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Oral Answers to Questions
(8 months ago)
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Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Felicity Buchan)
We are investing almost £2.4 billion over three years to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping, which is an unprecedented amount. That includes over £1.2 billion through the homelessness prevention grant, which councils can use flexibly to prevent homelessness and help families to move out of temporary accommodation. Last week, an additional £107 million was allocated to councils through the single homelessness accommodation programme, providing 808 homes for people sleeping rough.
Bob Blackman
I thank my hon. Friend for that answer, but the number of people in temporary accommodation has risen by 10% over the past year, and the number of rough sleepers has risen by 27% across the country. Clearly, the money is very much needed—all London councils report that they are spending more than the temporary accommodation money that has been allocated. Equally, the pilots for Housing First have been outstandingly successful, so can we ensure that Housing First is introduced across the country and more investment is made, in order to take people off the streets and provide them with a permanent home, as they deserve?
Felicity Buchan
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for everything he has done in the homelessness space. The other day, I was looking at the figures from the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017—we have supported 708,000 families courtesy of that Act, in order to prevent homelessness. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we have seen an uptick in rough sleeping and homelessness, which is disappointing. However, with rough sleeping we are still 9% below pre-pandemic levels, and 18% below the highs in 2017. I agree with him about the success of Housing First. We have invested £42 million in those pilots, and we are investing a further £30 million through the rough sleeping initiative.
Lilian Greenwood
There are 142,000 children living in temporary accommodation—a record high that is costly to taxpayers, but devastating to the lives of children and families—and the Government’s own data shows that they have utterly failed on their 2019 manifesto commitment to end rough sleeping by 2024. As the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) has just said, rough sleeping has risen by 27% in the past year, and I remind the Minister that it is 120% higher than in 2010. Is she happy for children and families to be paying the price for 14 years of Tory failure on housing?
Felicity Buchan
This Government have made a concerted effort to tackle homelessness and eliminate rough sleeping. I am not happy with the numbers in temporary accommodation, which is why the last autumn statement contained a series of measures to address the issue, including an additional £450 million for the local authority housing fund—taking that to £1.2 billion—in order to improve the quality of temporary accommodation. We have also uprated the local housing allowance to the 30th percentile, which is worth £800 per family.
Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)
Southend has an abundance of accommodation that is deemed inexpensive by local authorities, and our city is picking up the tab for social care, education and long-term housing when other local authorities are not informing our city council that they are placing people in the city. Under section 208 of the Housing Act 1996, all local authorities should give prior notice when placing people for homelessness within 14 days. Will my hon. Friend assist me and Southend-on-Sea City Council in dealing with this issue?
Felicity Buchan
My hon. Friend is absolutely correct: if a local authority places people into temporary accommodation outside the borough, it should notify the relevant local authority. I am very happy to assist in getting that message across.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
Analysis by London Councils shows that, on average, the equivalent of one child in every classroom is homeless and that London local authorities are now spending a staggering £90 million a month on temporary accommodation for those who are homeless. What conversations has the Minister had with colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions and the Treasury about raising the cap on the housing benefit subsidy for temporary accommodation and also supporting local authorities to buy up property, as Richmond Borough Council is doing, so they can rehouse people locally in decent accommodation?
Felicity Buchan
As the hon. Lady will understand, I cannot talk about any discussions that we may have had with the Treasury, but clearly the Budget is on Wednesday. However, I would point to the increase in the local housing allowance rate, which will take effect in April, and the local authority housing fund is intended specifically to help local authorities to buy properties for temporary accommodation.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
I hear what the Minister says about the housing fund for temporary accommodation, but what we need to be doing is reducing the number of families in temporary accommodation. Four years have passed since the Government first promised to end section 21 evictions, and now 70,000 children are coming home from school each night to sleep in temporary accommodation. For a child being brought up in a hotel room, doing their homework on the bathroom floor and eating their dinner perched on the bed, the opportunity to make the most of their life is out of their control. So I ask the Minister how many more children must face eviction before she meets the promise?
Felicity Buchan
We are absolutely committed to repealing section 21—there is no question about that. As I have said, the numbers for those in temporary accommodation are disappointing but we do have a very holistic approach: building more housing, building more affordable homes, and enabling local authorities to go out and build and purchase temporary accommodation.
Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Jacob Young)
We are transforming communities the length and breadth of our United Kingdom through our £4.8 billion levelling-up fund, improving transport, regenerating high streets and rebuilding pride in place.
Giles Watling
I thank my hon. Friend for his answer, and I am delighted that we have recently been able to bring £78 million of investment to Clacton. Freeports will be a major contributor towards levelling up, and in my view levelling up also means better transport infrastructure, but not enough is getting through to bus services in my patch. Will he support my campaign outlining that Freeport East in Essex needs to show its social value in Clacton by helping to improve connectivity for everyone across the Tendring district, including for buses?
Jacob Young
I am more than happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss his campaign. Buses are the most popular form of public transport in our country. They are an essential element of our national transport system, playing a vital part in levelling up. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for acknowledging the huge amount of levelling-up funding going into Clacton and am keen to work with him to see how we can help people in Jaywick as well.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
My borough, Hackney, was successful in its bid for levelling-up funding, but there was a delay to the bid being put in, because the Government changed the timetable, and a delay to the final decision, again because the Government delayed the timetable, which has contributed—it is not the only factor—to a nine-month delay in the programme and getting the funding. Will the Minister look at that? Given that it is a Government flagship programme, is he not a bit disappointed that the timescale problems are down to his own Department?
Jacob Young
I absolutely commit to looking at that. We have introduced the project adjustment request process, and I am more than happy to talk to the hon. Lady and her local authority about how they can utilise that to meet the changes that she outlines.
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the great strength of levelling-up funding is that it supports projects that are generated by local communities, rather than by officialdom? When the Borders levelling-up partnership is considering projects, the projects in my constituency at the Crook Inn at Tweedsmuir and the George Hotel in Walkerburn are ideal for such funding opportunities.
Jacob Young
I was grateful to meet my right hon. Friend recently to discuss those exact priorities. We are hoping to invest £20 million into the levelling-up partnership he mentions. I am sure that those priorities will be part of our considerations as we design the partnership.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
Communities in Northern Ireland experienced no benefit from the last round of levelling-up funding, because of the Government’s flimsy excuse that the Assembly was not sitting. Now that the Assembly is sitting, can the Minister tell us what discussions he has had with the communities Minister to ensure that the millions of pounds that he said was set aside will be available for projects in Northern Ireland?
Jacob Young
I can absolutely commit to having those discussions, and I offer to meet the right hon. Gentleman following Question Time.
Dame Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)
I am proud that Morley has received £24 million in funding from the Conservative Government. I am sure that my hon. Friend agrees that transparency and care with taxpayers’ money is vital. Will he look into the concerns that a number of constituents have raised about Morley Town Council, including the controversial plan to install £80,000-worth of TV screens in a conservation area, whether it followed the correct tendering process and whether any vested interests among those involved were fully declared?
Jacob Young
I will absolutely look into those concerns and ensure that my officials can meet my hon. Friend to discuss them further.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
The success or otherwise of levelling up will be tested by whether people in communities feel better off and whether inequalities in those communities are removed. What assessment has the Minister made of an area such as Tameside, which has had three successful levelling-up bids, but feels poorer because its council is £200 million worse off?
Jacob Young
Across the north-west, we are investing £2.2 billion through our different levelling-up fund streams. We are working closely with the Mayor of Greater Manchester, giving him more powers and more funding to help deal with the exact issues the hon. Gentleman mentions.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
The Government talk about levelling up, but local councils and communities are on the brink due to policies made in Downing Street that affect every single local authority in the country. Funding has been slashed, the fair funding review delayed, and the business rate reset postponed, while reserves are depleted, community assets have been sold, accounts go unsubmitted, and more and more councils are lining up for emergency support. Is it not time to end the sticking-plaster politics and have a long-term plan for all our communities’ sake, or are the Government doing what the country is doing: waiting for a Labour Government?
Jacob Young
I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman failed to mention the long-term plan for Oldham, which is in his constituency and where we are investing £20 million over the next 10 years. Since 2019, we have invested £15 billion of levelling-up funding across the country. We are committed to levelling up right across the country.
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)
We have made available up to £64.7 billion for local authorities through the 2024-25 local government finance settlement. Local authorities can decide how to spend the majority of that funding. The Government are also investing more than £5 billion into local highways maintenance in this Parliament. In October, we announced a further £8 billion to fix our roads.
Mr Perkins
GoCompare’s recent pothole report described the potholes in Tory-run Derbyshire as the very worst in England. The Conservative council leader was clear in his view that it is funding decisions from central Government that have forced the county to adopt what he called the totally ineffective “sticking plaster and patching approach”. He said that the funding from the Government
“doesn’t touch the sides of the issue for counties”
across the country. Why should Derbyshire motorists pay a Tory pothole tax, with tyres, springs and suspensions all constantly needing repairing as a result of the state of our roads?
Simon Hoare
For the hon. Gentleman’s benefit, let me repeat those figures of £5 billion for local highways maintenance and the additional £8 billion announced in October. That will fill holes, including in Derbyshire and his constituency, to support motorists, the economy and people going about their business.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
It is normal in these circumstances to invite a Minister to visit a constituency. The Minister is welcome to visit my constituency, The Wrekin in Shropshire, and the Telford and Wrekin borough, but if he visits the Telford and Wrekin borough bit, could he bring a spare tyre? The potholes there are enormous. I thank him for allowing £32 million to be released over the next 11 years to ensure that those potholes are filled. Rather than a pothole tax, may I thank him for the pothole fund? Finally—[Interruption.] I will not give a “finally”, but he is very welcome to visit. Bring a spare tyre!
Simon Hoare
As I struggle with my Lenten observations, I need no lessons about spare tyres—it is all about trying to get rid of spare tyres, as far as I am concerned. I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s comments. The Wrekin is a part of Shropshire that I know well. Those sums can and should be used by upper-tier authorities, which are the highways authority, to ensure that their networks are working well, smoothly and safely. That benefits all, and the Government are putting up the money to allow them to do that.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
Public service workers and local leaders across the country are working incredibly hard to improve their local areas and provide vital services, so rather than the begging bowl culture that makes them bid for money, will the Minister take forward Labour’s commitment for a long-term, more secure funding settlement to allow them to plan for the future?
Simon Hoare
I am intrigued by what the right hon. Lady proffers to the House. Only a few weeks ago, in the debate on the local government finance settlement—none of her colleagues apart from the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who chairs the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, and those on the Front Bench could be bothered to turn up and speak on it—the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist), who is sitting next to her on the Front Bench, said:
“As I will come on to say shortly, we will have a review to look at the long-term plans. We understand the problems that local government is facing.”—[Official Report, 7 February 2024; Vol. 745, c. 326.]
May I say to the right hon. Lady that part of the job of being in Opposition is to work out the policies that she may want to deliver in government?
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Felicity Buchan)
We have been clear that anti-Muslim hatred has absolutely no place in our communities. I feel that strongly, as I represent one of the most diverse constituencies in the country. We have provided over £6 million to the anti-Muslim hatred monitoring and support service Tell MAMA, and just shy of £13 million to schemes protecting mosques and faith schools. Funding for both measures had been uplifted in response to increased reporting since October.
Peter Grant
An extreme right-wing Conservative MP was allowed to go on an extreme right-wing Conservative-funding TV station and make a series of vile Islamophobic remarks. The MP was not suspended for Islamophobia; he was suspended for refusing to obey an order from his party leader. Does the Minister understand why it is that, not only among Muslim communities but across a much wider range of believers and non-believers, people are becoming increasingly concerned that, in the eyes of this Government, Islamophobia is seen as somehow less abhorrent than other forms of racism?
Felicity Buchan
The Government were absolutely clear that those were not appropriate comments. That is completely clear. Any form of religious hatred is not acceptable in our society.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
The recent rise in anti-Muslim hate incidents and crimes is really worrying. Will the Government do everything they can to improve education so as to improve multi-faith understanding and tackle this scourge?
Felicity Buchan
My right hon. Friend makes a good point. Education is critical, and we need to bring our communities together. Last weekend, I was delighted to attend an inter-faith event in my constituency that included Holland Park synagogue, where it was hosted, and al-Manaar mosque. That inter-faith work and communities working together is critical.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
For almost two years this Tory Government have failed to appoint an independent adviser on Islamophobia. The former adviser has criticised the Government for their failure to engage, and revealed that he could not even get them to provide terms of reference for his role. Does the Minister agree that this Government lack the political will to tackle this pernicious hatred, or even to call it out?
Felicity Buchan
I strongly disagree. We plan to appoint a new independent adviser on anti-Muslim hatred, and we will update the House shortly.
Ms Anum Qaisar (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
Like so many, I am fearful of the inability to call out Islamophobia becoming a scaremongering tactic to stoke fear and division and garner support for the extreme far right. It makes life difficult or even dangerous for Muslims. Across all four nations, more can and should be done on a cross-party basis to tackle that hatred. That starts with being able to call out Islamophobia when it occurs. Could the Minister clarify the line between being wrong and being Islamophobic?
Felicity Buchan
There is no question but that those comments were wrong. I face the Mayor of London in opposition all the time, and I could criticise him for many things—housing, policing, fire or transport—but I would never accuse him of being in any way under the influence of Islamists.
Ms Qaisar
That response will give people little comfort. Let me paint a picture for the Minister of what life is like for many Muslims growing up and living across these four nations. A month after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, my local mosque in Carfin was petrol bombed. The two men were sentenced to one year and nine months respectively. If asked, most Muslims will have their own stories. Muslims are not asking for special treatment. They work, pay taxes, send their kids to the same schools and support the same football teams. The Government have had ample opportunity over the past few weeks to commit to tackling this stain on society, but there has been no substantial change in policy. Next Friday 15 March marks the UN’s International Day to Combat Islamophobia. Will the Government use that opportunity to commit to adopting the definition of the all-party parliamentary group?
Felicity Buchan
I want to make it clear that this Government will not tolerate religious hatred towards Muslims or any other faith group. That is a red line. This Government are aware, very sadly, of incidents of anti-Muslim hatred, which is why we put in place an extra £4.9 million of protective security funding for Muslim mosques, faith schools and communities. We are 100% behind our Muslim communities.
Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Feryal Clark (Enfield North) (Lab)
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Jacob Young)
The Department publishes official statistics on homelessness duties owed, including the number of households threatened with homelessness following service of a valid section 21 notice. We are committed to the abolition of section 21 through our landmark Renters (Reform) Bill, which will deliver a fairer private rented sector for both tenants and landlords.
Dame Angela Eagle
In 2019 the Government promised to abolish section 21 no-fault evictions, but the Bill that they finally published five years later, which the Minister mentioned, does not actually abolish section 21 no-fault evictions. Meanwhile, 140,000 children are living in costly temporary accommodation. In my constituency we get one or two cases every week. The problems are piling up. When will this Government do what they promised—stop delaying, stop dithering, and abolish no-fault evictions?
Jacob Young
As I have already said, we are absolutely committed to abolishing section 21. The Renters (Reform) Bill is going through Parliament and I look forward to debating it with the hon. Lady when it returns to this House.
Feryal Clark
My borough of Enfield topped London’s league for section 21 evictions last year, setting a grim record and resulting in a dramatic rise in homeless families approaching the council for help. At its peak, the borough had 400 families approach the council for help in one month, yet Ministers are unwilling to stand up to their own Back Benchers. The Minister says the Government are committed to abolishing section 21 evictions. Can I please ask him when? When will he bring the Bill back, so we can bring an end to no-fault evictions?
Jacob Young
I pay tribute to the hon. Lady, who I have heard campaigning on this issue a number of times. I am well aware of her concerns for her constituents. As I said, we are absolutely committed to abolishing section 21. We will bring forward the Bill as soon as we are able to do so. I would also say to her that the Mayor of London is not building enough homes. He is not building enough homes to meet the Government-assessed need for London. He is not even building homes to his own targets, so I encourage her to have a conversation with him as well.
Rebecca Long Bailey
In Salford, from April to November last year, approximately 466 individuals presented to Salford City Council in crisis because of section 21 notices. Salford’s social housing waiting list is currently in the thousands. Private market rents are outstripping incomes and local housing allowance rates at a frighteningly exponential rate. There are no affordable homes to go to once someone is evicted from a property, so homelessness is now at acute levels in Salford. This is not just a housing crisis; this is a homelessness crisis in Salford. When are the Government going to bring back the Renters (Reform) Bill, with robust amendments finally banning section 21 evictions? What action will the Minister take to ensure that my constituents urgently have long-term secure tenancies?
Jacob Young
Again, I have heard the hon. Lady talk about this issue a number of times. We are absolutely committed to the abolition of section 21. I am personally committed to that. We will bring back the Bill as soon as we are able to do so.
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
In resisting Labour’s efforts to strengthen the Renters (Reform) Bill, Ministers have repeatedly argued that the legislation as drafted strikes precisely the right balance between the interests of tenants and those of landlords, yet by watering down protections for renters and further delaying the long-overdue abolition of section 21 evictions, the package of draft Government amendments to the Bill that we saw last week will tilt the playing field decisively back towards the landlord interest. Are we to believe that the Government have honestly decided, at the 11th hour, that it is landlords who need more rights and powers, or is this not simply a crude attempt to manage an increasingly fractious Tory party at a shameful cost to hard-pressed private tenants?
Jacob Young
The hon. Gentleman, like various Members who have spoken, is a committed campaigner on this issue. I enjoyed our time together in the Public Bill Committee. We need to strike the balance he has just spoken about. That is why we are discussing the Bill with both landlord groups and tenant groups. We are meeting colleagues on the Government Benches and the Labour Benches, and those in the smaller parties, too. We are ensuring that when we bring the Bill back it is in the best possible shape so that it affords protections and security for tenants, but protections, in fairness, for landlords too.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. I am pleased to report that the review of the flood recovery framework has already begun and I expect the work to be completed by autumn this year. We will, of course, update Parliament in the usual way when that review is completed.
Mohammad Yasin
My constituent Lucy owns Ride Leisure Events on Wyboston Lakes, which flooded again during Storm Henk. She cannot get insurance and her business is not entitled to compensation under the flood recovery framework because of the Government’s arbitrary decision to expect cash-strapped councils to cover the cost if fewer than 50 properties are impacted. It is very unfair that my constituent has fallen through the safety net. She will not be the only one, with property in Kempston regularly affected by flooding. Will the Minister crack that anomaly in the framework and help my constituent save her business?
Simon Hoare
I am sorry to hear about that case, and if the hon. Gentleman wishes to write to me giving details of the business, I will of course look into it. As for Storm Henk, 2,241 properties have been identified as eligible for grant support. That covers 16 upper-tier local authorities, and to date payments of £788,743 have been reported by authorities to impacted householders and businesses. There always has to be a rubric in these cases, and this issue will be considered during the flood recovery framework review, on which, as I have said, we will report back to the House. However, the offer is there: if the hon. Gentleman wishes to write to me, I will happily look at what he has to say.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
Whiston has been flooded repeatedly over the past decade, and there is a huge ongoing issue, but Rotherham council recently approved the building of 450 new homes there. Whiston Parish Council, which is independently aligned and thus not party political, called a special public meeting about the plans, which show water running uphill—which I believe it does not do—and floodwater draining into a non-existent stream. This surely demonstrates that Rotherham Council does not understand the issue of flooding. Does my right hon. Friend agree that all councils, including Rotherham, have a responsibility not to build on floodplains?
Simon Hoare
My hon. Friend has raised an important issue. Between them, the local planning authority and the Environment Agency should always find the most appropriate sites for development and take hydrology and water management into consideration. The Minister for Housing, Planning and Building Safety, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), will have heard what my hon. Friend has said, and may contact him in due course.
Alistair Strathern (Mid Bedfordshire) (Lab)
The Minister for Housing, Planning and Building Safety (Lee Rowley)
The adoption of roads is largely an issue for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport, who leads on that policy, but I know—because we have spoken about this in the Committee considering the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill—that the hon. Gentleman has a significant interest in this matter. We understand the strength of feeling about it, and we are considering it further.
Alistair Strathern
Across the country, homeowners in a state of adoption limbo are being left exposed to exploitative and often unaccountable management companies. Despite their warm words, sadly the Government did not take any of the actions that the Competition and Markets Authority urged them to take in order to end the issue of fleecehold once and for all. Given that the Secretary of State is rumoured to be on the lookout for legacy accomplishments, will the Minister urge his colleagues to finally act on this issue during the current Parliament, or will fleecehold be yet another issue left for the next Government to tackle?
Lee Rowley
With the best will in the world, the CMA report was published a few days ago, and the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill had been progressing through the House for a number of months before that. As for the hon. Gentleman’s specific point, I hope he will accept, as other Members, including his colleagues, have done, that the Bill is a significant improvement for estate management, providing the right of redress to a tribunal, further information and the right to absolute clarity on service charges. All those changes have been rightly demanded by residents, and we are considering carefully whether there is anything further than we can do.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Michael Gove)
My Department is engaging with all town deal recipients to support delivery through our performance monitoring process, and we have a particular interest in progress in Ipswich following the allocation of £25 million, secured by the hon. Gentleman, for 10 projects there.
Tom Hunt
I am very grateful for that investment. As the Secretary of State will know, my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison) had to intervene because of the slow production of the business cases. We got over that hurdle, but sadly, years later, we are still desperately waiting for delivery on the ground. When bodies other than the Labour-led council are responsible for projects, they are delivered—no problem—but when the council is in the driving seat, what we see is no delivery. Whether it is cock-up or conspiracy, it is not good enough. Will the Secretary of State please intervene to let the council know that it is not right to put politics before the delivery that the people of Ipswich so desperately need?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is a bonnie fechter for Ipswich, and he is absolutely right about, for instance, the local shopping parades project and the former R&W Paul Silo building. I am afraid that we have not seen the progress that we would expect. It is indeed the case that the Labour Council in Ipswich is not delivering for the people of Ipswich in the way that my hon. Friend so brilliantly does.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I thought that the Secretary of State’s Government were introducing all these deals in order to help the parts of the country that were struggling and where more people on low earnings lived. Like him, I have been looking carefully at who is getting the money. Why does so much of it goes to Tory marginal seats? Is that fair?
Michael Gove
First, Ipswich is an area that deserves investment—an area that has been overlooked and undervalued under Labour Governments. Secondly, on Friday I was proud to be able to announce additional investment in a mass transit system, which will enable the hon. Gentleman’s constituents in Huddersfield to travel more quickly across West Yorkshire to Leeds and Bradford. Sadly, it is the case at the moment that we do not have Conservative MPs in Leeds or Bradford, but we know that the Labour marginal seats in Leeds and Bradford, and of course the marginal seat of Huddersfield, will very soon have Conservative representation.
Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)
James Daly (Bury North) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Jacob Young)
The £150 million community ownership fund is open to voluntary and community organisations or parish, town and community councils from all parts of the United Kingdom that have a viable plan for taking ownership of a community asset at risk and running it sustainably for community benefit. So far, we have awarded £71 million to 257 community projects, including £1 million to Gigg Lane, the home of Bury FC. Detailed guidance on the criteria is available in the prospectus on gov.uk.
Miriam Cates
Silsden Methodist church in my constituency has not been used for worship for some time, but it is a really important community space, where a wide range of community groups meet regularly. Sadly, I understand that the Methodist Church may now sell the building, threatening the future of these groups, but Silsden Parish Council has managed to have the building listed as an asset of community value. Could my hon. Friend tell me whether the community ownership fund might be a suitable source of funding to secure the future of the building, or which other funds the parish council should be looking at?
Jacob Young
It sounds as though the church is eligible, but I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss eligibility further. Applicants can bid for up to £2 million in capital funding from the community ownership fund, with additional revenue funding available, but in the first instance I would recommend that interested applicants read the prospectus on gov.uk, as this will cover all they need to know regarding eligibility requirements, funding available and the application process.
James Daly
Would my hon. Friend consider amending the criteria for community ownership fund applications to include the potential community purchase of redundant council assets? It would bring back to life many publicly owned buildings and spaces that are currently serving no purpose or are underused.
Jacob Young
I thank my hon. Friend for his advocacy for the fund and for his constituents in Bury. The community ownership fund works alongside existing community asset transfers and supports them by funding the costs of renovation and refurbishment. We cannot fund the cost of purchasing publicly owned assets where the public authority would credit a capital receipt, except in the case of parish, town and community councils, but I am happy to meet him to discuss this issue further.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
In many communities in Westmorland, the pub is the centre of the community and is often under threat. In some cases, the local pub—such as The Ship Inn in Sandside—has closed down altogether. The community ownership fund is clearly a very good way of allowing the community to bring such businesses back into public use, but does the fund allow communities to go through the process of compulsory purchase, so that a building can be taken from an owner who is unwilling to sell and made useful again for the local community?
Jacob Young
I think the CPO process is probably a bit too lengthy for the fund itself, but I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss the project directly. We are very happy to help fund community pubs through the community ownership fund.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
The Citizens theatre in Glasgow is a much-beloved institution and has been undergoing refurbishment for several years. It has had a range of funding from Glasgow City Council, the Scottish Government and Historic Environment Scotland, but, due to inflation and various measures, it still requires additional funding to make up the balance and complete its really significant refurbishment programme. Is the community ownership fund something that the Citizens theatre might be able to avail itself of?
Jacob Young
Once again, it sounds as though the theatre may be eligible. I cannot comment on its eligibility today, but I am happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss whether the fund is appropriate for the Citizens theatre.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Michael Gove)
We have made available up to £64.7 billion for local authorities through the local government finance settlement for 2024-25—an above-inflation increase of up to £4.5 billion, or 7.5% in cash terms, on 2023-24. Of course, that includes an additional £600 million of funding, which was announced by my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government on 24 January.
Nigel Mills
Aside from potholes, the issue that has caused the most angst for Derbyshire County Council is the significant rise in the cost of residential placements for looked-after children. The council believes that the market for this is now completely out of control and that prices are excessive. Is there more that the Government can do to help councils financially to pay these bills or to find a better way to structure that market so that the bills are not so high?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We are spending £500 million additionally on adult and children’s social care, but he is right to say that the cost of residential homes for looked-after children is excessive, and a number of private equity firms are operating like bandits in this area. I have talked to the Minister responsible, the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (David Johnston), and action will be forthcoming.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
The Select Committee recently produced a report on local government finance in which we said that the Government must act now if local authorities are to survive this severe crisis. What has the Secretary of State done? He has asked every local authority to produce a productivity plan. That sounds a bit like advising councils how to spend better the money they have not got. He has asked local authorities to identify
“ways to reduce wasteful spend”.
What does he think they have been doing for the last 13 years? In particular, he has asked them to identify waste on
“discredited staff equality, diversity and inclusion programmes”.
How much does he think that will save when it comes to avoiding section 114 notices?
Michael Gove
The Chairman of the Select Committee is right to say that local government is facing challenges, but there are outstanding councils—North Lincolnshire and South Norfolk, for example—that are continuing to ensure that they can build up surpluses and deliver effective services. That is because they put productivity first. There are some local authorities, lamentably, that are not putting productivity first. They include South Cambridgeshire, with its plans for a four-day week, and St Albans, which is still spending money on discredited forms of training that only increase division rather than bringing communities together. It is no coincidence that both those local authorities are Liberal Democrat.
Steve Tuckwell (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Jacob Young)
Where landlords fail to keep their properties in an acceptable condition, local authorities can issue improvement notices and impose penalties for non-compliance. Social tenants can already access the housing ombudsman service, and the Renters (Reform) Bill will establish a new landlord ombudsman service so that private tenants can also seek free redress.
Steve Tuckwell
While these changes in legislation are welcome, it is clear that more must be done. Too many rental and leasehold residents in my constituency face ongoing issues in ensuring that landlords and freeholders face up to their responsibilities. Will the Minister work with me to ensure that my residents in precarious situations with unresponsive landlords or leaseholders are able to access the correct course of remedial action in a timely and effective manner?
Jacob Young
I will indeed work with my hon. Friend to ensure that his residents, who he is such a brilliant champion for, can access redress. We are committed to protecting tenants from the minority of landlords and agents who provide a poor service. Where a property is managed by an agent, residents can seek redress through the property ombudsman or the property redress scheme, as well as the housing ombudsman for social tenants and the new ombudsman for private tenants. The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill will require freeholders who manage their property to join a redress scheme, too.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
Too many children across the country are still being hospitalised because there is mould in their private rented homes. Repairs and concerns especially about mould are the subject of Awaab’s law, which is being brought in, but private landlords are being let off the hook. Will the Minister consider supporting my private Member’s Bill to extend Awaab’s law and ensure that private landlords fulfil their responsibilities to fix mould?
Jacob Young
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the time we have spent together discussing her private Member’s Bill. Through the Renters (Reform) Bill we are introducing a new decent homes standard for the private rented sector, which I believe covers the majority of her Bill, but I would be happy to continue those discussions with her further.
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Michael Gove)
My Department is supporting the implementation of the Norfolk devolution deal, which is progressing well. Norfolk County Council, under its brilliant leader, intends to vote to change its governance in July, leading to the election of a directly elected leader in May 2025.
Duncan Baker
The Budget, in a couple of days’ time, could do two things for Norfolk. First, it could announce the county deal to give Norfolk control of its future. Even more importantly, it could provide the vehicle for my Sheringham roundabout, which the Secretary of State knows all about. The roundabout will be wonderful for my North Norfolk constituency, so has he convinced the Chancellor to announce it yet?
Michael Gove
I cannot reveal the nature of any discussions I have had with the Chancellor, but Sheringham roundabout is one of the single most important infrastructure investments in Norfolk. My hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) has convincingly made the case to me, and I hope we will be able to get motoring on it before too long.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Jacob Young)
Our £11.5 billion affordable housing programme will deliver thousands of affordable homes for both rent and purchase right across the country. The levelling-up White Paper committed to increasing the supply of social rented homes, and a large number of the new homes delivered through our affordable homes programme will be for social rent.
Yasmin Qureshi
In Bolton, 20,000 people are on a housing waiting list. There is an 18-month wait for a three-bedroom house and, on average, 800 to 900 people apply for each home that comes up. Families are often referred to the private rented sector, which they are not able to afford—we know that rents are sky high. After 14 years of this Tory Government failing to build affordable homes, will the Minister now apologise to my constituents who are stuck in temporary accommodation?
Jacob Young
The hon. Lady mentions the last 14 years. Well, since 2010, we have delivered over 696,000 new affordable homes, including over 482,000 affordable homes for rent, of which 172,000 are for social rent. We are committed to building more homes for people like her constituents.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddle-worth) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Michael Gove)
On Friday, at the convention of the north, I was delighted to confirm enhanced devolution deals for the Liverpool city region, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire and additional investment in Blackpool, Sheffield and Blackburn. That includes £1.5 million for Tony’s Empress Ballroom, which—as you know, Mr Speaker—is an iconic northern soul dance hall. I look forward to visiting it with you and the shadow Secretary of State soon.
Debbie Abrahams
A constituent recently came to my surgery with her seven-year-old son to show some appalling photographs of the private rented accommodation in which they live. The little boy asked me whether he is going to die because of the thick mould in his bedroom. Given the housing ombudsman’s recent remarks, particularly emphasising the link between housing conditions and health, what urgent action will the Secretary of State take to address the appalling situation in the private rented sector?
Michael Gove
We will shortly say more about the decent homes standard and the extension of the ombudsman’s powers to deal with precisely the sort of situation that the hon. Lady raises.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Jacob Young)
Tackling antisocial behaviour is a priority for this Government, which is why we have published our antisocial behaviour action plan, backed with £160 million of new funding. We have committed to a “three strikes and you’re out” ASB policy, and landlords will be expected to evict tenants whose behaviour is disruptive to neighbours. My right hon. Friend will be pleased to know that, from 1 April, the social housing regulator will require registered providers of social housing to work with the appropriate local authority, the Department, the police and other relevant organisations to tackle antisocial behaviour.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
This week’s Budget will be a big one for young people—16 and 17-year-olds—who are starting work or making important education choices, yet they currently have no say on who will be the next Government. We on the Opposition Benches believe in our young people. Will the Government act now to give 16 and 17-year-olds a say in the next general election?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)
The hon. Lady makes a case for lowering the voting age—one that I do not support and the Government do not support. The age of 18 is seen as the age of maturity in this country and many others across the world. It seems to have served us pretty well up to now and I see no particular reason to change it.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes an important argument, and the case of the Crooked House reinforces what he has long campaigned for: better protection for heritage pubs. I look forward to working with him and Lord Mendoza to achieve just that.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Michael Gove
Obviously, I cannot speak to the hon. Lady about specific planning applications. I do cherish urban green spaces, but I also cherish more homes being built in London. It would be regrettable if she were to be a blocker, not a builder.
Jane Stevenson (Wolverhampton North East) (Con)
Since my election, I have urged Wolverhampton City Council to focus on city centre living, to bring footfall back to our city centre. What more can the Government do on that? I am delighted that the council is now changing its plans, but how can we get upper storeys converted as well, to really bring that footfall back?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is a brilliant champion for Wolverhampton and for Wulfrunians everywhere. In particular, she has been the single most effective voice in attracting investment to the heart of Wolverhampton. She is right to say that, as well as commercial investment, we need new residential opportunities, and our extension of permitted development rights should provide just that.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman raises a very important point. Those who have suffered as a result of the infected blood scandal are, of course, in the forefront of our minds. This is directly a Cabinet Office responsibility, but I know from my time there how seriously the Ministers charged with that responsibility take it. I will talk to them and update the devolved Administrations on progress towards appropriate compensation.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con)
The Government are to be commended for taking through the first leasehold reforms for 20 years, but as the Bill now goes to the Lords, will Ministers go further and agree: first, to empower the 3 million to 4 million people trapped on fleecehold estates; and, secondly, to fundamentally end this scammy, dodgy, corrupt model once and for all?
The Minister for Housing, Planning and Building Safety (Lee Rowley)
My hon. Friend makes an important point about making sure that we strike the right balance. We have brought forward significant reforms in the Bill, but I am happy to continue to talk to him and other Members who are interested. The Government continue to look at what more can be done.
Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Felicity Buchan)
This Government have a clear plan that we introduced last year: ending rough sleeping for good. We announced £2 billion behind it and the figure is now £2.4 billion. We are giving unprecedented amounts of money to this very important task.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
Haden Hill leisure centre in my constituency is to be part rebuilt and part refurbished by a £20 million investment from the levelling-up fund. Does the Minister agree that the Department needs to continue to be engaged with the local authority, which is appointing contractors, to make sure that this project gets delivered on time and on budget?
Jacob Young
My hon. Friend is a fantastic champion for his constituents. I am happy to meet him to discuss the delays as soon as we can. The project adjustment process is available to the council if it needs to use it.
Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)
Michael Gove
I was delighted to be in West Yorkshire on Friday outlining the additional investment that we are making in that region. The agreement that we have reached with the Mayor of West Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin, will see significant additional funds going in to help with housing, adult skills and transport, all of which will contribute to a revolution in devolution that has occurred under this Conservative Government.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
Rural areas are particularly vulnerable to the high energy costs we have seen in the last two years. They are 150% more vulnerable to fuel poverty. Does my right hon. Friend agree that councils on the frontline of high rural costs are seeing a spate of homelessness? Great councils, such as Breckland Council in my patch, are now spending 50% of their net budget on relief. Would he support me in urging the Chancellor to increase that relief in the Budget on Wednesday?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We are concentrating on ensuring we can level up the north and the midlands, but we also need to recognise that levelling up encompasses making sure that those in rural areas, who contribute so much to the life of our nation, are supported through the challenges that the cost of living crisis has generated.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Will the Minister advise me how many people took up the offer of the former help to buy ISA scheme? Has another such scheme been considered to allow young people to get on the seemingly impossible first rung of the property ladder?
Lee Rowley
As a Government, we continue to bring forward as many interventions as we can to support young people to get on the housing ladder. Some 800,000 first-time buyers have managed to do that since 2010. I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to talk more about the points he has made.
Sir Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
Today, the Charity Commission issued new guidance for charities that refuse to accept donations. That comes after the Royal National Lifeboat Institution turned down a donation from Dungarvan Foxhounds Supporters Club in the Republic of Ireland. Declining a donation from a lawful source may not be consistent with the legal duty of trustees to “further their charity’s purpose”. Will my right hon. Friend support the right of communities throughout the British Isles to donate to charities of their choice?
Michael Gove
My right hon. and learned Friend, the former Attorney General, raises a very important point. We want to do everything we can to encourage charitable giving. I will look closely at the case he mentions, and raise it with the Cabinet Office and Orlando Fraser KC, the distinguished chair of the Charity Commission, who is doing such a good job.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
There are businesses in York that have not been able to trade for over four months because of flooding. The flood recovery framework precludes them from getting funds, whereas those in the Tory shires are able to access funds. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the fact that businesses in my constituency cannot get funding? Let us find a way forward so that they do not miss out.
Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)
Councillors will not be covered by the newly passed Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023 and are at risk of losing extra responsibility allowances if they have a child who spends time in neonatal care. Will the local government Minister issue guidance to councils, asking them to ensure that all parents are protected if their councillors find themselves in those most difficult of circumstances?
Simon Hoare
My hon. Friend has worked on this campaign. We spoke about it last week and I understand entirely the merits of the argument he makes. So powerful is he as an advocate that I have already put work in hand to deliver what he is talking about.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
On the community ownership fund, it is welcome that the match funding requirements for local organisations have been reduced to 20%. In future rounds, could the criterion around match funding take account of prior investment by the community, such as the very many small donations that people in the Axe valley area gave to build Seaton community hospital?
Michael Gove
That is an interesting idea. I am very fond of the Axe valley, so I will look at it.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
1244 was the date of the first market charter awarded to Wellington in Shropshire, in my constituency. In the last three years, £3 million from the towns fund, £10 million from the levelling-up fund and £800,000 from a fund I cannot remember have provided record investment from this Government into the 800-year-old market town of Wellington. The Labour council has just taken over the market, so will the Secretary of State please ensure that the council do not mess it up?
Michael Gove
We will do everything we can. Wellington is very lucky to have such a brilliant advocate. I hope my right hon. Friend sits on the green Benches for many years to come, but when he is transferred to another place, he deserves to be the next Duke of Wellington.
Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration
(8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
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Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Office if he will make a statement on the publication of 13 reports by the former independent chief inspector of borders and immigration on 29 February and how the inspectorate will now operate in the absence of a chief inspector or deputy?
The Minister for Legal Migration and the Border (Tom Pursglove)
We recognise that independent scrutiny, such as that provided by the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, plays an important role in ensuring that we have an effective immigration system. In January, the Home Secretary made a promise to the former chief inspector to publish all overdue reports as soon as possible, which I repeated in the House last month in response to an earlier urgent question. Last Thursday, we delivered on that promise by publishing all 13 reports that were outside the eight-week commitment to review and respond. We take ICIBI reports seriously and we do not wait until publication to act on its findings. Indeed, some of the reports’ recommendations have now been implemented and work is ongoing across the Department to implement others. That includes action to strengthen border security and improve the system for processing asylum claims.
The final two reports from the former chief inspector will be published in the established eight-week period. There is no requirement for a chief inspector to be in place for that to happen, but the process of appointing his replacement is under way, with the advert going live the day after the former chief inspector had his appointment terminated. An appointment will be made following robust competition, in accordance with the governance code on public appointments. In addition, we are looking at options to appoint an interim chief inspector. We will, of course, update the House on the outcome of the appointment processes. We will also continue working with the right hon. Lady’s Home Affairs Committee in relation to these matters.
The security and effectiveness of the UK border is of paramount importance. The Government recognise that, which is why we have taken wide-ranging action to tackle illegal migration and reform our asylum system. Our efforts are paying off, but there is more to do. We will never compromise on this. We will always put the safety and interests of the British people first.
Dame Diana Johnson
I agree with the Minister that the role of the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration provides indispensable scrutiny of vital Home Office functions. On Tuesday 20 February, the Home Secretary sacked David Neal. Eight days later, the Home Office published 13 of the 15 reports that the chief inspector had submitted during his tenure, none of which had been published within the agreed eight-week deadline following receipt.
The reports raise multiple serious concerns about the Home Office’s handling of border security and immigration operations. Will the Minister confirm what action is being taken to address the report findings that the protection of borders at airports is “neither effective nor efficient”, with border posts being left unstaffed? What steps will the Minister take to remedy the serious failures identified in attempts to discover illegal goods at airports? Does the Minister accept the conclusion that attempting to clear the legacy backlog at all costs
“has led to perverse outcomes for claimants and staff”,
with quality assurance “sacrificed for increased productivity”? With the new chief inspector not expected to be in post for six to nine months, and with no deputy to step up and exercise statutory responsibilities, will the Minister explain exactly how the inspectorate will operate during that period? Is all inspection work now on hold, and what happens to the inspectorate’s 30-plus members of staff?
Last week, David Neal told the Select Committee of his concerns regarding Wethersfield asylum accommodation centre relating to suicide, violence and the lack of expertise to manage the situation. Will the Minister now agree to the Committee’s request to visit Wethersfield?
