not doing that for people who speed every year? Why restrict it to every three years? If it works, which it does, we should do more of it. It may not be as beneficial, but it is a really good way of improving the standard of all of us on the roads, which in turn makes it harder for young drivers to have accidents.
The Australians also introduced a graduate driver’s licence. People do not just pass their test and go straight on to the road; they have a graduated procedure. I am not sure that is as valuable. One of the things they insist on is a curfew so that young drivers do not drive between 11 o’clock at night and 6 o’clock in the morning. However, most young drivers in the countryside need to drive at that time of day because that is when there is absolutely no public transport, so I am not sure how well that would work; but again, they are much more likely to have an accident at night. In 2019, 37% of young driver fatalities and serious injuries occurred between 9 pm and 6 am, so they are more risk at night.
The one thing that would be easy for the Government to do is lift insurance tax for drivers that display the green P, so that if someone displays the green P on their car, they do not have to pay it. That would not cost the Government a great deal because they would make huge savings from the amount the NHS currently spends on patching people up, and the figures for people killed or seriously injured on the roads would be much lower.
Just lifting that tax burden on those young drivers, as long as they display their green P, would deliver a huge improvement in the cost of insurance and would save the Government a lot of money. Furthermore, it would make the rest of us who are driving more aware of the people most likely to cause an accident—perhaps in front us—in a car. That measure would turn the green P from a badge of shame to a badge of honour, and it would help with the cost to the parents of young drivers.
Data is vital to this issue, and I urge the Government to stop using catch-all data, such as “17 to 25-year-olds.” We need to collect data on 17-year-olds, 18-year-olds, 19-year-olds and so on. If insurance companies want to avoid claims, and young people want to be able to afford to drive, we need to do everything we can to make the model work better. Although we are all happy with what is going on, we are not happy with the net result—young people being prevented from driving legally and safely because their insurance is not just double the price of the car; it can be four times the price of the car. I hope that the debate will prompt the Government to act, and lead to solutions for all of us, but training certainly helps.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, Mrs Latham. First, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) for securing it. The issue is incredibly prevalent now, especially in Northern Ireland, as my hon. Friend said.
When we emerged from covid there were large numbers of young people wanting to get on to the roads. It was logical that people just wanted to get away from their homes, and to do that safely. They wanted to learn how to drive, and believe it or not, there are still incredible backlogs in testing. I asked the Transport Minister a question on this issue last year—my hon. Friend mentioned it, too. Another issue my hon. Friend raised was insurance, which is causing many problems for young people in Strangford, so it is good to be in this debate to support my hon. Friend.
I can go back further than most in this room and I remember my first Mini car only too well—it cost me about £60, and the insurance cost about the same. I got third party fire and theft because that was the cheapest option, and it covered the other person if you had an accident. I remember the straight-through exhaust system —I am not quite sure what it did, but it made plenty of noise, and that was one of the things that I liked—and the wide, sporty wheels that I had on it as well.
Of course, you were never really a driver until you got the leather gloves. I am not quite sure what the leather gloves did, but we all figured that if we drove a car, especially a Mini, we really had to have those leather gloves. Thank goodness they are out of fashion now and I do not have to wear them any more. That was an era when insurance was almost the price of the car for third party fire and theft. It was a long time ago, but it does give perspective.
So many young people look forward to being able to learn how to drive, and there is such an element of freedom for them. I remember when my sons were younger and the excitement they felt about for learning how to drive. We just got them a wee cheap car because we figured it would have a few bangs along the way, and it probably did. They got a better car when they got older, but the cheaper car did the job for them when they were learning.
I have two younger staff members who are learning how to drive just now, and that was where the prices of the day caught us up. First, there is the sheer cost of driving lessons, which is £40 on average for an hour once or twice a week; then the theory test is £23; and finally the price of the actual test itself is now up to £200 depending on whose car is used, because it can vary according to the car.
Not only are there those costs of learning—as my hon. Friend mentioned earlier, when someone passes their test they then have to pay the extortionate price of insurance. I have a constituent who is a nurse. She has been driving for a couple of years and was told by her insurance company that if she was to put a black box in her car, the price would go down, despite the fact that she had never been in an accident or had any road convictions.
My hon. Friend and the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin) mentioned that many young drivers now face paying £3,000 to get their insurance. That nurse told me that she bought a new car last week that cost her a similar amount to the insurance, which is unbelievable. How is it that we can compare the price of a new car to the insurance premiums that young people face? One of my good friends, a member of my political party, came to me at a meeting a month ago and said, “Jim, I’m being quoted just over £2,500 for insurance. My wee vehicle is worth about £300 or £400.” He could not understand where that came from.
Unfortunately, it is a fact that Northern Ireland has a higher level of deaths and serious injury from road accidents than the rest of the UK, and it is understood that insurers must take that into consideration when insuring younger people. However, we should not tar them all with the same brush. There must be an element of trust; the question is how we achieve that. The hon. Member for North Herefordshire referred to doing tests and driver training, and looking at each category as people move through it. If people do put a black box in, that should reduce their insurance premiums significantly.
The Government can do more to support young drivers. For example, the Road Traffic (Amendment) Act (Northern Ireland) 2016 includes provisions for a graduated driver licensing regime to improve road safety for newly qualified drivers. So there are schemes in place, but they only work if they reduce the cost of insurance, which is what this debate is all about. The UK Department for Transport has said it will consider the Northern Ireland Department for Infrastructure scheme as a pilot for the rest of the UK. My hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) raised that very issue with the Transport Secretary in November 2023.
I urge the Minister, who is always responsive and tries hard to give us the answers that we desire, to intervene in relation to investigating the price hikes for our young people. The prices that some face are simply unjust, unfair and unaffordable. We must do more to support them and ensure that they are able to obtain decent prices to properly insure themselves to drive on the roads just like the rest of us. Our young people need a hand. Others have mentioned the bank of mum and dad; I know that is where my sons went. I do all my insurance through the Ulster Farmers Union. I find that, because I am a loyal member, its insurance premiums are a wee bit less than anybody else’s. That helped when it came to insurance for my sons when they got cars. The Ulster Farmers Union has done a whole lot for us, and the same goes for the National Farmers Union here. So there are some companies that try hard, perhaps for loyal customers who have all their insurance policies with them, but there are some that must try harder.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Latham. I congratulate the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) on securing the debate and on speaking so well. We have not heard from the Minister yet, but none of us so far has disagreed with anything that the hon. Lady said. She spoke of the excitement of turning 17. In fact, she mentioned looking at cars when she was 15 —that is even more excited than I was. I remember well looking forward to being able to drive and the freedom that that would give me. My issue was that my driving was delayed by the fact that I failed my first two tests, but then I did not pay for any lessons, so at least I was saving money.
My 17-year-old daughter is just about to start her learner driver journey in the next couple of weeks. Like the hon. Lady, she does not fully appreciate the cost of the cars that she is looking at. The cost of living was mentioned; the cost of lessons ain’t what it used to be, either. The hon. Lady mentioned how difficult it is to learn to drive and pass the test, not least because of limited test appointments, facilities and resources, which were a particular issue during the pandemic. Things have improved, but there is still a way to go, and I have an issue in my constituency that exacerbates that. The Paisley test centre is based in the St James Business Centre, all the occupants of which were summarily and without any notice whatever given two months’ notice to leave the building, as it is about to be demolished for future plans. I wait to see what the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency is going to say about that.
The main issue, as the hon. Lady highlighted, is exorbitant insurance costs for young drivers. Nobody is suggesting that young drivers—and older drivers, to be fair—are not more likely to be involved in accidents, and the hon. Lady cited a number of statistics, but she also made the fair point, which we have to remember in this debate, that most young drivers drive responsibly. The majority are being impacted by the minority.
The hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin) said that the cost of insurance is now up to around £3,000 for some young drivers. I confess that I have not yet looked at the potential insurance costs for my daughter, not least because I do not want my blood pressure to shoot up. One way that some of those costs could be reduced is reducing insurance premium tax for young drivers, which is currently 12% or 20%, depending on the total policy cost. At the moment, that can amount to anything between £244 and £408 per year, which for some of us in this room is more than our annual car insurance premium in full. That would be a welcome move to alleviate some of the pain for young drivers.
The hon. Gentleman also said that male drivers aged 17 to 24 are four times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash. Shocking though that is, it probably is not a surprise to many of us here, having seen and been young drivers ourselves and then grown up. We tend to be a little more macho behind the wheel when we are younger. He also mentioned that Australian young drivers are 20% less likely to have an accident due to the differences in their graduated licensing scheme and the learning processes in place there.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—I call him the Member for Strangford and Westminster Hall West; it would not be the same without him in this place—spoke of his upbringing and having a £60 car, which is quite something. I do not know about you, Mrs Latham, but I am struggling to see a young hon. Member for Strangford—I was going to use his name—in his souped-up car with loud exhausts. I cannot quite get that image into my mind. If he has any pictures of that, it would be good if he was willing to share. He mentioned a constituent who had been driving for a couple of years who was told that if they put a black box in their car, their premium would be slashed, despite the fact that they had two years of clean driving.