The Committee last week published the 10 changes that David Neal thinks need to be made to improve the effectiveness of the inspectorate, including the power to publish its own reports, creating a deputy position, and providing access to commercial contracts entered into by the Home Office. Does the Minister have any plans to implement any of those recommendations? Finally, will he comment on the joint letter sent by seven national home affairs editors complaining about the decision to publish a slew of Home Office reports on the same day as the Sarah Everard report?
Tom Pursglove
I am grateful to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee not only for asking those various questions but for the opportunity to respond to today’s urgent question.
It is rather surprising that Ministers are being criticised for doing precisely what they said they would do. I was pressed a couple of times on when the reports would be published. I said that it would happen soon. I subsequently said that it would happen very soon, and that commitment was fulfilled. I give the right hon. Lady this undertaking, because this issue is important and I care about it, as I know she does: the two outstanding reports will be responded to in full and in the proper way within the eight-week window. I refer back to the commitment that my late friend James Brokenshire made to the House. She will appreciate that I came back to the Department in December. I would argue that we have made progress in publishing the reports. I assure the House that the existing reports that have not yet been responded to will be dealt with within the eight-week window. We will return to that approach in dealing with these matters, which is the right thing to do.
On the recommendations in the various reports, we have obviously responded to those reports. A number of recommendations have been accepted, a number have been progressed, and a number have been completed. The reports speak for themselves, and give an indication of the direction of travel that we intend to take. We also want to engage with the next inspector regarding that performance, to ensure that they have an important role in overseeing the delivery of the commitments that we have made in response to the issues that were understandably raised in the reports.
General aviation falls within the reports that are still to be responded to. As I say, that will happen within the eight-week window. I undertake to fulfil that commitment. On the asylum backlog, it is fair to say that there has been pressure from this House to get on and process asylum claims. I would argue that the teams have done remarkable work in delivering on the commitment to get on and process the legacy backlog. There has been much learning along the way, which we will take forward into future processing. There will be increased sampling in the way that the inspector recommended, as well as improvements to IT.
Arrangements for the ICIBI functions in this period are under consideration. The Minister for Countering Illegal Migration is the lead on that aspect of the Department’s work. I know that Ministers will update the House accordingly. I am happy to consider the request from the Home Affairs Committee to visit Wethersfield.
One of the most frustrating things about all of this is that if Mr Neal had not gone to the media in the way that he did and put that information into the public domain in a way that was in breach of the terms of the agreement that he had with the Department to take on this capacity, he would still be in post and would be able to engage in the dialogue this week.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
To follow up on some specific questions from the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee that the Minister did not pick up on, is it not the case that David Neal was dismissed by Teams call by a civil servant? Why was he not afforded the courtesy of seeing a Minister? Is it not also the case that, despite the recruitment process having started last November, no suitable candidates came forward and the post had to be readvertised at a higher salary?
Thirdly, the Minister has not mentioned anything about how the inspectorate actually operates. Is it not the case that the 30 civil servants are unable to carry on their work on the reports they are currently working on, unable to carry out any inspections, unable to pick up the schedule of reports that has been programmed, and unable to comment on any responses to the reports?
Finally, can the Minister assure me that there were no redactions and nothing was removed from the 13 reports published en masse last week, because there is no inspector or deputy inspector to challenge the contents of the reports that have been put into the public domain?
Tom Pursglove
On my hon. Friend’s final point, I will go away and check, and I will write to him. This is clearly an important function. The recruitment process was restarted the day after Mr Neal left the role. We are keen to make progress in appointing a new independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, and I encourage people to put themselves forward. It is an important role, and the Government value it. The relationship with the ICIBI will be in the terms that I set out: it will get on and publish reports within the eight-week framework for the existing workload. We will continue to work constructively with it when Mr Neal’s successor is appointed. The second permanent secretary is engaging with the administrative team at the ICIBI, and we are looking at what can be done in the interim to bridge the gap between Mr Neal leaving and the new inspector taking post.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
We think of the family and friends of the seven-year-old who lost her life in the channel this weekend. It matters more than ever that we stop the criminal gangs and dangerous crossings that are undermining border security and putting so many lives at risk.
The Tory Home Secretary has shamefully tried to bury or hide 13 inspectorate reports and one National Audit Office report with damning revelations about Britain’s borders, and now he has gone into hiding himself. He should be doing a statement on those reports, which show shocking border security failures, including border and customs posts not staffed. In one airport, the inspectorate was told,
“customs is shut down for the summer”.
It found that equipment was
“either broken, not available, or untrusted”,
and that there was
“a lack of anti-smuggling capability”.
Mr Neal said that
“protection of the border is neither effective nor efficient”.
Will the Minister tell us how many times customs and border posts have gone unstaffed this year? Does he even know? How many high-risk private flights were not checked in person? How long will there be no inspector in post?
More findings: only two people have been removed under the inadmissibility process that the Government claimed would cover tens of thousands, and 147 unaccompanied children who went missing have still not been found. On Rwanda, £400 million of taxpayers’ money will have been spent even if no one is sent. If 300 people go, it will be £580 million. That is over half a billion pounds on a scheme that will cover less than 1% of UK asylum arrivals —nearly £2 million per person. I say to the Minister: do not give us any garbage about the Tories having a plan. That is not a plan; it is a farce. Why do they not stop wasting that money and instead put it into rebuilding border security and stopping the criminal gangs? That is Labour’s plan.
Finally, there is the revelation that the Home Office has gone a shocking £5 billion over budget this year because it failed on the backlog, on returns, on hotels and on Rwanda—14 years of Tory Government, wasting taxpayers’ money, weakening Britain’s security. They have bust the Home Office budget and broken Britain’s borders. Instead of hiding and running away, why do they not just get out of the way and let someone else do the job properly?
Tom Pursglove
That was a contribution to the House full of soundbites, as ever, but light on policy substance. We hear time and again from the right hon. Lady and her colleagues a lot of criticism of what the Government are doing and absolutely no credible policy alternative in response. It is incredibly frustrating. It just will not do, and the British people see straight through it.
I share the right hon. Lady’s sentiments about the terrible incident at the weekend when that young girl lost her life. In the last few weeks, we have yet again seen lives lost in the channel, and that is a source of regret for all of us. That is why the Government are absolutely determined to put an end to these channel crossings. We are making progress—that is why the number of crossings last year was down by over a third compared with the year before, and Albanian arrivals are down by over 90%—but there is more work to do, and we will continue to see through the plan that is delivering those results.
The right hon. Lady mentions Rwanda. We have a fundamental point of difference in that the Government believe that the Rwanda policy is an important part of the answer in putting those evil criminal gangs out of business. It is not acceptable to spend £8 million a day in the asylum system. However, it does not take many spends of £8 million a day to get to the figures that have been provided to the NAO in a transparent manner. We will continue to publish those through the annual report and accounts. We think that advancing that policy and putting those criminal gangs out of action is the right thing to do, recognising that the policy is novel and has been challenging. She will, of course, have the opportunity to vote for the Rwanda legislation when it comes back from the other place, and I certainly encourage her and her colleagues to be in the Lobby with us, because it just will not do to have no credible plan.
The right hon. Lady refers to one of the comments made in the report. We do not accept it. The inspection covered only a small part of our border operations at a specific location and over a limited time period—it is a snapshot—and it is inappropriate to draw unsubstantiated wider conclusions through sweeping statements based on a three-day inspection. Ultimately, Border Force facilitates 132 million passenger arrivals last year, processing over 96% of passengers within service standards. Significant progress has been made since the report was commissioned to increase the number of officers trained in vulnerability and behavioural detection, and that is set to continue. We treat the inspector’s recommendations with the utmost seriousness; we get on and deliver on those recommendations and, as I have consistently set out to the House, we now have a commitment to respond to those reports within eight weeks.
James Daly (Bury North) (Con)
Following on from that point, there is clearly an issue with publication within eight weeks. Bearing in mind that the public purse is funding 30 civil servants and a chief inspector of immigration, has my hon. Friend considered a statutory basis for the eight-week requirement—or whatever requirement is necessary or proportionate—for the publication of such reports, to ensure efficiency in the system?
Tom Pursglove
In his usual way, my hon. Friend comes to the House with constructive suggestions for how the Government can go about their work. I am happy to put that suggestion to the Minister who leads on these matters in the Department. I can absolutely assure my hon. Friend that there is a commitment to engage with the reports within that eight-week window, which I would argue is within both the letter and the spirit of what the late great James Brokenshire said a few years ago.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
I thank David Neal for his work. Nobody can doubt that he was an independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, and his reports bear testament to that work. He called out the Home Office for being particularly poor at communication, and for its data being “inexcusably awful.” In relation to Border Force, he highlighted
“basic stuff not being done”.
He shone a bright light on the shoddy treatment of unaccompanied children in hotels, some of whom are still missing to this day and have not been found by the Home Office. He highlighted the
“lack of grip and poor leadership”
that resulted in those children becoming lost. He also highlighted the chaos and the secret policies being operated as part of the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme—utterly unacceptable.
What happens now to the planned inspections that are stuck in limbo? Those inspections include adults at risk, which is crucial as people have committed suicide in asylum accommodation. Small boats are all the more critical given the tragic loss of a seven-year-old wee girl just this week. On high-performance visas, on Rwanda, on Georgia and on age assessment, what will happen to the work plan that the chief inspector set out, and to the staff—expert inspectors—who are in place to deliver it? Will David Neal’s recommendations be taken on by whoever follows him in that post? What will the Department do for future reports? Next time a report is published, will the Minister make a statement to the House, rather than being brought here by an urgent question?
Tom Pursglove
I am very grateful to the SNP spokesman for that variety of questions. I too, actually, want to place on record my thanks to Mr Neal for the work that he did—[Interruption.] There is chuntering from Opposition Members, but it is perfectly right and proper to thank him for his work.
There are recommendations that the Government have accepted and are taking forward. We treat the outcomes of those reports with the seriousness that they warrant. We will continue to work through those recommendations; even in the absence of an ICIBI, we will continue to make progress against our commitments. Obviously, we want to get on and appoint a replacement for Mr Neal, and that process is under way. We want to do that as quickly as possible, while also making sure that we properly engage the Home Affairs Committee in that process, and we will do so in the way that that Committee would rightly expect.
It is welcome that we no longer have any unaccompanied asylum-seeking children hotels under the auspices of the Home Office, but the recommendations that were made within the report still stand and, again, we treat them seriously. As I said at an earlier Home Affairs Committee appearance, I treat tracing missing asylum-seeking children with the utmost seriousness, and with better relationships with the police, improved guidance and other steps, we have managed to track down more of those children since we met at the Home Affairs Committee.
We continue to see Afghans arriving under the ACRS. That is welcome, and we will continue to evolve that scheme and make improvements where we can. We have made commitments around the scheme, and it is of real importance to me: fulfilling our promises to those who worked with the British Government and to others is a responsibility that I take incredibly seriously.
I want to make sure that we go about this recruitment process in the proper way, involving the Home Affairs Committee. The second permanent secretary is leading engagement with the secretariat at the ICIBI, and we will get on and appoint a successor.
Simon Fell (Barrow and Furness) (Con)
I pay tribute to David Neal. It is fair to say that when we did his pre-appointment scrutiny at the Home Affairs Committee, we had doubts, but he has proved himself to be a diligent and dogged public servant in some of the most difficult circumstances. Notwithstanding the fact that he has not been reappointed, the 13 reports that have been published raise significant issues, whether that is the border at London City airport, Afghan resettlement, or child asylum seekers. Even though those reports have only just been published, what assurances can the Minister give that work has been undertaken on them? Will he also give me his thoughts on the excellent suggestion that the post should be made independent so that the chief inspector can publish reports when they are ready, rather than dropping them into the Home Office memory hole and hoping for the best?
Tom Pursglove
My hon. Friend is a diligent member of the Home Affairs Committee. It is fair to say that where recommendations are made, we engage with them constructively, and progress will quite often be made against those recommendations even in advance of reports being published. He can absolutely have an assurance from me that we will continue to work through the commitments that we have made in responding to various recommendations in those 13 reports and, having made this promise to this House, that future reports will be published within an eight-week window.
My hon. Friend has raised a point about procedure. I am happy to take that point away and raise it with ministerial colleagues who have direct responsibility for the ICIBI relationship.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Ind)
As colleagues have said, the Home Affairs Committee found Mr Neal to be a very diligent and committed public servant. Does the Minister share the chief inspector’s concern about unaccompanied child migrants? He reported on them playing very unsuitable games—trying to bet which one of them would be the first to go into foster care—and on their ages being overestimated, resulting in children sharing bedrooms with much older adults. Does the Minister propose to follow up on any of the issues that the chief inspector raised?
Tom Pursglove
The right hon. Lady should know that that is an area we have been very concerned about. The issue of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children should never, ever be the subject of a game. I think all of us were horrified to hear about that incident, and following those inspection findings, the Department launched an immediate investigation into the inappropriate behaviour of the support worker, who was removed from site immediately and did not return. As I have said, all seven hotels used to accommodate unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have since closed. The Department has taken the recommendations seriously, and there is a lot of learning there for the future as we take forward our work, including our wider work with local authorities on safeguarding the most vulnerable children.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I welcome the Minister’s earlier assurance about Afghans who fought with or otherwise supported our troops against the Taliban. Can he explain, for the benefit of those of us not au fait with the details of this dispute, for what reason these reports were not published earlier, and at what level the decision not to publish was taken? Had they been published sooner, would the inspector have been out of a job, and would we have been looking for a replacement?
Tom Pursglove
We have gone into the termination of the inspector’s appointment before in this House: he lost the confidence of the Home Secretary, and information was shared in the media that ought not to have been shared; it was confidential, and outside the appropriate publication process. On the publication of reports, I cannot speak to earlier decisions made under previous Ministers, but I said very clearly on a number of occasions that we would get on and respond to the reports, and that is precisely what we have done. I also reassure the House today—I think this is important, and that the House is interested in this point—that we will respond to the reports within eight weeks. That arguably lives up to both the letter and spirit of the commitment that James Brokenshire made all those years ago, when he held this role.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
These reports are, cumulatively, a remarkable catalogue of past failings, but may I invite the Minister to look ahead? He has referred to the Rwanda scheme; does he agree that the incoming independent inspector must be allowed to examine the workings of that scheme, and that it should not be implemented unless and until the next inspector has given it a satisfactory bill of health?
Tom Pursglove
It will of course be for the next inspector to decide on their programme of work, but I disagree with the right hon. Gentleman on his latter point. I would argue that lives are at stake, and that every day that people lose their lives in the channel is one day too many. We are making progress on seeing through our commitment to put an end to these channel crossings, but the Rwanda policy is absolutely front and centre; it is the next piece of the jigsaw when it comes to putting these evil criminal gangs out of business, and we should not wait any longer than is absolutely necessary to get on and deliver on that work.
Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)
The Rwanda policy has cost over £500 million —an approximate cost of £2 million for each individual the Government are seeking to transport to Rwanda. Will the Bill ever be implemented, and is it good value for the taxpayer?
Tom Pursglove
I hear a lot of criticism there, but no constructive suggestion on what the hon. Gentleman would do in the absence of the Rwanda policy. As I have said, we engage properly and thoroughly with the National Audit Office on the figures, and we continue to be committed to providing transparency around those figures through the annual report and accounts. The Rwanda policy is an important part of our answer when it comes to putting an end to these criminal gangs and the terrible criminality that they oversee. Crucially, this is about saving lives, and we will get on and deliver the policy. He will, no doubt, have the opportunity in the next few weeks to vote for that Bill, and so help us to operationalise that policy and put those evil criminal gangs out of business.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
The borders inspectorate found that staff working in a Home Office-run hotel made unaccompanied asylum-seeking children play a disgraceful game to find out which child was next to be placed in foster care, a practice certain to cause more distress to already traumatised children. The same report found that agency workers employed to look after children as young as nine had insufficient background checks and training. What has the Minister done to ensure that he understands the full extent of the risks to children in the asylum system, and what steps is he taking to end such disgraceful practices, and to guarantee that everyone working with children is properly vetted and trained?
Tom Pursglove
The hon. Lady is right to say that everybody working with children has to be properly vetted. We have taken seriously the recommendations that Mr Neal made in response to that issue. As I said to the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), this was a terrible situation. There was accountability in relation to the individual who thought it appropriate to play that game, which was, to any Member of this House and any right-minded person, abhorrent. The hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) is right to say that we are talking about children in difficult circumstances who have been through an awful lot. All those individuals—I would use the word “professionals”—have a responsibility to care for those children, and to behave in an appropriate way befitting their role. There are no longer any unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in hotels open under the Home Office’s remit, but there is value in the recommendations, which should carry through into the work that we do with local authorities.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
The Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, Dame Sara Thornton, raised concerns about Government policy on trafficking and slavery. Her contract was not renewed, and that crucial post was vacant for 16 months. David Neal, as the ICIBI, raised concerns about immigration, and he was sacked. That post will be vacant for months. The Minister has said that independent scrutiny plays an important role, but does he not agree that under this Government, independent scrutiny is not only not valued, but becoming a sackable offence?
Tom Pursglove
I have been clear with the House about the basis on which Mr Neal’s contract was terminated. I do not think it was appropriate for him to share confidential information in the way he did; it was outside the process for publication. However, as I have said repeatedly, we want to get on and appoint a successor. The chief inspector of borders and immigration has an important role and remit; the House and the Government see value in it. We are looking at what can be done to bridge the gap in the absence of a full-time, permanent chief inspector. We will no doubt say more once that work has been concluded.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Africa, I met David Neal a number of times. He was incredibly impressive, robust, well-informed, all over the detail, and entirely independent. It beggars belief that the Government ignored his reports for so long—publication is essential for scrutiny—sacked him over Teams, and dumped all the reports out at once. Does the Minister believe that the Home Office is so perfect, and that everything is going so well, that it should be above scrutiny? Or is it more the case that everything is going so badly, including on Rwanda, the asylum backlog and our border security, that there is no hope of improvement until we have a change of Government?
Tom Pursglove
That is an interesting observation, but what sits behind it, I am afraid, is a lack of policy and a lack of an alternative, credible approach to borders and immigration. Mr Neal said this in response to the reports being laid before Parliament last week:
“I think it’s a real positive that these reports have been published. I think it bodes well that the home secretary has gripped his officials in getting these reports published so quickly”.
I agree with him. I promised that we would lay those reports before Parliament; we have got on and done it, and we will table the outstanding reports within the eight-week window, moving forward.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Last week’s figures showed 46,000 people still in asylum hotels. David Neal’s report said:
“There is no evidence of a Home Office strategy to end hotel use, as recommended by ICIBI in 2022.”
He is right, is he not?
Tom Pursglove
I am afraid that what is right is that the hon. Lady consistently votes against the strategy to end the use of hotels, as do her colleagues on the Opposition Front Bench and Back Benches. The way to address the issue of hotels is: to diversify the accommodation offer; to ensure that local authority areas engage properly with dispersed accommodation—I encourage all Members of this House to take an interest in the performance of their local authority—and to bring into being larger sites, such as those that we have brought forward. Crucially, we have to reduce the flow of people coming across the channel and arriving in our country illegally. Every time Opposition Members have the chance to do something about the flow of people arriving, which undoubtedly leads to the pressures that she touches on, they refuse to do so. That is where the scandal really lies.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Is the Government’s failure to tackle the asylum backlog, the Minister’s inability to grapple with the asylum hotel issue, or the staggering cost of the Rwanda deal, at £2 million per person taken out of this country, the reason why the Minister has broken the Home Office budget, and will come to Parliament cap in hand next week, asking for an extra £5.5 billion of funding for the Home Office?
Tom Pursglove
I am afraid that the hon. Member is yet another Opposition Member with no credible alternative to speak of—just lots of complaints about the work that the Government are doing. We are making progress. As I have said, last year, the number of people who arrived via the channel was down by a third compared to the year before. The population accommodated in hotels is going down, and the number of hotels open is reducing.
Tom Pursglove
The Government are making progress. We are living up to the commitments—
Tom Pursglove
The hon. Member can keep parroting figures and chuntering from the Back Benches, but I would rather he came forward with a credible alternative plan. Perhaps then we could have a conversation.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
The shambles that is the ongoing mismanagement of our borders and the Government mismanagement of the huge asylum backlog, which was just referred to, is now enhanced by the additional shambles of an unnecessary interregnum. In answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), the Minister seemed to imply that independent oversight would not be necessary in the next few weeks and months while there is an interregnum over the Rwanda deal. If the Government are right—in the best-case scenario, from their perspective—1% of all asylum seekers will go to Rwanda. Apparently, that is so important that independent oversight is not necessary during this period. Will the Minister confirm that until a new inspector is formally and fully appointed and in post, there will be no further progress in deporting anybody to Rwanda?
Tom Pursglove
It is rather ironic that the hon. Gentleman argues for due process on the one hand, and says that we should dispense with it on the other. The contract of the chief inspector of borders was terminated because of respects in which his actions were not in accordance with the agreement around the post. That was not an acceptable situation. The Home Secretary lost confidence in him, and that was why steps were taken.
I welcome oversight and accountability. There will be opportunities for scrutiny of the work on Rwanda. On the point that the hon. Gentleman sought to suggest that I had made, I was clear in saying that we should not waste any time when lives are at risk in the channel. We should not waste a moment in getting on and operationalising that Rwanda policy, but there will of course be plenty of opportunity for scrutiny of that work.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
May I put on record my thanks to the Minister for all the work that he did for one of my constituents last week, and for ensuring that one of the Ukrainian babies got back to Northern Ireland?
We should bear in mind the gap that has been left in this vital component of our immigration response. On the role of civil servants and the importance of ministerial oversight, most recently, the difficulty in Northern Ireland, where there was an absence of Ministers in situ, was that although senior civil servants could make decisions, they were loth to do so; and those who made decisions did not provide the usual accountability or explanation of decisions. How will the Minister ensure that that does not remain the case until a replacement for the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration is in place?
Tom Pursglove
The hon. Member always goes about his business in the House diligently, and he speaks with great passion about Northern Ireland; I am delighted that we now have Ministers back in government there. I look forward to engaging with counterparts in Northern Ireland on these issues. I reassure him that that engagement will be the cornerstone of the work that we do. There is a commitment to engage thoroughly and extensively. As I said, we want to get on and appoint a replacement inspector; it is an important role for everybody in the United Kingdom. The functions that the inspector oversees matter to everybody the length and breadth of this country, and we will make that appointment as soon as we can.
Point of Order
(8 months ago)
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Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I extend my thanks to your office and to the Clerks for preparing for this point of order.
On Friday 1 March, during the debate on the Conversion Practices (Prohibition) Bill, the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) spoke of the need for LGBT Members and staff to feel safe coming to work in this place. In response, I asked her:
“In fact, people in the LGB community are often referred to as “bigots”, “transphobes” and other slurs just because we have concerns about legislation such as this and want to make sure that young LGB people are protected —and trans people. Does the hon. Lady agree that that rule must apply to all sides of any debate, not just to the side that she favours?”The hon. Member responded:
“The hon. Gentleman is entirely right, but there was one letter missing in his LGB: the letter T. We do not divide the LGBT community in this place. Members can say that they have concerns about what we are doing, but by removing the T, the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that transgender people do not exist. He is suggesting that they are less than other LGB people, and I will not stand for that, because it was trans people who stood with gay people at Stonewall; it was trans people who fought alongside them for LGB rights. I will happily discuss the intricacies of legislation with the hon. Gentleman, but when he chooses to eradicate, that is wrong.”
Later in the debate she made the following comment about the UK’s only gay rights charity:
“that includes the LGB Alliance, who have also removed the T”. —[Official Report, 1 March 2024; Vol. 746, c. 556.]
That raises the following serious concerns. Despite specifically mentioning the safety of trans people immediately prior to asking my question, the Member launched into what felt like a targeted attack on my character. Furthermore, it felt like that was aggravated by my protected characteristics of same-sex attraction and gender critical beliefs. In addition, the Member, a heterosexual woman, felt it appropriate to lecture me, a homosexual male, on the boundaries under which she believes I should be permitted to exercise my rights and protections. Specifically, she demanded that this should centre the needs of the completely separate protected characteristic of gender reassignment—commonly known as force-teaming. The Member then gave an inaccurate account of the Stonewall riots, which has been corrected repeatedly by eyewitness testimony.
As a direct consequence, various news outlets have wrongly accused me of “dropping the T” and have ignored the context of a straight woman lecturing a gay man about what rights he is permitted to use. Given the sensitivity of these matters, that is deeply concerning. I have had five years of abuse, including murderous threats, mainly from heterosexuals who claim to be allies—but they are allies of queer theory, not lesbians, gay men, bisexuals or transsexual people. That outburst felt deliberate and targeted. I consider these behaviours emblematic of the modern-day homophobia that has been insinuated into our culture by organisations such as Stonewall and Mermaids. In response to the clip on social media—
Mr Speaker
Order. I hope the Member will be coming to an end very quickly.
Neale Hanvey
Mr Speaker, this is the text that was agreed with the Clerks.
In response to the video clip on social media, prominent transexual campaigner Dr Debbie Hayton said:
“We trans people value the right to organise separately from the LGB as trans people. My LGB friends need and deserve the same right to organise separately from us. We can still organise together when it serves both groups. Nobody is ‘lesser’”.
A statement issued by the Gay Men’s Network noted that the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton’s comments were
“not characteristic of an otherwise civilised debate. We urge her to reflect on these comments and consider apologising.”
I agree. At the very least the Member should apologise—not just to me but to others who may feel threatened by her remarks. Any further consideration will be contingent on that.
After the debate, two Members—the Members for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) and for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome)—both gave inaccurate accounts of the outcome of the day’s debate, laying blame for its failure at the doors of opponents. The truth is that the Bill failed to garner sufficient support in the closure motion proposed by the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle). Again, in this sensitive policy area, that shows a lack of concern for the safety of all Members, and risks whipping up targeted harassment. These posts should be removed and the Members should apologise. Thank you.
Mr Speaker
I am very disappointed that the Clerks agreed to such a long text. This is an important issue and the hon. Member is quite right to raise his concern, but I am concerned about the length of time it has taken. I therefore hope that I will be speaking with the Clerks.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for his point of order and for giving notice of it. I hope he notified hon. Members that he intended to refer to them in the Chamber. Hon. Members are responsible for the content of their own speeches, provided that they remain within the House’s rules of order. I understand the strength of the hon. Member’s feelings, but the Chair heard nothing disorderly in the remarks made by the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) on Friday. He is correct in his observation that the Conversion Practices (Prohibition) Bill did not make further progress because fewer than 100 Members voted for closure. It is also true that the House continued to debate the Bill until the moment of interruption, which is unusual, although Members are entirely within their rights to do so. I thank the hon. Member again for giving me notice.
Farming
(8 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Fay Jones)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered farming.
I am delighted to open the debate on behalf of the Government, but I am also incredibly proud to speak on behalf of the many thousands of farmers I represent. Hon. and right hon. Members may be confused as to why I am opening the debate, but it is precisely because the Government believe in the importance of our Union and the industries that sustain it that I am here this afternoon. The Government understand that farming drives rural Britain. It generates jobs and growth in rural areas. My constituency of Brecon and Radnorshire is home to proud beef, sheep and poultry farmers—365 days a year, they produce world-class food that is good for our health, good for our economy and good for our environment.
That brings me to the key reason I am here today. A fortnight ago, the Prime Minister told the National Farmers Union conference that we, the Conservative party, will always have their back. To farmers across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, I give that commitment again.
Farming has unique potential to address the world’s biggest challenges: feeding a growing world, reducing emissions and restoring nature. Those huge tasks have been complicated by the recent reality of volatile global prices, as well as by changes in weather patterns and climate, but to address the long term, it is the immediate challenges that need to be dealt with. The Government have been working to tackle one of the biggest drains on farm incomes. Inflation is down from 11% last year to 4% now. Beyond those immediate challenges, we have a plan for supporting British farming, bolstered by the Prime Minister’s announcements a fortnight ago. The plan to back our farmers has three elements.
First, we are investing in farmers. Our commitment to farming is absolutely solid and every penny of England’s £2.4 billion annual farming budget will be spent on farmers across this Parliament. In England, we are stepping away from the bureaucratic and dysfunctional common agricultural policy. Instead, our new system focuses on long-term food security by supporting and investing in the essential foundations, from healthy soils to clean water. Our plan is starting to pay off, as nearly half of all farmers are now in one of our schemes in England. January 2024 brought about the biggest upgrade to farming schemes since Brexit gave us the opportunity to design our own agricultural support. A fortnight ago, the Prime Minister went further still to support farmers. He announced our biggest ever package of grants, expected to total £427 million in 2024.
Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)
I recently visited Andrew Gilman at Statfold Farm. He has a biomass boiler, he has solar panels on the roofs and he even has a wind turbine, but what he wants from the Government is help with mechanising the milking process—he wants some robots. Is that the type of thing the Government would support?
Fay Jones
I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising that point, and I congratulate Andrew on his innovation. That is exactly the type of thing that the Government want to support, which is why we have announced the biggest ever package of funding—as I have said, about £427 million.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)
I look forward to debating this subject with the Minister in Westminster Hall tomorrow. I think that the Government have left themselves open to the accusation that they have neglected farmers’ interests in the post-Brexit trade deals that they have signed. What assurances can she give the House that in future trade deals the interests of farmers will be at the top of the pile?
Fay Jones
I would not want to give away all my best lines before tomorrow’s debate in Westminster Hall, and I look forward to seeing the hon. Gentleman there. I will say, however, that I do not agree with his assessment of the trade deals that the Government have been able to strike outside the European Union. They represent real opportunities for farmers across England and Wales, and he would do well to support them.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for her commitment to farming as a whole across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That is important to us in Northern Ireland, including my constituents. Will the Minister commit herself to working with the regional Administrations—and the Northern Ireland Assembly is now up and running, with a new Minister—to ensure that we can work together within this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? Together, we can do great things.
Fay Jones
The hon. Gentleman is entirely right. I am certainly committed to working with Ministers in all the devolved Administrations of the United Kingdom in my role in the Wales Office, and I know that DEFRA Ministers are as well.
On innovation, we have a grant package upgrade that will make a concrete difference to British farms, for example by bolstering the improving farming productivity fund, which will allow farmers such as Andrew—mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes)—to invest in robotic equipment and barn-top solar.
Secondly, we are changing our approach, and building a culture that is based on trust. Farmers have asked for a fairer and more supportive regulatory system, so in England we have reformed our approach and have already cut penalties for minor issues by 40%. We have ended the harsh EU cross-compliance system, instead choosing a fairer and more preventative approach to regulation. No one cares more about the land, or the ability to pass on a healthy farm to future generations, than farmers themselves.
Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)
This is about more than just passing on a farm; it is about producing food for the nation, and we are proud that our farmers do that. Can my hon. Friend confirm that this Government will always back farmers as food producers rather than wildflower growers?
Fay Jones
My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. What we are seeking to deliver is a combination of the two, certainly in England.
Farmers deserve that trust, and we have announced that we will deliver on our promise to cut the planning red tape that is preventing them from diversifying. In April we will introduce legislation enabling them to create bigger farm shops, commercial space and outdoor sports venues. Farmers have raised the issue of the often unfair pricing that they receive for their products, so a fortnight ago we introduced new regulations for the dairy sector, and we are also launching a review of the poultry sector. We will introduce similar regulations for the pig sector later in the year, with regulations for the egg sector to follow.
Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)
I hear what the Minister is saying, and she is making a powerful point, but in Exmoor we have a national park that stopped everything happening. We need to get the national parks under control. They will not allow farm shops, and they will not allow development. Sheep farmers on Exmoor have enough trouble as it is without being told that they cannot let holiday cottages, set up farm shops or apply for planning permission. Could we please make an exception for the national parks so that they can join the real world?
Fay Jones
I live in a national park as well, in mid-Wales, so I entirely understand my hon. Friend’s frustrations. The matter that he has raised will, of course, be one for Ministers in DEFRA and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, but I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore), has heard his point.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
I am a strong supporter of the recent initiatives of the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister to make food growing far more important. What are the targets for getting much more self-sufficient in food, and will it not need further reorientation of the money away from the environmental land management scheme and wilding, and towards proper food promotion schemes?
Fay Jones
My right hon. Friend pre-empts me. I will certainly come to talk about that point in just a few moments, but let me first talk about further reforms that the Government are introducing, particularly in the field of farming mental health.
We will make up to £500,000 available to charities to deliver projects that support mental health in the farming sector, building on the support already on offer through our farming resilience fund, which has benefited more than 19,000 farmers to date. Mental health in agriculture is a key concern for the Department, so much so that my right hon. Friend the Farming Minister regrets that he is unable to be with us at present, as he is hosting a roundtable on mental health in agriculture. I know that shadow Ministers will agree that that is a commendable thing to be doing. Altogether, the work to change our approach will build a better and more supportive system around farmers, so that they can get on and do what only they do best.
Before I talk about our final strand of work, I want to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans). Today his campaign for online retailers to carry a specific “buy British” button has achieved another success, as Ocado has become the latest retailer to adopt the tool, joining Morrisons, Aldi and Sainsbury’s. I congratulate him on his campaign.
Food security is a vital part of our national security. The primary role of farmers is to produce the nation’s food, and they deserve our gratitude for that—a point echoed to me on many occasions by the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Sir Robert Goodwill), who is away on a Select Committee visit and unable to join today’s debate. Recent years have brought home the truth of that, particularly in an age of climate change, instability and increasingly volatile global food production.
Uncertain times require us to double down on the certainty of our food system. In the Government’s food strategy, we set a clear commitment to maintaining domestic food production at the current level at least, which is around 60% of what we consume. The importance of food security is why we brought in the three-times-a-year food security report through the Agriculture Act 2020. Going further, the Prime Minister announced a fortnight ago that, given the context of the last three years, we will significantly strengthen this work through a new annual food security index. Climate change is increasingly likely to impact on the sector, with more extreme weather events, so it is only right that we step up our monitoring of food security to ensure that we can act swiftly and decisively against any in-year shocks. We expect the work to be UK-wide and will work to achieve that, strengthening accountability across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Sir Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)
How does the emphasis about which the Minister is talking square with the sustainable farming incentive activities? They arouse considerable concern in the farming community that it would almost be a better and more paying proposition for them to give up farming altogether under the SFI scheme. Is my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger), who intervened on the Minister a while ago, not right to say that what we have to do through the SFI is start to consider how we encourage people to produce food and not encourage people not to produce it?
Fay Jones
My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right to emphasise and underline the importance of food production. DEFRA is actively monitoring the take-up of SFI schemes with food production in mind, so he raises a key concern that I believe the Department is already addressing.
Going further, last year the Prime Minister hosted the UK’s first farm-to-fork summit at Downing Street, putting industry leaders at the sharp end of policymaking for the first time. We will make this an annual occasion, and this year’s summit will consider the publication of the first food security index.
Finally, millions of tonnes of perfectly good farm food is wasted each year—thrown away simply because of shape or size. It is unfortunate that that is still the case, even in 2024, so we have announced that we are bringing in a £15 million fund to redirect the huge amount of surplus food to those in need. That £15 million will be available directly to farmers or the redistribution sector, working with farmers.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Ind)
Will the Minister give way?
Fay Jones
I will make some progress, if I may.
Boosting and strengthening our food security is paramount, and our actions stand in stark contrast to those of the Labour party. Farmers in Wales have become used to an uneasy relationship with Welsh Labour over the last 25 years, but as Members may have seen, frustration is turning to anger following the publication of the Welsh Government’s sustainable farming scheme, which is nothing short of unworkable. Instead of farmers being freed from the burden of red tape, they will be forced into an atrocious set of data-gathering and reporting on a yearly basis. They will be forced to submit data on the amount of medicines they give their animals and the rates of lamb loss in their flock. They will have to submit soil samples and even data on worm numbers and seed receipts. The scheme will require every farmer to do six online training courses each and every year, and most controversially of all, it will force farmers to take 10% of their land out of production to plant trees, harming our ability to feed ourselves. Last week a number of farmers travelled to Cardiff Bay to protest against these changes. These protesters were not extremists or conspiracy theorists, as Labour MPs labelled them last week. They were raising legitimate grievances about the viability of their businesses under the Welsh Government’s plans.
Colleagues in England will know that this Government have taken decisive action to tackle bovine TB. In 2013, under the coalition Government, a badger cull was introduced in England to tackle the appalling rates of bovine TB in cattle. Those of us who represent beef or dairy farmers know the pain of bovine TB. It is one of the most difficult and intractable animal health challenges the livestock sector faces today. Tens of thousands of cattle are culled each year after testing positive for the disease. This has a devastating personal impact on livestock owners and their families.
Here I must declare an interest. In 2013, when working for the National Farmers Union, I volunteered to work on the pilot badger cull in Somerset. We worked 12-hour shifts in a portacabin at a secret location, as anti-cull saboteurs would follow us home at night. That pilot resulted in a 37% reduction in bovine TB breakdowns, and across the way in Gloucestershire we delivered a 66% reduction. That shows that culling works.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Farmers in my constituency in Gloucestershire have been involved in the cull probably longer than anyone else, except perhaps those on the Somerset levels. Could my hon. Friend give them an assurance today that we will not introduce measures that restrict culls and their after-effects until we have a realistic vaccine programme in place that is actually seen to work?
Fay Jones
My hon. Friend is right. This is part of a three-pronged approach that Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is planning to take and we will continue to be led by the science. No country in the world has ever been able to grip the scourge of bovine TB without tackling the disease in wildlife. The science is clear: the tide is turning on bovine TB in England and a major element of this success has been the industry-led cull of badgers in affected areas.
Mr Liddell-Grainger
My hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) was right to say that Somerset started the culls, and the intimidation I and others received at the time was appalling, but we weathered it. I say to the Minister and Members across the House that the cull worked because farmers led it. Farmers were absolutely determined to do it, having survived foot and mouth at the time I became an MP, and then having gone into TB. Farmers are responsible; they understand the countryside and understand what they are doing. Where TB and other things are concerned, I urge the House to give the farmers the benefit of the doubt. They look after the land and they manage it well.
Fay Jones
I could not have put it better myself. Culling is part of a three-pronged approach that DEFRA has taken to tackling bovine TB. Field trials for a new cattle vaccine and companion skin tests for bovine TB started in 2021 and remain ongoing.
If the Welsh Government had any ambition for farming in Wales, they would have the backbone of this Government and introduce a cull in Wales, but their weakness in the face of this issue is causing alarm and panic in the Welsh livestock sector. Instead of a cull, they have a First Minister who told them it was their fault. Labour’s Mark Drakeford told the Senedd that the disease spreads when farmers import infected cattle. This is despite farmers working desperately hard to maintain good biosecurity measures. This is a First Minister who also thinks that farmers are entirely responsible for poor water quality. The all-Wales nitrate vulnerable zone, introduced in 2021, is an unworkable piece of legislation that has done nothing to improve our rivers. Instead, it forces farmers to farm to a calendar, spreading muck only on certain dates—never mind the weather.
NVZs, bovine TB and the sustainable farming scheme are all examples of an ill-thought-out policy from a Government determined to set their face against farming in Wales. In contrast, the record of the UK Conservative Government is clear. Our plan is to invest in farmers, to change our approach and to protect food security. Meeting farmers face to face in north Wales a fortnight ago, the Prime Minister again made it clear that we have their back. This Government will always support and be proud of British farming.
I commend this debate to the House.
Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)
I start by congratulating Tom Bradshaw on his election as president of the National Farmers Union. I am sure he will do a fantastic job, and I wish him all the best as he starts his new role standing up for our British farmers. He has big wellington boots to fill, of course, after the outstanding job done by Minette Batters over the past decade—I am sure the whole House wishes her the very best in her future endeavours.
Recent years have been very challenging for farmers: the covid pandemic; the Government’s botched EU withdrawal deal; Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine; and now war in the middle east. Each of these shocks has underscored how vulnerable our food supply chain really is, and how dependent we are on our great British farmers. Food security is national security. In recent years, British consumers have seen empty shelves in local supermarkets, while food prices rocketed by 19% at their peak last year. We need to get resilience back into the system, and at the heart of that must be a commitment to back our British farmers.
I had the pleasure of attending the NFU conference in Birmingham last month and the Oxford farming conference in January. Speaker after speaker made it clear that British farming is in crisis, and that farmers feel abandoned by this Government. Over 6,000 British producers have gone bust since 2017, and the agricultural workforce became a third smaller over the same period. Labour shortages mean that valuable crops have been left in the ground to rot.
The Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution, the farming mental health charity, alarmingly reports that suicide rates among farmers are the highest of any sector in the UK economy, thanks to the huge pressures that farmers are now under. This is heartbreaking, and it should concern every one of us. The Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries, the right hon. Member for Sherwood (Mark Spencer), is unable to be here today, but I am glad that he is focusing on working with stakeholders on an issue of such importance and magnitude.
Flooding was among the top issues raised at the NFU conference. Farmers have faced one of the wettest six-month periods on record, with many winter crops still not planted and others washed away or under water. Farmers need better flood defences. It is astonishing that so much of the allocated funding has not been spent over the past two years. I visited Retford in Nottinghamshire and was astonished to learn that, of the £11.7 million allocated for flood defences over the past two years, less than 0.5% of it has been spent.
There is a severe failure of co-ordination between central Government and the agencies responsible for getting spades in the ground to dig out the drainage systems, to build the flood barriers and to plant trees upstream to help the land hold more water.
Mr Liddell-Grainger
The shadow Minister is making some interesting points. I have probably had more flooding on the levels than anyone in this House. One of the biggest challenges we face is the intransigence of the Environment Agency and Natural England, which are quite impossible. The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point, but one of the reasons we are finding it difficult to build up the defences, to clear out the rhynes and ditches, and to maintain the clyses and dams is that the Environment Agency and Natural England will not give way on making every single thing impossible.
I have been waiting for a barrage in Bridgwater since 2014. We really must break this logjam. I gently say to the shadow Minister that we are all on his side if he can help to do it.
Steve Reed
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention; he makes an important point about the experience of flooding in his part of the country, which, sadly, is reflected in others as well. The Government, whoever might be leading them, need to get a grip of these agencies and work more closely with them. That is why Labour has proposed that if we are elected, we will introduce a flood resilience taskforce to bring together national and local government, and the frontline agencies that he referred to, to make sure that once funding is allocated it is actually spent to protect our farmland and rural communities from the devastating impact of flooding.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
Would it not be a better idea to scrap these agencies all together and hand responsibility back to Ministers, where it originally was, because the agencies that are now employed to do this are often doing things completely against Government policy and, in particular, against farmers?
Steve Reed
The answer, which is quicker than playing around with the architecture of agencies and national Government, is for the Government to get a grip. These agencies are responsible to national Government and I would like to see much stronger command from national Government to make sure that they do what they were set up and funded to do. They are clearly not doing it to anything like the extent or with the quality that Members from all parts of this House expect of them.
A second point I wish to raise is that Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine has sent energy prices rocketing. That exposed the Government’s failure to transition to cheaper, home-grown energy. As a result, soaring energy bills have clobbered British farmers and producers. Labour’s approach would be very different. We will switch on GB Energy to cut bills for farmers, households and businesses. That publicly owned company will direct public and private investment to harness the power of wind, wave, solar and nuclear energy, to cut bills, create jobs and secure energy supply chains inside our own country, freeing us from dependence on foreign dictators like Putin. We can also help farmers who want to generate clean energy on their own land. Under this Government, it can take up to 10 years to get planning permission to connect this desperately needed energy into the national grid. Labour will reform our planning laws and cut that wait from years to just months.
The Government’s bungled transition from European Union farming payments has been another source of financial misery for farmers. Far too many have seen incomes plummet as the basic payment scheme is phased out. Tenant farmers, in particular, feel that the new scheme does not work for them. The principles behind environmental land management schemes make sense, but the implementation has been chaotic and bureaucratic. Instead of tackling the weaknesses in ELMS, the Government have instead shuffled their feet and tried to claim the credit for reallocating a £220 million underspend. That money should have been given to farmers in the first place and not returned to the Treasury, but at the core the Government’s failure is to have never developed a clear strategy for land use, including food production.
Our land management scheme should support moves towards regenerative farming and nature recovery, alongside food production. Instead of doing that, the Conservatives are increasingly positioning themselves against nature. Their attempt to trash environmental standards to legalise the further pollution of already polluted rivers and waterways was shocking. We have a limited amount of land for the size of our population in this country. We need a land use framework to make sure that the many competing demands on our land can work in balance. This Government have failed to produce one. In government, Labour will introduce one.
The Conservative Government stubbornly refuse to publish interim data showing what impact ELMS are having. The Guardian has used a freedom of information request to expose how the Government buried an analysis of the dire financial prospects for upland farmers after they realised it was almost entirely bad news. We need to know what is going wrong with ELMS so that we can make them work more effectively. If this Government will not publish that information, an incoming Labour Government will, if we win the next general election. We have to make sure that policy works for food production, as hon. Members have already said, as well as for nature, which means being open and transparent about what is really going on.
Farmers are furious about the Conservative Government’s post-Brexit trade deals. [Interruption.] I see the Minister is shaking her head. The outgoing president of the National Farmers Union—not a Member or supporter of the Labour party—called the Government’s approach “morally bankrupt”. The right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg), until recently a senior member of the Cabinet, has called for the import of hormone-injected beef and chlorine-washed chicken. That is not just alarming for British consumers; it would be catastrophic for British farmers. We cannot demand high welfare and environmental standards from our British producers if the Government then undercut them with lower quality imports, yet that is the approach this Conservative Government have taken.
The Government’s own assessments say the Australia and New Zealand trade deal will result in the loss of £48 million from British agriculture and fisheries, so no wonder the former Environment Secretary, the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), attacked the deal as
“not actually a very good deal for the UK”,
because, as he rightly said, it
“gave away far too much for far too little in return”—[Official Report, 14 November 2022; Vol. 722, c. 424.]
George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)
I am indeed very critical of what was done with the Australia trade deal, but since he is raising this issue, will he at least give credit to the current Government and Prime Minister for the steadfast approach they have taken on deals with Canada and the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership? [Interruption.]
Steve Reed
It does seem a bit late, doesn’t it—the Government having done a deal of the nature the right hon. Gentleman attacks? It seems to depend which of the five families happens to be in charge of the Conservative party at any one time as to what they are going to do on agricultural, trade or any other policy. They are a rudderless Government, but it always seems to be British farmers and producers on the losing end of whatever deals they come up with.
The Government’s broken promises on trade go back much further than the deal the right hon. Gentleman criticised. The Government promised farmers they would keep full access to the European markets for their high-quality British produce after Brexit, but then they threw up trade barriers that blocked them from exporting. Labour’s way forward is to seek a renegotiated veterinary agreement with the EU. We must cut through Tory red tape at our borders to get British food exports moving again.
Our country spends over £1 billion a year buying food for hospitals and prisons. Labour will make sure that at least half of that food is locally produced or certified to higher environmental standards, putting money straight into the pockets of British farmers and producers at a time when so many are struggling just to stay in business. We will devolve more decision making to the nations and regions of the United Kingdom. That will give them more control over skills and training to increase and upskill the farming workforce, and more control over infrastructure investment so that we can extend broadband in rural areas and the use of new technology in farming to boost productivity.
Labour is offering a new deal for farmers: lower bills from harnessing the power of clean energy, generated in our own country; more money in farmers’ pockets through the prioritisation of locally grown and sustainable food for public procurement, and ensuring ELMS work effectively; seeking a veterinary agreement with the EU to tear down the Tory barriers to trade; a flood resilience taskforce to protect farmland from devastating floods; and planning reform to help farmers diversify and plug their clean energy into the national grid.
Farmers do an extraordinary job as producers of our food and stewards of our land, yet they have been betrayed by this Conservative Government. British farmers deserve better. They deserve our thanks, respect and support. We are proud of our farmers—proud of the work they do to feed our nation and steward our beautiful countryside—but they need a Government who are on their side to help them in that vital work. After 14 years of Conservative failure, only Labour can give farmers their future back.
Sir Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed), although I suspect that he has more customers or consumers in his constituency than farmers. In North Herefordshire, we have 1,715 of probably the best farmers in the world. [Interruption.] Oh, no, there’s no doubt about that. The joy of Herefordshire is that we grow every crop that the UK produces; whether it is raspberries, which come from Scotland usually, or hops from Kent—we do it all. No other county can make that claim. As a result, I have had to spend an awful lot of time with a variety of highly expert and very skilful farmers as they explained their particular element of the industry.
I agree with all Members who have said how important farmers are, but their troubles do not seem to be seen as such. The worst case, of course, is bovine tuberculosis. It has been 10 years since the badger cull began to tackle the transmission of TB—and it has been an enormous success. TB plagued the agricultural sector and, by 2020, as many as 30,000 cattle were dying each year from this terrible disease. I lost my bull to it, so I know how devastating it can be for farmers across the country.
Thanks to the culling of sick badgers, which carry the disease to cattle, 24% fewer cattle were killed in 2022-23 relative to the preceding year. In fact, the number of deaths was the lowest it has been since 2008. The beneficiary is not just the farmers and their cows, but a healthy badger population that is therefore less likely to be exposed to this fatal disease. With that rate of success, I fear the Government’s move away from culling to a badger vaccination programme is premature and potentially disastrous. A reactive cull just will not work, because once DEFRA has decided that there is TB in the badger population, all the cows are dead; it does not work, it is not good enough and it will not cut the mustard. The Department needs to rethink very carefully what will happen. We have seen a 54% reduction in this disease, and we have learned from covid that we should not take away the precautions that are working before we are ready to bring in the new DIVA test—the differentiating infected from vaccinated animals test. That test allows the BCG vaccine to be applied to cattle, and for the cattle that are vaccinated to be separated from the cattle that are infected.
Until that test is ready—a written answer indicated that that might be in 2027—we cannot take our foot off the culling programme or allow our defences to drop. We cannot risk a 54% increase in TB, which is what will happen if we continue to do the wrong thing, as I think the Government are doing. We need to protect the healthy badger population and the healthy cattle population. Most of all, though, this is a disease that reaches human beings too; and because of antimicrobial resistance, there are not that many drugs that tackle tuberculosis. If we allow this disease back, there would be a serious risk to human health, particularly as there is now an increasing desire to buy green top milk, which is unpasteurised. Considering that TB is a serious disease—consumption, as it used to be called—that would be extremely dangerous.
It costs a farm about £14,000 when a bovine TB breakdown takes place. It could also cost the taxpayer up to £1 billion over the next 10 years—and I have already mentioned the risk to human health. I urge the Government to think again about their reticence to allow the cull to continue, until the DIVA test is proven, active, working and successful, which I am sure it will be. That point was stressed when the Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mark Spencer), visited my constituency. It breaks people’s hearts when their cows are taken away, and it is wrong that their health is threatened too; worst of all, the healthy badger population will be diminished as the disease spreads.
The rural economy is brimming with £43 billion-worth of economic potential. We need to cut back on the regulations and procedures that burden the sector. Farmers can spend over 15 hours a week on administrative work. A recent survey found that 86% of respondents believed that levels of farming administration have increased, and I agree. I filled out my SFI form and countryside stewardship forms, and they are extremely complicated. Worse, they cannot be changed very often. An individual can submit a form only once a year. That is fine if they are not going to change anything, but this is a dynamic industry. As a result, we need much more flexibility. A DEFRA tracker found that, when taking account of regulatory and payment changes, over 50% of farmers have a negative view of their farming future.
The transition from the basic payment scheme to the sustainable farming incentive is riddled with problems. Even though the new scheme is supposed to add flexibility to the system, farmers need to wait a year to amend their applications. Fundamentally, the problem is that we have moved from a scheme under which people were given money for the land that they owned, which they considered their income, to one where they have to fill out the SFI form and agree to do things that are not in their interest. Every single rule has a disadvantage to it, which is why we have to pay farmers to follow them. The problem is that when they compare their income as it was under the basic payment scheme with their income as it will be under the SFI, they find that it will be lower. As a result, farmers feel extremely unhappy and put upon.
That is one reason why the underspend by DEFRA is more complicated than the hon. Member for Croydon North suggested. He was right to touch on it, but it is much worse than that, because £200 million every year not reaching the people we are subsidising to provide us with food security is a proper problem for our country. This money is not there to ensure that we do not compete with the French; it is meant to ensure that we can. We really need to ensure that we are not providing public money for public goods alone, but are ensuring that the incomes of the people doing the work are maintained. It is about not just the good of the industry and of nature, but ensuring that the people doing the work get paid for it. That is going seriously wrong. I get a text message from the Animal and Plant Health Agency telling me about bluetongue—that seems to be going on all the time—but I am not getting messages saying when the vaccine for it will appear.
We need to be much more supportive of our farmers in every sector they deal with, because they confront so many issues, not least the consumer market. A recent report found that the retail share that farmers receive is down to 0.03%. Some farmers have decided not to grow carrots anymore because the margins are so small. According to research by the University of London, the University of Portsmouth and Sustain, a kilo of carrots priced at 45p costs growers 14p to grow, yet they make only a negligible profit. Beef farmers make a profit of only 0.03% on a £3.50 pack of beefburgers, even though each pack costs them 90p to make. Dairy farmers will make only a 0.02% profit for each £2.50 pack of mild cheddar, despite it costing £1.48 to make.
Those margins are far too small, and competing with foreign counterparts is a secondary challenge, particularly for poultry farmers, who have to compete with imported chicken. Some chickens may be treated with antibiotics, but the real problem for poultry farmers is the square footage that they are limited to producing on. The one thing that most people do not know about chickens is how long they live for. A chicken will probably be 31 to 36 days old when it goes to be processed, so the square footage that it lives in is fairly dynamic. It changes as the chicken gets bigger, which it does extremely quickly. Because the Americans allow the use of chlorine washing, American chickens can be squished into a smaller square footage than British ones. That is not much good for the chicken, it is much better for the farmer, and the chlorine washing hides the risk to the consumer of salmonella, E. coli and various other chicken-transmitted diseases. It results in lower animal welfare and is bad for farmers in the UK. We have not squared the circle. I am sorry if I have not explained it well enough, but a poultry lesson is always available for anybody who wants one. At the end of the day, we insist on much higher animal welfare standards, and as a result our farmers are suffering and are being outcompeted by those in less scrupulous countries.
Therefore, the most important thing the Government can do is to ensure honesty in food labelling so that customers, whether they live in Croydon or Leominster, can buy chicken that has been properly brought up, properly looked after and kept clean. I say to the Government: please, please—food labelling is really important. “Pasture fed” should mean that the animal has been fed pasture for its entire life, not for the last six months. The benefit is that when the customer eats it, they will have a far better ratio of omega 3 fatty acids to omega 6 fatty acids. Omega 3 fatty acids are what the body uses to make cancer-fighting gamma linolenic acid, so customers need to know what they are buying because it can be good for their health.
We all talk about a food strategy for the UK, but we should really be talking about a health strategy. We should feed our people not just the best food in the world, produced to the highest standards, but the best food for them. In that way, we would not have an obesity problem, we would not spend so much on our health service, and we would give our people what they really want: a happy, healthy and long life. That is my most powerful plea.
But things are not so bad. French farmers’ dissatisfaction with the increasing amount of red tape and greater competition from imports led them to descend on Paris to disrupt a food distribution hub that feeds 12 million people. Belgian farmers blockaded the EU building in Brussels in February, and water cannon were used. In 2022, a Dutch farmer was shot at during the protests in Holland. Fortunately, the bullet just missed him.
The French Government’s response to those protests was to lower environmental regulations. That is wrong in every direction: the farmers should not be rioting, and the Government should not be lowering environmental standards. We have not done that in this country and we do not have revolting farmers—in fact, mine are anything but—so we should look at our withdrawal from the common agricultural policy as one of the great successes of Brexit. The Government must do more to help farmers producing local produce, such as by promoting the “Buy British” button from the campaign that encourages supermarkets to sell British products.
The one tragedy of public procurement is that our armed forces do not get enough British beef and lamb. Of course, supporting British food in schools and hospitals would boost local farmers, but it is very difficult to still get local food from a local abattoir because, thanks to the veterinary regulations, there are not very many local abattoirs. There are some very big ones in Wales, but there are essentially only three major companies slaughtering at any sort of scale. We should therefore look at the regulations that hold local abattoirs back. Most of them are to do with veterinary inspection. The problem with veterinary inspections is that the vets need to be there when the animal is opened up, because it smells different if it is not right inside. The idea of having video vets watching what is going on does not work as well as I wish it did, so we need to go back a step to make local abattoirs competitive.
Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)
Hugh Phillips Gower Butcher in my constituency has just closed its abattoir, which is a disaster because Gower salt marsh lamb was slaughtered there. There is a lack of support for abattoirs, and it is hugely costly for butchers to train their staff—it is a very skilled job—and keep their licences, even if they have to close for short periods, so more and more abattoirs will close. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that is a disaster?
Sir Bill Wiggin
I definitely agree that it is a disaster, and it is the cost per animal killed that would have put the abattoir owner out of business. That happened in my constituency as well. One of the biggest problems is that the burden is too high. Of course, for Gower lamb, Hereford beef or any of the wonderful things that are killed and processed locally, without the abattoir those animals have to travel considerably further, so there is an animal welfare problem, and there is a human health risk to not having proper inspections.
However, the qualifications required in the UK are of a much higher level. Very often, when one visits an abattoir, one will see that the veterinary inspectors are from Spain. That is because the qualifications are different and they are paid less. There is no reason why we should not insist on UK food inspectors being qualified differently from the six years it takes to become a fully qualified vet, but that is what we use here, and it seems to be a cornerstone of the problem with abattoir closures—over-regulation and over-qualified meat inspectors.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
My hon. Friend is making an extremely knowledgeable speech about agriculture, as I would expect. One of my constituents was prepared to invest a considerable amount of money in portable abattoirs. As far as I know, the initiative has been stalled because of excessive regulation.
Sir Bill Wiggin
I am delighted to say not only that I am aware of the portable—or mobile—abattoir, but that a model of it appeared in my house for me to have a look at, courtesy of one of the people supporting the initiative. That is why a more sensible, practical and affordable veterinary inspection regime is what is needed. Then, we could have the mobile abattoirs back.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I gently say to my hon. Friend that it was not only the veterinary inspections; it was the planning, the hygiene, the safety—every sort of regulation under the sun has made the initiative stall so far.
Sir Bill Wiggin
Indeed, but the mobile abattoir did not require planning because it was mobile, and cleanliness and hygiene are essential for confidence in human consumption. However, there is at least some margin for improvement on the veterinary bit. When I looked into slaughtering through that particular abattoir, the cost was very high because of the veterinary inspection rather than the other things, although those of course must be dealt with. I completely support the project that my hon. Friend refers to, and I hope to see far more little abattoirs popping up, be they mobile or fixed like the one that closed in Gower.
Sir Bill Wiggin
I would be delighted to give way to the man with the answer on abattoirs.
Mr Carmichael
If only. I should remind the House that my wife is a practising member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, and my younger son is three rent cheques away from following in her footsteps.
The hon. Gentleman makes a good and significant point about the nature of the regulation of abattoirs, but there are other forces at play here, particularly market forces. The reason we have seen the consolidation of abattoirs is that it produces a lower unit cost for throughput. That comes back to his earlier point about the demands of the supermarkets and their determination to drive down farm-gate prices. Does he agree that this is another area where the Groceries Code Adjudicator could perform a significant role if it had sufficient powers? If he is interested in that, he may wish to join me in the Adjournment debate tomorrow evening.
Sir Bill Wiggin
I can think of nothing nicer than to join the right hon. Gentleman in all sorts of debates. He was a first-class Deputy Chief Whip in the coalition Government. Of course, he absolutely right in what he says about abattoirs. I congratulate his son on being three cheques away from qualification—it is no small achievement to become a vet, so he deserves our congratulations.
One thing that the Government have done right, and about which I am really delighted, is to establish the statutory food security index and make it an annual event. Whether Members agree that we should have a health index or a food security index, all of that will come together, and we will see that our 60% figure is too low. Sixty per cent of the food that we eat is produced here—that is 60% of the food that we could produce, so there is potential for farmers to fill that 40% void. If we look at the world price of wheat, they are not going to be doing it at this rate. It is very, very difficult for some of our farmers to make any money. In 2022, the value of imports of feed, food and drink was £58.1 billion, over double the value of exports of feed, food and drink for the same year. That is an enormous sum, which could be directed towards British farmers if we supported them to feed our country.
The other thing I would like to see is tax breaks as well as grants. Grants are very limited; tax breaks are a much more efficient way of getting farmers to cut their costs and compete with farmers abroad. The Government recently announced a £427 million grant for farming, which is welcome, but it fundamentally misunderstands the sector. We like to use second-hand machinery in farming, but the grant system does not permit that. A better solution would be to offer tax breaks to farmers, allowing them to keep their hard-earned capital to invest as they wish. That capital would also go towards new technologies to generate efficiencies, increase yields, and combat the negative impacts of extreme weather. One of my constituents wanted to buy a hop-drying machine from Germany, so she applied for a grant. It was such an expensive machine—more than half a million pounds—that it blew through the system. There was no way that that grant could be approved, so in the end, she bought it herself.
The hop sector is tiny, but that is why these grants cannot just tick the boxes; they have to be much more comprehensive. When we talk about farming in this place, we talk about it generally, but each sector is completely different on the ground. A hop-drying machine is completely different from a blackcurrant-picking machine. That is all very well, but a cattle crush nowadays is very different from the one that I could afford to buy, and much more impressive. There is a desire to bring in robot fruit-pickers, and that would be great. We already have robot milkers, but the robot milkers we need are the ones that work on a rotary parlour instead of individually. Give us the tax breaks, and we will do the work. Do not tell us how to spend our money, because the grant system is not efficient.
Some 70% of land in England is managed by growers and farmers, and the work that we could do and do to combat flooding is often overlooked. One of the lowest pieces of low-hanging fruit is to allow local authorities to let their farmers clear flood blockages. Most farmers have a digger, and most farmers have a bulldozer of some sort. They have the kit, and that is where the flooding is, but they are not allowed to do anything because they are not insured. That is just mad. Let us make sure that local authorities can authorise a farmer to get in his tractor, put the snowplough on and clear the road. It is not that hard, but it does seem to be for my local authority—mind you, to be fair, almost everything is very hard for Herefordshire Council.
The Environment Agency could also do a great deal more. One little thing that would really help is that the River Wye has phosphates in it from chicken muck, and there is a man in my constituency who has spent a lot of money on building a phosphate-stripping plant. The chicken muck comes in, it goes through the anaerobic digester, the digestate is stripped of its phosphate, and then the muck can go back on the fields. At £300 a tonne, nitrogen fertiliser is very expensive; at £18 a tonne delivered to your farm, chicken muck is a much better alternative. If we want to stop the pollution, we need the Environment Agency to permit activities such as phosphate stripping, so that people can get on with putting on proper fertiliser—muck—instead of buying in fossil fuel-based fertiliser from countries such as Russia. There are all sorts of little things that the Environment Agency could do instead of putting my constituents in prison.
Diversification would benefit from a less rigid planning system, which of course the Government are thinking about at the moment. That rigidity is counterintuitive when a development would be helpful, so I welcome the Prime Minister’s recent comments about allowing greater diversification in farming. I look forward to seeing that legislation in April.
One or two Members have already talked about the need for connectivity. Some 46% of rural deprived areas are notspots for 5G, including most of my constituency. The NFU found that 79% of respondents did not have a reliable mobile signal on their farms. How can we possibly fill in our forms and drive our tractors using GPS when we cannot get a mobile phone signal?
We also need better digital mapping. At the moment the maps the Rural Payments Agency is using are not accurate for hedgerows, and the work needed for hedgerows is even harder because by the time we have filled out our digital map and put in our sustainable farming incentive forms, then, oh dear, we are not allowed to do anything for our hedges because of the wild birds. Then we have to wait, and then the patch comes up again when we can do stuff to our hedges, but we cannot do the same thing for hedge laying as we can for hedge cutting, so it is hard and complicated. Then some bright spark thought we would plant trees in the hedges, and that is absolutely fine until someone crashes into one and then we have a fatality. Hedges are very helpful for many reasons, but not many of them are quite right in the SFI at the moment.
Lastly, there are the issues of transport infrastructure for rural communities and livestock worrying. There has been a 63% decrease in the percentage of under-25s managing farms. That has to change; we are all getting older and that knowledge is needed. We saw it on “Clarkson’s Farm” when Kaleb calved a cow. It is not easy; if you do not know what you are doing, you cannot do it, and you will then have to call a vet and that will spoil all your economics. We have seen it again and again on television; people need to know what they are doing with agriculture. It is exceptionally dangerous. If you get your fingers in the power take-off, you will lose your whole arm. If you try and do things that do not work and turn your tractor over, you will die. And even if you do all right, if you are on your own for weeks on end with very little contact, you may well choose to take your life. I have lost six farmers in my constituency in the past 12 months. Things are not all right and there is no room for complacency, but some of the good things the Government are doing are so welcome.
While I am on a cheerful note, my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) has the Dogs (Protection of Livestock) (Amendment) Bill coming through. We really need it; there is nothing more miserable than lambing a Schmallenberg lamb and then coming back and seeing the remains of your flock torn to bits by one of these pit bulls. It is absolutely appalling, and that is why I support that private Member’s Bill. The damage done to livestock in the midlands alone was £313,000 so this is a really serious problem, and I am delighted my right hon. Friend is doing that.
I am delighted the Government are maintaining their £2.4 billion annual budget, but they should be increasing it. That is the money that keeps us standing still; it is not going to be sufficient to compete with our European competitors or other countries. We need more money, we need it delivered through tax breaks, and we need to make sure that British farmers are supported at every level by honesty in food labelling.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)
Order. A significant number of Members wish to participate, so I gently suggest that if every Member speaks for half an hour, not everybody will get in.
Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)
Today’s debate had to be rescheduled, but we welcome what is still a timely debate on farming. The Scottish National party will always welcome any opportunity to speak on this issue and especially to give Scottish farmers a voice in this place.
I will talk today about the vital role farmers and farming play in the rich fabric of Scottish tradition and outline the impact of Scottish farmers on our nation’s economy, the health of our people, and the protection and management of our environment. I will also detail just some of the mounting pressures they face largely due to this Conservative Government’s long-held obsession with Brexit.
This debate is timely for several reasons. The first is that the Prime Minister spoke at the NFU annual conference a fortnight ago. “Brave” is a word that absolutely nobody would attribute to the current Prime Minister, but he is the first Tory Prime Minister to address the conference since 1992 and the first UK Prime Minister to do so since 2008. If anyone in this Chamber, or indeed any of our constituents, were looking for a telling insight into Westminster’s attitude to farming and agriculture, they need look no further than that.
I cannot help but wonder what it was that kept the Tory leadership away from such a meeting for so long. Why, despite having four Prime Ministers in that time, was the current Prime Minister the first in 28 years to make such a commitment—although in the interests of fairness it is only right that we acknowledge that the Prime Minister’s immediate predecessor was not in office long enough to have received an invitation? What might have been the cause of that historic hiatus? Perhaps it was a long-held tradition of successive Tory Governments taking the rural vote and communities for granted. Perhaps it was a fear of scrutiny from the sector itself, or perhaps it was the crippling knowledge that the Tory obsession with Brexit is playing the defining role in the decline of our once great agricultural industries. It was probably a combination of all three.
We on the SNP Benches believe that the Prime Minister’s address to the NFU should have begun with an outright apology. The Westminster Government have hammered farmers with their Brexit obsession, leaving them to fend for themselves in facing the devastating impact of higher costs, mountains of red tape, labour shortages and eyewatering delays over border controls.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
Alongside my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), I am grateful to be here as a Scottish MP who can also give a voice to Scottish farmers. The hon. Gentleman is making good points on Brexit, and I agree with him, but does he agree with me on the importance of skills for farming and having training where the communities are? Scotland’s Rural College received a Queen’s anniversary award for innovation a couple of weeks ago, and I was in London to see that, but the SRUC Elmwood campus in Cupar is facing devastating cuts, largely as a result of the Scottish Government’s cuts to higher and further education. Its golf course will be sold off, and there are doubts over the future of its animal care unit. Does he agree that the SRUC is an integral part of Cupar and that the Scottish Government should be helping the SRUC with funding to keep it there as a going concern?
Steven Bonnar
I agree with the hon. Member, and I will make representations as such. I look forward to all contributions in the Chamber from all Members across Scotland today.
The debate is timely, as we finally saw the UK Government responding to decade-long calls for fairer contracts for dairy farmers. Since as long ago as 2011, NFU Scotland has been desperately pushing on behalf of its members for reform in that area, so we welcome legislation to regulate dairy contracts, but we join NFU Scotland and other unions in highlighting the devastating delay shown by the Westminster Government in listening to our dairy farmers and that sector.
Farming is vital to the Scottish economy. The sector in Scotland delivers an annual production output of £3.3 billion, employing 67,000 workers directly on farm and supporting a further 300,000 jobs within agricultural activities. It has long been the backbone of rural communities in Scotland and our surrounding landscapes. We are a nation with a proud agricultural history of crofters, growers and farmers shaping global methods of food production that are still practised today. Scottish salmon, Aberdeen Angus, oat-based products and Scotch whisky all represent modern success stories for our resilient food and drink sector. Exports of those Scottish products and others reached a total export value of £8 billion in 2022.
While those products have success in common, they are also united by a far darker shared trait: their new-found precarious position as a result of Brexit red tape, staffing shortages, and a poorly negotiated trade deal that has left them vulnerable to cheap imports. Our farmers, growers and crofters are resilient and have been for centuries. They have had to be—forging a livelihood in often remote and weather-beaten locations, feeding the people of Scotland and those far beyond our shores—but they are struggling. Scottish farmers deserve far better than the blatant disregard and damage they continue to receive from Westminster.
While Labour in Wales and the Tories here in England fail to deliver for farmers, with EU replacement support schemes falling far short of what was promised, the SNP Scottish Government have provided the most generous package of support for farmers and crofters across the UK. We are lucky that farming is a devolved matter, so we can make these interventions back in Scotland. We can try our best to support this vital part of our economy, our history and our culture. With both the main parties here in Westminster in lockstep in their support of Brexit and the damage it is doing, Scottish Government support for farmers in Scotland can only do so much and only stretch so far. We aspire to much more than mitigating the worst of this place.
The general nature of the debate makes it hard for us to shortlist all the damage that this place is doing to farming communities; many aspects of farming deserve to be debated on the Floor of the House. I will touch on some of them, and hon. Members may detect an underlying theme that connects them. I will start with animal welfare, which has been mentioned. Members on all Benches will know that it is of huge importance to me and the SNP. This Tory Government like to talk about standards and the world-leading role that they see us playing on the global stage. It is true that Scottish farmers have some of the highest animal welfare standards in the world, thanks largely to the Welfare of Farmed Animals (Scotland) Regulations 2010 introduced by the Scottish Government.
The actions of the Conservative Government here in Westminster since Brexit have made an absolute mockery of their claims to be concerned about animal welfare. For example, the free trade agreement struck with Australia in 2021 does not honour the Westminster Government’s supposed commitment not to undercut our farmers through unfair competition. We were sold that deal on the laughable pitch that it would save consumers up to £34 million a year—a measly 52p per person. At what cost? At a cost to our farmers. Their high animal welfare standards go unrewarded, and they are penalised by being undercut by imports of a far lower standard. Of course, it is also at a cost to the planet, as we fly goods across the world rather than support local food economies.
Surely the time has come for the UK Government to listen to calls from farmers across Scotland, as well as organisations such as the Landworkers’ Alliance. Through a recent consultation, its Scottish policy team, led by Dr Tara White, has provided invaluable insights into the Scottish Government as they shape our enforced post-Brexit agricultural direction. Organisations such as Compassion in World Farming call for a smarter, more ethical approach to rewarding farmers—through making core minimum animal welfare standards a condition of any tariff or quota-free trade deal; through efficient labelling, so that consumers are better informed about the origin and welfare standards of the product that they are going to consume; and through a localised approach to supply that bolsters local food economies.
Nobody needs reminding of the impacts of the pandemic in revealing weaknesses in our over-reliance on long supply chains and those that rely on the international trade, or of the importance of local food supply systems and meeting our domestic needs. The need for shorter supply chains is only compounded by the climate crisis, and importing food from other countries—especially those as far away as Australia—will serve only to increase greenhouse gas emissions. That contradicts any UK Government claim that they are tackling the climate challenge head on.
Another issue of concern to all of us in the SNP is the cost of our food and the unavoidable reality that while costs for consumers rise, the share of that cost that finds its way to our farmers remains completely stagnant. The Centre for Economic Performance has stated that leaving the European Union added an average of £210 per household to food bills over the two years to the end of 2021. That is the legacy of this place—and that was before the Tory party elected its previous leader, whose reckless relationship with economic reality heaped further costs on each and every one of our constituents.
For any Members who need to be reminded of the impact of the Tory-engineered crisis, data from the Office for National Statistics shows that the overall price of food rose by about 25% between January 2022 and January 2024. In the 10 years prior to that, food prices rose by only 9% in total. We know that farmers have not benefited from those price increases; in fact, the opposite is true. Farmers are paying higher costs for essentials such as feed and fertiliser.
Research for Sustain by Professor Lisa Jack found that of the entire price we might pay for one grocery item, about 98% or 99% of that goes to production and overheads for intermediary companies such as processors and distributors, and then the retailers. That means our farmers, our crofters and our growers are left with crumbs: sometimes as little as 1p of profit for each item they produce.
Let me take this opportunity to ask the Minister, once again, to consider price caps to stop the supermarkets profiteering and to help ensure that basic essentials are not beyond the reach of many people. Better still, the UK Government could answer calls from organisations such as Sustain and force supermarkets to publish more information about their own supply chains. We in the SNP are clear that farmers must be paid what they are owed, because they provide a secure, fair and sustainable future for family farms across all these nations. We need urgently to review existing frameworks that are supposed to enshrine that fairness but are not acting as well as they should, including looking at the efficacy of the grocery supply code of practice.
Another issue raised by the SNP in this place consistently is the crippling effect of Brexit on the ability of our farmers to staff their farms. Currently, the UK relies on some 58,000 seasonal workers to harvest the crops grown by our domestic system, not counting those working in the wider food production and farming system. Despite constant warnings from farmers and unions in Scotland during the referendum and after, Brexit has had a devastating impact on the ability of farmers to find staff at peak times of the harvest cycle. Despite the introduction of short-term visas for overseas workers to fill those roles, significant immigration issues remain, especially for seasonal workers, those forced to work in food manufacturing and, as we have heard, those working in abattoirs. The introduction of short-term visas not only failed to address worker shortages in agricultural and food production in Scotland but posed another serious challenge. The complexities of the system and associated costs of the move to the UK mean that many workers are often at the sharp end of exploitation—a great deal of which occurs in the application process itself, where third parties take advantage of applicants struggling to navigate the UK system.
What have we been left with? We have an immigration system that allows exploitation at its outset and has not effectively filled the vacancies, and a hostile environment created by the attitude of this Tory Government, which deters workers with the appropriate skillset from even considering coming to the UK to carry out that work. I said earlier that consistent themes emanate from Westminster, the painful reality of which have become all too familiar to the people of Scotland: Tory chaos, Tory mismanagement and the enduring damage of Brexit, which threatens to decimate our hard-working and admirably resilient farmers in Scotland.
In stark contrast, we in the SNP stand up for Scottish farmers wherever we can on matters that are fully devolved. We have given clarity and assurances that we will support our farming industry. We have introduced the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill, which is a milestone in our work to transform how we support farming and food production in Scotland, to become a global leader in sustainable and regenerative agriculture. A final example of the differences between the clear leadership shown in Scotland and the approach favoured down here is that, in his address to the National Farmers Union Scottish conference, the First Minister announced that the Scottish Government have now committed up to 70% of the budget made available through tiers 1 and 2 of the frameworks.
Today’s debate is welcome and incredibly important. Farmers in Scotland are close to breaking point. Despite the constant commitment of support from the Scottish Government, there is only so much we can do to clean up the mess that has been left by the Tory Government. This Government continue to bury their heads in the sand, but we in the SNP will continue to work hard to secure the fair and sustainable future that Scottish family farms deserve. There is only one way to properly address the challenges that farmers face and support and protect Scotland’s agricultural history: an independent Scotland taking its place within the European Union. Only one party is making the case for that: the SNP.
George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)
I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am a trustee of a family trust that owns shares in Trevaskis farm—our family farming business—and I am a director of Penbroath, a consultancy in the sector.
I want to start by addressing the current year, because the current year is always at the top of farmers’ minds. As the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed) pointed out, it has undoubtedly been a very difficult year for farmers, principally due to the weather. This has been one of the wettest winters on record. It affects different parts of the country, but it has been more widespread than the bad flooding in 2020 or the more localised but much more severe flooding in 2014. A lot of winter arable crops have struggled to establish. In areas such as my constituency, which is home to most of the UK’s cauliflower production, the producers of cauliflowers in Cornwall have had the most difficult year in living memory. So, it has been a difficult time over the past 12 months, particularly this winter.
It is also true that in recent years a number of global events have led to volatility. In common with many other business sectors, farmers have sometimes found it difficult to plan and budget properly because of volatility in their input costs, although over the past 12 months some sectors have seen commodity prices ease back from the very high levels recorded in recent years. That is particularly pronounced in some areas of cereal production, such as winter wheat.
While acknowledging that it has been a difficult year for farmers and that that is at the top of their minds, it is important to take a step back and look at the wider context and a longer timeframe. DEFRA constantly monitors farm business incomes. Every year, it publishes the “Farm Business Survey”. As the Minister will know, a whole statistics department in DEFRA spends its time understanding global agricultural commodity markets—what is driving prices up or down—and their impact on UK farm enterprises. In recent years, we have to acknowledge that farm incomes have actually risen sharply overall since 2016.
Throughout history, farmgate prices have always been heavily influenced by exchange rates. The sharp devaluation of sterling against the euro after the 2016 referendum result—literally within seconds of it becoming apparent what was likely to happen that evening—meant that anybody who was in a productive sector, whether primary industry or manufacturing, benefited from a slightly softer exchange rate. People who make and produce things tend to do better when there is a weaker exchange rate against the euro and the dollar, and people who import things, or who are in the financial services sector, tend to prefer a stronger exchange rate. Because of that exchange rate change, between 2016 and 2022 profits on the average dairy farm more than doubled to over £200,000 last year. That is more than four times higher than the average dairy farm was getting in 2015 when dairy prices really were on the floor and struggling. It is also true that turbulence following the terrible invasion of Ukraine has led to sharp increases in global cereal prices. For the average cereal farm, gross profit margins per hectare actually trebled in the few years after 2022, although, as I have already acknowledged and for any angry cereal farmers listening, cereal prices have fallen sharply in the current year.
I recognise that it has not been a universally positive picture. Overall, farm incomes were healthy from 2016 to 2022, but the pig sector in particular suffered difficulties in 2021, caused by oversupply in the EU market and problems in the Chinese export market. Our apple industry suffers a long-standing problem of a seeming inability to break through in export markets, leaving an industry which requires investment over many years, if not decades, at the mercy of all-too-powerful retail customers. The potato industry has suffered several years in the doldrums, partly owing to changing consumer tastes and a reduction in demand for potatoes. In the grazing livestock sectors—not just in the more vulnerable upland landscapes, but in lowland areas, too—profits have typically moved sideways; they are not really increasing, and in some years are dipping slightly.
The overall picture for agriculture since 2016 is positive, and it is important to recognise that. Farmers will not always volunteer the fact that they have had a good year, but it is important for those of us in the House who are interested in coherent policymaking at least to understand the data and the statistics, which is why I was so pleased when the Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries published the data and the trends late last year.
I want to say a little about the agricultural policy that the Government are pursuing. Most of its key tenets were developed between 2017 and 2019, when I was the Minister of State responsible for agriculture, and implemented between 2020 and 2023, when I was the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. We applied a number of principles to that policy, as we had a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rethink farming policy from first principles. The first principle was that there was no long-term place for land subsidies.
The single farm payment, area payments, direct payments —whatever we wish to call them—were essentially a subsidy paid to people for owning land. There was no coherence in such a policy, simply because there had never been any shortage of people in this country wanting to buy land, so it made no sense to add a subsidy to it. There is also a great deal of evidence that when that subsidy payment was introduced in 2005, about 50% of it went in inflated rents, so all that happened was that the ultimate owners of the land benefited most. That is why we ended up with the problem that 50% of the entire agriculture budget went to 10% of the wealthiest landowners in the country, while 44,000 farmers—more than half the cohort claiming direct payments—had just 10% of the total between them.
That made no sense, so we introduced a second principle. We decided that as well as paying farmers for what they did, rather than just paying them for happening to own land, we should allow them a profit margin from what we ask them to do. We made a deliberate decision to depart from the backward “income forgone” methodology that was pursued by the European Union and is sometimes advocated by the World Trade Organisation. As we try to modernise farm policy, we must reject some of the anachronistic approaches supported by the WTO, because they have no place in modern policy. If we are going to ask farmers to give up a land subsidy in exchange for being paid for what they do, we should not begrudge them a margin for what they do. There has to be a profit margin; that is the quid pro quo for the removal of anachronistic land subsidies.
We recognised that there was poor profitability in some farming sectors, and that in some areas there was a dependence on the subsidies received, but the third principle that we brought to the design of the policy was that we should try to address the cause of that poor profitability, rather than simply treating the symptoms. That is why, in the Agriculture Act 2020, we legislated for new powers to introduce fairness in the supply chain, and it is why in the years since then there has been a significant expansion in grants to help farmers invest in their businesses, reduce costs and improve their profitability. It is also why we ensured that the schemes we designed, such as the sustainable farming incentive, not only helped the environment, but increased and improved farms’ financial resilience. There is considerable evidence that in some landscapes, a more extensive approach, in which farming has fewer inputs but a higher profit margin, can lead to overall improvement in the profitability and long-term financial resilience of enterprises.
The fourth principle, which I was very keen to bring to the policy, was that there should be simplicity in the new schemes. Others have commented that we did not take that far enough, and I am open to representations on that, but achieving that is not easy, because the environment is complex. Whenever we try to design a scheme that delivers for the environment, it will always be limited by the extent of human understanding, and the ability to make payments that we can track; we have to be able to validate the fact that they have been delivered. That is not straightforward, as I discovered when I got into this issue.