All the points have been made for me thus far, but I would like to put on the record that, although the DVLA and DFT have no plans for graduated driving licences, there is enough evidence from around the world that, at the very least, we in this place should be looking at bringing them in to increase safety for younger drivers—all drivers, in fact—but also to reduce costs and make it easier for young drivers to get into driving after a slightly prolonged learning period, as the hon. Member for North Herefordshire said. We would love to see this Government looking at a graduated driving licence scheme and perhaps putting one into operation.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Latham. On Thursday, it will be 40 years since I passed my driving test at the age of 17—this debate has been something of a trip down memory lane for a number of us. Passing my driving test certainly opened up a wealth of opportunities for me, as it has for so many other people.
The hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) gave an excellent analysis of the many challenges faced by young drivers. She highlighted how being able to drive makes all the difference for young people in work and for those who are not easily connected by public transport. My constituency has a number of similarities with hers, with rural areas and a lack of public transport in places. We have the highest level of car usage in the country, in part because of those gaps in public transport.
Young drivers now have to wait 18 weeks for a driving test date. Those delays have very real consequences for young people who need to drive for work or to study. The Government promised action to reduce the wait, but they have failed to deliver. In October, the Transport Secretary told the House that the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency had a plan to get within a target of nine weeks in the next few months, so perhaps the Minister can tell us why there are still long delays.
Alongside that backlog, young drivers face particular challenges with the cost of driving. That is especially true of the cost of insurance, which has increased by 98% for 17-year-olds, while average insurance prices have increased by 58% over the last year. The price increases in the UK have far outstripped those in the EU, where prices increased around 10% between the beginning of 2021 and the end of 2023; over the same period, the price almost doubled in the UK. Analysis from EY suggests that insurance premiums are expected to rise a further 10% in 2024.
Labour is committed to addressing these increases in insurance premiums if we are fortunate enough to form the Government in the coming months. We will consult industry and consumer groups on ways to crack down on unfair practices by insurers, such as lack of transparency over auto-renewals, the rise of hidden fees and the poor value of insurance products. We will also task the Competition and Markets Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority with investigating the high costs of insurance. When the CMA carried out a similar review in 2015, it found evidence of hidden fees. It is time for a further review. I hope the Minister will agree with me to that extent. By taking steps to tackle unfair practices and hidden fees, Labour’s plan could save young drivers hundreds of pounds per year by allowing them to choose the insurance policy that is right for them.
Turning to the link between claims and premiums for young drivers, Transport Minister Lord Davies told the House of Lords last month:
“Young male car drivers aged 17 to 24 are four times as likely to be killed or seriously injured compared with all car drivers aged 25 or over.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 January 2024; Vol. 835, c. 221.]
The ABI tells us that claims are highest among young drivers, pointing out that in 2019 they made up 7% of all licence holders but were involved in 16% of fatal and serious crashes. These stark numbers explain why insurance premiums are higher for younger drivers and why improving safety is key to reducing insurance costs for young drivers. The ABI has previously recommended—[Interruption.]
Mrs Pauline Latham (in the Chair)
Order. The sitting is resumed and the debate may now continue until 5.50 pm.
Bill Esterson
Thank you, Mrs Latham, for calling me again. I think that I had just said that the stark numbers explain why insurance premiums are higher for younger drivers—
Mrs Pauline Latham (in the Chair)
Order. Minister, we have started the debate. Thank you.
Bill Esterson
This could be the third time that I say this bit. The stark numbers explain why insurance premiums are higher for younger drivers and why improving safety is key to reducing insurance costs for young drivers.
As the hon. Member for Upper Bann mentioned, the ABI has previously recommended the introduction of a graduated driver’s licence and I am sure that Members would be grateful if the Minister provided an update on whether his Department is still considering such a policy. If not, what alternative measures are he and his colleagues taking to ensure the safety of young drivers?
Will the Minister also provide a timeline for the Government’s plan to publish the findings of their Driver2020 study, which aimed to test the effectiveness of a telematics approach using a mobile phone application rather than having to fit a black box? Again, I am sure that young drivers and the insurance industry would benefit from clarity on this point. The Minister will need no reminding that the last strategic framework for road safety was published in 2011 and that, although road fatalities fell by 50% when Labour was last in office, since then they have fallen by only 8%.
As a number of Members have mentioned, road safety is a particularly important issue for young drivers, who are more likely to be injured or killed on our roads. Road safety should be a top priority for Government, so it has been disappointing to see a lack of progress on this issue. Will the Minister tell us whether he plans to publish the long-promised update to the strategic framework for road safety?
The hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin) mentioned the speed awareness course. In a previous Westminster Hall debate, the Minister’s colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), told us that the Department of Transport’s own figures suggested that attendance of a speed awareness course reduces the likelihood of a driver being involved in a serious road traffic incident. Are the Minister and his colleagues considering the benefits of speed awareness courses? Are they considering making them part of the driving test to help to boost safety, not least among young drivers?
Finally, I thank the hon. Member for Upper Bann for securing the debate and for her excellent presentation. Supporting the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency to reduce its backlog will help young people to get on to the roads, while cheaper insurance and promoting safer driving will help those who have passed. I agree that we should be supporting younger drivers and doing more to ensure their safety on our roads. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s analysis of the potential solutions that have been raised today.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Anthony Browne)
It is a pleasure to serve under you today, Mrs Latham. I want to thank the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) for bringing this important debate to the House. Hon. Members may have noticed that I am not the roads Minister, but I am here because the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), has to appear in the Adjournment debate. I was only asked to do this a couple of hours ago, so I am a last-minute stand-in for an area that is not in my brief. I ask hon. Members to forgive me if I do not answer every question here, but I will make sure that the questions are answered afterwards.
The debate focuses on an important issue. The hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) and I must be the same age, as I too passed my driving test aged 17, 40 years ago. I was very keen to drive as quickly as possible, for all the freedom it gave me growing up in Cambridgeshire. I have two teenage children who I am currently encouraging to learn to drive, so I am aware of all the things that various hon. Members mentioned as regards the difficulties of young people driving.
Obviously, as a parent, I am incredibly concerned about safety and very aware of the costs of insurance. I and the Government are big supporters of helping young people to be able to drive and to do so in as safe a way as possible. It really should not need saying that every single death on the road is an absolute tragedy, and even more so for somebody who is at the start of their life. We need to do everything we can to prevent that.
The Government will continuously strive to improve road safety, but overall we have a good record in the UK. I used to do quite a lot of work on road safety in the 1980s; there were around 5,000 or 6,000 deaths a year back then. Now, it is around 1,500 deaths a year. Each one is a tragedy, but that is a dramatic fall. We now have the third safest roads in Europe, with only Norway and Sweden having safer roads, but clearly we still need to do more because every death is a tragedy.
As various colleagues have mentioned, young drivers are a particular risk. Young drivers between the ages of 17 and 24 account for 6% of driving licence holders but were involved in 28% of fatal and serious collisions in 2022. However, like the headline figures, the number of car fatalities involving 17 to 24-year-olds on Britain’s roads is also falling. We have seen a drop in the number of 17 to 24-year-olds killed—from 448 in 1990, to 158 in 2010, to 101 in 2022. That is a 77% total decrease since 1990: a very significant drop.
I will try to address all the issues raised here as far as I can, but many are not for my Department, but for others. Indeed, many are also devolved issues and not for the UK Government but rather for the devolved Administrations. I will, however, endeavour to cover all the points raised.
Pretty much everyone who spoke raised the issue of car insurance. I pay car insurance and have noticed the dramatic increase. I was really quite shocked and, indeed, annoyed by it, so I am well aware of the dramatic rises. Various hon. Members have rehearsed the different arguments for it, but it is really quite shocking. As the Minister responsible for the decarbonisation of transport, I speak a lot to car companies, particularly about electric vehicles. The insurance there is also very high, so I have summoned a roundtable of insurers to talk about that in the coming weeks.
I have also heard from car manufacturers about insurance. Some hon. Members mentioned that insurance is £3,000, but we can multiply that by 10 for some cars, and I know that that is affecting car sales. In other words, the insurance is so high that people are not buying cars. The issue, therefore, not only affects young drivers, where it is clearly significant, but is across the piece.
Insurance operates in a free market that is not run by the Government. We have a strong regulatory regime in place and it needs to work to ensure markets work fairly and in the interests of consumers. The Government do not prescribe the terms, conditions or prices that insurance companies set when offering motor insurance—it is not a state-controlled market—and we do not intervene in the decisions of insurance companies when determining whether to provide cover. Indeed, direct Government interventions in a market of that nature could damage competition overall. It is therefore for insurance companies to decide the level of risk in issuing any policy to a given applicant.
As hon. Members know, insurers use a range of criteria to assess the potential risk a driver poses, including their age, the type of vehicle being insured, the postal area where they live, and their driving experience and record. They set their own premiums, and it is a commercial decision for them based on their underwriting experience. The Government do not intervene or seek to control that market, and nor should they. That said, my officials regularly engage with representatives of the motor insurance industry on a number of matters, including the rise in premiums—we have addressed that with the insurance industry.