I campaigned to leave the European Union. I was very hostile to the cross-compliance regime and the way that the EU approached these matters, and I was very keen to ensure simplicity. My message to officials is that when we design policy, if we encounter a dilemma or a difficulty, we should always tack towards simplicity, and accept that although the policy might not be perfect, we need something that works. To be fair to officials, they have generally done that; and to be fair to Ministers, they have maintained that basic principle.
The final principle was that there should be evolution, not revolution. That is why, way back in 2018, when I first tried to take an Agriculture Bill through Parliament— it did not complete its passage, and we had to have a second attempt in the Parliament that followed the 2019 general election—we made it explicit, right from the beginning, that there would be a seven-year transition between 2021 and 2028, and that we would gradually reduce the legacy basic payment scheme land subsidies and expand the roll-out of the new policies. It is sometimes said that there has not been a plan, or that things have not happened as fast as they should have, but all such representations are complete and utter nonsense. We published a document in 2019 that set out the seven-year transition plan, and I pay tribute to all my successors, because every single one of them has continued to roll out the policy programme exactly as we set out in 2019. Indeed, late last year, the Government confirmed that this year, they would de-link the remaining legacy payments from the need to have tenure over land, which is exactly what we planned as long ago as 2019. Every component of the new agriculture policy, from the sustainable farming incentive to the landscape recovery project, has been rolled out exactly as we intended.
I pay tribute to the many officials in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs who have maintained the trajectory that we outlined in 2019, particularly Janet Hughes, who has led the team in question for a number of years. Having that continuity on the policy programme has been helpful. I also pay tribute to Tim Mordan, a long-standing official in DEFRA who has helped Ministers from different parties over many years, and who I understand will soon be retiring from the Department.
I want to say a little about the challenges that remain; I will wind up soon. When it comes to agriculture, I am afraid to say that most of the challenges that DEFRA faces are from other Government Departments. The first of those is the Home Office. When I was Secretary of State, we put in place the Shropshire review, which concluded that we needed not only a multi-annual visa scheme for seasonal workers in the agriculture sector, but a more progressive approach to having a visa scheme for sectors such as food manufacturing. I regret to say that there has not yet been a response to the Shropshire review. I place no blame at the feet of DEFRA Ministers, because I was a Minister in DEFRA and I know how these things work. Ministers will not be able to say so, but it is pretty obvious that, as usual, the Home Office is the intransigent blockage in this problem. We really need a machinery-of-government change in which the Home Office is stripped of its powers relating to visa policy for seasonal agricultural workers. The policy in its entirety should simply be moved to DEFRA, so that DEFRA Ministers no longer have to waste their time trying to explain things to Home Office Ministers; that is often where the problem lies.
A number of hon. Members have mentioned trade. I would simply say to Ministers that DEFRA understands trade and some of the technical issues around it far better than officials in the Department for Business and Trade. DEFRA Ministers are armed with real intellectual power, and real experience of dealing with trade negotiations. I hope that current and aspiring Ministers in this place will always draw on the power in DEFRA to face down some of the more naive approaches that we have seen in the past from the Department for Business and Trade.
We must also keep payment rates under review. I increased the payment rates for the sustainable farming incentive and countryside stewardship scheme by about 30% in my final year in the role. Ministers recently increased the rates by a further 10%, and it may be that we need to consider going further as we depart from the anachronistic “income forgone” methodology.
A number of hon. Members mentioned land use, and the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Croydon North, mentioned the land use framework. I am more optimistic about our ability to both increase agricultural output and make space in our farmed landscape for nature, because we have done the research and we know that there is no direct correlation between food production and the land area used. Some 35% of our agricultural output comes from just 4% of the land, because sectors such as pigs, poultry and horticulture have high-value outputs but do not use a huge amount of land. At the other end of the scale, around 20% of farm land in England produces just 3% or 4% of our total output. It is pretty obvious that we can make space for nature, do some tree planting and restore vulnerable habitats such as peatland, but also invest in new horticulture, glasshouses and crops to expand our domestic food production and enhance our food security.
I regret that the Government decided last year to drop the horticulture strategy. They have reinstated elements of it, which is to be welcomed, but the reason why we committed to a new focus on horticulture—in particular, a new generation of glasshouses for our food production—was this. In my nine years in DEFRA, I spent a lot of time in Cobra meetings dealing with the latest crisis, whether it was a ferry strike in France, covid or preparing for a no-deal Brexit. The issue always came down to how we would get lettuces and tomatoes from Spain into this country through the short straits. If we really want to enhance our food security, we should have a renewed focus on horticulture and try to re-shore some of the glasshouse production that was wrongly exported to the Netherlands when we joined the European Union all those decades ago.
Finally, I would like more done to support new entrants and tenant farmers. The Rock review was an excellent piece of work with many different recommendations, but if there is one recommendation that I hope the Government will consider taking forward, it is the idea of an assignable agreement on countryside stewardship, so that if somebody enters land tenure for two or three years, they can assign their agreement to an incoming tenant, or indeed the landowner. That is the only solution I can see to that problem.
Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)
It is a pleasure to participate in this important and timely debate, and a particular pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), who made a very considered speech, as ever. He is very learned in this policy field, and I would like to elaborate on his point about food security, and especially the emphasis on horticulture and re-shoring some production in the UK. Food security does not always get the attention it demands in this place—or, indeed, in wider political debate. It is a matter of life and death, and it warrants more parliamentary scrutiny and debate in future.
I begin by considering the current state of affairs. In that regard, the UK Government’s food security report is incredibly useful. It sets out the situation regarding food production and consumption, as well as exports and imports, and I was taken aback by some of its findings. For example, the UK’s production-to-supply ratio in 2020 was 60% for all food, and 76% for indigenous-type food. Perhaps more relevant and more widely understood is the figure for consumption of UK-produced food, which stands closer to 54%, as some food products are exported.
The point is that statistics are hard to interpret and can sometimes tell a whole array of different stories. One thing I would say about the 54% of UK-produced food being consumed here is that that compares with a 1984 figure of 78%. Changing dietary preferences, a changing climate and different consumer habits have a heavy bearing on this story, but the trend is quite important. From a peak in the mid-1980s, the production to supply ratio declined into the early 2000s and has remained quite stable ever since.
Food security is not a simple matter; it is multifaceted and has various contingent factors. The Government’s “United Kingdom Food Security Report 2021” includes a useful definition, which I think conveys the complexity. It notes that food security
“encompasses the state of global agriculture and markets on which the UK is reliant; the sources of raw materials and foodstuffs in the UK and abroad; the manufacturing, wholesale, and retail industries that ultimately bring food to shelves and plates, and their complex supply chains of inputs and logistics; and the systems of inspection that allow consumers to be confident their food is safe, authentic, and of a high standard.”
If we consider that definition for a moment, as detailed as it is, a few risks to food security immediately spring to mind. We have already heard some of them in this debate, including that the surge in input prices and the cost of commodities has had a big influence on the viability of farm businesses. We have also heard about the changing climate in the UK and the way in which flooding has had a significant impact on agricultural production here.
It is also important to bear in mind that a changing climate will also have an impact on those markets abroad from which the UK imports so much of its food. Especially relevant here is the fact that, as the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth outlined, different sectors will be more exposed to those foreign import markets than others. Let us take the fruit and vegetable sector as a case in point, as we depend quite a bit on foreign markets for our fruit and veg. The UK produces over 50% of the vegetables consumed domestically but only 16% of our fruit, and 93% of domestic consumption of fresh vegetables is fulfilled by domestic and European production, while fruit supply is more widely spread across the EU, Africa, the Americas and the UK. Some of those foreign markets are in areas of the world that we know will suffer from climate change, and their ability to produce much of the food that we import will be impacted by that.
We must also consider the unknown impacts that geopolitical instability will have on some supply chains. The war in Ukraine has already been mentioned, but we need also to remember that some of these shocks are unexpected and cannot be anticipated, such as the recent disruption of the Red sea trade routes. For that reason, I very much welcome the Government’s commitment to monitoring food security through the new statutory index. I believe that this would warrant an annual debate to coincide with updates of the index so that we could properly scrutinise this important matter. If we consider all these facts and potential threats and risks, it leads us to the conclusion that we need not only to maintain domestic food production but to increase it so that we can gain greater self-sufficiency in many of the food products that UK consumers eat.
Our focus so far has been on some of the external factors, but we need to bear in mind that many domestic factors have an impact on domestic food capacity. I am afraid to say that a combination of factors is conspiring to force many farmers in Wales out of the industry. Domestic agricultural support policy, for example, has a big part to play, in addition to the public procurement of food contracts, which has already been mentioned. The financial position of Welsh farms underlines the vulnerability of the sector in Wales and the importance of direct Government support payments.
The Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences at Aberystwyth University in my constituency produces an annual farm business survey of farm incomes. The most recent survey, detailing the 2022-23 out-turns, paints a worrying picture of the state of many farms and farm models in Wales. It notes how hill cattle and sheep farms made a profit of some £24,000 after rent and finance, but excluding the cost of unpaid labour, in that financial year. That compares with the average basic payment scheme payment for those farms of £26,000. Hill sheep farms have a similar story. They made a profit after rent and finance of some £24,000, versus a direct support payment of £31,577. The point I am trying to make is that direct support from the Government—through the basic payment scheme in this instance—has served an incredibly important role in keeping many of those farms afloat. My concern is that if there is any reduction to that profit, many will find themselves unviable.
Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman will know well that the Labour Government in Wales are currently planning a subsidy scheme—a sustainable farming scheme—that by their own independently commissioned estimates will lead to roughly a 10% drop in livestock and a £122 million drop in revenue. Farmers in Aberconwy tell me that that income is simply the difference between them having a future and not, so what message does he have for his Plaid Cymru colleagues in the Senedd who are propping up the Welsh Labour Government through a co-operation agreement? Does he agree that tomorrow afternoon’s budget vote might be a good opportunity for them to reconsider that co-operation?
Ben Lake
The hon. Gentleman is right to state the fears of his farmers, which are very much aligned with those expressed to me by farmers in Ceredigion, that the potential change in this policy is, frankly, a matter of life and death for their businesses. He tempts me to comment on the plans of my colleagues in the Senedd. I will resist that temptation, but I will say that it is important, given the gravity of the situation facing the Welsh agricultural industry, that the sustainable farming scheme should be changed. I would suggest that it should be paused to begin with, so that we have time to devise a proper policy that is fit for the 21st century. If my colleagues decide that they need to use every possible lever, I will say all power to their elbow, and if that means the demise of the co-operation agreement, I will certainly not be mourning its passing.
The point is that direct support for many of our farm businesses is crucial. The hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin) said earlier that much of the reality of that support is to ensure that the price of food on our supermarket shelves is controlled in a manner.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman is talking about direct support to farmers, and on that subject I want to ask him about direct support for local planning authorities, given how vital it is that farmers get quick answers from those authorities. My experience in Mid Devon and East Devon is that they are earnest in their desire to prevent agricultural pollution from affecting our streams and rivers, but I have one farmer who has waited 20 months for a decision on a planning application in relation to the construction of a slurry store. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need the Westminster Government also to help local planning authorities so that our farmers can get rapid answers?
Ben Lake
The hon. Gentleman is quite right. That is something we face in Wales as well, where some farm improvements and developments, sometimes involving changes to comply with regulations, find obstacles and delays in planning. It is only right that planning authorities should be sufficiently resourced to ensure that none of those obstacles is put in the way of progress.
I want briefly to turn to some of the wider issues that impact on domestic production, including the weaknesses of the current grocery supply code of practice and enforcement regime, and trade policy. I do not need to remind the House about this because I can see so many learned Members here this evening, but farming is a long-term industry, and these decisions have to be made on a very long-term basis. When it comes to the way in which the grocery supply chain operates, I am afraid that many retailers have found themselves in a position where they can exert undue influence and have an impact on farmers and growers to shift short-term risk on to their shoulders—much to the detriment of the wider industry.
It was stated in last month’s Westminster Hall debate that 95% of the food consumed in the UK is sold by just 12 retailers, which affords them a dominant position in the supply chain. This means that farmers and growers receive a paltry margin compared with the margins enjoyed by many retailers. Again, that point was made far more eloquently by the hon. Member for North Herefordshire. In addition to short-term inflation spikes and rising import costs, farmers are currently exposed to unfair trading practices arising from this imbalance.
Last month, many Members present debated a petition started by the Riverford farming campaign, calling on the Government: to strengthen the Groceries Code Adjudicator by empowering it to take effective and punitive action against those committing unfair trading practices; to lower the turnover threshold so that the code applies to a greater number of retailers; and to enshrine the simple principle that retailers should give suppliers certainty that they will buy what they have agreed to buy, that they will pay what they have agreed to pay and that they will pay on time. That basic fairness would more evenly spread out across the supply chain some of the risks and profits inherent in the food supply system.
The impact of trade policy has already been mentioned, so I will not go into detail. Concerns have been raised about the impact of the Australia free trade deal on the sector in Wales and the UK. All I will add is that, in their approach to future trade policy, the UK Government should urgently establish a set of core production standards for all food consumed in the UK to ensure that our farmers and growers are not disadvantaged by any future trade agreements. These standards could safeguard high-quality, climate-friendly markets that are open to imports from countries whose standards may differ from our own.
In addition to the food security index, the Government could look to establish an annual free trade agreement assessment to quantify the cumulative impact of free trade agreements on trade balance, sourcing, standards and domestic food production. The farming unions in Wales would very much support such a measure.
Food security is a challenge with which we will soon need to grapple. By not only maintaining but increasing domestic production, so that we gain greater self-sufficiency, we will in turn gain greater resilience to climate change and to shocks in a very uncertain world.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
It is a huge pleasure to contribute to this debate on farming. The previous speeches show the importance of farming to our national security.
The primary purpose of farming is to produce the fine food that we enjoy, and we need farmers to keep doing that. They need to have good and fair reward, and we also need their help to protect and conserve the countryside and the natural environment.
As the Member of Parliament for Suffolk Coastal, I am blessed to represent a special part of our country that is well known for its pigs, potatoes, parsnips and much more, including poultry and its splendid natural environment. I referred in my maiden speech to the importance of listening and learning from those who expertly rear and grow so much of the produce that we enjoy in this country. We want to help them get best value for their produce by making sure that the best British food is valued across the world.
One of the challenges in drafting a national policy, as so eloquently set out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice)—moving from a blanket 85%, based on a particular characteristic, with a bit of environmental for the other 15%—is recognising the difference between the Administrations of the United Kingdom. There are some pretty dogged elements in Wales, with farmers being instructed that, to get any support at all, they have to give up quite a lot of land, rather than potentially making improvements. I am conscious that, on the frontline, the challenges vary sector by sector and county by county. That variance is often because of the soil, which can be so different even on opposite sides of the A12 in my constituency.
We recognise that farmers face different challenges, day in and day out, to have a fruitful industry, and one challenge is water. Farmers have way too much water right now, but there are often concerns in my part of the country about drought and restrictions on abstraction. We are now seeing other challenges to do with yield.
We must continue to be agile and flexible in listening to feedback. The Rural Payments Agency has a history of saying, “Computer says no.” Instead, we should undertake analysis and carefully consider the policies that we are pursuing, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth set out, while ensuring that we stick to our target for the distribution of funding across the country. We want to make sure that 70% of agricultural land and 70% of holdings participate in the environmental land management scheme by 2028. I would be grateful for an update on that from the Minister.
Another aspect that links to food security is that some farmers are considering whether to opt out of food production entirely, which was not the intention of ELMS. We should consider restricting how much land can be taken out of production because, as my right hon. Friend said, there is an opportunity to improve the productivity of much of our farming sector to get the food security that we all believe is vital. I hope that officials are continuing, or have finished, the analysis that I commissioned, so that we not only look at national income and national averages, but look constituency by constituency, and certainly county by county, to get a sense of whether people are taking up these opportunities.
For example, about 305 farmers in Suffolk Coastal are eligible for BPS—BPS does not apply to quite a lot of farmers in my constituency, particularly pig farmers—but only 55 have so far applied for SFI in the current year, despite the scheme being opened to pig farmers. It is worth undertaking that analysis, which is why I asked the RPA to share the recipients of BPS with me. I do not want to know how much they earn, but I want to understand why people are not taking up the opportunities. We need to listen and get feedback.
We have a fine, experienced Farming Minister in my right hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mark Spencer). After lawyers and trade union officials, I expect that farming is the No. 1 occupation of Members of Parliament, certainly on the Conservative Benches if not more broadly.
It is important to be alert to the issues on which, at times, only the Government can help and intervene, but we also need to understand the barriers to participation.
Biosecurity continues to be the issue that should keep most politicians awake at night. We have already heard about bovine TB, and I absolutely believe that we should continue to cull until things are more stable. Science continues to advance our understanding of how vaccines can be applied much more readily.
We have made sure to tighten up issues at the border, but I would be grateful if the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) updated us on where we are with the important Weybridge upgrade to make sure that we can assess those issues.
On protecting the countryside, I am delighted that Labour has abandoned its right to roam. I think Labour has listened to farmers, and I hope it will listen a bit more on bovine TB and the use of chemicals and pesticides —they are not applied willy-nilly, as they cost farmers a lot of money. It is important that we continue to ensure that we deploy what nature gives us in an appropriate way, while still being understandably concerned about the impact on the natural environment. The two can go hand in hand and it is vital they do, because if the farmers and landowners do not help us in supporting the natural environment, it does not matter what scheme we have. We might have the best scheme in the world, but if it is not taken up, we will fail. Having a practical and pragmatic approach continues to be really important in that regard.
We have already heard about skills and visas. I was delighted when the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education listened to the concerns raised by my local agricultural college. T-levels are replacing BTECs, but there was a gap because pig husbandry was not included in the curriculum—again, this is part of the challenge of having national approaches. The organisations were saying that there was not enough demand for that, but there was, certainly in my constituency and in other parts of the country. I am delighted that the Government listened and are making sure that that will be in the curriculum.
As for the progress we have made, it has been a journey. My right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) wrote the blueprint, “Health and Harmony”, ably assisted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth. Through the creation of the Agriculture Act 2020, my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath set in place the architecture. It is also fair to say that when things are not quite working, it is okay to have a few tweaks along the way. That is not a failure in where we are; the direction of travel is still there. However, as I say, we have to have something that works.
Water is one of our bigger challenges in Suffolk. The local microclimate is pretty much like Israel’s; parts of East Anglia are exceptionally dry. The new president of the NFU, Tom Bradshaw, will know that very well from his farming in Essex. That is why I was delighted several years ago to help support the creation of the Felixstowe Hydrocycle, which is so good it was included in the “Plan for Water” four times, at my insistence. We need to bear it in mind that although plenty of farmers have too much water right now, we often do not have enough. Thinking about the risk to future production is important when the Environment Agency is trying to balance a variety of environmental regulations alongside what can be done to make sure that farmers have enough water to grow crops. I have been trying to get permitted development rights for small-scale reservoirs. I encourage the Minister to pursue that within government. Internal drainage boards are vital and sensible in trying to manage that delicate balance.
I am very conscious that we have the highest welfare standards in the world and that people have concerns that not everyone is playing by the same rules. That happened while we were in the EU and we still see those challenges in our trade agreement with the EU. It is important that we continue to market that welfare not only within this country, but elsewhere in the world. That is why it was right to reject a lot of the calls from foreign markets about why they should come into this country, and I was pleased that the Prime Minister stood up for British farming at the time.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I am sorry to interrupt my right hon. Friend, but does she agree that it is vital that when we negotiate future trade deals, we include in them the fact that Britain has some of the highest welfare standards in the world, and that we should not sacrifice those for the sake of doing a trade deal?
Dr Coffey
My hon. Friend is right to raise that point. Welfare is one of our selling points when it comes to trade deals and what we sell abroad—people recognise that brand. There are other ways in which the industry has tried to promote its elements.
There is still a lot of clamour in this country to do even more ratcheting on welfare, with the idea that somehow the rest of the world will automatically follow us. Frankly, we still have to get the European Commission to implement all the European rules. There are still derogations in existence and a lack of enforcement. I would rather we focused on people in this country who are not following the rules than on ratcheting further. However, I hear what my hon. Friends says about what happens in other parts of the world.
We need to make sure that farming is fit for the future. There are not many sectors where, across the UK, the Government give out more than £3 billion a year to support an industry. We have made the change to public money for public good, but we can go further in making sure that our funding arrangements are fair for tenant farmers and that the contracts we have are fair. I do not believe that the Government should get involved directly in setting prices. As we have seen recently with sugar beet, there are some delicacies where Ministers had to crack heads together to get a reasonable outcome.
We need to crack on with many of the other Brexit bonuses. For example, we passed the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023 and we now need the Food Standards Agency to get the regulations in place so that we can take full advantage of it. We should also be getting the FSA and DEFRA to take advantage of the opportunity to deregulate. Deregulating does not mean making things worse; it is about making things more straightforward, for example in relation to small abattoirs and Trichinella testing. There has not been a case of Trichinella in at least 20 years, if not longer, and it was a European problem, not one here in the UK. I look forward to more deregulation coming along.
As for waste, there is no doubt that there are challenges with pollution coming from farming, which is why six years ago regulations were put in place to do with water. We should recognise that we have been able to increase the amount of money that has gone into things such as slurry covers and other aspects of managing that. There is plenty more we can do in that regard.
On trade, quality is undoubtedly one of our big selling points. I was pleased that we were able to double the number of agricultural attachés, and we really need to take account of that. We should be challenging the European Commission on the fact that France seems to be putting up trade barriers. People want to export our goods, yet they cannot do so because there are no facilities in the ports across from Dover, in Calais, to allow that to happen. That is a barrier to trade that we should be challenging through the European Commission.
There are other aspects that have already been covered well today. We do need to make sure there is availability of labour and there is more we want to do on investing in the future. There are other aspects that I hope the Treasury will look into—for example, that the tax relief is passed on. Conscious of the ups and downs that can be experienced in farming, we brought in the five year averaging of tax relief. That was an important change, but there is a problem at the moment whereby as soon as people stop giving up land—the extra patches at the edge of their land—they can no longer necessarily get the tax relief that is then passed from generation to generation. By contrast, if people bring in a solar farm and sign a lease for only 20 to 25 years, they keep all of the tax benefit that they enjoy. We need to see the same for nature too.
I am conscious that many people want to speak in the debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, but let me say that I want to make sure that DEFRA is practical and pragmatic in its delivery. The RPA needs to be agile and flexible, and it needs to listen to feedback. A good example of that is one of perhaps only two times when officials and the agency flat refused to deliver ministerial instructions. There was feedback from visits to farmers around the country and from being out in the frontline about what had been happening with certain aspects of mapping. We can go further on simplifying that and we need to make sure that that absolutely happens. It is important that farmers have trust and confidence in our delivery agency, and that that agency has trust and confidence in the policy, so that when Ministers say they want to change something simple, straightforward and necessary for farmers, that will be delivered without hesitation.
I could say much more. I have been Secretary of State for DEFRA, which was a responsible, worthwhile and challenging job. We should all ensure we have farmers at the forefront of our minds when we think of the food we eat, the animals we see and the countryside we enjoy. Frankly, this country would be worse off without farmers, which is why we need to ensure they are at the forefront.
Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)
My constituency is far more rural than its name suggests, with many farms around the towns of Otley and Yeadon and the villages of Bramhope, Pool and Arthington. I have visited many of those farms and seen a range of practices, as well as many farms in North Yorkshire, over the border, particularly after the pandemic.
Properly supporting our nation’s farmers is essential to meeting our nature and climate targets. The Government must do more to support our farmers to deliver more sustainable food production and implement environmental land management strategies. DEFRA’s agricultural transition plan is a step in the right direction towards a more resilient and prosperous agriculture sector that is capable of delivering sustainable food production while meeting nature and climate targets.
The offer for 2024 includes some welcome components, including an expanded set of actions, an average uplift in payments of 10%, increased payment frequency and a commitment to double the amount of agreements offered for more complex and targeted environmental land management. The review and refresh of payment rates should serve to better reflect the value of the public goods provided by certain types of habitat and management actions. However, there is no publicly available data to demonstrate how these payment rates have been calculated, which is crucial in building transparency, evaluating progress and securing value for money.
DEFRA needs to publish scheme payment methodologies, as well as a clear payment strategy that forecasts expenditure on different scheme actions and the outcomes that are expected as a result. One of the main weaknesses of the farming transition to date has been DEFRA’s reliance on low-ambition, free-choice actions within the broad and shallow elements of environmental land management. The design choice is intended to maintain maximum flexibility, but it risks undermining the environmental effectiveness of the scheme with evidence suggesting that previous similar approaches have not secured their intended objectives. Over time, the sustainable farming incentive needs to evolve to enable the delivery of a whole farm-approach, ensuring that a minimum level of environmental action is delivered as part of a joined-up and cohesive scheme. We need both a degree of flexibility to account for individual circumstances and to maintain a minimum level of ambitious environmental delivery.
For farmers to truly be supported to increase sustainable practices, we urgently need to address the green skills shortage for farming. Successfully integrating environmental actions into the heart of farm-based business decision making will be a new concept for many. With over 300 actions to choose from, many farmers need the right support to deliver the right actions for their farm and the environment. Access to expert, high-quality advice will be critical to delivering higher quality environmental outcomes, business benefits and farmer buy-in. Farmers need access to ecological expertise and support for farmer-to-farmer peer learning and knowledge exchange. There is simply a lack of people and skills to help land managers do the right things in the right places at a pace that meets our climate and biodiversity targets.
As the rural economy changes, there is the opportunity to develop more skills in managing natural capital, such as stone walls, hedgerows, natural flood management and habitat areas. It is a great opportunity to support the current and next generation to have the skills to manage a landscape for food, nature and climate. With the focus on managing hedgerows better for carbon capture and biodiversity, new skills will be needed in the management of bigger, bushy hedges. With increased focus on tree planting, there will be a greater need for jobs in managing woodlands and the by-products that will be produced over the next 20 to 30 years before timber is ready to be felled. We need a national nature service for young people to introduce them to these green skills and the job opportunities that follow, as well as working closely with agricultural colleges and universities so they can provide the courses and qualifications for the sustainable farming transition.
I have spoken many times about the essential role of hedgerows and coppicing to our agricultural heritage and the protection of our natural environment and landscape. Hedgerows are essential carbon sinks to help us meet our COP and convention on biological diversity commitments. Research by CPRE, the Countryside Charity, found that expanding the hedgerow network by 40% would create more than 25,000 new jobs over the next three decades, and that for every £1 spent on hedgerows, a return of as much as £3.92 can be expected from the associated ecosystem services. I have heard from farmers that they want more hedgerows on their farms, but the lack of a skilled workforce is a barrier.
I went to see Richard Bramley’s farm near Tadcaster, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Keir Mather). Richard is the chair of the National Farmers Union environment forum. He had planted hundreds of metres of hedgerows, and it was great to see the biodiversity increase, with the associated carbon benefits. He said that the lack of a skilled workforce was a barrier to getting more hedgerows. That and other areas of green skills need to be tackled if we are to see an expansion of our hedgerow network.
Richard also highlighted the need for the availability of nursery stocks. Why are there now so few local authority nurseries? In Leeds, the Arium provides plants for the whole city, as well as raising revenue for the council. DEFRA and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities should offer seed funding for many more such nurseries. Richard also highlighted the need for continuing payments for sensitive maintenance. He rightly pointed out that a good hedge, a store for carbon and a hive of biodiversity, could last centuries. We need to invest in those skills and skills-based activities if we are to see the necessary hedgerow planting and maintenance to meet our existing targets. Hedgerows produce crops and provide food for people and animals.
When I attended the convention on biological diversity at the UN biodiversity conference at COP15, Governments agreed a new set of goals for nature over this decade. Unfortunately, the UK is one of the most severely nature-depleted countries worldwide, as we have heard successive Ministers admit. The Natural History Museum’s biodiversity intactness index, probably the best indicator of global biodiversity, has revealed that the world has crashed through the safe limit for humanity for biodiversity loss, and placed the UK’s 53% score in the bottom 10% of all countries, well below China and last in the G7. That is not a record of which any of us should be proud.
The Conservatives’ Environment Act 2021 target on species abundance, which they were forced to concede because of Opposition amendments, promised only to “halt the decline” in species by 2030. Just halting the decline, or getting a net zero for nature, is not good enough. Our ambition is to be nature positive.
George Eustice
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Government also set a target to increase species abundance in the period after 2030. It is only through close analysis of the data that we realised that was probably the best that could be achieved, even if we acted immediately.
Alex Sobel
I want to agree to disagree with the right hon. Gentleman. The fact that the baseline is so low makes it an easy target, so that shows a lack of ambition. Let us have a general election and we can test that more accurately going forward.
To finish, we need to focus on improving our rewilding, reforesting and biodiversity, and all natural landscapes should be part of that. We need to fully support our farmers to be part of this transition. We will not get there without their support, their hard work, and the land they work on.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Thank you for allowing me to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, in this important debate on farming, during which we have heard words of wisdom from no less than two former Secretaries of State and a number of other colleagues, so important points have already been covered. I start by declaring my interest as a lifelong farmer, so I may have a few points I can add.
We have had an uncertain few years, with covid-19 lockdowns and the war in Ukraine contributing to a fluctuating global economy and a huge spike in energy prices since 2021. That, together with the inflation we have experienced domestically, has meant unsustainable pressure on many farmers’ businesses. Farm input cost inflation in 2023 stood at 42%, with wholesale energy prices 1.5 times higher compared with 2019. These disruptive events have exposed several vulnerabilities relating to the UK’s food supply chain and self-sufficiency.
The UK has seen changes over the years, influenced by various factors, such as agricultural policies, technological advancements, globalisation and environmental concerns. We have become increasingly interconnected with global food markets, relying on imports for a significant proportion of our food supply. While this provides access to a wide variety of foods year-round, it also exposes the UK to supply chain vulnerabilities, as seen during the events of covid, Brexit and the war in Ukraine. In 1984, the UK’s overall food sufficiency was 78%. In 2021, it was 60%. Today, the nation is only 18% self-sufficient in fruit, 55% in vegetables and 71% in potatoes. We need to produce policies that start to increase our self-sufficiency rates in those commodities.
Declining self-sufficiency coupled with supply-chain problems abroad have resulted in occasional gaps on our supermarket shelves. Due to cost of living pressures, consumers have shown signs of trading down to cheaper proteins. The trend for 2022, for example, has shown volumes of beef down 6% and lamb down 16%. In November 2022, growers’ costs of production have increased by as much as 27% in the preceding 12 months. UK egg production fell to its lowest in nine years, and is down 12% in one year alone. The cost of feed for those producers has increased by 28%, and the price of a pullet by 22%.
Back in 2022, I contributed to a debate on national food strategy and food security. At that time, the House was regularly discussing issues relating to energy markets, with costs trickling down to consumers. Similar conversations were not happening on the cost of food and the impact of rising costs on people’s budgets, although I did warn that rising food prices would increasingly become an important issue to the public.
Food and energy prices are highly regressive, causing those on low incomes to pay much more as a percentage of their budgets than those higher up the income scale. Recent studies have suggested that up to one in seven people in the UK had reported going hungry due to the cost of living. Therefore, securing our domestic food supply should not only support British farmers, but help bring costs down.
Greater certainty from the food supply chain and the Government are needed. This can be encouraged through various means: long-term certainty on accessing seasonal labour—the seasonal agriculture workers scheme—which was mentioned by several Members tonight; greater productivity investment, which was mentioned by the Minister in her opening remarks; a more enabling planning policy; and measures to deliver growth and bolster food security.
Advances in agricultural technology, such as precision farming, vertical farming, hydroponics and genetic engineering offer opportunities to increase productivity and efficiency in food production. Embracing these food technologies can help boost domestic production and reduce reliance on imports. Farming is one of the sectors that best embraces new technology, and I pay tribute to it for that. Reforms that prioritise sustainable agriculture, support small-scale farmers, and provide investment in research and development can improve self-sufficiency in food production. This might include payments for sustainable farming practices, incentives for local food production, and regulations that promote food sovereignty.
At the NFU 2024 conference held on 27 February, the Prime Minister announced: a new annual UK-wide food security index to capture and present the data needed to monitor levels of food security; a Farm to Fork summit to be held annually, which began in Downing Street last year; and a £15 million fund to help tackle food waste from the farm gate. Work that I have done through my role as deputy Chair of the Public Accounts Committee has examined the environmental land management schemes in some detail. We pressed hard for an annual report to Parliament on the goal to produce the statutory food index, which will help this House to keep track of how our production to obtain self-sufficiency is going.
We must be careful about how much grade 1 and grade 2 land we take out of food production for environmental use, especially as the areas of greatest ecological worth tend not to be in those high land grades. We have thousands of acres of very high grade land being taken out in Lincolnshire for solar farms and windmills. That is surely unsustainable in the long run. As I said in a debate way back in 2020, there will come a time when we need to produce as much food in this country as we possibly can. As the temperature rises with global warming, the temperate areas of northern Europe will be able to produce more of the food that is needed in the world.
Payments to farmers, aimed at keeping food prices down, have been a cornerstone of UK agriculture since the war. In countries that are our major competitors, such as France and the US, from which I have just returned—I was on a visit with the Public Accounts Committee—some prices in supermarkets are double what they are in our supermarkets. That highlights the impact of our subsidies in keeping food affordable domestically. However, it is unsustainable to reduce payments to farmers, even for well-needed public goods, and rely solely on importing cheap food from around the world. In recent weeks, we have seen farmers protesting in Brussels and in other European capitals. Last week, that also happened in Wales. I am not surprised that farmers in Wales are outraged at their Labour Government’s emphasis on the environment over agriculture; there are plans for farmers there to commit to having trees on 10% of their land, and to using another 10% as wildlife habitat. Good as those things may be, it would be hard for a small farmer already struggling on the breadline to have 20% of their land taken out. It shows that the Welsh Government have no consideration for the loss of jobs and livelihoods that the policy will produce.
British farmers are held to incredibly high environmental, animal welfare, and food quality standards, as I indicated to my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), but we must not allow our trade deals with other countries to result in our farmers being undercut by low-quality, cheap products. Equally, we must look to the long-term health of our nation. We need to ensure that we continue to produce food to high standards, because that benefits consumers, and we must do what we can to maintain that.
Modern agricultural practices, including intensive farming and monoculture, have raised concerns about environmental sustainability, including soil degradation, water pollution, and biodiversity loss. The pollution of our rivers in the UK is a huge challenge. There are problems resulting from agriculture, such as run-offs of nitrates and phosphates. Eventually, we must come up with a plan that allows farmers to apply these nutrients to grow their crops but does not lead to unnecessary run-off in our rivers. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal mentioned, action to help reduce pollution includes the “Plan for Water”, which would provide £200 million of funding through slurry infrastructure grants.
Water companies play a crucial part in the pollution of our rivers. I am delighted that it was a Conservative Government who introduced the Environment Act 2021, which obliged water companies to install meters on all their outlets, so that we can see whether they are adhering to their environmental discharge conditions. I am particularly delighted to have obtained a grant from Thames Water for Ampney St Peter’s sewage works in my constituency, which is one of the most egregious outlets of sewage; it will be worth several million pounds and has been budgeted for. I have had similar confirmation for sewage works in Moreton and Bourton.
The production of cost-effective, wholesome food is vital for every single person in this country. However, it must be grown in an environmentally sustainable way; we must take steps to ensure cleaner rivers and reduce carbon through improved methods of production. It is also incumbent on the Government to ensure that farmers, who are the ultimate guardians of the countryside, are properly rewarded for their onerous work. They are often trying to combat adverse weather conditions.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
If Madam Deputy Speaker will allow me to give way and increase my time a bit, I will happily do so.
Matt Western
Briefly, does the hon. Member agree that there are real concerns about adverse climate conditions across the sector, including from farms, and those involved in community-supported agriculture, particularly Canalside Community Food? Heavy rain has led to really heavy soil, which is hard to plough, and that will affect the yield and timing of crops.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who has only just come into the debate. We on the Public Accounts Committee given a lot of attention to the work of the Environment Agency. It could do much more not only to promote new flooding schemes, but to maintain its existing flooding schemes, which would help protect a number of farms and houses.
I strongly support the Government’s policy of buying local. There are only two ways that farmers can continue in business: either they get payments for public goods and benefits, or they get a price that reflects the cost of production. It is slightly disappointing that the Government have not done more to encourage all supermarkets—there are some good ones and some bad ones, to be fair—to pay prices to the farming community that reflect the cost of production. The Government could do more through the Groceries Code Adjudicator to ensure that that is the case. DEFRA has committed to ensuring contractual fairness between supermarkets and farmers—to ensuring that supermarkets meet certain expectations, including the expectation that they will pay on time, pay what they agreed and, vitally, pay at least the cost of production. That is important if we are to ensure a healthy and sustainable food supply, and to ensure that the hard work that produces it continues in the long run.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown). Like him, I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; I am an owner of farmland and a partner in the firm that manages it.
Agriculture is enormously important to Scotland as a whole, but particularly to rural Scotland and island Scotland. NFU Scotland reminds us that it is a £3.3 billion industry, employing 67,000 workers in Scotland, with a further 150,000 working in agricultural activity. When we consider that the money earned and brought into the community through farming has a spin-off in ensuring that there are post offices, local shops and the critical mass of people needed for village and rural schools, we understand the importance of the sector to Scotland. I will be back in the Chamber at the close of business tomorrow night with an Adjournment debate on the Groceries Code Adjudicator. The large number of Members who have referred to it in this debate makes me hope that I will not be on my own for once in an Adjournment debate. That issue strikes at the heart of what is necessary if farming is to be sustainable and self-sustaining in the future.
Farming and crofting are critical to the economy of the northern isles. Orkney is prime suckler beef pasture. We have had beef farming at the heart of our economy for what feels like forever, while Shetland, with its more rugged landscape, is ideal for the production of sheep, especially the native breed, Shetland sheep. The old saw that the Orcadian is a farmer with a boat while the Shetlander is a fisherman with a croft remains true to this day. In recent years, prices have been decent, but every time I speak to my neighbours in Orkney, and to farmers and crofters throughout Orkney and Shetland, it is difficult to get away from the lack of certainty that I hear about from them, especially—it pains me to say it—among younger farmers, who are asking whether the industry has a future. I believe that it does—in fact, agriculture is not a single industry but a collection of different industries—but I can see why so many of them have that concern.
I have noticed over the years, as a farmer’s son and as a representative of an agricultural community, that piece by piece, and sector by sector, the importance of farming has been diminished. Once we have lost a sector, we never get it back. I look at dairy farming in my constituency. We have seen a significant reduction in the number of dairy farms in Orkney, and in Shetland we are down to just two. We talk about food security. In Shetland, in the depths of winter, we quite often go up to a week without a ferry to bring in food. The supermarket shelves are just bare, but in that time, the one part of the supermarket and country shops where people can still see something on the shelves are the fridges that contain milk, because we have a local supply. If those two dairy farmers were to decide that they could not carry on production, followed the example of their neighbours and colleagues, and left the sector, that would leave us completely at the mercy of imports for milk. We talk about public money for public good. Surely the continued production of milk in Shetland is a public good, and schemes that spend public money on supporting agriculture should be constructed in a way that allows that to continue.
The shape of future funding is critical to addressing the uncertainty that I hear spoken about by the farmers and crofters in my constituency. The hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Steven Bonnar) spoke about the First Minister’s contribution to the recent NFU Scotland conference. His announcement about the 70% was welcome, but the hon. Member must know as well as I do that a great deal more detail is required. The lack of detail leads to continuing uncertainty. We need certainty about not just the structure of future funding but its quantum. We need a multi-annual ringfenced budget. That requires the Scottish Government and the UK Government to work together constructively, which should not be that difficult, but somehow it never seems to be quite as easy as it ought to be.
The House may be aware that Scotland’s farming budget is linked to the UK’s. It is pegged at about 17% of the UK’s farming budget, in recognition of the different structure in Scotland and the importance of agriculture to Scotland’s economy, but the policies in Scotland are increasingly divergent from those south of the border in England, and in Wales and Northern Ireland. That is essentially the point of devolution. It is sensible and necessary to have divergence in policy, but that diversity risks being undermined if there is not the resource in the budget to accommodate it. If the consequence of the changes in England is a smaller amount of public money going into farming there, that risks Scottish farming assistance being reduced and becoming inadequate for the job that it is required to do. The Treasury needs to come forward with a framework based on a multi-annual agreement, because we all know that farming is not an industry that will work on an annual budget; it needs a multi-annual settlement. We must also ensure that funding is ringfenced, so that the money cannot be taken away and put into something else if there is another winter crisis in the NHS, or whatever.
I agree with the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin) about the importance of abattoirs. In many ways, the absence of smaller local abattoirs is indicative of the problems facing the agricultural sector and rural communities as a whole. We are shipping animals around the countryside by whatever means, be it by ferry from Orkney or Shetland to the mainland, or by road and motorway on the mainland. Animals are being slaughtered in greater numbers in a smaller number of locations—as a consequence, I believe, of the way in which supermarkets drive down price, and the fact that it is so much cheaper for animals to be slaughtered in that way. That definitely works to the detriment of farmers in my constituency.
I understand why there is no functioning abattoir in Orkney. I remember well the many problems of regulation, particularly in relation to the disposal of offal, that ultimately meant that abattoirs could not continue there, but at the end of the day, for a community that is proud of its animal welfare and the quality of the meat that it produces, that simply makes no sense. With a bit of native wit, flexibility and creativity, something better is surely possible.