The Financial Conduct Authority is the independent regulator responsible for regulating and supervising the financial services industry, including insurers. I have spent a lot of my career working with the Financial Conduct Authority, and I can say that it has a wide range of strong powers to intervene in markets that are not working well, and it has a statutory duty to ensure that markets work well in the interests of consumers. It has a broad range of supervision, enforcement and competition powers, including the power to undertake market studies where it thinks markets are not working well and to see whether they can work better.
If there are particular interventions that should be made, the FCA can refer markets to the Competition and Markets Authority, and that is the proper way of doing things. It is not my role as a Government Minister to try to instruct an independent regulator on how to appear, but I am sure that it is listening, and I know many people in various aspects of the industry are writing to the FCA to urge it to look at the insurance market. It is an independent regulator, and it is not my job as a Minister to tell it how to use its powers to meet those objectives.
The FCA has recently taken several measures to improve the fair value of insurance products for consumers, including reforms across the motor and home insurance markets. As hon. Members have said, on 1 January 2022 the FCA introduced new rules that require firms to offer a renewal price that is no greater than the equivalent new business price that the firm would offer a new customer. That is to stop the loyalty penalty, where loyal customers end up paying more than new customers, which was deeply frustrating and has now been banned. The FCA estimates that those new rules will improve competition and save consumers £3.7 billion over 10 years. Under FCA rules, firms are required to ensure that their products offer fair value—that is, the price the consumer pays for a product or service must be reasonable compared to the overall benefits they can expect to receive. The FCA has been clear that it will monitor firms to ensure that they provide products that are fair value and that, when necessary, it will take action.
It is important to highlight, as some hon. Members have, that young drivers are generally less experienced and, sadly, more likely to be involved in collisions. They subsequently carry a higher risk with insurers when they seek motor insurance and, as a result, often pay higher premiums. To counter that, some insurers have introduced the use of telematics or in-car black boxes to allow better risk-based pricing of insurance, especially for new drivers. As hon. Members have said, many new drivers are safe drivers but are being punished with higher premiums because of those new drivers who are not quite so safe. If an individual has a real-time data feed, it allows the insurer to assess their driving behaviour, and that has not been possible in the past. The use of this new technology can help reduce insurance premiums if drivers show good driving behaviour with a black box installed in their cars.
Sir Bill Wiggin
That is a lovely idea that the insurance industry has put out there. However, if it is for someone’s children, it makes absolutely no difference because until the insurers have gathered the data on the driver, they do not reduce the premium. It is an after-the-horse-has-bolted solution and does not really fit the problem.
Anthony Browne
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Clearly, it takes time for the insurer to gather the data and to give the benefit, but this can be useful in reducing premiums for certain young drivers.
Different insurers obviously take different views of their relevant factors in determining the price for insurance, and the motor insurance market is very competitive. As we all know, if we look online we will get many hundreds of different quotes. The message from the Government is that consumers should shop around to find the best products. Certainly, when I have renewed insurance and shopped around, I have found dramatically different quotes. It is quite surprising for a competitive market to see how different the quotes are—it is really worth doing. The British Insurance Brokers’ Association runs a not-for-profit “find a broker” service if someone wants a broker rather than going directly online. It specialises in finding cover for those who have difficulties obtaining the cover they need at a reasonable cost.
Several hon. Members mentioned broader support for young drivers. As I said at the beginning, the Government are supportive of young drivers. For new and novice drivers, the Department’s broad aim is to improve road safety through new technology and research, and, particularly for young drivers, through developing better learning opportunities and targeted educational messaging, while reinforcing vital behaviour change road safety messages through our THINK! campaign.
The THINK! campaign aims to reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured on the roads in England and Wales by changing attitudes and behaviours among those at most risk. It has an annual media spend of over £3 million, with recent campaigns on drink-driving, speeding and mobile-phone use. The primary audience for the campaigns is male drivers aged 17 to 24, who are at a higher risk and are four times more likely to be killed or seriously injured than drivers over the age of 25.
Several Members—including the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan), who is no longer in her place, and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Sefton Central—mentioned driving test waiting times. Indeed, the hon. Member for Upper Bann also mentioned that. I should say that Northern Ireland driving testing is a devolved issue, so that is up to the Northern Ireland Government—and now that there is one in Northern Ireland, I suggest that the hon. Lady raises that matter with the Northern Irish Government.
For England, Wales and Scotland, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency priority has been to reduce car practical-test waiting times while upholding road safety standards. The DVSA has deployed all eligible managers and administrative staff back on to the frontline for driving tests until the end of March. That will create around 150,000 new test slots. The measures put in place to reduce waiting times for customers, together with the ongoing recruitment of driving examiners, are creating, on average, more than 48,000 extra car test slots each month. As of 12 February 2024, there were 523,353 car practical driving tests booked—that is a very precise number—and 128,360 available within the 24-week booking window.
Several Members, including the hon. Member for Upper Bann, mentioned graduated driving licences. Indeed, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) sang their praises as well. Again, I should say that driving licensing is a devolved matter in Northern Ireland, as has been recognised, so, again, Members with particular issues or concerns about that in Northern Ireland should speak to the Northern Ireland Government.
In Great Britain, the Department for Transport keeps driving licensing requirements under review, but there are not any plans, at the moment, to introduce any further restrictions on younger drivers. We acknowledge that, in terms of population and the number of miles driven, 17 to 24-year-olds remain one of the highest fatality risk groups, especially males.
We do have a form of restricting novice drivers though the Road Traffic (New Drivers) Act 1995. On acquiring their first full licence, a new driver is on probation for two years. During that time, they are subject to a limit of six penalty points received for any driving offences, which includes any that they received during their learning stage. If six or more points are received, a driver’s licence is revoked and they must apply again for a provisional licence, re-entering the learning stage and going back to square one.
In the road safety statement 2019, action 8 was to
“Commission research to explore the potential of a Graduated Learner Scheme”.
That research was delayed due to the pandemic, but we look forward to receiving the findings of that in due course. Action 9 was to
“Commission research to explore the social and economic consequences of introducing Graduated Driving Licence”,
which is different from the graduated learner schemes. That research was not taken forward, but we are aware of the TRL report for the RAC Foundation and the Rees Jeffreys Road Fund, “Supporting New Drivers in Great Britain”, which was published in October 2022. In that report, eight areas of concern were considered, including potential impacts on access to employment and education, and on those in rural areas.
My Department has commissioned the £2 million Driver2020 research project to examine interventions designed to help learner and newly qualified drivers improve their skills and safety. The project includes looking at the effectiveness of telematics, the use of a logbook, extra hazard perception, classroom-based education, and mentoring agreements. We look forward to receiving the findings from that project, which will feed into considerations of further measures that we could take to improve road safety for young drivers.
Once again, I thank the hon. Member for Upper Bann for securing this debate on such an important matter. I hope that hon. Members are all reassured that Government are committed to supporting all road users and to improving the safety of our roads. That includes young drivers, who, as I mentioned, are involved in far too many crashes.
Carla Lockhart
I thank the Minister for his response and for committing to take on board issues such as the roundtable. He mentioned the THINK! campaign, which I think needs to be promoted further, and the graduated driving licence and what will come out of the initiative that was introduced in 2019. I thank him for his response, and I encourage him to continue to push this issue.
I thank all those who have contributed, including the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin), who spoke very eloquently and mentioned learning in Australia. That is really important. He also mentioned the idea of parents being first educators and awareness of safety issues.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). He is ever the encourager and always brings issues from Strangford to the table. I am still thinking of him with black gloves on. As he said, it is unjust, unfair and unaffordable—those three are key words. We need to learn from that.
I thank the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), for bringing us the lived experience of his daughter and mentioning the need to support young people. He also mentioned learning in Australia.
I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), for his contribution. He mentioned research by the FCA and the CMA into hidden fees. We really should start to delve and dig into that issue. The key thing is pushing the Financial Conduct Authority to do a market study into this to try to identify ways and means of driving the price of insurance down for young people. We need to ensure that our young people can get on to the roads safely with premiums that are affordable. I thank all who contributed and I thank you, Mrs Latham, for your assistance from the Chair.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered Government support for young drivers.
Written Statements
Our Plan to Back British Farmers
(10 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Steve Barclay)
Farming in England is going through the biggest change in a generation. The bureaucratic Common Agricultural Policy disproportionately rewarded the largest landowners and held back smaller farmers, while delivering little for food productivity or the environment. The Government’s new schemes are investing in the foundations of food security, environmental sustainability and profitable farm businesses. Building on the largest ever update to our schemes announced in January, today we are setting out the next steps to deliver our plan to back British farmers.
Firstly, the Government will be taking further action to invest in sustainable, resilient farm businesses. In September 2023 we introduced the management payment to cover the administrative costs of entering our schemes. This has helped a record number of small farmers to sign up. We will be doubling that payment to up to £2,000 in the first year of each agreement, for agreements starting before March 2025, and extending it to countryside stewardship mid-tier. This means that the 11,000 farmers in England already in SFI will receive that top-up this spring.