There are so many ways in which agriculture, farming and crofting impinge on life in my community, so I could talk for a great deal longer, but I suspect that is also true of many other right hon. and hon. Members, so I will give them the chance to have their voice.
Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)
When thinking of Sedgefield, I am sure people have the perception—due, in particular, to one of my predecessors—that we are a collection of ex-mining villages and little else. Although I am constantly inspired by many within my mining villages, Sedgefield is in fact a particularly diverse constituency, covering about 250 square miles, with many farmers operating amazing businesses. I have been delighted to engage with many of them since well before the day I was elected. As my wife is the daughter of a Yorkshire farmer, I have had an insight into their world for about 40 years. I do not have the level of insight of the two former Secretaries of State who have spoken—my right hon. Friends the Members for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) and for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice)—but the world of our farmers is particularly challenging at the moment, and I would like to take some time to outline points that they have raised with me.
When I asked Mark Dent, a farmer who also runs the Darlington Farmers Auction Mart in my constituency, for a contribution for today, he said to me:
“I wouldn’t know where to start, Paul”.
I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) empathises, because he has had conversations with him too. Mark Dent said:
“there are so many issues and challenges facing the industry”.
I want to get those issues in front of the Minister. Mark continued:
“These include access to European markets, cost of inputs, cost of machinery, cheaper imports, interest rates, successive years of challenging weather topped off with the loss of direct payments”—
that is the way the rant went.
“With an ageing demographic in the farmer population, many are scaling back as it’s no longer viable and the young can’t afford to get a start with the cost of everything, land and rented land being the main stumbling block as that is now being driven by the new environmental schemes and the historic tax haven for millionaire businessmen who don’t farm themselves.
We are sleepwalking into a food security problem.
I do applaud the government for their recent efforts, but using farming to meet their net zero targets is not the answer if they want food and at a price everyone can afford.
You can’t have cheap food without…support with all the cost challenges farmers face.
Thinking throwing a bit of money at environmental schemes (which is more land coming out of food production) will be enough to subsidise necessary food production is naive. Farmers will take the easy, most cost-effective option.”
The Hart family from Foxton said:
“The last thing English Farmers want is the Welsh Labour System imposed on them if we lose the election. Taking 20% of land out, 10% for the environment and 10% for trees is unrealistic.
Plus, the new rules governing holiday lets make a mockery of diversifying business. The whole point of farmers making holiday lets is to supplement income. But if the new laws governing second homes and holiday lets come into force, it could make it unrealistic to carry on.
In Wales farms cannot afford in many cases to carry on with holiday lets under the new rules imposed on them. Farmers would prefer to farm their land for their income.”
They said that because farm incomes are at a historic low, there is nothing left
“by the time you have paid the bank back, your costs for producing your product and hopefully paying yourself.
This impacts the wider farming world of machinery sales and repairs. If farms cannot afford new investment and machines, we lose skilled mechanics, and companies are closing due to lack of sales”—
it goes down the supply chain. They continued:
“The knock-on effect is far larger than just what stops at the farm gate. A generation of farmers will be lost at the rate the industry is declining”,
and that these days more and more farmers diversify
“to supplement the family income or are involved with developing and running holiday lets, camp sites, farm shops, teashops etc to try and break even let alone make a profit.”
The Harts also said:
“There is too much red tape.”
One of their big concerns is that cheap foreign imports get labelled as British because they are processed here. That has to be stopped; we need to be clear what is and is not British food. They said:
“As a nation we need to be able to feed ourselves, we need to look carefully at how we use our land, regarding building wind, and solar farms.
There are so many concerns around the resilience of our farming sector, and we need to ensure environmental power development is not on good farmland.”
The Lawsons from Bishopton told me:
“There are a lot of farmers being tempted into changing productive farmland into nutrient neutrality or biodiversity net gain credits and taking bulk payments from developers. This land will then not be able to be used for growing food for either the next 80 or 30 years respectively.”
Should we be worried? What is the plan for feeding our population? Farmers are doing that because they cannot make a return on the land by keeping it in agricultural use. Farmers enjoy farming, but a lot of them need to change just to survive. We should do all we can to deliver sustainable economics to our farmers.
Steven Brown from Sedgefield asked me:
“In view of the increased levy payable to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, will more of the budget be allocated to advertising UK food production rather than research and development?”
He mentioned
“the need for a reduction in red tape, a reduction in duplication of farm assurance schemes and better returns for UK farmers for quality products as opposed to cheaper imports of inferior products.”
Billy Maughan farms on the border between my constituency and Bishop Auckland. He has cattle, arable and free-range layers, and is the NFU council delegate. He said to me:
“There are a couple of points around Defra capacity…Firstly, it is around capacity for the Animal and Plant Health Agency to manage notifiable disease outbreaks. Avian influenza is still the single biggest risk to our business. There are cases of Bluetongue in the country that could affect our cattle, and my fellow farmers with pigs are hugely concerned about the risk of African Swine Flu getting into the country. Is there sufficient contingency planning in place to cope with a large-scale outbreak of one or more of these diseases?
Secondly, it is about the resources within Defra to roll out the new SFI standards due this summer. Will they be delayed or announced on time? Also, is there enough capacity to process the applications as the number of applications increases?”
Finally, Anna Simpson, the NFU county advisor, said we need to ensure that
“all new policies and regulations that impact agricultural and horticultural businesses undergo a food security impact assessment”,
and that we need
“a seamless transition to new environmental schemes that are open to all farmers and growers”
and
“public access to the countryside to be managed responsibly whilst recognising that much of it is an active working environment.”
She also said that we need to
“implement the recommendations of the Rock Review into agricultural tenancies, to support the long-term resilience of a tenanted sector, delivering on food production and environmental goals”
and must have
“a consistent and coordinated response to rural crime across government and police forces.”
In summary, my farming community is concerned about: the burden of red tape; what it sees as the abuse of schemes that make it look to the public like they are buying British when the product is only processed in the UK; the capacity of APHA to support the industry; and the unintended consequences of other policies on the farming community. It is particularly concerned that well-meaning environmental initiatives are impacting on the resilience of farming, and it is absolutely terrified that the Welsh model could come to England.
Food security, like many other areas of UK resilience, was brought into sharp focus by the covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine. It is critical that we do all we can to support our farmers in delivering UK resilience. There is no one more interested and engaged in the land than our farmers, and we must trust them to look after it.
Keir Mather (Selby and Ainsty) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak in this much-needed debate on farming, especially as I am the proud representative of what I believe to be the most rural Labour constituency in the country, although my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Alistair Strathern) has spent the past hour hotly disputing that claim. It is crucial that my local farming communities know that I hear their concerns and priorities, and that I am fighting for them in this House. Despite the Conservatives’ claim to be the voice of rural communities, the reality is that many farmers feel short-changed by this Conservative Government and, like the rest of the country, are desperate for change.
The Prime Minister said to farmers a few weeks ago,
“you don’t do it for the money…you do it because you love it.”
He conjured a nostalgic image of an artisanal age, rather than the reality that we should be proud of: a serious, powerful, £14 billion industry that is vital to our national health, our national security and our national heritage.
Farmers love what they do, but farms cannot run on love alone. Since 2017, more than 6,000 agricultural businesses have collapsed, paying the price for the Tory failure to provide them with the support that they deserve. A farmer in Britain today endures insufficient flooding support, uncompetitive prices, botched trade deals, and labour supply challenges. As consolation, they are left with the bitter encouragement: “Not to worry, because the Prime Minister knows you love what you do.”
That is not good enough, it has never been good enough, and it is a desperate legacy of 14 years of Conservative Government. We need to turn the page in this country and provide a real offer for farming communities. In his speech two weeks ago, the Prime Minister said one thing that I thought rang true—there is a first time for everything. He said that one reason farmers do what they do is that they “feel a responsibility,” but I do not think he quite realises how deeply that responsibility is felt by farmers in my constituency.
As I mentioned in a Westminster Hall debate, and will continue to mention until I am blue in the face, farmers in my constituency who live between Wistow, Cawood and Kelfield work every day to hold back hundreds of acres of floodwater on their land, year after year, to stop it reaching people’s doorsteps in Selby. They are losing hundreds of thousands of pounds in doing so, their crops are being drowned on prime arable land, and they are receiving zero compensation for it. In one case, not only was a farmer holding back floodwater on hundreds of acres, but he found that the Environment Agency was pumping more water on to his fields from its floodwater infrastructure, which had reached dangerous levels of capacity. He asked me what he should do: continue to have his livelihood ruined, or let the water reach and ruin people’s homes? If someone could tell me in what universe piling responsibility on to farmers whose sector is facing a mental health crisis is a logical way to carry out flood management in this country in 2024, I would be eager to hear their answer.
In such grave circumstances, farmers in my community deserve clarity. I would welcome the Minister providing an update on how discussions are progressing with the RPA on the farming recovery fund, and setting out the extent to which eligibility for the farming recovery fund will go beyond that provided in the flood recovery framework. I cannot begin to express how unacceptable it would be for Yorkshire farmers to be excluded from the help they so urgently need after enduring such a hard winter and having protected communities like Selby from flooding for so long.
That said, it remains the case that longer-term support for the farmers storing floodwater is needed—support that goes beyond what the FRF can provide and that recognises the inherent public good that farmers do in protecting homes from risk. As with so many of the crises that this Government have presided over, we are left with a similar challenge: to take immediate action to counteract the freefall that they have created while also producing the change that is so desperately needed to provide a long-term future for the farming industry.
Some of these things could be done in the near future. The Prime Minister said that he would implement an annual statutory food security index when parliamentary time allowed. I do not wish to be rude, but the Government are not presiding over an era of unflagging legislative vigour. If they cares about the nation’s food security, they should get on with it and legislate for it now. If they are not up for the job, we have a Labour party committed to doing right by farmers. We on the Labour Benches will happily step up and take the action that we need. A Labour Government would pursue a new veterinary agreement with the EU, back the NFU’s Buy British campaign to source 50% of food in the public sector from British farmers, simplify the ELM schemes so that more farmers can enjoy economic and environmental benefits, and encourage DEFRA to meet its own departmental spending ambitions in a way that provides value for money for the taxpayer.
Most importantly for my local area, a Labour Government would be committed to creating a flood resilience taskforce to stop the buck passing between the Government, the EA, the internal drainage board and the water companies, to ensure that farmers know that when bad weather strikes, the Labour Government will stand four-square behind them with a joined-up plan to have their backs. Farmers in my constituency need to know not that they will be admired for their work by the Government, but that they will be fairly remunerated for what they do and given the support, tools and respect that they need not just to survive, but to thrive. I look forward to fighting alongside the farmers of Selby and Ainsty, every single step of the way, to achieve that.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty (Keir Mather), although I will stay out of the minor internal argument between him and the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Alistair Strathern) about who is more rural. Although I have no technical interest to declare, I once more remind the House that members of my family are farmers, and that I have the privilege of chairing the all-party parliamentary group on farming.
Let me be clear from the outset: our farmers are the very best in the world and produce the very best food that it is possible to produce. That is important across my constituency, which enjoys an agricultural economy. To put that into sharp focus, 90% of the land in my constituency is agricultural land.
I welcomed the speech by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minster at the National Farmers Union conference last month. As an aside, I welcome the new team at the NFU of Tom Bradshaw, David Exwood and Rachel Hallos, who have been mentioned. David Exwood in particular was so helpful and supportive as I piloted my private Member’s Bill—now the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023—on preventing the theft of agricultural equipment through Parliament last year. Of course, I salute and pay tribute to Minette Batters for her many years of excellent service to the British farming community as she steps down from her role.
It is vital that we back our farmers. We must maintain food production as the primary focus. To add a little more cross-party consensus to the debate, I thought that the comments by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) were good. He gave the example of milk production, but the production of food and drink, full stop, is a public good, and we should see it as such. If we did not have food and drink, we all know what would happen.
The announcements on the doubling of the management payment for SFI to up to £2,000 and on its extension to new countryside stewardship mid-tier agreements were extremely welcome. Likewise, we have the biggest ever package of grants, with the £220 million productivity and innovation scheme supporting things such as robotics, and a new round of the farming equipment and technology fund. That is all good news. Indeed, I have seen the value of such funding streams in my constituency, including at the partly Government-funded 300-cow Addingrove dairy between Long Crendon and Oakley. It is the most incredible custom-build, future-proofed robotic dairy with its own pasteurisation room, as well as its own vending machine—one that does milkshakes made from delicious Buckinghamshire milk, as my children have discovered to the cost of my wallet. That dairy will ensure a bright future for farming on that land for many decades to come.
However, it is not all about robotics and grand innovation, important as those things are. We must also get the basics right. We must ensure that all farmers are able to access the support that they need to do the thing that they most want to do and that that nation needs them to do: produce food. That comes with a number of challenges, but critically, it has the public’s support. Recent polling shows that 94% of people say it is important that the Government back British farming and food production, and 81% prefer British food to imported food—why that figure is not 100%, I do not know, but it is still a very high statistic.
The first step in getting the transition from CAP to SFI and ELMS right is the physical process. Too many farmers I speak to have not yet even attempted an SFI application. Some do not believe that it will be worth it, some are just waiting to see, and others just want to get on with farming, not endless paperwork. I look to my hon. Friend the Minister to update the House, when he winds up, on the overall uptake of SFI applications, and more importantly on what steps are being taken to make the process easier. As a warning, I will be sitting in on an SFI application in the coming weeks, so I can assure him that I will be ready with feedback of my own.
The second point is that we need a clear goal for what we are trying to achieve on food security domestically. The new UK-wide food security index is extremely positive, but it needs to come with a realistic target that is higher than the one we have now—something achievable to aim for that shifts the dial upwards from the current 60% figure. Only then can we have a sensible, cross-Government conversation about the value we place on food production as part of the many competing demands on land, because I guarantee that one way to achieve the opposite of increased self-sufficiency is giving over vast swathes of agricultural land to ground-mounted solar installations, battery storage and other large-scale developments. I entirely support moves to make it easier under the planning system to develop old barns or other redundant farm buildings into something more useful, or perhaps build a second farmhouse, a farm shop or a restaurant. Likewise, I support barn-top solar—on roofs, where solar should be—but the thousands of acres of farmland being actively built out for solar, or proposed for solar or battery storage, in my constituency alone is depressing and wrong.
The latest 2,100-acre abomination in the Claydons, known as Rosefield, would dwarf the geographic size of the town of Buckingham and devastate the landscape forever, and for what? Those 2,000 acres will power approximately 50,000 homes on current usage, when a small modular reactor needs just two football pitches to power a million homes. Solar is not a good use of agricultural land, and to those who try to say that protections exist for the best land, that is just not the reality I see in practice. There is land being taken for this purpose that is deemed to be 3b, even though it will often produce a 10 tonne per hectare wheat harvest. Furthermore, the system is far too often gamed by developers: they take land tests from the headland, which will obviously produce a lower grading after testing. For food security, for the beauty of our countryside and for real science, the Government need to end this ground-mounted solar nonsense for good, and do so now.
That neatly leads me on to the impact that infrastructure projects have on our farmers. My constituency suffers from the horrors of 19 miles of HS2 construction. I have spoken many times in this Chamber about that impact, but for the sake of this debate, it is vital that DEFRA steps up and plays its part in protecting farmers from that state-sponsored infrastructure project. HS2 Ltd and its contractors have no idea what they are doing when it comes to agriculture, yet their actions have a huge impact on farming, from robbing farmers of their topsoil to causing flooding to neighbouring fields in crop, cutting farms in two—making it impossible to move large equipment or animals—and failing to properly compensate for land taken or loss of profitability. For example, cattle loss has blighted numerous farms as a result of poor soil treatment and management by HS2’s contractors, which are often operating right next door. One farmer has quoted a total loss of over £37,000 as a direct result of HS2’s shoddy practices. How is that morally justifiable for this project? How can a hard-working farming family be left with such heavy losses?
Then there is blackleg, a disease in cattle that is caused by bacteria released from disturbed soil. I am aware of at least one case in my constituency that the farmer has attributed to HS2’s malpractice—it is noteworthy that farmers in this area have never seen a blackleg case before. No prizes are available for guessing how much compensation has been offered, but for the avoidance of all doubt, it is zero. We need all parts of Government to wake up to the devastating impact these projects have on real people, real farmers and real businesses, and put proper processes in place to support and compensate them. I gently urge the Minister to ensure that DEFRA plays its part in that.
The land take for state projects more widely must stop, not least in my constituency. The determination of the Ministry of Justice to compulsorily purchase a farm adjacent to HMP Spring Hill and HMP Grendon to build yet another mega-prison is universally opposed by all the local communities that surround it, and by me. Again, DEFRA must get more involved in stopping this nonsense, which will take away farms and further hit our food security.
Earlier, I referred to rural crime. I am assured by police that my private Member’s Bill—now an Act—to prevent agricultural equipment theft will make a difference, but farmers are suffering on a daily basis from thefts and other rural crimes. I urge DEFRA to do more to work with the Home Office and our police forces to combat those crimes. My own local force, Thames Valley, is leading the way: its rural crime taskforce is doing heroic work every single day of the week, and our police and crime commissioner, Matthew Barber, has ensured that the force has the resources to double the number of officers in that team in the 2024-25 financial year. However, more needs to be done.
I have probably spoken for too long. There are many more subjects that I could cover, including trade deals; flooding; water quality; the excellent points that my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin) made, and which I entirely endorse, about the need to keep the badger culls to prevent further outbreaks of bovine TB; mental health; and the RPA. However, I will conclude by saying that we must get all the points that I have mentioned right, but we must also be positive about the future of British agriculture. We must celebrate our farmers as the very best in the world. They are the custodians of our countryside who maintain its beauty, but most of all they are the producers of what we all love to eat.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith), who made a series of very good points about his own constituency and agriculture in general. It is my great privilege to represent around 1,100 farms across Westmorland and the rest of my very beautiful constituency in the lakes and the dales. When I talk to those farmers, it is clear that they feel a sense of deep anger at the situation they currently face. I pay tribute to them for providing our food, being the custodians of our countryside, protecting our towns and villages from flooding, and maintaining the backdrop to an outstanding and world-class tourism economy worth £3.5 billion a year.
My views on how wise it was for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union are a matter of record. Having said that, as many of us will acknowledge, leaving the common agricultural policy strikes me as one of those rare things: a potential Brexit benefit; a silver lining to a deep, dark cloud. However, the Government have managed to botch it. Pretty much everybody in this House got behind the general principles of the environmental land management schemes—public money for public goods—but my great fear is that the Government have failed in the delivery of those schemes, for two obvious reasons. The first is the accidental nature of the transition and the things that they have predictably got wrong; the second is the design of the schemes themselves.
On the accidental part of it all, the Government promised to ringfence £2.4 billion for agriculture in England, and they have not spent it. Over the past two years, they have underspent by £270 million. We do not need a mathematical genius to work out how that has come about: if the Government predictably take away big chunks of the basic payment every year—£500 million has now gone out of farmers’ pockets—and then introduce the things that replace it in a haphazard manner, to the tune of just over £200 million, of course people are left with less money and money is taken out of agriculture. We have heard about the difficulties people face in getting into the SFI, so 100% of those who are in the BPS will have lost half of that money by the end of this year, while only one in eight farmers is in the SFI. That was all totally predictable, yet the Government apparently did not foresee it.
Various people have talked about the iterative process of bringing in the SFI scheme. Of course DEFRA is going to develop new schemes and improvements along the way, but because that is happening, many farmers are holding back; they are not applying, because they think something good might come around the corner. Meanwhile, they are losing their basic payment and getting more and more desperate, and the consequences are really awful. One consequence is that many farmers I speak to, including some I spoke to last week, are making the decision against their better judgment to massively increase their livestock numbers. I spoke to one farmer who was more than trebling their livestock at their Lakeland farm just because they thought it was the only way they could manage to pay the rent—the only way they could keep their head above water—even though they know that very act will undo the good work that they and their family have done for 20 or 30 years beforehand. It is heartbreaking and counterproductive to our aims to increase and improve nature as a consequence of these plans.
The other consequence is even more awful, however: farmers facing complete and total ruin. People who have farmed their farm for generations—perhaps the fifth, sixth or seventh generation—are now looking down the barrel of a gun, realising they could be the one who loses that farm. Many people have talked about the great threat of mental health crises facing farmers. I have never seen anything as frightening as what is facing farmers at the moment when they see not just the loss of their business and income, but that great sense of shame that they are the one who will lose the family farm, even though it is no fault of theirs; it is the fault of this botched transition. For upland livestock farmers this has meant a 41% decrease in income in the last four years, just during this Parliament. People who were poor to start off with and were working at below the living wage are now earning even less.
We have heard scathing remarks about the Welsh Labour Government, justified I am sure. I am told this is merely a consultation, but what Conservative Members are accusing the Welsh Labour Government of doing top down they have already done bottom up in England. They have done exactly the same thing, taking land out of food production and impoverishing farmers.
Farmers will be pushed out of farming and that will reduce the number of hands available in the countryside to deliver environmental goods. We could have the best environmental policies on the planet, but they will achieve the square root of zero if there is nobody there to deliver them. If we take farmers off the land, we have nobody to introduce and implement our green policies.
Perhaps the most obvious thing that reducing the number of farmers will do is reduce our ability to feed ourselves. This is an absolute nonsense: we have a range of public goods and none of them seems to include providing food for the people of Britain. At a time when we have war in eastern Europe, trade routes disrupted in the Red sea, and climate change rendering land around the world unfarmable, it is utter madness to be taking land out of active food production and reducing our ability to feed ourselves.
It is also environmentally counterproductive because we will still eat, I assume, so what will we do? We will import more food from overseas and that in itself is damaging to the climate because of the food miles involved in getting the food here. Also, where will that food come from? If we do not rear cattle in the United Kingdom, where will we get our beef from? It will come from cattle reared on pastureland in South America that used to be rainforest.
Britain feeding itself is important for the environment locally and globally, but there is also a major moral reason why Britain should feed itself. We are, relatively speaking, a wealthy country and will probably, war and disruption aside, be able to feed ourselves, so where will we go to feed ourselves? We will raid and put pressure on the commodity markets where the poorest countries in the world also go for their food. We will impoverish and take food out of the mouths of some of the poorest people in the world. To feed ourselves is not just intelligent and about security, and is not just environmentally sensible, but there is also a very strong moral imperative as to why we should do it.
We have heard reference to the trade deals and the reality is that, yes, the UK has the best farmers in the world, but the reason why we have the best farmers is because of the model of the family farm—the culture that underpins the way we farm in this country. That means high standards, and if we trade away those standards not only is that wrong because we undermine the importance of animal welfare and environmental standards, but we throw our farmers under a bus, which is what this Government did in the Australia and New Zealand trade deals. I am not saying those on the Front Bench think this at the moment, but many in the Conservative party, including a former Prime Minister, take the view that it is far better for us to be buccaneers on the international trade market and that, through the free market, we will feed ourselves by cheap imports so we do not really need to grow our own food here.
Fairness is vital to food security on trade deals. The Groceries Code Adjudicator is a wonderful potential referee, but it needs cards, red ones in particular. It needs the ability to investigate all parts of the supply chain, not just the retailers. It needs the freedom to be able to take referrals from the likes of us—Members of Parliament—the NFU and others, and not just rely on a farmer dobbing in the person he or she sells his produce to, because that is not going to happen very often. The GCA should be given more powers and more reach and be able to take referrals from anyone.
Grants were discussed. One of the things the Government are doing as part of ELMS is grant support for farmers. That is very good, but many farmers need money in the bank in the first place to prove that they can fund the other part of the infrastructure project they are funding and bidding for grant support for. That means many farmers will have to be wealthy in order to bid for a grant in the first place. That is not acceptable.
I want to make a few remarks about tenants. Fairness in the food chain, and in farming in particular, has to focus on the deep unfairness in our land around the country, particularly in the design of the Government landscape recovery programme. I was up Kentmere on Thursday morning with farmers who are in a landscape recovery project and doing really good work—woodland pasture and keeping a flock on the fells, a good example of how this can be done well. However, those farmers said to me that they are a rare example of it working well, because the problem is there are not enough people working in Natural England to help farmers into those schemes, either the higher tier scheme or landscape recovery. As a result, only the large farmers with sufficient resources and enough time on their hands to be able to get into the schemes are doing so. Smaller farmers, owner-occupiers and tenants are not getting into those schemes, and the environment is suffering as a result, and the farmers are suffering because of the lack of income as they lose their basic payment with nothing really to replace it. I am deeply concerned about the impact on tenants of the reality of what is going on out there.
I was just outside Kirkby Stephen on Friday morning, speaking to a group of farmers, most of them tenants, and what they reported and what I have heard from other sources is deeply chilling. Landlords are riding roughshod over tenants, using landscape recovery as a means to do so, and it is utterly appalling. We are seeing tenants being evicted and being pushed to give up AHA—Agricultural Holdings Act 1986—tenancies, and we are seeing large landowners putting pressure on smaller landowners to evict their tenants as well so they can form part of a wider landscape recovery system.
Baroness Rock put together an excellent report and review with 70 recommendations, and the Government have not enacted them. I am seeing tenants in our communities in Cumbria being forced off the land. We are referring to it, justly I am afraid, as the Lakeland clearances, all because of the way the Government have designed this scheme and are allowing it to work. We desperately need the recommendations of the Rock review to be in place now. I ask the Government, and the Minister in particular, to pay particular attention to this outrage. We have Government money—public money, landscape recovery money—going into the hands of wealthy owners, including City financial institutions. There is no doubt whatsoever, as farmers tell me this up and down Cumbria, that less and less money is going into the hands of fewer but wealthier farmers, and all because the Government will not ensure—this is something we are allowed to do now we are no longer in the EU—the farm budget goes to active farmers.
Natural England needs more resource, but it also needs to learn from its actions and the mistakes it made over the Dartmoor debacle, because many farmers facing the roll-over of higher-tier schemes are being held to ransom by Natural England. They are being told they have to reduce 25% or more of their stocking numbers despite there being no evidence of what good this will do to the environment—no evidence is being put out there at all.
Our communities in the Lake district were awarded world heritage site status just a few years ago. In the report UNESCO presented when we got that status it gave as much credit to the farmers as to the glaciers. We saw Liverpool lose its world heritage site status the other year, which is a reminder that it can happen. Natural England is pushing farmers, not on new schemes but on the roll-over of existing schemes, to reduce their stocking numbers on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, and we are putting our world heritage status at risk due to this massive overreach.
I believe the Government have fallen for that nonsense that there is a divide between food production and environmental protection. There is no such thing. Farmers are the custodians of our environment, and they are the ones who feed us. The greenest thing this Government could do is keep farmers farming so they can deliver those environmental schemes, and the most intelligent thing this Government could do is set a real target for how much food we will produce in this country—up from 60% to at least 70%—to make sure they do what their first principle must be: ensure that every single home in this country has enough food to eat.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron). I do not often agree with him, but on farming I am pretty much on board with him. I pay tribute to Minette Batters, who has done a wonderful job as president of the NFU, and good luck to Tom Bradshaw, who is taking over. I pay tribute to the NFU as an organisation, with which I work extremely closely. Before I carry on, I refer to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
Before I first got this job back in 2010, I set up a quarterly meeting for Dorset farmers, starting with south Dorset farmers. In those days, two or three attended. Now the meeting has gone to about 50 or 60 farmers who meet every quarter to discuss all the farming issues. I am grateful to several Ministers who have come down to talk to them personally at my request. What is rather alarming is that the issues they raised back in 2008, 2009 and 2010 are in many cases still relevant today. When I ask them, “Have things improved?” their answer, on the whole, is no. They are amazed, as am I, that food security is now something we all talk about. It had not been talked about for an awfully long time, and hon. Members have already noted that food security has been ignored for far too long. Now, we have another war in Europe, and the world is in a terrible state. Food security, not least for these islands, has now become a prominent issue, as it should be.
What my farmers say is that we left the EU to reduce red tape and to get out of the common agricultural policy, and it is an extremely good thing that we did, but they are now asking for common sense—not targets, not overly environmental eco-zealotry and not forcing issues on to farmers that turn them to growing wild flowers. There is a place for wild flowers, but why does this country of ours look so beautiful? Why do so many millions of people come to this country and go to Scotland, Ireland and Dorset? It is because the countryside is absolutely stunning. In most cases, who has done that? It is the farmers. They are tired, as am I, of being attacked left, right and centre for doing all these things it is claimed they are doing when in many cases they are not.
I want to touch on a few issues from my farming group. The first is the Poole harbour catchment area. The Minister is listening intently, and I am glad that he is. I hope he is aware of the issue we have at Poole harbour. I know that the Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) is actively involved in trying to get that across to Government. We understand that nitrate leaching into Poole harbour is a problem; we have no issue with that. Where we have an issue is that the tool the Environment Agency has used to measure it has now been changed. When it did the first test, to everyone’s delight the test was way below the level they thought it would be, so what has the Environment Agency done? It has moved the goalposts, with no consultation at all with the farmers. They did not have much faith in the Environment Agency, and they now have even less.
I touched on quangos in an intervention on the shadow Minister. I remember that Lord Cameron, as he is now, said back in 2010 that we would have a bonfire of the quangos. There is a place for such organisations, but they have become extremely powerful. They are implementing policy that does not ring true with the Government’s direction of travel. Natural England and the Environment Agency are now doing things that, if I am hearing those on the Front Bench correctly, I cannot believe they agree with. We have no issue with trying to reduce nitrates into Poole harbour, but there is no way as we understand it—we had the water company come to talk to us—that it can gauge the volume of sewage going into the rivers. We know it is happening, but the actual volume is almost impossible to gauge.
Tenant farmers have been mentioned, and I entirely concur with the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale from the Liberal Democrats that some tenants are feeling extremely vulnerable. We are hearing stories of land being taken back in hand to take advantage of environmental schemes, and in some cases rents are being increased significantly. Others are experiencing problems with land agents employed by landlords. The Rock review has been mentioned, and I urge the Government to look at it and enact many of its excellent recommendations.
My next topic is slightly off farming, but it relates to it, and that is the reintroduction of beavers. There has been a report of a beaver being released illegally in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset. That is causing concern. I believe that reintroduction has been experimented with in Scotland to a large degree. If we are to re-wild, I suppose there is some sense in putting beavers in large rivers, but there is no sense in reintroducing beavers into small chalk streams, or any other form of stream in Dorset. Beavers dam rivers. They would be protected, no doubt, by every organisation that would want to protect them. Farmland would then flood. As has been proven in Scotland, beavers do not hang around and say, “This is my home.” They breed and move elsewhere and do the same in other rivers. As I understand it, they had to be culled in Scotland, because they broke out of the area given to them. Can the Government please look not only at the illegal releasing of beavers into rivers, if that is happening—it has not been proven yet—but the legal release? There is an emphasis on re-wilding. While we all want to see wild animals, there is a proper place and location for each species.
Next is the move from stewardship schemes to the sustainable farming incentives. We have heard about that from many Members tonight. It has been promised by DEFRA, but we are yet to see a clear mechanism or process for how it will work, and we receive questions on it every single week. As we have also heard from Members from all parts of the House, farmers are there to produce food—and to look after the environment, of course, but not to the detriment of food production, which is so important right now.
Mental health has been touched on. The Farming Community Network in Dorset reports an ever-increasing number of farmers suffering from mental ill health. I have to say that the Poole harbour catchment area, to which I have referred, is not exactly helping their mental health. That is not all the Government’s fault; I am not necessarily banging on the Government’s door. World events over which the Government have no control are also putting pressures on food production. I certainly understand that, as I am sure does everyone in the House. Mental health is a problem in the farming community, and a lot of that is because of the rules, regulations and other things imposed on them, when all they want to do is produce food and look after the countryside.
Lastly, tuberculosis has been touched on. It is a major problem in the south-west that particularly affects the dairy industry. Culling has proved to work. Rather than our talking about stopping the culling of badgers, and introducing other species, may I suggest that all wild animals have to be culled? If they are not, their health deteriorates. Foxes, deer and badgers do not have any predators in today’s world. We do not want to wipe them out; we simply want them controlled. It is pure common sense. As I understand it, were the Opposition to win the election—God forbid—they would stop the badger cull. I am interested in whether that is true; perhaps the shadow Minister can tell us.
The British farmer is without doubt the best in the world. I ask the Government to continue to do the best that they can to ensure that rules and regulations are sensible and, above all, to ensure that common sense prevails.
Alistair Strathern (Mid Bedfordshire) (Lab)
Having grown up in the countryside, I have great memories of spending my childhood on my friend’s family farm mucking about on tractors and taking in all that our great countryside has to offer. I am not sure that his parents have quite such fond memories of what we got up to on the farm back in the day. It has been a real pleasure for me to see him step up, take over the reins of much of that work, and take that farm from strength to strength.
It is a real privilege for me to represent so many of Bedfordshire’s fantastic farmers, but having spoken to them, I know that the sad reality is that many of them really need representation in this place at the moment. I have visited farms at the Whitbread estate. The fantastic work being done there on regenerative farming was a real eye-opener for me, but it was deeply frustrating to hear from farmers there about the challenges they have had in accessing the SFI scheme, as it was to hear that only 12 farms across my constituency are in the scheme; 20 more started but failed to complete applications, weighed down by bureaucracy. That is only those who could apply to begin with. Many more are unable even to start applications after the Rural Payments Agency bungled remaps of their estate. They are bogged down in negotiations finally to get boundaries agreed, so that they can start accessing vital funding to support their crucial work.
It was a pleasure to visit Clifton Bury farm and see its world-famous shallot fields, but it was quite painful to hear about the challenges that the industry faces due to increasingly tight margins, and the risk that the ending of access payments poses to the beloved access walks around the farm, which were used by people from across my community throughout covid and beyond it. Parish councillors have stepped up, but without a long-term, accessible scheme supporting access to our brilliant countryside, landowners may struggle to make such walks viable.
It was a pleasure, too, to speak to the people at Browns of Stagsden and see their fantastic livestock farming. I took great joy in purchasing my fair share of fantastic goods from one of the best farm shops anyone could hope to see. However, it is clear from speaking to people there that they face real pressures on their business, whether from high energy costs or the lack of action on rural crime, and those pressures continue to grow.
The sad truth is that those are not the only such stories; these issues face farmers and farming communities right across my constituency. They have seen a real increase in their energy bills, post Ukraine; the Government failed to deliver home-grown energy, and they were left exposed to the volatile world energy markets. The challenge of getting on top of rural crime has led many of my farmers to depend on private security firms for action and follow-up. The sad reality is that that new overhead has been added to their business when they can barely afford it. There is also the brutal reality of a broken funding model for farming. Just 1p of the profits associated with much of our produce makes its way back to the fantastic farmers who produced them, and who have been looking after our brilliant countryside in the process.
Our farmers deserve better than that. Our farmers deserve action. From speaking to my farmers, I know that they are desperate for a clear Government commitment to genuinely sustainable domestic food production that delivers not only for the environment, but for all land tenures and all farm business models. They see at first hand how important co-operation with councils is if we are to reverse the decline in council farms and ensure accessible routes into farming for young people right across our communities. Most of all, they are keen for a renewed commitment from a Government who will finally put farming and farming communities back at the heart of their vision for our economy and our country. I am incredibly proud to be a Labour MP, and to be part of a Labour party that is committed to doing just that.
I am proud of being part of a Labour party that is committed to finally making use of the great strength of public procurement, and of ensuring that 50% of public money spent on food goes to British farmers and supports British farming communities. I support the Labour party policy that will finally get us domestic energy security. That will protect our farming communities from some of the volatility in energy prices that they had to endure in recent years. I support a Labour party that will simplify the ELM schemes and ensure that we cut through the red tape that holds back my farmers and sometimes stops them accessing vital funding for the crucial work that they do.
Those good measures are Labour party measures, but they need not be just that. If press rumours are to be believed, the Government recently developed a bit of a penchant for pinching Labour party policies. I urge them to keep going. Labour Front-Bench Members have today outlined fantastic steps that are vital for supporting our farming communities right now. Let us not wait for a general election to deliver some of the changes that my farmers are crying out for. Let us bring forward measures in the dying embers of this Parliament. If not, I look forward to campaigning with Labour party colleagues from right across the country for a national Government who support the interests of the British farming community and deliver a decade of national renewal that our farming community desperately needs.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to speak from the Back Benches in this farming debate, and to welcome the Secretary of State—I have not seen him yet in this role—and the great Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore). I come from a farming family; it is nice to know that we are in such strong hands, and to hear such cross-party support for this key industry. The sector will be grateful to know how strongly it is represented across this House.
I do not have an interest to declare, except that as I come from a farming family, I narrowly escaped a career in farm management. I worked for Greens of Soham and used to be a director of Elsoms Seeds. I also worked for the National Farmers Union back when there was a thing called the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and I used to chair the all-party parliamentary group on science and technology in agriculture. I take this opportunity to thank Minette Batters for her extraordinary leadership of an organisation that is at times not given to agility and clarity. She has brought clarity to the sector. I wish Tom Bradshaw, her successor, all the very best.
I think the House knows that I was not a great believer that the Brexit referendum would be immediately and easily implementable—I thought it would cause some difficulties and problems—but the one thing that I was very excited about was the opportunity to replace the appalling common agricultural policy, and all its mess, bureaucracy and chaos, with a UK farm and agriculture support framework. That remains an exciting opportunity. Such a framework would give this great industry—that is what it is—security in the long term. History shows that when we give that to farmers, they give us back exactly what we want. We need a long-term, secure policy, that has enough support and flexibility to allow marginal hill farmers to protect the uplands and the beautiful countryside that we love; that supports small family holdings, whose economic marginality requires diversification; and that supports all those other activities that we want to support. In my part of the world, East Anglia, global, world-class, competitive agriculture can lead the way in growing the food that the world needs. There is a huge opportunity.
I observe that in my 14 years in the House, agriculture has gone from not being properly recognised as an industry, and almost being seen by the Government as an activity of park keeping, to being, after the pandemic and Ukraine, a hugely important strategic sector that is key to food security and an opportunity for us globally. We need to double world food production by 2050 on the same land area, with half as much water and energy. That is a global grand challenge. This country is a powerhouse in agricultural science, research and technology, and can help make that possible. The opportunity is for us to set out a framework that unlocks the genius of our agricultural sector, so that we can show the world how it is done. If we get that right, we will invigorate the rural economy.
Of course, Brexit was eight years ago. I pay tribute to the Government’s various commitments: the £2.4 billion ringfenced commitment, the sustainable farming incentive, countryside stewardship, the food innovation programme, the food strategy, the animal health and welfare pathway, ELMS, and the Prime Minister’s commitment at the recent NFU conference. The real key is ensuring that the farming community feel and see long-term, clear, sustainable support.
I want to highlight one or two things that the farmers of Mid Norfolk say we have still to get right. First, they highlight the importance of a really reliable, long-term policy framework for the commercial sector, as well as an environmental framework for skills and for innovation. For 40 years after the war, the sector knew what we wanted it to do. It needs to know that we know what we want it to do, and that we will not change our mind every five, three or two years.
Secondly, agriculture must be recognised as a strategic industry that is key to our balance of payments, food security and ability to connect to those huge global markets. Public support figures show that the public are with us now—they were not 20 or 30 years ago; they did not think of it as a great industry that they wanted to support, but they do now.
Thirdly, we must understand that farmers are, first and foremost, mainly small businesses. They are not sophisticated; generally, they are not people with degrees or MBAs in business management. They are people who love what they do. We need to give them a framework that works for them as small businesses. Farming is a very unusual business, which invests most of its costs up front in the hopeful pursuit of revenue and profit downstream. Not many businesses do that. We need to understand that reality, as that is partly why farms need such security.
A number of colleagues have talked about food security. We are not destined only to grow the root crops, potatoes and traditional crops here, and to import the salad crops. Incredible innovations in vertical farming mean that we are now able to produce salad crops in this country. I have visited vertical farms—we have a great one in Norfolk at Fischer Farms. They use a fraction of the land area, with a fraction of the energy and chemicals used in traditional farming. There is no reason why that food security target could not be a lot higher.
Of course we all want environmental agriculture. I pay tribute to Kevin Bowes, the Breckland farmers, the Upper Wensum farmers group and the farmers at Wendling Beck. Farmers in Mid Norfolk are shaping best practice for agri-environment schemes. I recently visited a flagship project with Natural England: 20 or 30 people had come up from London, having bought their wellies at the garage; and Tony Juniper was preaching rewilding. I went to look at some land that, as a farmer’s boy, I would think you could probably get two hectares or an acre out of—and the finest minds in the land were trying to work out how to get nothing out of it, at a time when we really need food production. I am worried that the E in DEFRA sometimes triumphs over the F, the R and the A. Food needs to be right back at the heart of the Department; I know that the Secretary of State and the Minister are committed to that.
I make the point about the environment because we all know that, traditionally, agriculture has been a very high emitting industry. We need to show the world how to move to a low-emission agricultural sector. We are well positioned to do that, not least in agricultural genetics and breeding science at the Norwich Research Park, where we are pioneering drought-resistant crops that do not need highly carbon-intensive chemicals, and disease-resistant and drought-resistant crops for the rest of the world. In our chase for net zero, the left hand and the right hand need to be co-ordinated. We are not doing anything for net zero if we are disrupting farming in East Anglia with endless solar farms, cables and pylons.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
There is a simple thing that the Department can do, which I have asked it to do again and again: not put solar farms on 3b land. We put them on warehouses or inferior land, but not on good agricultural land in Lincolnshire and Norfolk.
George Freeman
I agree. If we are to lead the world in net zero agriculture, it is all about metrics and data. It is about picking up a pint of milk, a potato or a loaf of bread and knowing its environmental footprint. With that, we can start to give the sector incentives and rewards for driving down the environmental footprint. Without it, we are condemned to follow environmental policies that are emotional and not connected to proper science and research. If we get that right, the UK could be a leader in setting those environmental metrics.
That brings me to water quality. I commend the fact that UK agriculture has achieved a 75% reduction in pollution—that is very right. In our part of the world, the nutrient neutrality muddle has been a serious blow to farmers who are taking water quality seriously by reducing pig effluent and trying to get the balance right. Clunky, bureaucratic, big schemes in Whitehall that were not thought through properly are causing chaos in our part of the world in both agriculture and housing.
That brings me to flooding, on which I agree with the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty (Keir Mather)—it is good to hear colleagues from all corners of this House getting the problem. Large parts of Mid Norfolk are currently under water. That is not good for agricultural productivity. Farms are holding water, for which they receive no support. There has been a lot of talk recently of “from the river to the sea.” The basics of drainage are that rivers are there to drain water off the land into the sea, and we could do with the Environment Agency putting dredging and the clearing of rivers at the top of the priority list to ensure that we get the water off the land properly.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. That issue is not just limited to Norfolk. The Secretary of State will know, being a Fylde lad, that it is affecting my farmers. We are crying out for water draining off land and letting farmers farm.
George Freeman
I could not agree more. The Secretary of State, whose constituency is North East Cambridgeshire, has lived the reality of getting water off the land as much as anybody.
That brings me to labour shortages. We have had real problems in the last few years: post Brexit, post pandemic and with the minimum wage, farmers are struggling. When a horticultural grower of the calibre of Andy Allen has to plough his prime English asparagus crop back into the land because he cannot find anyone to cut it, we are in real trouble. Some of our agricultural colleges are fantastic—I think I still have a place at Harper Adams if this career does not work out—but I worry that Easton College in Mid Norfolk is not properly anticipating the future needs of a high technology agricultural industry. We need to nurture the skills of tomorrow. Our young farmers get it, but we need to give them the courses.
I echo the comments that a number of Members have made about the difference between landowners and farmers. They are not the same thing. Many farmers I see are contract farmers—they are working 24/7, covering huge amounts of land and operating with higher and higher costs. The environmental payments tend to go to the landowners. We need to look after the farmers: the people who are developing those skills and inspiring the next generation to come into this great industry. If we end up with an industry where the hedge funds own all the land and no one is able to farm it, we will have done ourselves no favours. Quite a lot of those pressures explain why we have such a problem with mental health in agriculture. One farmer a week is taking their life. We need to think about what is driving that.
I applaud the Government’s work on production standards. We have a great opportunity in free trade deals to set the higher standards and to show the world how the UK produces more with less. I would offer a zero tariff only to those who are using the world’s very best technologies for zero-emission agriculture, and create a market for the exporting of our net zero technologies. Sustainable intensification—delivering more with less—is not just a strapline. The world desperately needs us to help deliver that. In our sector we have huge strength: the John Innes Centre at the Norwich Research Park, the Sainsbury Laboratory in Aberystwyth, and at Roslin and Wellesbourne. We are a global powerhouse in science research. We spend about half a billion a year on it, but it does not yet feel like the agricultural sector is underpinned by a half a billion of research. I know that the Secretary of State is thinking hard about how that science and research is better pulled through.
That brings me to agritech—a huge global sector. I was proud to set up our first agritech industrial strategy, the catalyst fund and the centres with my noble Friend Lord Willetts. We have some amazing agritech companies, but the key is to adopt the technologies they are producing. I pay tribute to companies such as Tropic Biosciences and to the work going on at Rothamsted. But when a company like the Small Robot Company develops brilliant technology but cannot find a market here to use it, I think that tells us as policymakers that we have to create a market in which those technologies are commercially viable and adoptable—otherwise we will end up incubating the rest of the world’s agritech sectors and not actually deploying the technologies here.
I will close by mentioning gene editing, which is a huge strength here in the UK—not just in disease resistance and drought-resistant crops, and shifting from chemical to biological control systems, but in nutraceuticals, functional foods and novel foods. We could lead the world in a whole new sector of agriculture, but that regulatory leadership is key.
The opportunity that people voted for eight years ago is still there. It is being born slowly and there have been many disruptions, but it is exciting. If we get this right, we could trigger and be the crucible of a new agricultural revolution in which we show the world how to deliver high-quality, safe, highly productive, low-input agriculture based on innovation with science, data and metrics. The UK could export that around the world. The alternative is that we create a jungle of well-intended green tape that gets in the way of a fundamentally commercial sector leading us into that new dawn. I know that DEFRA Ministers understand that. My job is to speak for the people of Mid Norfolk, and to ensure that we in this House show that we get it and that we are there for a new generation, who want to do the right thing for this country and for the globe.
Sarah Dyke (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman). I recommend that he takes his place at Harper Adams University; as a former student, I know how good it is.
I am proud to represent a beautiful rural constituency in Somerset, which has a strong tradition of family-run farms. Indeed, Thomas Hardy called the Blackmore vale, part of which is in my constituency, the “vale of the little dairies”. The farms are managed by successive generations of families, including my own family’s farm.
Farmers are the lifeblood of rural communities. They are the custodians of our beautiful countryside. They care about the environment and work hard day in, day out to produce food for our tables. Yet there is a litany of ways in which the Government have ignored and neglected farmers for far too long. The Prime Minister recently said that he has got the “back” of farmers, but the farmers I speak to tell me that the Government have turned their back on them. The potential Brexit benefit, the promised “public money for public goods” environmental land management scheme, has been horribly botched and delayed, leaving many farmers on the brink. Some do not know if they will be able to survive the next 12 months. If they are forced to leave the industry, they will join the 110,000 farms that have been lost to the industry since 1990.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) mentioned, only one in eight farmers is signed up to the sustainable farming incentive, because there is no incentive to switch. There is little flexibility, meaning many are stuck on lower payment rates. I am not alone in my concern that the SFI may discourage food production over environmental schemes. One farmer in my constituency suggested that they will need to farm nearly double the area they normally farm to achieve the same output alongside meeting their targets under the SFI. Farmers are worried that their central task of producing food is no longer the Government’s central concern. Farmers want to put food on our tables. If they cannot, we will be less food secure and we will need to import more food. I welcome measures to improve our environmental standards, but disincentivising food production will just shift environmental problems.
I agree with the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin): our farmers are certainly not revolting—but they are revolting against this woeful Conservative Government. When we Liberal Democrats say we get it, we mean it. Three rural by-election results in as many years prove it is the Liberal Democrats that farmers trust to back British farming. Farmers have told us they need three things: proper funding, workforce planning and the renegotiation of recent trade deals. Only the Liberal Democrats have a real plan to support farmers and rural communities, and that starts with a £1 billion boost to the farming budget so farms can thrive. We need small and medium-sized farms to be given the support they need to boost domestic food production and conserve our environment: things they want to do, but often do not have the time, manpower or budget to do.
The recent announcement of £220 million of funding seems fairly similar to the £227 million the Government have underspent in the past two years’ farming budget. It will not go anywhere near to addressing the crisis that farmers are facing. Farms desperately need workers, yet the seasonal worker visa scheme allows farms to recruit just 45,000 workers from abroad. According to the NFU, farmers say they need nearly double that—around 70,000 workers. We cannot leave our farmers and their crops to languish when we can act to solve the situation.
Lastly, we must urgently renegotiate the free trade agreements that the Government have used to shackle our farmers, disproportionately punishing them for holding some of the very highest standards in the world. The free trade agreements threaten to undercut and undermine our farmers even further, with cheap food hitting the supermarket shelves produced to lower welfare standards. The Farming Community Network ran a survey of over 500 farmers at last year’s LAMMA show, asking them what they are most proud of in their work. They answered: high standards of animal welfare, sustainability, and the strong sense of community in farming. Yet the trade deals threaten that. I once again call for them to be renegotiated, with proper parliamentary scrutiny of each one.
I spend much of my time out on farms. During recess week, I visited farms around Wincanton and Castle Cary in my constituency. Hon. Members may know that our recent recess week was during Mind Your Head Week, run by the Farm Safety Foundation, which raises mental health awareness among farmers. The Government announced a £500,000 boost for charities working on farmers’ mental health. I have written to the Department to request more details of that funding, which were absent from the recent announcement. I look forward to a written response, but I wonder if the Minister might share those details with the House this evening. I am very pleased to hear he was at a roundtable event this afternoon to discuss just that.
I have spoken with charities in this field, such as the Farm Safety Foundation, the Farming Community Network and the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution. They agree that the funding is welcome. The Farm Safety Foundation told me that it might reach 2,500 agricultural students a year if the new funding is given and maintained, but it needs comprehensive action from DEFRA and it needs to be invited to play a role in shaping the policy. We need to fund farmers properly and fund support services, so farmers and the people who interact with them are equipped with the knowledge they need to intervene early. We need clear, simple and targeted communications from DEFRA that recognise the pressures on farmers’ time. I want to see a style guide for DEFRA, similar to the one used by the NHS, to ensure that all users can understand the information clearly. It is unacceptable that DEFRA has been asking charities to simplify and rewrite its communications for it.
Finally, we need a long-term plan for British farming that safeguards our farmers, safeguards our food production and safeguards our environment. The financial pressures and bureaucracy that farmers face need to be eased, allowing them to focus on their core business of farming. Instead, the Government continue to undermine farmers who are at risk of losing their livelihoods. Our farmers and rural communities have been let down and taken for granted by the Conservatives for too long. Food security, environmental sustainability and rural economic prosperity are goals that farmers and the Government should share, but the Government simply do not care or just do not get it.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke).
It was 40 years ago, at just about this moment, that I asked a gorgeous farmer’s daughter from the Isles of Scilly if she would go out on a date with me. She said yes, and a couple of years later we were married, so for 40 years this very night I have been connected to the farming community. It has been an incredible time and I am incredibly grateful to her for sticking with me through all that time. Members of my wider family are still farming on the Isles of Scilly and many of them work in agriculture in Cornwall. Some members of the family even farm in that strange place called Devon. Over that time, they have given me a real insight into farming, the life of farmers and the challenges they face.
In Cornwall, we are blessed to have some of the very best farms and farmers that this country has to offer. When we start naming farmers, there is always a risk that we will upset those we do not name, but I have had the privilege of spending time on dairy farms with Andrew Brewer in Fraddon and with Martin and Bridget Whell in Golant, getting up at 5 am and experiencing what it is like to milk cows with them. I have visited James Kittow the grazier at Kilhallon just outside St Blazey, who not only rears his own cattle but sees the whole process through, butchering them himself and selling them to many hotels and restaurants. I have visited St Ewe, which produces some of the finest eggs in the country, and Will and Kate Martin at Treway farm, who specialise in free-range turkeys for Christmas—and very good they are too. Tomorrow, we shall be hosting a Taste of Cornwall here in Parliament to celebrate St Piran’s day. Everyone is welcome to come to the Jubilee Room tomorrow afternoon and sample the produce of some of the people I have just mentioned, and I encourage them to do so.
It has troubled me for many years that we seem to have set up a dichotomy between farmers and the environment, as though they were somehow at odds with each other. In my experience, farmers understand the need to protect our environment more than anyone else, because their livelihoods depend on it more than anyone else’s. They want to enhance the natural environment, and not just so that they can continue to be productive themselves. Many of those running family farms want to pass on a viable business to their children and grandchildren, and if they destroy the environment in the meantime, they will not have a productive farm to pass on. We need to kill the idea that farmers are the enemy of environmental protection. They really are not, and we need to work with them because, as I have said, they understand the need to protect the environment better than any of us.
All the farmers I have spoken to have broadly welcomed the schemes that the Government have introduced to replace the common agricultural policy, such as the sustainable farming incentive and the environmental goals that it seeks to introduce. However, whatever schemes we introduce, we must not lose sight of the fact that the main focus must be on food production. Sometimes I think we have got that balance wrong, and many of the farmers I speak to feel that at times the focus has shifted too much from food production to the environment.
The problem with much Government policy is that things are done for all the right reasons but produce unintended consequences. In Cornwall in particular, landowners are taking land back from tenants because they make more money by taking it out of production and producing non-food items on it than by continuing to let their farms. The Government have said that they are looking and listening carefully to ensure that they have got the policy right, but I suggest to the Minister that we should also be careful not to produce outcomes that we do not intend.
We must never forget that every farm is a business. It is a lifestyle, and it might even be described as a calling, but at its heart it is a business whose owners simply want to produce food at a price that enables them to make money. Most farmers I know do not want to be incredibly wealthy; they just want to make enough money to live on, and to run their farms well. We need to be honest with the British public, and say that all the support that we give to farmers does not mean we are subsidising them. What we are doing is subsidising food, and subsidising households. It could be said on occasion that we are subsidising supermarkets.
Most farmers I speak to would rather be able to sell their produce at a price that gives them a profit than be caught up in a complex world of subsidies, grants and continual applications. I do not foresee a day any time soon when we will be able to get away from that, but I would love to see the day when we can move away from the continual subsidies and live in a world where farmers are able simply to make an honest profit and sell their produce at a price that reflects the cost that they incur in its production.
I know that others have touched on this, but one of the biggest fears that my local beef and dairy farmers have at the moment is bovine tuberculosis. We have done very well, in Cornwall as in other parts of the south-west, in driving down cases through the combination of measures that the Government have introduced, but at the heart of that has been the badger cull. Farmers are worried that we will move away from that without replacing it with measures that will be equally effective in driving down badger numbers. One of their greatest fears is the prospect that, one day, a Labour Government will abandon the cull without an effective replacement, and the examples we have heard of what is happening in Wales reinforce that fear.
I ask the Minister to reassure farmers that this Government will continue an effective policy of controlling TB, and will not simply abandon the cull for ideological reasons until we are entirely confident that we have other measures, such as vaccines, to keep on top of this terrible disease. Visiting farms that have experienced TB has brought this home to me. It is not just an economic tragedy for the farmers who have to see their herds destroyed; it takes a huge emotional toll as well. That creates a world of uncertainty, and many of them are struggling with that now. Farmers have asked me to raise the matter of high-frequency bovine electronic IDs. I know that there has been a consultation on that, but I understand that the Government have not yet responded. Farmers want us to urge the Government to introduce high-frequency rather than low-frequency IDs, because that would make their lives much easier, saving them both time and money. A response from the Government as soon as possible would be greatly welcomed.
I am pleased that the Government are actively encouraging people to buy more locally. Cornwall has done very well in that regard. During the pandemic, people became much more aware of supply chains and the source of their food. Some great farm shops have opened throughout Cornwall. It is important for people to have that connection, especially in rural areas, but those in many urban areas would also do well to understand where their food comes from. The more local it is, the better.
This has also been mentioned, but I wholeheartedly support better labelling, not only to help people to identify the source of their food but to make clear its environmental impact or the food miles involved. I hear some strange arguments, such as the suggestion that eating an avocado from Madagascar is somehow better than eating a steak from the farm down the road. To my mind, that is complete nonsense. If we actually labelled food to make people realise how far it has travelled and the real impact before it arrives on their plates, maybe people would make informed choices and choose to buy and consume locally sourced food.
Before I wind up, I want to put in a final word for the horticulture sector. My right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) made the point that, in Cornwall, it is not just about livestock; we also have a very important horticulture sector, which we need to continue to support. I was delighted when the Government eventually agreed to include horticulture and, indeed, flower pickers in the seasonal agricultural worker scheme. It is so important that we continue to do that and to make sure that the sector has the manpower it needs to bring in crops as they become ready.
As other colleagues have mentioned, this sector has a great future in the UK. The Eden Project recently opened some big greenhouses that are heated from its on-site geothermal plant, and it is now looking to grow virtually all the vegetables and salad produce for its restaurants. There is a great opportunity for more of this type of thing across the UK, so that we become more self-sufficient in home-grown food and do not need to import quite so much.
I am delighted that we have been able to have this debate today and that I have been able to share a few thoughts. I believe passionately that this Government and the Conservative party are on the side of farmers. We get what farmers need. We may not have got absolutely everything right over the last few years, but I believe we have been trying to do the right thing. I am confident that we will continue to back farmers and to provide them with the policies and support they need to ensure that they can go on being productive and feeding our country.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is indeed a pleasure to speak in this debate. I declare an interest as a farmer and landowner in Strangford, and as a member of the Ulster Farmers Union, which is the sister of the National Farmers Union.
I will put out an advertisement, if I may. I chair the all-party parliamentary group for eggs, pigs and poultry—there is no better APPG to chair. I invite all hon. Members to come along to one of our events at 8.30 am on Wednesday 20 March, where they will hear more about eggs, pigs and poultry. Members will be able to do all the things they have said here that they will do and make sure that we can deliver for our farmers.
It is a pleasure to see the Minister, the hon. Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore), in his place, and I look forward to his contribution. In her introduction, the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Fay Jones) did a fine job at telling us where we are and what we have to do.
My family have owned our farm since 1979. Unfortunately, my father took ill shortly after we bought the farm, so we never really farmed it, but our neighbour farms it. He is a dairyman, and he does beef, sheep and arable farming. He looks after the farm and maintains it well. My job on a Saturday afternoon is quite simple: I maintain all the gates, all the fences, all the roads, all the guttering, and all the roofs. It is good to be a handyman. The reason why I am handy is that I live there, but it is always good to have a different activity on a Saturday afternoon.
Farming should be of great importance for every person, because without the farmer, everybody goes hungry. The agrifood industry as a whole is under threat, and this House needs to use the opportunities afforded to us by Brexit. I know that some people are very keen to whip Brexit. I am not one of them, even though we may not have the same Brexit in Northern Ireland as we have in the rest of the United Kingdom, but we want to take advantage of the opportunities.
I will speak briefly about the important agrifood sector in my constituency. Lakeland Dairies employs 270-odd people—one of the biggest employers. Lots of farmers feed into Lakeland Dairies with their milk from Mid Down, which is part of the area I represent. Given the constituency changes that will take place before the next general election, even more of Mid Down will come into my constituency. Mash Direct and Willowbrook Foods operate in the arable food sector and the vegetable food sector, too. Between them, those three companies employ almost 1,500 people, including farmers and dairymen, so one can quickly understand why the sector is important. We also have a very active and productive lamb sector in Mid Down, North Down and Strangford. There is also a very large pig unit, with 1,000 sows, down at Portaferry—probably the only one left. That gives a flavour of what happens in Strangford.
I want to make a point just for the record, because it is factually correct, about the Comber potato, which is recognised by the EU. I pushed that matter with the EU some time ago. Early Comber potatoes are called Comber Earlies, and there is really no potato in the world like a Comber Early. The hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin) referred to what his constituency does, and I am going to do the very same for mine, because I can tell you it will look really good next week in the Newtownards Chronicle—my local paper. It is important to do this because I remember all the good things that the farming community has done in Strangford. The rise in energy costs has put many a farmer or producer in almost dire straits. It is past time that the drop in oil and gas prices was passed to the consumer and those who need it the most.
I wish to focus on one issue in particular, and it is a request on which I will seek the assistance of the Minister. The Ulster Farmers Union has expressed concern that the ammonia proposals could delay progression and reduce farm income further. I am not sure whether anybody else has spoken on this, but I am going to talk about it right now if I may. Research conducted by KPMG on the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs’ proposed ammonia restrictions, set out in the call for evidence issued during the autumn in Northern Ireland, shows that the impact of unsuccessful planning applications for on-farm developments could hamper efforts to reduce emissions and could reduce farm family income between 7% and as much as 38%. That is quite a large factor, and it shows the impact of the ammonia issue in Northern Ireland.
I know that this is not the Minister’s responsibility directly because we have a working Assembly again with a Minister in place, but I always seek the help of Ministers. They help us so that we can help them, and I believe that this is an issue that we really need to focus on together. It has the potential to affect agriculture’s primary economic output, which could fall by as much as £35 million. Northern Ireland exports almost 80% of its produce, so this is really important for us from an export point of view. It comes to the UK mainland and goes down south to the Republic of Ireland, as well as across to Europe. Indeed Lakeland Dairies’ milk powder products go across the whole world. It is one of the biggest export companies. I have had opportunities to promote Lakeland Dairies in this Chamber to ensure that Ministers are aware of the company. I have had various meetings with Ministers on this over the years.
Going back to the issue of ammonia, the Ulster Farmers Union president David Brown has said:
“We have now submitted KPMG’s findings to DAERA, and the report clearly shows that ammonia restrictions in planning could delay progression in reducing emissions and have severe consequences for the future of farming in Northern Ireland. Ammonia is a very complex issue and our farmers are very aware of this, but these proposals have the potential to do the opposite of what is intended.”
There are good intentions, but the good intentions could be detrimental so I would very much value the Minister’s input, alongside that of the DAERA Minister in Northern Ireland, to see how we can better work together. A worrying aspect of this is that the report was commissioned before DAERA and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency announced their move in December to go beyond what was set out in the call for evidence paper. Sometimes it is good to get all the facts in the paper before we make decisions, and I think that on this one, DAERA and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency jumped the gun just that wee bit too quick. The report therefore does not take account of the more extreme position that has been adopted in recent weeks.
The report shows that these harsher ammonia rules will mean that fewer planning applications will be successful, preventing hundreds of farmers in Northern Ireland from being able to develop and modernise sustainably so that they can reduce emissions further. The farmers want to do that. The hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) clearly outlined the importance of farmers and what they want to do, but they want to commit themselves to the environmental issues as well. He is absolutely right, but there has to be some realism on how that is done. It cannot be at the behest of all the farmers. It cannot be to the detriment of us in Northern Ireland.
Many farmers have been actively embracing practical mitigation measures, such as low-emission slurry-spreading equipment, feed formulations and fertiliser types, but with all these things that a farmer does, there is so much bureaucracy and paperwork. However, we are concerned that necessary investments in improved agri-housing and manure management facilities are likely to be significantly curtailed. This is a really big issue for us in Northern Ireland, and it is a big issue for the Ulster Farmers Union. Unsuccessful planning applications can lead to a fall in farm infrastructure investment of between 20% and 25%, which is impossible to comprehend, and it has consequences for the wider economy.
Agricultural construction was worth between £60 million and £70 million in 2022, and it is worth even more today. Without investment in farm infrastructure, farmers could struggle to introduce ammonia mitigation measures such as improved scrapers, slat mats in livestock sheds and covers for the slurry pits. These critical improvements are needed to reduce ammonia emissions from agriculture, and their absence delays progress towards our targets. Farmers want to help us meet those targets, but they need some realism in how it is done. It is important that we get it right.
Infrastructure improvements are also vital to improving animal health and welfare, which support the production of high-quality food for our growing population—that is what we do best in Northern Ireland. If a farm family’s planning application is rejected, not only does it derail their morale in reducing ammonia emissions but there will be significant costs to the business. Farm incomes could drop by 21% for dairy farmers, including my neighbours, by 30% for beef farmers and by 38% for pig farmers. There will be massive reductions if it is not addressed, so we seek the assistance of Ministers both here and in Northern Ireland. Such reductions would mean that farms become inefficient, making it impossible for them to remain competitive, which will impact Northern Ireland’s ability to produce food locally.
Every right hon. and hon. Member has spoken about farmers producing more food. If we produced all the food we could in the United Kingdom, we would not have to import anything. That would not be entirely realistic, of course, but the fact is that we can do more and we can do better. We would not be honest if we did not talk about those reductions whenever we talk about building our agrifood businesses. Our rural economy, our communities and our consumers are severely affected, too.
The Ulster Farmers Union has said that farmers want to reduce their emissions, but the KPMG report clearly shows that these proposals have more potential to stop positive on-farm development than to benefit the environment—that is the point made by the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay. There is a balanced way forward that allows farmers to develop and deliver ammonia reductions while ensuring that farm families can maintain a viable business as food producers.
I have been anxious to understand how co-operation across this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland can be achieved. I ask the Minister to make contact with the devolved Assemblies in Scotland, Wales and especially Northern Ireland to ensure that our targets do not eliminate our food-producing farms, which is where we seem to be heading.
Time is moving fast, so I conclude by saying that there is work to be done on the seasonal worker schemes, which everyone has mentioned. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke) said that there are 70,000 seasonal workers, and we in Northern Ireland will need some help too. Over the years, with Home Office assistance, we have been instrumental in bringing over seasonal workers from Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Poland. Lots of people have integrated into my Strangford constituency, and 40% of the workforces at Mash Direct and Willowbrook Foods—the two examples I mentioned at the beginning of my speech—are from Europe. It is important that such schemes and employment practices are in place.
The message from this House must be that we understand the pressures and will work to alleviate them. For the farming community across this United Kingdom, the plough will go straighter knowing that we will reap the benefits of the seeds that we sow in this debate. As I said to the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire, I believe in my heart that there is so much that we can do better together. I am very proud to be British by choice, by birth and by nature because it is the best thing for us.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
I thank colleagues for a full, excellent and thoughtful debate. I was delighted to hear contributions from new, young, Labour rural voices: my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Alistair Strathern) spoke well about some of the limitations of the SFI, and raised the issue of rural crime; and my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Keir Mather) talked knowledgably about flooding issues. Although he is not in his place, we also heard from someone who is eternally youthful but not so new, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel), who also touched on SFI issues. [Interruption.] Oh, he is here, just in time. He also discussed green skills and biodiversity.
We also heard thoughtful contributions from two former Secretaries of State, which I listened to closely, and an excellent introduction from the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin). I thought there was a theme running through some of the contributions from Conservative Members, which was that not all is entirely well with Government policy. They made sensible observations about how long we have been waiting for the response to the Shropshire review, and about the demise of the horticultural strategy. A range of other criticisms were made, which I hope the Government will take on board.
I also very much enjoyed the characteristically optimistic contribution from the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman). I was not that far from his constituency last week, when, at the invitation of Labour’s excellent Keir Cozens, I went to Great Yarmouth to meet a group of farmers. Like many others, they have, I suspect, been following this debate with interest, because their issues and concerns are typical of those of many across the country. They want to farm in environmentally sensitive, nature-friendly ways, but they run businesses and they need to make a return—that point was well made by my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty. That requires the right regulatory frameworks, appropriate support, and help where necessary. Frankly, that is not what they are getting at the moment. They look at the SFI and rightly warn that the money on offer for growing flowers is so tempting that many will take it—we are talking about whole farms. That makes no sense, not for food production, the environment or the Exchequer. We need flour as well as flowers—that is what needs to be sorted out, Minister, and quickly. So, too, does the fundamental flaw in the Government’s approach to the agricultural transition. They are spending large amounts of our money without knowing what they are getting for it. They cannot say they were not warned, but they pushed ahead regardless.
Halfway through the transition, the Government do not know whether their measures have improved the environment, or whether any progress is being made on reducing emissions. In addition, as the Farmers Guardian headline recently put it, we have “Farm Output in free fall”.
Those Norfolk farmers are frustrated by a whole range of Government agencies, and we have heard reference to some of the problems there from Conservative Members. Whether it be muddle over responses to flooding or endless frustration with local planning, these are issues that Labour has identified, and that are central to our plans to keep Britain farming. Farming is a hard business, and times are difficult. The weather is more challenging than ever, with sheets of water sitting on so many fields across the country. Too many farmers have had to endure the distress of witnessing the destruction of their crops or livestock due to those floods or, in some cases, the persistent shortage of workforce and labour. Although we are all relieved that the threat from avian flu has receded to some extent this year, I think we all know that had we faced bluetongue, which will continue to be a problem, or African swine fever at the same time, the already very stretched systems that the Government had in place would almost certainly have buckled.
As Members have said, we still have a supply chain contract system that we all know does not work for too many farmers. Stakeholders tell me that things are actually getting worse. I was in Hexham at the northern farming conference last year, where a point was strongly made that Labour’s Joe Morris recently reinforced to me: we have too many buyers taking too long to consider cost price increase requests, taking too long to pay invoices, failing to honour their original order and rejecting perfectly good produce because it does not quite fit some aesthetic criteria. That leads to appalling waste; one producer told me that he had to throw away 50% of the lettuces he grows. That is terrible for the environment, an insult to farmers, and deeply problematic when working people all over the country are struggling in a cost of living crisis to get a meal on the table. More than a quarter of all the food grown in the UK is never eaten, and this wasted harvest accounts for between 6% and 7% of total UK greenhouse gas emissions. That waste has been made worse by severe and persistent labour shortages, which the Government have been too slow to address.
It is therefore no great surprise that UK farmers are producing less and less of our food. As my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed) said, over 6,000 agricultural businesses have closed down since 2017. At the same time, as we have heard repeatedly, the Government have let farmers down on trade deals, opening the door to food produced to lower standards. Given all that, it is hardly surprising that a severe toll has been taken on famers’ mental health.
A Labour Government will resolutely back British farmers, reducing our reliance on insecure imports, supporting high-quality, local produce for consumers, and ending the shameful new reality we have come to almost accept: that there will be gaps on supermarket shelves. For Labour, food security is national security, and that starts with our new deal for farmers.
Labour will seek a veterinary agreement with the European Union that will get British food exports moving again and ensure standards are safeguarded. We will buy, make and sell more homegrown, sustainable, nutritious food. We will support farmers across the country through public procurement, and use the Government’s purchasing power to ensure that at least half of all food in our hospitals and prisons is locally produced or certified to higher environmental production standards. We will deliver price stability for farmers by establishing GB Energy, a new publicly owned energy company that will direct public and private investment to harness clean, homegrown wind, wave, solar and nuclear power. We will have energy independence, with 100% clean energy by 2030. That means cheaper energy for farmers and less volatility, which is vital to long-term businesses.
The Government seem to have taken forever to respond to Baroness Rock’s report on the tenanted sector, but we will inject a new urgency into that, as we will into finding ways to help new entrants into farming, because those young people are the future of the sector. We will support research and innovation, so that we can make productivity gains that have been elusive for too long in many parts of the industry.
We are committed to making the environmental land management schemes work. Frankly, the Government simply do not have a strategic approach to ELMS, or to the crucial challenge of balancing producing nutritious food, protecting nature, mitigating climate change and upholding animal welfare standards. They are failing on all these important fronts. The Government’s failure to deliver on their environmental targets means that their promise to protect at least 30% of our land, waters and ocean by 2030 is in serious doubt. The Climate Change Committee’s latest report makes grim reading for the Government. Emissions from agriculture are going in completely the wrong direction; they actually rose last year.
The Government have failed in their task of establishing a post-Brexit vision and framework for farming in this country. It will fall to Labour to pick up that mantle and create the land-use framework needed to meet the multiple demands made on our land in a more strategic way—to deliver stability that optimises the achievement of our social, economic and environmental objectives, and to enshrine food security as a key public good, backing British farmers while restoring nature and protecting the environment for future generations. That is the future for British farming, and it is a future with Labour.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Robbie Moore)
I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. I particularly thank the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Fay Jones), for opening the debate. Why? Because this Government strongly believe in the importance of our Union and the industries that sustain it, including our mighty food and farming industries.
I have been involved in the agricultural sector all my life, since, aged two or three, I was placed in my pram, positioned carefully in the milking parlour, down in the pit, to watch Dad milk our Holstein and Friesian herds. I have driven the combines during many harvests on our family farm, and was even lambing yows in Yorkshire just yesterday. I know the importance of our agricultural sector, especially to the people who work in it.
On that note, it was an honour to host this morning in Parliament the next crop of Nuffield farming scholars, as they set out on their journey to undertake valuable research to drive productivity, innovation and growth in a sector that we all love. It was also brilliant to host a further group of farmers in Parliament this morning from God’s own county—our future farmers of Yorkshire. I put on record a tribute to Minette Batters for leading the NFU as president for many years. I wish Tom Bradshaw, a fellow Nuffield farming scholar, the best of luck as he takes on the presidency.
We have heard many excellent speeches from colleagues from right across the House. It is clear that farming is complex; pressures are being placed on the sector from all sides, including from the skies above. Farmers have to feed a growing nation, address environmental considerations and balance public will, expectations and perceptions of the industry. That is why, from a Government perspective, it is vital that policy works and drives forward productivity, innovation and efficiency in the sector.
The Government are committed to continuing to produce at least 60% of the food that we eat in the UK, and have ambitions to produce more food domestically. We will continue action where it matters, to support farming businesses, so that they grow and thrive. Farming contributes a staggering £127 billion to the economy, and we want to enhance and secure nature while ensuring food production. We have a key focus on driving productivity in the sector, as food security must always be at the forefront of our mind. As has been mentioned, we recognise that it is vital to balance the priorities of protecting food security, restoring biodiversity and tackling climate change, while, of course, ensuring that farming is profitable and productive, so that farming businesses can thrive, and so that farming continues to attract the very best and the brightest.
Let me turn to some of the points made in the debate. Our farming schemes are delivering for farm businesses of every type and size, unlike the bureaucratic common agricultural policy, under which 50% of the budget went to the top 10% of landowners. Believe me, having worked as a farm business consultant before entering this place, I can say that there was no policy that frustrated me more than the common agricultural policy. It undoubtedly led to a lack of innovation and stagnation in farming businesses, and, for tenants, a base level in rent that was unfairly inflated.
We have been released from the shackles of the common agricultural policy and are midway through a period of transition. In January this year, we published the agricultural transition plan update, setting out our biggest upgrade to farming schemes since the UK has had the freedom to design our own policy. As the Secretary of State has set out, we have increased payment rates for the sustainable farming incentive, and the countryside stewardship’s mid tier, by 10% on average, and announced a further 50 new actions that will be available from the summer. That will give farmers more choice, more freedom and more money in their pocket.
The biggest changes to farming in a generation do not happen in a vacuum. Farmers have been dealing with soaring global prices for fuel and fertiliser, so the Government have been working hard to get inflation down, from 11% last year to 4% now. Our transition is not just a move away from the basic payment scheme to the roll-out of environmental land management schemes. We are placing our confidence in the schemes working, and that confidence has been borne out partly by the uptake in farmers getting involved. Almost half of farmers who have got involved in the scheme are progressing. We have received more than 11,000 applications for SFI alone since last autumn. There were 35,000 live countryside stewardship agreements in place across England in January 2024. That is a 112% increase since 2020.
Upland farmers, as has been mentioned in this debate, are incredibly important in our new schemes and grants offer. There is something for every type of farm. Hill and upland farmers have been mentioned, and I want to take the opportunity to highlight the offer for the sector. We have worked incredibly hard with our upland farmers to increase payment rates and develop new actions on moorland that offer great flexibility. They include new actions to support management of upland peat and non-peatland soils for flood and drought resilience. We have also increased payment rates for species-rich grassland actions. For example, the payment rate for managing wet peat on moorland has increased to £181 per hectare. We have reviewed the payment rates for similar upland and lowland options, and have agreed to pay the same rate to everyone.
It is important that we are rolling out the SFI, countryside stewardship schemes and landscape recovery schemes, but driving productivity, innovation and growth is equally important, which is why we have announced the largest ever grant offer for farmers for the next financial year, which is expected to total £427 million. That includes doubling the funding for productivity, providing more support for farmers to invest in automation and robotics, and soil installations to build on-farm energy security.
Many Members have welcomed the new annual food security index, which will be rolled out to capture and present the data needed to monitor levels of self-sufficiency, and the Farm to Fork summit will be held annually. That builds on the great work at our last summit, held in Downing Street, which brought together many key stakeholders from across the industry. Many Members referred to the announcement of £15 million to tackle food waste, which will enable farmers to redistribute surplus food that cannot be used commercially at the farm gate.
New regulations will be laid before Parliament to ensure fair and transparent contracts for dairy farmers, and a review will be launched to improve fairness in the poultry supply chain. In an effort to drive more opportunity, we are expanding permitted development rights to help farming businesses to diversify should they so wish. That builds on the announcements at the Oxford farming conference in January. We have something to offer every type of farmer in England, so they can choose what works best for their business, from the uplands to the lowlands. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) said, that builds on the great work that many Secretaries of State, past and present, have done to ensure that the Government not only deliver on our environmental credentials but are focused on driving productivity, innovation and growth in food and farming businesses.
Many Members across the House mentioned flooding. As the floods Minister, I recognise just how much increasing our flood resilience matters to our farming community. Farmers are already eligible for support through the flood recovery framework, including a grant of up to £2,500 as part of the business recovery grant. As I announced from the Dispatch Box earlier in the year, we have gone beyond the measures previously put in place by announcing that farmers who have suffered uninsurable damage to their land will be able to apply for grants of up to £25,000 towards repair and reinstatement costs through the farming recovery fund.
We also need to go above and beyond in ensuring that we have a proper maintenance programme that works for Environment Agency assets. That will come out of the money we are providing to double the £2.6 billion to £5.2 billion, to increase our maintenance provision. I know what a vital role internal drainage boards play. They do an excellent job, not only in Lincolnshire but across East Anglia and further afield, as has been mentioned. I reassure Members that all options will be considered. Dredging will be considered, as will removing the vegetation that has blocked our Environment Agency assets for far too long. We need to ensure that we are not only using nature-based solutions upstream but focusing on our lowland farmers, ensuring that the water can be moved off their land as quickly as possible. Having visited farmers in Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Gloucestershire and East Yorkshire since taking up this role, I know how important this issue is to all of them.
More trust is vital. As has been mentioned, we need to ensure that farmers feel that the Government are onside regarding mental health provision. Working in a farming community presents significant difficulties, particularly during the winter months, with many farmers working on their own, often in difficult weather conditions. There is no doubt that farming is not an easy job, with long hours in remote rural areas. In recent years, there has been a growing awareness of the importance of farming mental health and wellbeing. We provide support through the farming resilience fund, which has benefited over 19,000 farmers to date, but we know that there is more work to do. That is why the Prime Minister announced at the NFU conference that we are making up to half a million pounds available to deliver projects that specifically support mental health provisions within our farming sector. That builds on the work being done by the Farming Minister, who attended a farm roundtable earlier today with key stakeholders from across the charitable sector. I want to give a special thanks to all those involved in ensuring that our farming community benefits from the Government support that we are rolling out.
Many Members mentioned trade. We have expanded our global network of agrifood attachés to 11 roles in our top export markets, and five more have been recruited and will be starting in post later this year. They include attachés in Europe for the first time, and we are strengthening our engagement in other countries to boost trade, resolve barriers that UK exports face and provide market insight to help businesses capitalise on the high demand for UK exports. We are also delivering the export package that the Prime Minister announced at the UK Farm to Fork summit last May, including by implementing the dairy export programme, which will help businesses grasp new opportunities around the world. We have been clear that agriculture will be at the forefront of any trade deals that we negotiate. We reserve the right to pause negotiations with any country if the progress we want is not being made, as we did with Canada recently.
Several hon. Members spoke about food labelling—my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin) did so eloquently. We plan to launch a consultation on improving food labelling to tackle the unfairness created by unclear labelling and to protect farmers and consumers. The increased transparency will help shoppers make informed choices, and will back British farmers producing food to world-leading standards of taste, quality and animal welfare. The consultation will include proposals to improve and extend the current mandatory methods of production and labelling, including options for production standards, and we will explore how we can better highlight imports that do not meet our high UK animal welfare standards.
I know bovine TB worries many Members and many in our farming community. Our bovine TB eradication strategy is working, and has brought about a significant reduction in the disease. Progress has been made, and we are now able to move on to the next phase of the long-term eradication strategy, which will include badger vaccination, improved cattle testing and work towards developing a cattle vaccine. DEFRA has increased funding for badger vaccination through a range of activities, but I stress to all Members that we will continue to be informed by the science and culling will remain part of our wider toolkit for tackling the disease for as long as necessary.
Many Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire and the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), spoke about small abattoirs. Small abattoirs in England can apply for capital grants through the new £4 million fund, which is designed to boost the sector. They are an important part of the rural economy that offer a high-value route to market for many native and rare breeds, among others. Through our smaller abattoir fund, grants of between £2,000 and £60,000 are available at a 40% intervention rate. Our selection is intended to improve productivity, enhance animal health, add value to primary produce and encourage innovation in the sector.
I went to Dorset last Thursday and met more than 120 farmers from the constituencies of my hon. Friends the Members for South Dorset (Richard Drax) and for West Dorset (Chris Loder), who cannot speak in this debate, and I want to assure them that I am concerned about the tool that is being rolled out by the Environment Agency, which is being used at Poole harbour. I give both Members the reassurance that I gave their constituents last Thursday: I want to review that tool. I also assure them that I will work with them, Baroness Rock, who was also at that meeting, and their constituents to ensure that the tool achieves the outcomes that we all want.
I say to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) that, having visited Northern Ireland, I know that cross-departmental learning can always take place. Although the matter of policy is devolved, I can assure him that I am more than happy to engage.
Skills are incredibly important. I reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) that skills are a top priority for the Government to ensure that we drive innovation within the sector. He will know that we have provided funding to the Institute for Agriculture and Horticulture to help it to create a continued professional development system for farmers. The institute is now live, and many members have signed up.