We are also launching the largest ever grant offer, totalling £427 million. This invests £220 million in productivity and innovation in farming, £116 million in slurry infrastructure, and £91 million in improving the health and welfare of our farmed animals. The first of these schemes is an enhanced £70 million round of the successful farming equipment and technology fund, and we will also be increasing the currently open improving farming productivity fund from £30 million to £50 million —which covers robotics, automation and rooftop solar to build on-farm energy security.
We will improve the service and support being offered to farmers and cut planning red tape which currently stands in the way of farm diversification. We will lay the legislation to deliver that in April so that more farms in England can introduce farm shops or outside sports venues. We will continue to improve Government services with better digital infrastructure that is easier and faster to use. We will introduce more rolling application windows and make payments on time. In recent years there has been a growing awareness of the importance of farming mental health and we will be making up to £500,000 available to three charity partners to deliver projects that support mental health in the farming sector.
We are also strengthening our food security, which is a vital part of our national security. We will introduce a yearly food security index to underpin the Government’s three-yearly food security report. This will be made statutory when parliamentary time allows. The index will present the key data and analysis needed to monitor how we are maintaining our current levels of self-sufficiency and overall food security. We expect this to be UK-wide and will work to achieve this, strengthening accountability across England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. We will publish the first draft during the second UK Farm to Fork Summit this spring, which will be an annual event.
We are also supporting farmers to utilise more of their produce and reduce food waste at the farm gate. We will be launching a £15 million fund, available directly to farmers or the redistribution sector working with farmers, to redistribute surplus food at the farm gate which cannot currently be used commercially. We are also committed to building fairness in the supply chain and will be laying the regulations for the dairy sector and conducting the Government’s next review for poultry.
Supporting farmers, improving our approach, and strengthening food security—this is our plan. We are sticking to it, to deliver a resilient and profitable farming sector which continues to produce some of the best food in the world.
[HCWS266]
Water Company Inspections
(10 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Steve Barclay)
The Government are announcing plans today for a fourfold increase in water company inspections to drive the improved performance that the public rightly expect to see. Going forward, every water company operating wholly or mainly in England should expect their wastewater treatment sites to be regularly inspected by the Environment Agency (EA), and they should be in no doubt that this is driven by a need to crack down on their totally unacceptable, unlawful actions.
We have already increased our oversight of water companies and the EA have carried out over 930 inspections to date in this financial year. But the Government are going further and the number of inspections, including unannounced inspections, will rise to 4,000 by the end of March 2025—a fourfold increase. From April 2026, the number of inspections will rise further to 10,000 per year.
Increased inspections and enforcement will be backed by at least £55 million per annum. This will be fully funded through a combination of increased grant-in-aid from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to the Environment Agency, and additional funding from water quality permit charges levied on water companies, subject to consultation.
More inspections will allow the Environment Agency to conduct more in-depth audits to get to the root cause of incidents, reducing the reliance on operator self-monitoring, which was introduced in 2009. Alongside more in-person inspections of water company assets, the EA will expand its specialised workforce, including by hiring more data specialists to make better use of analytics and technology. This follows the Government’s instruction to water companies to now monitor 100% of all storm overflows. New monitoring and enhanced EA data analytics will help detect instances where storm overflows may be used illegally, so that the Environment Agency can quickly direct new specialist officers to any sites at risk, identify any non-compliance and take action.
The EA is already conducting the largest ever criminal investigation into potential widespread non-compliance by water and sewerage companies at thousands of sewage treatment works. Since 2015, the EA has concluded 59 prosecutions against water and sewerage companies, securing fines of over £150 million.
We know that people across the country want to see more progress in tackling pollution, and if water companies break the law, under our new plans, they will be held to account.
[HCWS268]
Independent Review of Prevent: One Year On Progress Report
(10 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Cleverly)
The Government are today publishing a progress report on our implementation of the Independent Review of Prevent recommendations.
Prevent is a fundamental part of the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy, known as Contest. Prevent aims to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. It does this by tackling the ideological causes of terrorism, intervening early to support those susceptible to radicalisation, and enabling people who have already engaged in terrorism to disengage and rehabilitate.
The “Independent Review of Prevent”, published on 8 February 2023, was conducted by Sir William Shawcross. It made 34 recommendations, which the Government accepted. In the Government response, published on the same day, we set out how we would implement the recommendations. We committed to delivering a renewed Prevent capability, which holds the mission of tackling terrorist ideologies at its core and responds confidently to emerging threats facing the UK.
In the 12 months since the publication of the independent review, we have made significant progress with 30 of the 34 recommendations completed in full, and 115 of the 120 sub-actions delivered.