Dr Coffey
I am conscious that Mr Deputy Speaker encouraged us to curtail our speeches earlier, and I appreciate that the Minister is being encouraged to wind up, so I am sure that he will write to us on the several questions that have been asked, but let me focus on one area: skills. More than 7 million people registered through the EU settlement scheme, but not all of them have chosen to come back to work in the UK. I want to understand whether we have breached the number of visas that had been set aside. I say that because a lot of effort went into ensuring that there were visas so that farmers would have enough labour to work in the sector. Have the Government extended the number by the extra 10,000 visas that were negotiated, or were we fine with the coming up to 45,000 that we had reached?
Robbie Moore
We have not reached that figure yet. I am more than happy to keep that engagement going and to take that away and have a conversation with my right hon. Friend. I assure all Members that helping our farming community as much as possible through all measures is a key priority, including through the roll-out of the schemes that she refers to.
Finally, the land use framework will be published in due course. I want to reassure all Members that the Secretary of State, alongside his ministerial team, rightly wants to give that full consideration to ensure that it works in relation to food security and food productivity, and that it drives innovation in the sector. To that end, we will cross-check it with our energy security policies and all other policies to ensure that food production is at the heart of the Government’s agenda.
Labour says that it wants what it is doing in Wales to be a blueprint that will be rolled out across the rest of the country, but I fear for the agriculture sector if that is the case. This is a period of change and adjustment, and the Government are in listening mode and ready to act to support hard-working farmers right across the United Kingdom. By prioritising a profitable and sustainable food and farming sector, we can keep the nation healthy and happy, support our rural economy and ensure that our mighty farming businesses continue to thrive long into the future under this Conservative Government.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered farming.
Morecambe and Morgan Offshore Wind Farms project
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
Recognising the enormous impact that the plans will have on Fylde’s ecology, economy and communities, I rise to present a petition. I thank the parishes of Newton, Clifton, Freckleton, Westby and Wrea Green and the town councils of Kirkham and St Annes for asking EnBW, BP and the other organisations behind the Morecambe and Morgan project to reconsider their proposals for transmission assets. Residents are understandably concerned by the proposals, given the audible buzz generated by two massive substations, the disruption for local schools, the footprint of a single substation being the equivalent of 13 football pitches at a height of 20 metres, and the fact that the 122 metre-wide cable corridor will rip through the heart of rural Fylde.
The petition states:
The petition of residents of the constituency of Fylde in Lancashire,
Declares that the Morecambe and Morgan project should reconsider their plans for Transmission Asset cabling and proposed substations in Fylde; further declares that the proposed plans of the project will disrupt wildlife, communities and agricultural land.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to heed the residents’ concerns and work with those leading the project to share all relevant documents and studies transparently, and seek alternative connections to the National Grid.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P002920]
Byers Gill Solar Farm
(8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)
My neighbour and hon. Friend, the Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell), and I are incredibly grateful to be able to bring before the House this debate on the proposed Byers Gill solar farm. It stretches across agricultural and arable land between Stockton and Darlington. The proposed site neighbours a number of other solar farm sites that have already been approved and others that are being brought forward for approval, meaning that the cumulative impact on this beautiful rural community will be almost 2,500 acres.
The plethora of solar farms snake through and encircle some of the most beautiful rural villages in the region—and, in fact, the country. Villages, farms and even a local primary school are merely metres away from some parts of those sites, but it is not only villagers and farmers who will be impacted: the area is inhabited by a rich tapestry of wildlife and biodiversity. I have been contacted by one resident whose family had farmed locally for generations, and who will have the solar farm just feet from her boundary. She shared with me the list of species that regularly visit her plot: badgers, foxes, hares, deer, pheasants, woodcock, snipe, and grey partridge—which are, of course, a red-list species. That plot has daily visits from herons, and has seen coots, moorhens, geese, swans, various ducks, swallows, owls, buzzards, sparrowhawks and bats. A 2,500-acre scar on that countryside will undoubtedly affect those animals, their habitat and their food chain, and this resident is rightly devastated.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Member for securing this debate. He is absolutely right to highlight the wildlife impact, but also the loss of good agricultural land. Is it not time that the Minister and Government, and any potential developers, understood that good agricultural land should be retained for food production? That is what we want, not the loss of that land to solar farms.
Matt Vickers
I could not agree more, and I will come back to that point. There is a balance between energy security and food security, and food security is incredibly important to many of the jobs that we talked about in the previous debate.
Where now people drive along country roads and look on to beautiful rolling fields, those views will be replaced by miles of 7-foot-high fences to prevent the movements of deer. Residents, many of whom have lived in the villages and farmed the fields in that area for generations, have shared with my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield and me their huge concerns about the impact that a development of this scale will have on their community. They understand the need to improve our energy security and the move to renewables, but the sheer cumulative scale of the solar farms densely packed into this small rural community will change it completely. An area characterised by rurality, nature and agriculture looks set to become characterised by industry, panels and battery substations.
Aside from the aesthetics, the complete change in the character of this rural community, the damage to people’s quality of life and the huge impact on biodiversity, this decision will also be about balancing competing interests and priorities. Energy security is a huge challenge for our country, but so is food security. Ironically, this debate follows one about the challenges that our farmers face. Many of them are looking at how to improve their financial outlook; they are being approached by developers, and have to make incredibly difficult decisions for themselves and their families. Our Great British farmers are the stewards of our countryside, who care for our natural environment and put food on our plates. We must back them, so that they can carry on doing that.
We are talking about prime agricultural land. Residents and I agree with the words of the Prime Minister:
“We must also protect our best agricultural land. On my watch, we will not lose swathes of our best farmland to solar farms. Instead, we should be making sure that solar panels are installed on commercial buildings, on sheds and on properties.”
I hope that the Planning Inspectorate will ensure that a robust and independent grading of this land takes place, so that it is given fair consideration, and ultimately protected for generations of farmers to come.
At present there are more solar farms pending approval than the national grid could hope to service. Let us ensure that we develop solar farms that are proportionate and rightly placed. There are further concerns about what the scale of this industrialisation will mean for the community. There are huge concerns that moving permeable, greened land into the muddy underbelly of acres of solar panels will have real consequences for country roads already suffering from flooding problems. The dangers of battery storage systems such as those destined for the site are well known and documented, and such a battery storage system being put near residential properties and in close proximity to a school is deeply worrying to residents.
Many residents have expressed their concerns about the developer JBM failing to undertake adequate consultation; in fact many would go as far as to say that it has actively stifled it. I have heard from several residents who feel that they have been given no voice in the process. Many residents were not afforded sight of circulated consultation materials; I understand that just 12 of the 356 affected residents received them. Only 120 planning brochures were provided and, illogically, these were placed at a library 9 miles away, inaccessible to many residents. Stakeholder meetings were organised, but residents were never informed. A face-to-face consultation was held in Stockton market place, miles away from the site, and an incorrect location was given to residents. Then the representatives left early, so those who did turn up did not get to speak to them. This catalogue of failings is well documented and will be made available to the Planning Inspectorate ahead of its decisions.
I pay tribute to residents from the affected villages, and those who have taken a role in bringing together the Bishopton Villages Action Group, which stands up for local residents. They have shown how amazing the power of community can be and what it can achieve. They have shown exceptional professionalism. They have mustered and used all the expertise in their community, and raised a huge amount of money to oppose these plans. They have produced professional submissions at every level, and I hope that the Planning Inspectorate will carefully read the report they have issued on JBM’s failure to consult in line with its duties under the Planning Act 2008.
I thank the Minister for her time. I hope that today we have allowed residents’ concerns to be thoroughly aired, and I look forward to this proposal, with its cumulative overwhelmingly negative impact on this community, being roundly rejected.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)
Order. I have no notice that the hon. Gentleman has asked permission to take part in the debate. Do the owner of the debate and the Minister agree that Mr Howell should speak?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Amanda Solloway)
indicated assent.
Paul Howell
I apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker; you should have had notice. That was an oversight by my office and me.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) for highlighting the scale of the problem, which is clear from the fact that we are both here speaking about this matter. I am sure that if my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) were able to be here, he would contribute, too; he is another constituency neighbour aware of the concerns about this proposal.
As has been said, the proposed Byers Gill solar farm would cover land between Bishopton and Brafferton in the Sedgefield constituency. I am particularly familiar with the area, as I was married in Bishopton nearly 39 years ago. The farm would cover over 1,200 acres of land, and in the nearby region, there are further proposals from other developers that would increase the land affected to well over 2,000 acres. Residents have approached my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South and me with significant concerns about the scale of the developments individually and in aggregate, as well as concerns about the “consultation process” that has been followed. To be fair, the proposals were refined after an initial round of consultations, and changes were made, reflecting some concerns.
I would like the Minister to be cognisant of the following critical points. Consultation must be real. I got into politics because I felt that the local Labour council was paying lip service to consultation; it was basically just telling people what was going on, instead of engaging and trying to consult properly, so I am particularly sensitive when I hear concerns about poor engagement. After my last meeting with the residents action group, I reached out to the developers to discuss the concerns. They have agreed to meet, but unfortunately I had to postpone the scheduled meeting. I will be catching up with the developers in the next few weeks, and I hope they will listen to what is going on today and react to the concerns. After all, it is not what the developers say to me that matters; it is what they say to my constituents and the people affected at the sharp end. My residents’ feedback concerns me massively, and I will be raising it again when I meet the developers.
Although communication always requires two parties to engage—sometimes people do not listen or hear—I always believe that the primary responsibility for good communication rests with the sender, not the recipient, and I encourage the developers to get on top of their game in that respect. On a slightly linked point, if the Minister caught the farming debate earlier, she will have heard about the concerns of farmers in this space. Farming economics are pushing farmers to accept solar farms on their land when they may prefer to keep farming. It is imperative that this country develops our food resilience, and it is critical that we are robust in our assessment of the land that could be used for solar to ensure that it is not consuming good farming land. I have heard concerns, as has my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South, that the assessment of land, whether at grade 3a or 3b, is possibly being done by some who may have a vested interest in the process. We must ensure that the assessment has integrity and robustness.
It is of real value to our rural communities that their character is maintained. We need to ensure that the multiplicity of schemes in an area are jointly assessed to be certain that planning creep does not overwhelm that area. As I said, the possibility of more than 2,000 acres being covered in such a small and concentrated area is surely not reasonable.
We also have rules and guidance about the payments made to communities to support them when such schemes are approved; they must be explicitly fair and robust, and not merely bribes for compliance. It is important for the long-term resilience and value of our rural communities that they do not effectively turn into large industrial parks destroying our green and pleasant land. I support solar—it is one of the green power sources that we must develop in the right place—but it cannot be at the expense of the rural community’s way of life.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Amanda Solloway)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) for securing this debate relating to the development consent order for Byers Gill solar farm. I also acknowledge the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell). They have both shown incredible commitment today and previously in raising awareness of this case within the House.
I must say from the outset that for propriety reasons, I am unable to comment on the specifics of the proposal. Byers Gill is considered a nationally significant infrastructure project, as defined in the Planning Act 2008, and any application would be determined by the Secretary of State. I understand that an application for the Byers Gill solar farm was received by the Planning Inspectorate on 9 February 2024. The Planning Inspectorate is responsible for considering whether the application should be accepted for examination and, if accepted, will carry out the examination on behalf of the Secretary of State, who will review the report and make the final decision. Given the quasi-judicial role of the Secretary of State in determining applications, I hope the House will appreciate that I cannot comment on the specifics of Byers Gill solar farm or any other proposed infrastructure project, as that could be seen as prejudging the outcome of any proposal subsequently submitted for decision through the planning process. I can, however, set out in general terms how planning works for large solar projects.
There are established routes in the planning system to consider the impacts of solar projects and to enable communities to raise concerns about developments in their areas. Developers taking projects through the nationally significant infrastructure projects regime must complete considerable community engagement before any approval is granted, giving communities and local authorities ample opportunity to feed in their views.
When a developer submits an application to the Planning Inspectorate, it must be accompanied by a consultation report. In that document, the developer must demonstrate that it has complied with the statutory pre-application consultation requirements and that it has had regard to the responses it has received. Among other things, the report must provide a description of how the intended application was informed and influenced by those responses, outlining any changes made as a result, and provide an explanation as to why responses advising on major changes to a project were not followed, including advice from statutory consultees on impacts. If an applicant has not followed the advice of the local authority or not complied with guidance published by the Planning Inspectorate, it must provide an explanation for the action taken or not taken.
On submission of an application, the Planning Inspectorate will write to relevant local authorities and ask for their views on whether the consultation has been adequate. The Planning Inspectorate will consider the consultation report alongside any representation made by a local authority on the adequacy of the developer’s consultation and the other application documents before deciding whether to accept the application for examination.
The planning system sets out how applicants and decision makers should consider the impact of solar projects on land use, the local environment, wildlife, biodiversity and, of course, landscapes. That should also include consideration of cumulative impacts: for example, where several solar projects are deployed in close proximity.
The Infrastructure Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017 require all large solar developers to complete an environmental statement as part of any application. The environmental statement requires developers to consider all potential impacts during a project’s life from pre-development to construction, operation and decommissioning. The environmental statement must be conducted by a “competent expert”, which means that all surveys and studies, including soil surveys, must be conducted and overseen by experienced members of their relevant professional field, such as ecology or geology, and comply with relevant codes of conduct.
As set out in the recently designated national policy statement for renewable energy infrastructure, while land type should not be a predominating factor in determining the suitability of a solar site location, applicants should where possible utilise suitable previously developed land, brownfield land, contaminated land and industrial land. Where the proposed use of agricultural land has been shown to be necessary, poorer quality land should be preferred to higher quality land, avoiding the use of “best and most versatile” agricultural land where possible.
In terms of the safety of battery storage, it is a priority of the Government to ensure that an appropriate, robust and future-proofed health and safety programme is sustained as the industry develops and storage deployment increases. The framework is kept under review to respond to changing circumstances. Recent reviews have considered both the planning system and the environmental permitting regulations.
The United Kingdom was the first major economy in the world to introduce legally binding net zero legislation. We cut emissions by half between 1990 and 2022 while growing the economy by two thirds, decarbonising faster than any other G7 country. In 2021, the Government adopted their sixth carbon budget for the period of 2033 to 2037, to reduce emissions by circa 78% by 2035 compared with 1990 levels.
The Government have also committed to decarbonising the electricity system by 2035, subject to security of supply. That will require deployment across a range of homegrown green technologies at an unprecedented scale and pace. Renewables such as solar and wind, alongside other low-carbon technologies such as nuclear, will underpin the UK’s transition from reliance on fossil fuels to the new secure clean energy system. Solar deployment is a key part of the Government’s net zero strategy, energy independence and clean growth. We are aiming for up to 70 GW of solar capacity by 2035, which would be more than quadruple our current installed capacity. We need to maximise the deployment of both ground mounted and rooftop solar to achieve that ambition.
I again thank my hon. Friends the Members for Stockton South and for Sedgefield for raising this issue and for championing their constituencies. I will ensure that the points they have raised are brought to the attention of the Ministers who cover solar and planning within the Government. Although I have not been able to discuss the specifics of this case, I assure them when taking a decision on any development consent application, the Secretary of State will follow the relevant requirements in the Planning Act 2008 and have regard to a wide range of matters that are important and relevant to her decision.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 (Consequential and Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2024
(8 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Jacob Young)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 (Consequential and Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2024.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins. The draft regulations make technical, consequential and miscellaneous amendments to primary and secondary legislation following the passage of the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023.
All social housing tenants deserve to live in decent homes, to be treated with fairness and respect, and to have their complaints addressed quickly. Those principles were at the heart of the Social Housing (Regulation) Act, which received Royal Assent last July. The Act facilitates the biggest change to the regulation of social housing in a decade, paving the way for the introduction of a new, proactive consumer regulation regime. The Act will deliver transformative change across the social housing sector, ensuring that poor landlords are held to account for the quality of their homes and the services they provide.
Following the passage of the Act, significant progress has been made in the implementation of those changes. In the last week, the Regulator of Social Housing has published the revised consumer standards, setting stronger requirements that landlords will need to meet from April this year. We have also launched consultations on the competence and conduct of social housing staff, and on Awaab’s law, which will set strict new time limits for social housing providers to address dangerous hazards such as damp and mould in social homes. We will not stop until social tenants receive the quality homes and services they deserve.
Let me speak very briefly to the draft regulations, which are mostly technical and make consequential amendments to ensure that existing legislation remains accurate following the passage of the 2023 Act. Part 1 of schedule 1 makes consequential amendments to the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008, including to reflect the change to when a housing moratorium starts, and to add new entries to the index of defined terms in the 2008 Act to signpost definitions added or amended by the 2023 Act.
Part 2 of schedule 1 makes consequential amendments to other pieces of relevant legislation. These changes are a consequence of changes made by the 2023 Act relating to moratoriums in the event of insolvency, the definition of whether a registered provider is non-profit, and what constitutes an “English body” for the purpose of who can be registered.
Part 3 of schedule 1 makes a consequential amendment to the Social Housing Rents (Exceptions and Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations 2016 relating to the definition of “community land trust” inserted into the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022 by the 2023 Act.
Lastly, the regulations make miscellaneous amendments to correct minor errors in statute, removing a redundant reference to a section in the 2008 Act that was later repealed by the Housing and Planning Act 2016, and amending a provision inserted by a statutory instrument to ensure consistency across the two pieces of legislation.
The regulations will ensure accuracy and consistent language across existing legislation following the changes made to statute by the 2023 Act. I commend them to the Committee.
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Cummins. I rise simply to put it on the record that, in the Opposition’s view, this is a straightforward and entirely uncontentious statutory instrument, and as such, not only do we have no intention of opposing it this evening, but, somewhat uncharacteristically, I have no specific concerns to put to the Minister.
Jacob Young
I thank the hon. Gentleman and the Committee for their time today. The regulations are just a small part of the implementation of the Social Housing (Regulation) Act, which will transform the regulation of the sector. I hope the Committee will agree to their passage, to ensure the continued accuracy of the statute book.
Question put and agreed to.
Ministerial Corrections
Defence
(8 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Grant Shapps
However, as this war drags into its third year, far from winning, Russia has been pushed back since those early days. Putin has achieved none of his strategic objectives, his invading force has suffered a staggering 356,000 casualties, and Ukraine has destroyed or damaged about 30% of the Russian Black sea fleet and retaken 50% of the territory that Russia stole from it.
[Official Report, 22 February 2024, Vol. 745, c. 886.]
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
The Defence Secretary was certainly in full Duracell bunny mode today, but it is clear that Britain and this Government have much to be proud of in our response to the Ukraine crisis. It was also clear, however, that right from the outset of the invasion it would be an industrial munitions war, harking back to the last century. While Russia has got itself on to a full war economy footing, our Government machine frankly seems to have failed to mobilise British industry in the same way. To highlight that, I will pose a simple question. Why did it take from February 2022 to July 2023 to place the vital order for additional, desperately needed artillery shells?
Grant Shapps
I do not entirely agree with the right hon. Member’s characterisation of the UK response in terms of deindustrialisation. I do agree that it is difficult overall to suddenly ramp up from whatever level we are producing at on a non-war footing, but it is heartening to know—I think this is right, but it is off the top of my head; I will correct the figures if I have got it wrong—that our munitions and missile production is now eight times the level it was before the war, so we have certainly stepped up.
[Official Report, 22 February 2024, Vol. 745, c. 893.]
Letter of correction from the Secretary of State for Defence, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps):
Errors have been identified in the statement I made on Ukraine and the response I gave to the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar).
The correct information should have been:
Grant Shapps
However, as this war drags into its third year, far from winning, Russia has been pushed back since those early days. Putin has achieved none of his strategic objectives, his invading force has suffered a staggering 356,000 casualties, and Ukraine has destroyed or damaged nearly 30% of the Russian Black sea fleet and retaken 50% of the territory that Russia stole from it.
Grant Shapps
I do not entirely agree with the right hon. Member’s characterisation of the UK response in terms of deindustrialisation. I do agree that it is difficult overall to suddenly ramp up from whatever level we are producing at on a non-war footing, but it is heartening to know—I think this is right, but it is off the top of my head; I will correct the figures if I have got it wrong—that our production capacity of 155mm artillery ammunition will be eight times the level it was before the war, so we have certainly stepped up.
Written Statements
Advanced Manufacturing
(8 months ago)
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The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Gareth Davies)
Today the Government have announced over £360 million of joint Government and industry investment in 16 UK advanced manufacturing projects, securing highly skilled jobs, building a stronger economy and cementing the UK as a global leader in industries of the future.
This involves a combined industry and Government investment of almost £73 million in projects to accelerate the development of zero-emission vehicle technology in the UK, almost £200 million in projects to develop energy efficient and zero-carbon aircraft technology, and almost £92 million in life science manufacturing projects. The funding awarded is targeted to support the sectors where the UK is or could be world-leading and is designed to unlock investment from the private sector to help grow our economy.
The Chancellor is also announcing an up to £120 million increase to the green industries growth accelerator (GIGA) to support clean energy manufacturing. Around £390 million has been earmarked to expand UK-based supply chains for electricity networks and offshore wind sectors, and around £390 million for the carbon capture, utilisation and storage and hydrogen sectors. This is alongside the £300 million previously announced for UK production of the fuel required to power high-tech new nuclear reactors, known as HALEU.
The GIGA funding will enable the UK to seize growth opportunities through the transition to net zero, building on our world-leading decarbonisation track record. It forms part of the Government’s priority to grow the economy focusing on making the right long-term decisions for a brighter future by creating better-paid jobs and opportunity right across the country.
This follows £4.5 billion announced in the 2023 autumn statement to increase investment in strategic manufacturing sectors—auto, aero, life sciences and clean energy—across the UK for five years from 2025. This autumn statement announcement included £975 million in funding for the aerospace sector, and the Government have confirmed that this will be allocated to the Aerospace Technology Institute programme.
Alongside this, the Government are setting out further details of the £50 million apprenticeship growth sector pilot announced in the 2023 autumn statement. The pilot will boost funding for eligible providers delivering 13 high-value advanced manufacturing and engineering, green and life sciences apprenticeships standards, and will explore ways to stimulate training and break down barriers to delivery of high-quality training, with a particular focus on up-front capital investment costs.
[HCWS307]
Fairer Regulation of Farming
(8 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Steve Barclay)
In June 2023, the Government launched a consultation on how hedgerows should be protected in England. The consultation asked for views on the Government’s proposals to maintain protections for hedgerows by bringing management rules into domestic legislation. These rules included maintaining green cover 2 metres from the centre of a hedgerow, prohibiting hedge cutting between 1 March and 31 August, and the relevant exemptions related to these rules. The consultation also proposed a suite of civil sanctions that could be used to address non-compliance with the rules as part of a proportionate, supportive regime.
Hedgerows are an important part of our countryside and have many important benefits for our wildlife and environment as well as their contribution to the landscape. Although this consultation asked specifically about protecting hedgerows on agricultural land, we also asked where the Government should focus our ambitions for future hedgerows policy. Responses to this question showed strong support for extending protections outside of agricultural land as all hedgerows are important havens for wildlife. The Government will continue to consider how best to support the sustainable management and protection of hedgerows in different contexts, taking account of the views expressed through this consultation.
We know that our farmers and land managers value our hedgerows. There are now over 90,000 km of hedgerows with one or both sides being managed under 16,000 countryside stewardship and sustainable farming incentive agreements in England. Through countryside stewardship capital grants over 13,000 km of hedgerows have been created or restored.
We received 8,841 responses to the consultation, which closed in September 2023. We considered all the responses carefully and have today published the Government response to the consultation on www.gov.uk.
There was overwhelming support for hedgerow management measures to come into legislation, and we will now bring forward secondary legislation setting these out as soon as possible, to ensure that these important protections are in place quickly. We trust our farmers to look after hedgerows and the new legislation will provide the reassurance that all are following the same management approach. Alongside the continuation of our hedgerow offers in our environmental land management schemes, this will underline a commitment to protecting hedgerows and supporting those who look after them.
The legislation will maintain the same level of protections as previous cross compliance rules did, but our approach to enforcement of the proposed new regulation will be different, with a focus on being fair and proportionate. We have learned lessons from previous approaches and believe that an advice-led approach will result in the best outcomes. We will be talking to farmers and environmental organisations about this, as well as consulting as required by the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008.
[HCWS309]
Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission
(8 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Mr Andrew Mitchell)
I wish to inform the House of the completion of the new framework document for the Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission, an arm’s length body, funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, which delivers the Marshall Scholarship programme on our behalf.
The Marshall Scholarship programme supports intellectually gifted young Americans to study in the United Kingdom. Marshall scholars return home at the end of their studies with a deeper understanding and appreciation of the United Kingdom and strengthen the enduring relationship between Britain and the United States of America. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is proud to sponsor the Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission to deliver this important scholarship programme.
The framework document will be in place until March 2025 and governs the relationship between the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission, setting out roles and responsibilities, and governance and accountability, including financial matters. The framework document will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
[HCWS305]
Suicide Prevention Grant Fund
(8 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)
On 25 August 2023, my Department launched a £10 million suicide prevention grant fund to support voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations in delivering suicide prevention activity in England. Organisation Total Award Predominant area of delivery 10 Windsor Walk CIC £233,537.62 In the London Boroughs of Southwark and Lambeth (psychotherapy) and nationally (film tour) Action on Postpartum Psychosis £123,668.00 National Active Prospects £105,800.00 Mainly in Surrey and West Sussex, but also working with people from Croydon, Sutton, Kingston, Brighton and Hove AMAT UK £94,357.00 Medway Council Aspens Charities £150,000.00 Kent and Sussex Base 51 £9,587.00 Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Beachy Head Chaplaincy Team £245,386.00 East Sussex at Beachy Head Coastal Cliffs Bipolar UK £250,000.00 National Birmingham Irish Association £45,375.00 Birmingham with some national reach Bolton Lads and Girls Club £9,936.00 Olton local authority Bradford Rape Crisis and Sexual Abuse Survivors Service £95,580.00 City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council and Craven Town Council Brave Futures £22,530.00 Suffolk: Babergh District, East Suffolk, Ipswich Borough, Mid Suffolk and West Suffolk. Norfolk: North Norfolk, South Norfolk, Norwich, Breckland, Broadland, Great Yarmouth, King’s Lynn and West Norfolk. Cambridgeshire, Peterborough and South Lincolnshire (CPSL) Mind Ltd £176,688.00 Cambridgeshire, Peterborough and South Lincolnshire Chapter West Cheshire £9,995.00 Cheshire West and Chester Chesterfield Citizens Advice Bureau £99,760.00 Chesterfield Borough Council, North East Derbyshire District Council and Bolsover District Council Cornwall Neighbourhoods for Change Ltd £171,083.32 Camborne, Pool, Redruth and St Austell Druglink £135,000.00 Hertfordshire Emerge Advocacy £126,095.00 Surrey, Kent, Berkshire Empowerment Charity Lancashire £80,000.00 Blackpool Every Life Matters £64,756.00 Cumbria Fabrica £9,974.00 Brighton and Hove Family Action £197,794.00 Bolton Family Intervention Counselling Service CIC (FICS) £113,625.00 Warwickshire First Step, Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland £76,845.00 Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Footprints Project Limited £5,908.00 Regionally across Dorset and Hampshire. Dorset Council, and BCP, Hampshire County council and unity authorities. Home Group £200,000.00 Durham and Darlington Home-Start Trafford, Salford and Wigan £43,823.77 Trafford, Salford and Wigan Inclusion Hampshire £163,531.00 Basingstoke Mencap (Basingstoke and Deane) and Danny's Place Equine Therapy (Winchester, rural Hampshire) Ipsum £96,270.00 Swindon Islington Mind £65,939.00 Regionally across all Greater London boroughs James’ Place Charity £625,000.00 Across north-west England including Merseyside, across north-east England including Tyneside and Wear, and London, including the City of London and Greater London Jigsaw4u Ltd £68,698.00 Regionally. SW London Boroughs of Croydon, Merton, Sutton, Wandsworth, Kingston and Richmond-upon-Thames Katie Piper Foundation £263,192.00 Nationally Kindred Minds £7,069.00 Liverpool local authority area with capacity to reach out to neighbouring Merseyside boroughs Lancashire Mind Limited £119,981 Regionally within Lancashire with a focus on Chorley, Preston and Lancaster but open to anyone living within Lancashire Lancaster Men’s Hub £9,950.00 Regionally. Within the approximate boundaries of Lancaster City Council, Lancashire Lawn Manor Academy £9,000.00 Swindon (or Wiltshire if extended through the MAT) Lincolnshire Rural Support Network £85,918.00 Regionally, primarily in the area covered by Lincolnshire County Council Listening Place £51,000.00 London Mankind UK £224,830.71 Brighton and Hove Mental Health Foundation £110,636.00 Regional, but based in London Mental Health Innovations £625,000.00 Nationally, but based in London Mersey Counselling and Therapy Centre £42,657.00 Birkenhead and the surrounding area of the Liverpool City Region. LA is Wirral Merseyside Water Rescue £5,329.00 Liverpool Missing People £199,009.00 South-east, south-west, midlands, north-west and north-east; and adding seven new force areas—Bedfordshire, Humberside, Staffordshire, Kent, Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Essex Nafisiyat £79,068.00 North London Nai’s House CIO £23,050.00 Cherwell and Didcot National Suicide Prevention Alliance (hosted by Samaritans) £150,000.00 Nationally Nepacs (North East Prison After Care Society) £332,771.00 Regionally in North-east No Place Productions £23,602.00 Regionally (north-west). LAs covered are: Liverpool, Wigan, Fylde, Preston and Lancaster North Devon Against Domestic Abuse Limited £108,532.00 Devon Oakleaf Enterprise £8,645.00 Guildford and Waverley PAPYRUS Prevention Of Young Suicide £625,000.00 Regionally across the East of England (but with national reach) Penhaligon’s Friends £9,400.00 Cornwall Place2Be £399,916.00 Nationally—south-west England Roundabout Ltd £88,184.00 Sheffield Safeline Warwick £415,497.00 Nationally in England and locally in Warwickshire and Coventry SafeNet Domestic Abuse and Support Services £36,512.50 Regionally, throughout Lancashire and parts of Greater Manchester (Bury, Oldham, Rochdale borough councils) Saffron Sheffield Women’s Counselling and Therapy Service Limited (Saffron) £38,127.00 Sheffield Samaritans £530,000.00 Nationally Samaritans of Harrogate and District £8,500.00 Harrogate as well as regional/nationally SJOG (St John of God Hospitaller Services) £153,461.00 Tees Valley South Warwickshire and Worcestershire Mind Ltd £116,730.60 Warwickshire and Worcestershire County Councils St Giles Trust £194,912.00 Leeds, Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Wakefield St Paul’s Hostel £1,000.00 Worcestershire County Council and surroundings districts Stockport County Community Trust £16,800.00 Stockport Stockton and District Advice and Information Service £108,665.00 Regionally—Middlesbrough and Stockton-on-Tees Sunflowers Suicide Support £86,948.00 Regionally in Gloucestershire Survivors Of Bereavement By Suicide £50,434.00 Nationally Talk off the Record Youth Counselling Croydon £129,250.00 Regionally in London boroughs of Croydon, Merton and Sutton Teens in Crisis (TIC+) £100,054.65 Gloucestershire The Russ Devereux Headlight Project CIO £9,950.00 Tees Valley combined authority area The University of Warwick £8,690.11 Coventry/Warwickshire The Warren of Hull Ltd £123,371.00 Kingston upon Hull and East Riding of Yorkshire Council UK Men’s Sheds Association £143,608.00 North of England and East Midlands Warrington Youth Zone Limited £37,359.00 Regionally, across the Borough of Warrington We Hear You £90,000.00 Somerset, Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Wirral Mind £110,856.00 Merseyside, Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St Helens and Wirral Wolverhampton Suicide Prevention Stakeholder Forum Charitable Trust £8,000.00 Wolverhampton
I am pleased to today confirm the 79 successful organisations which have been awarded funding from the scheme. I would like to put on the record my thanks to all those organisations that applied, and for all the suicide prevention activity that is delivered on a daily basis, up and down the country.
The list of provisional awardees was published today at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/suicide-prevention-grant-fund-2023-to-2025 and can be found below.
The commitment is part of this Government’s plan to make health and care services faster, simpler and fairer.
I look forward to seeing the important and innovative activities that will follow as a result of this funding, in some of the most at-risk regions in England and to the groups who most need it. This is an important milestone in delivering the new “Suicide prevention strategy for England: 2023 to 2028” which we published in September 2023 and can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/suicide-prevention-strategy-for-england-2023-to-2028/suicide-prevention-in-england-5-year-cross-sector-strategy
The voluntary, community and social enterprise sector plays a critical role in providing support to people experiencing suicidal thoughts or approaching a mental health crisis, as well as intervening early to prevent people reaching these points. Ultimately, their work saves countless lives and this grant will help ensure that they can keep doing that.
This grant builds on the record sums of money this Government have invested to transform and expand NHS mental health services as well as the successes of a previous grant fund of £5.4 million in 2021-22. That fund supported over 100 voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations, with overwhelmingly positive results, including helping to address demand after the covid-19 pandemic, improving access to services for people in need, and helping identify those in need, quicker.
[HCWS308]
Access to Justice
(8 months ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)
The Government are announcing today that we will introduce legislation in this parliamentary Session that will address the impacts of the UK Supreme Court judgment in PACCAR, which concerned a claim against truck manufacturers regarding anti-competitive behaviour.
Third-party litigation funding enables people to get funding to bring big and complex claims against bigger, better-resourced corporations, which they could not otherwise afford.
The Supreme Court judgment in July 2023 rendered third-party litigation funding agreements unenforceable. Uncertainty around litigation funding risks a detrimental impact on the attractiveness of the England and Wales jurisdiction as a global hub for commercial litigation and arbitration, and on access to justice more broadly.
This Bill will enhance access to justice and the attractiveness of a thriving UK legal sector, which contributes over £34 billion per annum to the UK economy.
The Post Office Horizon scandal has also underlined the importance of third-party litigation funding, as the postmasters’ claim was only possible due to the backing of a litigation funder. This highlights a clear access to justice deficit which, without legislation to mitigate the impacts of the judgment in full, would continue indefinitely.
The new legislation, which will apply to all proceedings, will remove this risk and allow the Government to deliver a return to a funding regime which promotes access to justice, as well as enhancing the competitiveness of the jurisdiction.
[HCWS306]
Domestic Violence Refuges: Charities and Local Government
(8 months ago)
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Baroness Donaghy
To ask His Majesty’s Government what support they give to charities and local government to provide places of safety for women subject to domestic violence.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Scott of Bybrook) (Con)
The Government are committed to ensuring that all victims receive the support they need when they when they need it. Councils in England have a duty to provide support within safe accommodation to victims and their children under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. Since April 2021, the Government have provided more than £507 million to councils across the country, including £129.7 million for the years 2024-25. This will enable long-term commissioning decisions and give certainty to local providers such as specialist domestic abuse refuges.
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
I thank the Minister for her Answer. Noble Lords may have read an article in the weekend’s press about Kate Kniveton MP, formerly a wife of a former Minister. She has experienced domestic violence, and her words cut across a lot of the debate:
“After years of manipulation and denigration, you lose your self-worth and don’t think anyone will ever believe you”.
I mention that because this issue is without class: a lot of people do not have a choice about staying at home and within the danger area. Local government is financially on its knees, and the majority of charities turn away references. What will the Government do to improve this dire situation?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, the Government are supporting local authorities on this issue and they have given the money required, as I said. Yes, it is not good enough, so we have set up a national expert steering group, which is co-chaired by my colleague, Felicity Buchan, and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner. They will closely monitor this and have agreed a protocol to support further local authorities in meeting their duty of requirement. So, we are on the case.
Lord Laming (CB)
Can the Minister make sure that that steering group gives particular attention to the children who accompany these unfortunate women? For a child to be brought up in a home where there is domestic violence is a dreadful start to life. Can special thought be given to their needs?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
The noble Lord is absolutely right. I remember that, many years ago when I was in local government, children used to sit in the corner and nobody took any notice of them. Those things have changed. Of course, some victims of domestic abuse are children, in addition to the females—or males, depending on who is being abused.
Lord Porter of Spalding (Con)
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the register of interests. Does my noble friend agree that local government needs not so much a duty as praise for what it does? Most councillors across the country take this issue very seriously: it is not something they need to be compelled to do, but something they choose to do. If we are really going to tackle this scourge, we need other parts of government to treat it as seriously as local government does. Such offenders should be dealt with much more heavily, not by the local government team but by people in 2 Marsham Street.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My noble friend is absolutely right, and I thank all local authorities for everything they do. Interestingly, nearly 75% of local authorities say that they are spending more and doing much more than they did a few years ago in this regard. That is great, and I thank them for what they are doing. Yes, we should be supporting them and not always knocking them.
Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)
My Lords, four out of 10 local authorities are facing bankruptcy within the next five years and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, said, even statutory services, including the provision of refuges, are already being cut to the bone, despite increasing demand. Women’s Aid research found that 61% of applicants for accommodation-based refuge are being turned away. Does the Minister agree that this failure to meet increasing demand now will not only put women’s lives at risk but leave public services with even more problems to deal with down the line?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, in the last couple of months we have given £600 million extra to local authorities because we understand the pressures they are under. We are keeping an eye on those pressures, and we encourage all local authorities which have difficulties with their budgets to talk to us early on, so that we can work with them. Local authority budgets have been increased by 7.5% this year, and as my noble friend said, local authorities prioritise domestic abuse victims in their budgeting.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a founder and patron of Survivors Against Domestic Abuse. Last Thursday, my honourable friend Jess Phillips read out in the other place—as she does every year—the names of 98 women killed as a result of violence over the last year: a heartbreaking tribute to lives broken and lost to violence. After every case of domestic homicide, we are told that lessons will be learned. Does the Minister agree that providing safe spaces to live for women who flee violence—a project we started in Stevenage, and which now provides 35 homes across Hertfordshire—is vital? However, it is in serious danger of being stopped because such local authority spending is discretionary. Will she meet with me to hear more about this work?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I would be more than happy to meet the noble Baroness to learn about that, and I thank her for everything she is doing in her county. As recently as this weekend, we heard so much about violence against women. The Home Office is taking this issue extremely seriously and a large amount of money is going into extra police training, particularly on tackling domestic abuse. Some £3.3 million has been committed over the next three years to support delivery of Domestic Abuse Matters training to police officers. Let us hope that this changes things.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)
My Lords, as the Minister says, there is currently no sign of domestic abuse being overcome and things changing, and recent reviews of serious cases are really quite scary. This is not just about local authorities, which are doing a good job but are cash strapped, but charities. A number of seriously good and important charities in this arena have nearly or actually gone bust. Action against Violence and Abuse, a major charity that worked with women who had experienced violence and abuse, and which supported them in a range of ways, went out of business last month for no other reason than it could not raise sufficient funds. Will the Minster discuss this issue with other Ministers? The situation is now very serious: such charities cannot be funded to continue their work, and that will have serious consequences for the women involved.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
The charitable sector is a really important partner in this. That has been noted in the amount of money given to police and crime commissioners to tackle this issue, part of which is spent with charities, other stakeholders and community groups. This Government have supported charities through this very difficult crisis, in particular with energy costs. We are totally committed to supporting the charitable sector on not only this issue but others, and we will do everything we can to do so because it is an important part of delivery.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Commission on Forced Marriage. Will the Minister please remember that forced marriage is also domestic violence in many cases?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I absolutely accept that. We need to keep that in mind when we look at domestic violence.
Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Con)
My Lords, one of the places where abusers encounter their victims is the online world. Does my noble friend agree that it is important that her department considers funding for charities offering online support to victims, including the excellent Revenge Porn Helpline?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, we always need to consider the way in which the world is moving forward. Abuse moves with it, so we must keep considering the online world as technology and people’s lives change.