We have delivered a number of key changes, as part of a broader programme to strengthen and reorient Prevent, that include:
New Prevent duty guidance that came into effect on 31 December 2023, following parliamentary approval. The new guidance responds to several recommendations and was developed in conjunction with a range of key Government partners and frontline practitioners.
Refreshing existing training to reflect the recommendations in the independent review, alongside developing new training packages that increase understanding of extremist ideologies. This new training offer equips statutory partners in fulfilling their obligations more effectively and supports them to make better decisions on when Prevent support is needed.
A new Prevent assessment framework, developed by the expert Counter Terrorism Assessment and Rehabilitation Centre, that is based on the most up to date evidence and learning. This ensures that decision-making on all Prevent referrals is rigorous, consistent, proportionate, and that only those that pose a counter-terrorism risk are supported by Prevent.
New Channel duty guidance that was published on 9 October 2023, that reflects the findings of the IRP, strengthens the Home Office’s quality assurance of how Channel is delivered, and responds swiftly to tackle any disparities in operational practice.
An independent Standards and Compliance Unit, that has been stood up as a stand-alone part of the Commission for Countering Extremism. The Standards and Compliance Unit provides a clear and accessible route for the public and practitioners to raise concerns about Prevent activity where it may have fallen short of the high standards we expect. It will be active from the 28 February, with people able to make initial contact through the website.
A significant change programme has already been implemented, but there is still more to do to ensure change is firmly embedded across Government and frontline sectors. We will continue to work at pace to implement the remaining four recommendations and five sub-actions.
Additionally, we will monitor the implementation of the recommendations to ensure that Prevent continues to hold itself to the high standards we have committed to, and remains agile in responding to the ever-changing threat picture in the UK.
A copy of the progress report will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses and published on www.gov.uk.
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Draft Rail Reform Bill
(10 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Mark Harper)
I am pleased to lay the Government’s response to the consultation on legislation required to deliver rail reform today. I am also publishing the draft Rail Reform Bill today, ahead of pre-legislative scrutiny which will be carried out by the Transport Select Committee. I have deposited copies of both of these documents in the Libraries of both Houses.
The railways are a vital part of the transport system of Great Britain. They support over a billion journeys, employ over 100,000 people and carry millions of tonnes of freight. Rail touches all corners of the country, connecting communities and forming an iconic part of our industrial heritage.
The public rightly expect ever more from our railways, but what has adapted over time now needs legislation to set the foundations for further progress in order to establish Great British Railways. To meet the demands of a modern economy and society, we want to be able to make the most of our investment in railway infrastructure, such as the investments that will come from Network North. Great British Railways will be best placed to optimise the railway to work effectively as a whole system, to make our railways more reliable, more efficient and more adaptive to technology and innovation, as well as fully embracing the private sector and its benefits.
While primary legislation is needed to establish Great British Railways, many reforms and tangible benefits for rail users can be delivered now. We are simplifying fares and continuing the rollout of pay-as-you-go and barcode ticketing, building local partnerships. We have set a new rail freight growth target and we are simplifying industry practices, reforming the commercial model and taking forward workforce reforms. We launched the second Great British Rail sale last month, which delivered real savings to rail passengers across Great Britain.
The consultation sought the views of industry and stakeholders on the primary legislative changes required to establish Great British Railways, which will be a new customer-focused, commercially-led arms-length body that brings together accountability for the railways. We received nearly 2,500 responses and have carefully considered these in creating the draft Bill, to ensure the reform of our railways is in the best interest of customers and the taxpayer whilst securing benefits for the industry and its workforce.
The draft Rail Reform Bill sets in motion the plan to deliver a bold vision for future rail customers—of punctual and reliable services, simpler tickets and a modern and innovative railway that meets the needs of the nation. When passed, it will help deliver on the 2019 manifesto commitment by bringing forward the biggest rail reform programme in a generation to create a simpler, more effective rail system. It will see the creation of a commercially focused Great British Railways that will leverage private sector innovation to help deliver a better offer for customers.
Great British Railways will have responsibility for infrastructure and operations, and oversight of whole industry finance where it is the franchising authority. It will be adaptable to changing customer needs, working in close partnership with the private sector—including train operating companies, freight operators, suppliers and innovators—to deliver a more efficient, modern rail system underpinned by better collaboration and aligned incentives, generating value and savings that will have benefits for passengers and taxpayers.
Given the scale and complexity of the changes being made to the sector, it is absolutely right that the draft Bill undergoes pre-legislative scrutiny to provide parliamentarians and experts across industry with the opportunity to review and test the legislation in draft. I am confident that the measures in this draft Bill will help deliver a simpler, more effective rail system, and am therefore pleased to commend it to the House today for pre-legislative scrutiny.
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