Ukrainians: Visas and Further Support
(8 months ago)
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Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to extend visas for Ukrainians which are due to expire after 3 years, and what further support they intend to provide to Ukrainians in the United Kingdom.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)
My Lords, to provide future certainty, on 18 February the Government announced that existing Ukraine scheme visa holders will be able to apply for permission to remain in the UK for an additional 18 months under a new Ukraine permission extension scheme, which is set to open in early 2025 before the first Ukraine scheme visas start to expire in March 2025.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, I had the honour of being a Minister involved in the Bosnian resettlement scheme in 1996. I am very grateful to my noble friend for that Answer and commend the Government on their actions to offer sanctuary to so many Ukrainians. I also pay tribute to the many families and organisations under the Homes for Ukraine scheme who have hosted and helped those displaced people, including colleagues in this House and Members of the other place. However, the visas granted envisaged a shorter conflict than the one we unfortunately have, so will my noble friend assure the House that everything will be done to make necessary renewals as straightforward and stress-free as possible for those currently in receipt of our hospitality?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I thank my noble friend for those remarks and join him in praising the generosity of the British public over the three bespoke Ukraine schemes. The UK has welcomed or offered sanctuary to more than 280,000 Ukrainians and their families fleeing the war in Ukraine. Together with our partners and allies, the Government stand in solidarity with Ukraine and will show that those who need our help are still warmly welcomed. It is right that we continue to adapt and develop the visa routes to ensure that they keep pace with the rapidly shifting situation in Ukraine, remaining as efficient and sustainable as possible while providing stability for those welcomed to the UK who need our sanctuary. We will ensure that this is done as efficiently as possible.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, will the Minister assure us that all those being helped by this scheme will be assisted until it is safe to go home and that, whatever the rollout may be, a further scheme will be found? That is probably the assurance they need, and this country should give it.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
The noble Lord raises a very good point. Of course, it is not for this Government to judge the certainty of conflict situations, which are very difficult to manage. However, I have no doubt that the Government will do whatever is necessary to maintain the current sanctuary that this country proudly offers.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My Lords, I too pay tribute to all the families who have taken Ukrainians into their homes. Under the new changes to the Ukraine family scheme, unaccompanied children will no longer be able to join their parents in Britain automatically. Does the Minister think that restricting family rights at a time when Ukrainian troops are under heavy fire in Donetsk sends the right message to the people of Ukraine about our willingness to stand by them?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I rather regret the tone of that question if I am honest. Ultimately, of course we would like to see families reunited in a safe Ukraine. The UK’s Ukraine schemes are not family reunification pathways. They are designed to provide temporary sanctuary in the UK for Ukrainians fleeing war. Ukrainian nationals who would have qualified under the Ukraine family scheme will still be able to apply under Homes for Ukraine. The Home Secretary will obviously consider any compelling and compassionate grounds that are presented on a case-by-case basis; for example, where families will be separated from young children. Plenty of routes still exist for family reunification in the UK, even though, as I said earlier, they are not reunification pathways.
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, I am aware of a Ukrainian lady who is harboured here in the United Kingdom, whose husband remains in Ukraine, and who has sadly had a return of a cancer from which she was previously in remission. She is not just grateful for but indeed overwhelmed by the help and treatment that she has received here in the UK. Does the Minister agree that while there is absolutely no room for complacency, we should be very proud of what this country has done in supporting the Ukrainians?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I completely agree with the noble and gallant Lord. Although I obviously cannot comment on individual cases, I wish the lady in question the very best, and I hope that she is reunified with her husband in due course.
UK Population Growth
(8 months ago)
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Lord Moylan
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the recent forecast by the Office for National Statistics that between 2021 and 2036 the UK population will grow by 9.9 per cent, to 73.7 million persons.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)
My Lords, the UK population is projected to increase by 6.6 million, or 9.9%, by mid-2036. Of the total projected increase, 0.5 million is projected to result from the higher number of births than deaths, and 6.1 million from net international migration. The projections make no attempt to account for the impact of future policy on population movements or behaviours.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, as my noble friend confirms, over 92% of the projected increase is expected to arise from net migration and is therefore a political choice. The answer I was rather hoping for from my noble friend was that the Government would take steps in terms of policy to ensure that that figure did not, in fact, eventuate, or at least would be permitted to do so only after the most careful consultation with public opinion, and after preparation of a robust plan for providing the infrastructure and housing necessary to sustain it. Would my noble friend like to have another go and see whether she can force words along those lines through her lips?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
The Government have made it quite clear that the most recent immigration figures are much too high, and that of course causes problems of the kind that my noble friend has suggested in areas such as housing. However, we have taken actions that are expected to lead to a significant fall in the number of dependants, and from tightening financial requirements—a fall of about 300,000 on last year’s figures. Some come in in January, some in March and some in April. When they fully take effect on the ONS figures—which will not be until the end of the year, at the earliest—we can of course take another look.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, of the proposed increase, how many are going to be asylum seekers?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
The projections do not break the individual categories down in that way. They are, as the noble Lord probably knows, put together by expert panels and they are projections. They look quite a lot at the last 10 years, as well as at what else might be happening. I emphasise the point that they do not attempt to account for the impact of future policy changes.
Lord Green of Deddington (CB)
My Lords, the figures show that immigration will account for 92% of our population increase in the next 15 years. That is five times the population of Birmingham, our own second-largest city. Furthermore, in the 20 years since the 2001 census, the Muslim population of England and Wales has more than doubled from 1.6 million to 3.9 million. These are very large numbers and, if that rate were to continue, it would surely have a considerable impact on social cohesion. When will the Government face up to the situation and take effective action to reduce the scale of immigration, which is having such a massive, unspoken impact on our society?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I thank the noble Lord. As I have explained, the Government are clear that the immigration figures are too high and have taken a series of actions, including stopping care workers bringing dependants, limiting the dependants coming in as the families of non-PhD or research-based students, changing the minimum income for family visas and increasing the earnings threshold. These changes will take time to have an effect, but the noble Lord is of course right to point to the changes that have happened over the last few years and produced an unacceptable situation.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, looking at the figures, we know that we are all living longer and that the number of people reaching the age of 100 has doubled since 2002 and will continue to do so. Has any analysis been done on the number of doctors, nurses, care workers and teachers who will be required to look after us?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
The analysis by the ONS does not go into that, but we have published the long-term workforce plan for the NHS, which has been accompanied by the largest ever injection into various things such as NHS scanners. Our plan is to recruit and train more doctors and nurses in Britain, which will be supported by over £2 billion over the next five years. Indeed, some of the immigration is NHS workers who have come to help the country deal with its problems.
Lord Swire (Con)
My Lords, one of the reasons we are told that we are witnessing record levels of net immigration—745,000 in 2022—is that there are currently 900,000 job vacancies in this country, but UK unemployment is at an almost record historic low of 3.8%. It seems to me that the problem is that there are now 5.6 million people in this country on out-of-work benefits and an alarming 4,000 new applications for those benefits every single day. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that that is neither desirable nor sustainable?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
The figure for June 2023 was actually down to 672,000 people, but my noble friend is right to point to the problem of underemployment. The focus of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in changing the benefits system and helping people into work is to improve skills so that everybody in this country who can possibly do a job has one, because that is very much related to contentment and happiness—certainly in my own experience. It is a very important area of work that this Government have truly underlined.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
My Lords, as we have heard, the UK population is increasing, but it is also ageing, with a declining proportion of the population now of working age. There were just over 600,000 live births in England and Wales in 2022, which was a 3.1% decrease from the previous year and the lowest number for 20 years. That means that the current UK fertility rate is about 1.5 children per woman, the lowest since records began in 1939. Does the Minister agree with Professor Jonathan Portes from King’s College, who said that
“the impact of the housing crisis on young couples, sharp cuts to financial support for low income families, and access to childcare are all likely factors”?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
The interesting thing about the fertility figure, which the noble Baroness rightly mentioned, is that it is partly about people delaying when they have children and partly linked to the factors that she mentioned, including housing. So a priority for us is attacking housing by making more housing available for young people, which is very difficult. The fertility rates are themselves a problem, but not one that is confined to the UK; I used to work a lot in Korea, where fertility rates are horrifically low.
Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Con)
Does my noble friend the Minister agree that international students make an enormous contribution to our knowledge economy and ideally should be included in our net migration statistics only when they indicate an intention to immigrate post study via the graduate route or via application to the skilled worker route, and should otherwise be thought of as temporary residents or tourists—as Canada and the US treat them—with whom they share many characteristics?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
The figures are broken down in some of the analysis that has been done by the ONS. Of course, the ONS is independent and impartial, which is an important strength. On students, it is important that the number of dependants coming into the UK should be limited, although we do understand that those who are going to stay in the UK to do PhDs and so on need to have dependants contributing to our country and our economy.
Lord Londesborough (CB)
My Lords, the uncomfortable truth is that our economy appears to be incapable of growing without onboarding some 300,000 migrant workers each year. Even then, we are talking about miserly growth and, worse still, zero GDP growth per capita. Does the Minister agree that, until we tackle our abysmal productivity rates, such population growth is here to stay?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I agree that we must tackle our abysmal productivity rates. It is something I have focused on, I have to say, since long before I came to this House. There are things that we can do with skills. I look forward to the Budget on Wednesday and hope that the word “productivity” will feature in the speech by the Chancellor.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, the Minister said a little while ago that net immigration figures were much too high. She went on to say that the Government were taking action. Yet today’s Times reports a surge in foreign candidates for teaching jobs that Britain cannot fill. Why are the Government not capable of training more UK teachers? This would suggest that the effort is not behind teacher training for UK residents.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I saw that piece as well and I was pleased to see teachers coming in specialisms such as physics, where it is very difficult to get people to come into teaching at the sort of salaries that are on offer. Of course, the Government have made a big investment in trying to get more people into teaching. Whenever people come to me for careers advice and say that one of their alternatives is to be a teacher, I say, “Go and be a teacher and don’t think about any other options”.
Horizon Scandal: Psychological Support Services
(8 months ago)
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Lord Dobbs
To ask His Majesty’s Government what programmes are in place or are planned to ensure the families of sub-postmasters affected by the Horizon scandal have access to appropriate psychological support services.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Scotland Office (Lord Offord of Garvel) (Con)
Support for postmasters and postmistresses is provided when needed as part of the compensation offer; for example, money to fund cognitive behavioural therapy. There are no programmes in place for the families of sub-postmasters affected by the Horizon scandal. Claimants can claim for the wide-ranging impacts on their lives. This can be larger due to witnessing the wider impact on their family members. We recognise that seeing family members suffer, as many of these families have done, has been traumatic.
Lord Dobbs (Con)
I thank my noble friend for his Answer and pay tribute to the very hard work that he and his colleagues are putting into this issue.
Going back to the issue of family, particularly children, is my noble friend aware of the story of Millie-Jo Castleton, who wrote to the public inquiry detailing the extraordinary, terrible time that she has had during this terrible saga? She has been abused, marginalised, isolated, spat at in the street and told that she comes from a family of liars and criminals. Inevitably, her health has suffered tremendously. She was eight when this terrible saga started. She is now in her late 20s. I understand the accounting principles behind my noble friend’s Answer but it is accounting principles that got us here in the first place. Is it still not possible to weave into those accounting principles some compassion and common sense, and hold out some additional psychological and emotional support to those poor people such as Millie-Jo Castleton?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank my noble friend for highlighting the case of Lee Castleton, which was well presented in the drama and is one of the most egregious of the cases before us. Like my noble friend, I have read Millie-Jo’s submission. It is harrowing and difficult to read, on any level, not just because of the personal abuse and distress for her, but because of the amount of time that this has taken and how it has completely impacted her life.
Where we are with the compensation scheme is that 78% of claims have now been met. That is 2,249 postmasters out of 2,988. We are now dealing with the most difficult and egregious cases, of which Lee Castleton’s is one. They need time to put their claims together, with the help of their therapists and healthcare workers, to assess the full damage to their family. We will work through that with them, case by case.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
My Lords, sub-postmasters in Northern Ireland are, so far, not eligible for the legislation that would exonerate them. What discussions have taken place with the Northern Ireland Executive to bring forward legislation to ensure that sub-postmasters will be eligible for that exoneration legislation at a very early opportunity? I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, that many sub-postmasters in Northern Ireland have suffered in the most egregious way. They need relief at a very early opportunity.
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. Obviously, Northern Ireland has a separate legal system, as does Scotland. The legislation coming before the House is immediately pertinent to England and Wales, and covers around 770 of the 983 convictions. There are live and active discussions with the legal systems in both Northern Ireland and Scotland, which are being helped considerably by the Executive sitting again in Northern Ireland. Both those jurisdictions need to be respected and we will work at speed to get the right treatment across the United Kingdom while respecting the different legal jurisdictions.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, with the Budget this coming Wednesday, I repeat the question that I asked the Minister last week and asked the noble Earl, Lord Howe, in the debate on the Victims and Prisoners Bill. Where in the Green Book would I find details of the £1 billion compensation? Is it in the Treasury or another department? I cannot find it anywhere at all. If the Minister does not have the answer at his fingertips, please will he write to me urgently with it?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for her question, which we have discussed in this House. It may not be in the Green Book specifically, but it is clearly in the Treasury’s books. The money is there to be paid in compensation. The Government have given assurances on that; there will be no wriggling back. I am very happy to write with any further details required, but I say from the Dispatch Box that, as far as the Government are concerned, all commitments will be made to the postmistresses and postmasters.
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)
My Lords, these are the words of the department in 2022:
“While seeking evidence from relevant witnesses, the inquiry is keen that such participation should not intensify or create psychological distress”.
Does the Minister not agree that the whole sorry fiasco has done nothing but intensify or create psychological distress, due to the complexity of the different compensation schemes; the continued obsession of Post Office Ltd with defending many of its practices; the time taken to get us here, near to quashing convictions; and the fact that no Post Office board member or senior manager has been held to account? I encourage the Minister to do everything necessary to speed up, first, the remaining compensation payments and, secondly, the legislation to quash all convictions. We stand ready to support and work with the Minister on that.
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for that. As far as parliamentary business is concerned, it is planned to have the legislation go through both Houses and have it all done by the Summer Recess. That is in process, and there are more announcements to follow shortly. In relation to the claims, as I have said before, 78% of claims are now settled, and compensation has been paid to 93% of postmasters, some on an interim basis. As I said in the Chamber last week, we can go only as quickly as we receive the claims. We are at the most difficult end of the claims now. For example, with the GLO 477, we have had 58 claims, of which we have settled 41. We can go only as quickly as the claims come in, and we have guaranteed that we will work to get 90% cleared within 40 working days.
Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board. I am troubled by the Answer my noble friend has given, because how can a family member, as opposed to the sub-postmaster themselves, claim for compensation or psychological help? Many of these families have broken up. Does my noble friend agree that the mere fact that there may be a lot of family members entitled to help or compensation should not of itself be a reason for denying them that help or compensation?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank my noble friend. I once again pay tribute to his continual scrutiny of this matter, and his vital role on the advisory committee. Currently, the compensation is directed to each claimant—a postmaster or postmistress—but the whole point of having the advisory committee is to have live discussions on this. I encourage him, in that capacity, to keep those discussions going.
Lord Sikka (Lab)
My Lords, last week I met several wronged sub-postmasters, most of whom were earning barely the minimum wage. They have been wronged by Ministers, senior civil servants, lawyers, Post Office directors and investigators, and executives at Fujitsu. Can the Minister explain what legal advice and financial help the Government have so far given, or will give, the wronged sub-postmasters to enable them to bring the culprits to justice?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for that question. As I have said before from the Dispatch Box, there is help available as part of the compensation schemes for the claimants, to put their claims together and get access to lawyers and healthcare. As I said, 78% of claims have been settled. We are now dealing with the most difficult claims. In the meantime, there is a statutory inquiry going ahead, which will get to the bottom of this, and we will understand the full extent of how this sorry saga came about.
Lord Sahota (Lab)
My Lords, I am sorry to hear the Minister say that there is no help available for mental health issues. These are the facts on the ground; I have spoken to quite a few Asian sub-postmasters, and they all said they have had some form of mental health issue—either them or their families. The reason they do not come out is because mental health has a stigma attached to it; this is why they are not talking about it. I humbly ask the Government to look into this issue, especially among Asian sub-postmasters, who do not want even to talk about it—yet they do have a problem, and quite a few of them admitted it to me.
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank the noble Lord. He has detailed knowledge of his community, who serve us all so well, and who have suffered, in some cases, some terrible racism as well. The point we have to make is a communication issue. There is absolutely no stigma to this whatever; people who have been through this trauma have undoubtedly been harmed, and we must encourage everyone in our communities, wherever they are, to come forward with a claim.
Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill
(8 months ago)
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Lord Offord of Garvel
That the amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order:
Clauses 1 to 36, Schedule 1, Clauses 37 to 57, Schedule 2, Clauses 58 to 125, Schedule 3, Clauses 126 to 128, Schedule 4, Clause 129, Schedule 5, Clause 130, Schedule 6, Clauses 131 to 137, Schedule 7, Clause 138, Schedule 8, Clauses 139 to 143, Schedules 9 to 11, Clause 144, Schedule 12, Clause 145, Schedule 13, Clauses 146 to 150, Schedules 14 to 15, Clauses 151 to 208, Schedule 16, Clauses 209 to 214, Schedule 17, Clause 215, Schedule 18, Clauses 216 to 224, Schedule 19, Clauses 225 to 250, Schedule 20, Clauses 251 to 254, Schedule 21, Clause 255, Schedule 22, Clauses 256 to 283, Schedule 23, Clauses 284 to 294, Schedule 24, Clauses 295 to 300, Schedule 25, Clauses 301 to 308, Schedule 26, Clauses 309 to 324, Schedule 27, Clauses 325 to 326, Schedule 28, Clauses 327 to 339, Title.
Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill
Monday 4th March 2024
(8 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 View all Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 41-R-II Second marshalled list for Report - (4 Mar 2024)
16:32 - Division on Amendment 2 - Ayes: 274 / Noes: 172 - Amendment 2 agreed.
17:39 - Division on Amendment 4 - Ayes: 282 / Noes: 180 - Amendment 4 agreed.
17:56 - Division on Amendment 7 - Ayes: 277 / Noes: 167 - Amendment 7 agreed.
18:54 - Division on Amendment 9 - Ayes: 258 / Noes: 171 - Amendment 9 agreed.
19:07 - Division on Amendment 12 - Ayes: 260 / Noes: 169 - Amendment 12 agreed.
Baroness Chakrabarti
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential to the amendment at Clause 1, page 1, line 5, in the name of Baroness Chakrabarti, to add the purpose of compliance with the rule of law to that of deterrence.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, after such a thorough Committee, which showed this House—if not the Government or their flagship policy—in the best light, I will be brief and urge others to do the same. This way, those seeking important votes will avoid self-harming delay and highlight any deliberate filibustering by others.
My amendments in this group, shared with the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale of Richmond, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, would add the purpose of compliance with the international and domestic rule of law to deterrence in Clause 1. They require actual evidence of real implementation of the Rwanda treaty before that country is presumed safe, and only that this be presented by government to Parliament. That is all. I have revised my approach after the suggestion by the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne, that initial decisions be in Parliament’s accountable hands, rather than those of others. While still finding the forced transportation of human cargo completely repugnant, I note my noble friend Lord Blunkett’s distinction between offshoring and offloading by ensuring that those granted asylum be returned to the UK under the treaty.
These are wholly reasonable amendments, but if the Government still cannot accept them, I will urge my noble friend Lord Coaker to test the opinion of the House on his single requirement, respecting the rule of law, which is surely completely incontrovertible for those, such as the Prime Minister, who now claim to be liberal patriots. That was two minutes. I beg to move.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, I begin by saying how much I regret the death of my noble friend Lord Cormack. He was a great friend of mine and a close colleague for more than 40 years in the House of Commons and here. He was also a very close Lincolnshire neighbour, and he rendered great service to the city and county. He was a very considerable parliamentarian, and I know that he intended to participate in these debates. He would have made a significant contribution. His is a very great loss.
I hope I will be forgiven if I remind your Lordships that, for the reasons I expressed at Second Reading and in Committee, I am a root and branch opponent of the Bill. In my view, many of its provisions are objectionable in principle. Moreover, I do not think it will achieve its intended policy objective: to deter illegal migration across the channel.
However, I recognise that the Government are determined to have this Bill, so our purpose at this stage should be to address some of its more objectionable characteristics. It is in this spirit that I address the amendments in this group and adopt the approach of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. I can and I will support any of the substantive amendments included in this group that are moved to a Division. However, I especially commend to your Lordships Amendment 3 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, which I have signed.
One of the Bill’s great deficiencies is that it purports to describe Rwanda as presently a safe country when both the Supreme Court and this House have decided otherwise. The Government rely on the treaty as being sufficient evidence of present safety. In my view, that is clearly not a sustainable position. It is possible that Rwanda will become a safe country—that is, when the treaty is ratified, when its provisions have been implemented, when the infrastructure is in place and working, and if the country’s culture has changed. That may all happen in the future; it has not happened yet. On any view, it will require assessment.
Proposed new subsections (1B) and (1C) in the noble Baroness’s Amendment 3 are designed to provide a mechanism for such an assessment. The amendment provides that the initiative lies with the Secretary of State. That takes account of the observations my noble friend Lord Howard of Lympne made at Second Reading, when he stressed the importance of proper democratic accountability. The amendment ensures just that. I commend Amendment 3 to the House. However, if others in this group are the subject of Divisions, I shall support them.
Baroness D’Souza (CB)
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 10 and 43 in this group. I remain concerned about the potential constitutional fallout from this Bill, despite what my noble friend Lord Hannay has referred to as a “sterile” issue. There must be a reference to its remarkable impact on vital constitutional elements, such as the rule of law, the separation of powers and parliamentary sovereignty. Although these are probing amendments, such is the gravity of these possible consequences that they surely deserve to be noted, if not in the Bill then at least in the record of its passage.
The Supreme Court has stated unequivocally in a former judgment:
“The courts will treat with particular suspicion … any attempt to subvert the rule of law by removing governmental action affecting the rights of the individual from all judicial scrutiny”.
In this Bill, the Government are doing just this by writing into law a demonstrably false statement—that Rwanda is a safe country to receive asylum seekers—thereby forcing all courts to treat Rwanda as a safe country despite clear findings of fact.
It is clear that the Bill subverts the rule of law, the key elements of which are abiding by international law, equality before the law, respect for fundamental human rights and guaranteeing access to the courts. These rights are negated by this Bill, and as such it is a legal fiction. The longer-term impacts might be considerable—for example, could the Supreme Court in future rule, with any authority, a Prorogation unlawful?
The Bill in its present form enjoins all relevant courts and officials to deem Rwanda a safe country and specifically disallows any rational challenge by the courts. In Committee the noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Nottingham, expressed the hope that there will be a challenge, thereby enabling the Supreme Court to strike the Bill down as unconstitutional. Should this happen, a review of the Bill’s impact on the rule of law in the UK would prove invaluable evidence.
The Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich
My Lords, I shall speak in favour of Amendments 1, 3 and 5 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, to which I have added my name. I do not believe that we can enshrine in law a statement of fact without seeing and understanding the evidence that shows such a statement to be true, in particular when such a statement of fact is so contentious and for which the evidence may change. Ignoring for a second the strange absurdity of such declarations, we must also consider the real impact that this could have on the potentially vulnerable people whom the Government intend to send to Rwanda. As my most reverend friend the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is in his place, said at Second Reading,
“in almost every tradition of global faith and humanism around the world, the dignity of the individual is at the heart of what is believed”.—[Official Report, 29/1/24, col. 1014.]
Sending those who seek refuge in the UK to a country of questionable safety does not respect this dignity, so I support amendments that require further evidence of the safety of Rwanda before anyone is sent there.
Lord German (LD)
My Lords, we support all the amendments in this group. It is absolutely critical that domestic and international law is complied with. This should not be up for debate. It is who we are. It is what we stand for. If we seek to deviate from our domestic and international legal obligations, our role on the world stage and our ability to have influence globally is significantly diminished. We cannot shy away from the consequential impact this will have on other countries choosing to follow suit. As the United Nations Human Rights Council put it last Friday,
“international standards on the independence of the judiciary are closely linked to the rule of law and the separation of powers. ‘Provisions of the Rwanda Bill could undermine the principles of the separation of powers and the rule of law in the United Kingdom’”.
That is sufficient for us to support all these amendments.
Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)
My Lords, I begin by associating myself with the remarks of my noble friend Lord Hailsham about the late Lord Cormack. I cannot add anything to what my noble friend said, but it is entirely true that Lord Cormack is a great loss and we shall all miss him tremendously.
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and my noble friend for their references to my earlier intervention in these debates. I am not sure that the further interpretation that they place on my intervention is entirely justified or that I would entirely go along with it, but that is perhaps a matter for debate at a later stage.
The amendments in this group are all based on respect for the rule of law. A critical part of respect for the rule of law is the separation of powers, something much referred to in our earlier debates, and it is to that subject that I propose to address these remarks. As Anthony Speaight KC reminds us in his recent Politeia pamphlet, there is no such thing as the absolute separation of legislature, executive and judicial powers in our constitutional arrangements. Our Executive are rooted in our legislature and in any event, as Mr Speaight and others have pointed out, there are precedents for this legislation—for the proposition that Parliament can deem certain countries to be safe—including the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004, passed under the Blair Government. The principle in that legislation was challenged in the case of Nasseri but was upheld by the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords. That, of course, is essentially what this Bill does: it deems Rwanda to be a safe country.
However, there is an even broader principle that is relevant here and is at the root of why this legislation is necessary. We have traditionally recognised the separation of powers between the Executive and the judiciary. That principle can be expressed in the proposition that decision-making is the responsibility of the Executive, but that the courts have the responsibility to review the lawfulness of those decisions.
That responsibility of the courts is what we know as judicial review. Its scope has been expanded greatly in recent years in ways which have not found universal approval but its principle is accepted as an important part of our constitutional arrangements. However, judicial review does not involve the courts substituting their own decisions for those of the Executive. It involves, in essence, an assessment of whether it was reasonable for the Executive to make the decision in question.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, that is a very interesting speech but what we are being asked to do here is to vote on an opinion. The noble Lord knows that most of us do not agree with that opinion. I will speak on the Bill only once today. I am deeply offended that it was ever brought to us. It is a mess of a Bill; it is illegal and nonsensical.
We in your Lordships’ House are being asked to indulge in pointless chatter for the whole day, and for another day. It is pointless chatter because, whatever we say, the Government will not listen to us. This is partly fuelled by the Labour Front Bench, which seems to be rewriting the Salisbury convention that we do not try to stop anything in the Government’s manifesto. In fact, the Labour Front Bench is now suggesting—it has been articulated on numerous occasions—that the Lords must not interfere with any legislation or decision by the Government or the Commons because they are elected and we are not. Then what is the point of your Lordships’ House?
The point is that we have centuries, possibly millennia, of experience and knowledge. We had the opportunity to stop this foolish Bill, but the Labour Front Bench decided that we would not and whipped its members to abstain. That is an abnegation of their responsibility, and I am horrified by it. It grieves me that they might win the election and then behave in the same way. I think they are hoping that the current Government are going to respond in kind and not block any Bills, but that is a false hope.
We Greens will vote for any amendments that come up today, but, quite honestly, we are wasting our time.
Lord Green of Deddington (CB)
My Lords, I shall be extremely brief. Some important points have been made, but I want to focus on the exact drafting of Amendment 3, which is clearly central and what the vote will be about. The puzzling aspect is that new subsection (1B) makes the condition that
“the Secretary of State has considered all relevant evidence … and is satisfied that the Republic of Rwanda is a safe country for the processing of asylum and humanitarian protection claims”.
Fine, no problem, but then it goes on to say:
“before successful claimants are returned to the United Kingdom by request of the Secretary of State under Article 11(1) of the Rwanda Treaty”.
I have looked at Article 11(1), and it does not say that. It says:
“The United Kingdom may make a request for the return of a Relocated Individual”.
Paragraph 12(c) of the Explanatory Notes describes that as a response
“to the Supreme Court judgment by … Creating a mechanism for the UK to require the return of a Relocated Individual”.
Which is it? Does this provide for the Secretary of State to bring people back or, as the noble Baroness implied, is that the outcome that is the purpose of the whole thing? I think that is the case, but the language needs to be cleaned up, or perhaps the noble Baroness would confirm it so that we know what we are voting for.
Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)
My Lords, I begin by paying tribute to my old friend Lord Cormack, whom I knew for 60 years. I first met him when I was fighting the then ultrasafe Labour seat of Mansfield and he was fighting the ultrasafe Labour seat of Bassetlaw next door in the 1964 election. From that time, he was a very good personal friend of mine for well over 50 years in Parliament, when we both got there on a rather better basis for our political careers. He was an extremely good man. It has to be admitted that he was always regarded as speaking too much in the Commons and the Lords, as he was always forthright in his views, but that rather ignores the fact that overwhelmingly he spoke very sensibly and extremely well, and the principles that guided him throughout his political career were extremely sound. We will all miss him.
I will not repeat the arguments that I have made previously. I just acknowledge that my noble friend Lord Hailsham has made a speech every word of which I agree with. The Government are in an impossible position. Another good personal friend, my noble friend Lord Howard, made a brilliant attempt to defend that position and to try to demonstrate that the Bill is compatible with the things that he holds as dear as I do—the rule of law and the separation of powers—but I fear that he fails. His arguments might apply if we were talking here about a matter of political judgment on a given set of facts that the Government were making a policy decision about. However, the Bill is solely about asserting a fact as a fact regardless of any evidence, and regardless of the fact that five Supreme Court judges unanimously considered that evidence and came to the conclusion, which is not too surprising, that Rwanda is not a safe country.
I cannot recall a precedent in my time where a Government of any complexion have produced a Bill which asserts a matter of fact—facts to be fact. It then goes on to say that it should be regarded legally as a fact interminably, until and unless the Bill is changed, and that no court should even consider any question of the facts being otherwise. It is no good blaming the Human Rights Act; I do not believe that it was in any way probable that the British courts were going to come to any other conclusion. If the Labour Party allows this Bill to go through, I very much hope there will be a legal challenge. The Supreme Court will consider it objectively again, obviously, but it is likely that it will strike it down again as incompatible with the constitutional arrangements which we prize so much in this country. I too will be supporting any of the amendments in this group as introduced. It is a very important principle that we are seeking to restore.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I will be brief, but I would like to associate myself with the remarks of the noble Lords, Lord Clarke of Nottingham and Lord Howard of Lympne, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, concerning Patrick Cormack, who was a dear friend of many of us. He was kindness itself to me when I became a Member of another place in 1979 and there were many issues on which we worked with one another, not least those around Northern Ireland. He did great service in uniting people around a complex and very difficult question during the years that really mattered. We were in touch with one another in writing just two weeks before his death. He had gone back to Lincoln to care for his wife Mary; he was deeply troubled about how ill she was, but he hoped soon to be back in his place. We will all miss him not being in his place and contributing to your Lordships’ House.
I would like to put just two points to the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, or to his noble and learned friend Lord Stewart, whoever will reply on behalf of the Government. I put a question during Committee concerning the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, on which I serve. I asked the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, at that stage whether, before we considered this Bill on Report, we would have a proper reply from the Government to that Select Committee report. It is deeply troubling that there has been no reply and deeply troubling that Select Committees, not least one that is a Joint Committee of both Houses, can give a view about this Bill, specifically around the question of safety, and in a majority report say that it does not believe it right to say that Rwanda is a safe place to repatriate refugees to, yet not to have a response to those findings before your Lordships are asked to vote on amendments on Report. That is my first point.
My second point also concerns safety—the safety of our reputation as well. I was troubled to read in reports over the weekend that £1.8 million will be spent for each and every asylum seeker for the first 300 who are to be deported. That was described by the chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee in another place as a staggering figure. The Home Office declined to give information about it because of what it said was commercial confidentiality. I cannot believe that such a lame reply would be given, and I do not expect the Ministers to use that excuse when they come to reply today. It is not right for Parliament to be asked to take awesome decisions that will affect the lives of ordinary people, and to do so without giving all the facts being given to Parliament first.
I simply say that I have been reading the magnificent book East West Street by Philippe Sands KC. When we consider the way in which this country responded at that time to people such as Philippe Sands’ family, who had fled from Lviv, in what is now Ukraine, and when we consider the generosity of spirit and the response from people in both Houses of Parliament and all political traditions, that seems to contrast sadly—dismally—with how we are responding at this time through the Bill. I hope the Ministers will be able to reply to my points.
Lord Lilley (Con)
My Lords, I have listened to and read the debates so far with great respect. They have been dominated by distinguished noble Lords who are lawyers, and I am not. I want to raise two questions of fact and ask those noble lawyers, and indeed the distinguished prelates, why they have not mentioned them until now.
The first point has just been mentioned by my noble friend Lord Howard. Contrary to what has been asserted many times—that Parliament cannot by law state whether or not a country is safe—in 2004 the Blair Government did just that. They introduced legislation which created an irrebuttable presumption that a number of listed countries were safe. It was subsequently tested in the courts and upheld. Why have none of the noble Lords who have asserted that we cannot do that mentioned and dealt with the fact that we have done it in the past?
The second factual point was raised by the noble Lord who spoke from the Lib Dem Benches. He said that, if we do this sort of thing in the Bill, which gives us the right to override international law and not necessarily to respond to decisions and demands of the European court, we will forfeit our respect and ability to influence people in the international arena. Why does he, and others who have made similar points, not mention the fact that the French Government have done just that? They have returned an asylum seeker to Uzbekistan despite the order of the European court that they should not, and despite even a ruling of the Conseil d’État that they should bring him back. Have they lost all respect in international fora? Have they lost any ability to influence public opinion internationally? Why does that not get mentioned in this place?
Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)
I cannot claim to remember this clearly, but did anybody challenge with evidence the earlier cases that my noble friend tries to cite as a precedent? If anybody had had evidence showing facts to be contrary to what was then laid down in statute, does my noble friend think it would have survived a challenge in today’s Supreme Court?
Lord Lilley (Con)
I cannot say what today’s Supreme Court would do, but the supreme courts of our country in those days did entertain a challenge. Greece, in particular, was not thought to be safe, and presumably they would not think now that France is safe. They upheld the right of the Executive to make those decisions and did not try to supersede them or consider evidence as to whether the accusations were correct.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
This is a different situation. Here we have the expression of opinion by the Supreme Court being displaced by the Government through legislation.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, I do not think it is relevant to cite France. The fact is that this country has a great reputation for upholding the rule of law and international law, and we play a great part across the world. This Bill is threatening that reputation and that role. France does not have that reputation or role, in my opinion.
Lord Lilley (Con)
I am not sure what the noble Baroness’s question to me is, but, as a great Francophile, I am sorry to hear her abuse the French nation in that way.
My noble friend said that this was different because the Supreme Court has expressed an opinion. Amendment 5 says that a purpose of the Bill should be to uphold the rule of law. As I understand it, the rule of law in this country for 1,000 years has meant that laws made and approved by our elected representatives are partially implemented by the courts, and all of us—citizens, public officials, Ministers and police, and even lawyers and bishops—are subject to those laws. If we do not like the law, we can try to persuade our elected representatives to change it. If Parliament feels that the courts have interpreted laws in a way that Parliament did not intend or that is out of line with the values and interests of the public who elect it, Parliament can change the law. That is what we are doing. We have a perfect right to do so as long as Parliament remains sovereign.
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
As a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, I was in Rwanda last Thursday. More particularly, I was in the Rwandan Parliament. I can confirm to your Lordships’ House that, on Wednesday last week, the Rwandan Chamber of Deputies ratified the treaty by 64 votes to two. Rwanda is a monist country, unlike this country, which is dualist. That means that the international obligations of Rwanda are enforceable in domestic courts. Once ratified by the Senate of Rwanda, the treaty will have effect legally within Rwanda.
Noble Lords will recall that the basis upon which the Supreme Court found Rwanda to be unsafe was particularly set out in the judgment. Each and every paragraph of the treaty obtained by the United Kingdom Government with the Government of Rwanda was targeted at the decision of the Supreme Court. Noble Lords will notice that, with the approval and ratification of the treaty in Rwanda, there is simply no basis upon which it can be said Rwanda is unsafe. These amendments are unnecessary.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
If that is so, why or how is it that a number of refugees from Rwanda have been given asylum protection in this country?
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
As the noble Lord will be well aware, the treaty is directly reflective of all the Supreme Court’s concerns about the safety of Rwanda. The fact that there are refugees from a certain country does not mean that that country is of itself always and everywhere unsafe.
The Archbishop of Canterbury
My Lords, at this stage of the debate on this group, we are looking at two distinct things. One is the question of whether Rwanda is safe. If, as the noble Lord just said, it is unquestionably safe, it seems to me that these amendments are not a problem because, at that point, the Secretary of State can easily say, “It’s safe”, and they will have evidence of that, for this and future Governments.
However, the object of this group is the rule of law, which is the main subject we are looking at. Going back to the development of international human rights law, particularly in the period after 1945, there is a difficulty in totally separating domestic and international law. The rise in international human rights law grew out of the horrors of the 1940s. In 1933, the German Government were legally and properly elected, and passed horrific laws that did terrible things, starting from within a few weeks of the election of Adolf Hitler. That continued, and most historians agree that the first two elections gave the Nazi Party a legitimate majority.
Winston Churchill’s advocacy of the European Court of Human Rights after the Second World War grew up in order to give a fallback where domestic law was not doing the right thing, by linking it to international law and ensuring that there was a stop that said, “You can do this perfectly legitimately domestically, but that doesn’t mean it’s always right and always the right thing to do”. Let us be clear: we are not in a situation remotely like that. The Government are not doing something on the scale of what we saw at that stage. But they are challenging the right of international law to constrain our actions.
The point of international law is to stop Governments going ahead with things that are wrong. The noble Lord, Lord Lilley, made two very good points, particularly in his questions. But one thing I was brought up believing and even, believe it or not, something I was told when I was trained as a clergyman—we do get trained, although that may sound surprising from time to time—was that it is a basic rule of ethics and morality that two wrongs do not make a right. So the fact that we have done the wrong thing in the past does not automatically make it right today.
Lord Tugendhat (Con)
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the most reverend Primate. I begin by saying how much I agree with every word that my noble friends Lord Clarke and Lord Hailsham said about my old friend Patrick Cormack. He was a good man and will be very much missed. I cannot add to what they said, but I say this humbly and with great warmth.
At this stage of the proceedings, our task is to try to persuade the House of Commons to improve the Bill. Failing that, it is to draw attention to the implications of leaving the Bill as it is. I support this amendment, and others that will follow, because I believe that the failure to amend the Bill will have profound implications. The Government will, in fact, be behaving like the ruling party in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Normally, Nineteen Eighty-Four is invoked in relation to government behaviour, laws, events and so forth in tyrannies and dictatorships. This country is no dictatorship—it is a democracy. Nevertheless, in this Bill the Government are seeking to achieve by Act of Parliament what in Nineteen Eighty-Four the ruling party and its apparatchiks sought to achieve by torture.
Many noble Lords will remember the scene towards the end of the book in which Winston is being interrogated by O’Brien and is forced to say that Oceania is and always has been at war with Eastasia, although he knows for a fact that it was until recently at war with Eurasia. When O’Brien holds up four fingers, Winston is obliged to say that he sees five, as an act of obedience to the party. However many fingers O’Brien holds up, the answer is always the same—just as, whatever the evidence to the contrary, Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. Likewise, with the Bill as it stands, it does not matter what the Supreme Court has said about the present or how conditions in Rwanda might evolve in future—the answer is always the same: Rwanda is a safe country. If the Bill goes on to the statute book in its present form, Rwanda will be a safe country, regardless of reality, until the statute is repealed.
Rather than going down that route, we should take our cue from what Margaret Thatcher told the House of Commons on 17 July 1984—as it happens—when a judge had held that a decision her Government had taken in connection with GCHQ was illegal. She said that
“I, rightly, cannot overturn the decision of a court, and I would not wish to do so … at the end of the judicial process Governments, of course, accept the courts’ final ruling. That is what the rule of law is all about”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/7/1984; cols. 173-74.]
Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon (Lab)
My Lords, I too was in Rwanda last week, and the noble Lord, Lord Murray, seems to have left out what was said in our last meeting with the UNHCR, which talked about international rule of law. On Rwanda not being safe, it said that there is a certain process that Rwanda needs to put in place before it can be seen as a safe place. So the noble Lord gave noble Lords only one part of what was said.
Everywhere we went, everybody said that Rwanda was safe, but it already has so many refugees in different camps. At the moment they are not facilitated within the country but are in camps. The UK is building a vast area of accommodation, and my question to a lot of people was: what will be the impact on the local community when we send more than 300,000 people to Rwanda? Nobody can answer that at the moment. There is still a lot of work to be done by the Rwandan Government for the UNHCR to say that it is a safe place; until that happens, it is not safe.
Lord Cromwell (CB)
My Lords, I have two brief points. First, on Patrick Cormack, yes, he did speak often and, yes, that was sometimes frustrating, but doubly frustrating was that he was brilliant at synthesising views across the House and lobbing them forward to his Front Bench as quite difficult questions, something I learned to appreciate over time.
Secondly, in his speech just now—all of which I agreed with—the noble Lord, Lord Clarke, was searching for an international precedent for the Bill, as have others. I simply direct him to one also from central Africa, where the president of the country at that time declared by legal presidential decree that there was no AIDS in his country. It made him an international laughing stock, and I cannot help thinking that this Bill feels rather the same.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to wind up this group of amendments for His Majesty’s Opposition. We have become used to the quality of the debate on the Rwanda Bill, but I start by associating myself with all the remarks made about Lord Cormack and add my recognition that he was a marvellous individual. In marking his passing, I also mark the passing of my noble friend Lady Henig in recent days. I am sure that fuller tributes will be made to her; we have lost a valued colleague.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, presented a challenge to me. If we were to win the next election, we would have the big advantage of being in power and would repeal the Bill. That is the point I make to the noble Baroness.
It is our view, whether or not it is held universally, that it is important for us to respect what we see as the constitutional traditions of the House. We would expect them to be followed were we to be in power, and that is why we take the position we do. I say to the Government, as I have on a number of occasions, that constitutional convention also requires the Government to listen to what the House of Lords says, to respect what it says and to listen to its views and not just dismiss them before they have even been discussed. We have made that point continually throughout this debate.
The Government may disagree with all the amendments, but to dismiss them as the Government have, before this House has even debated many of them, undermines the constitutional proprieties of the way this country operates. As much as the Government say to us that we should respect those, the Government should respect the amendments your Lordships consider and, on occasion, pass.
I thank my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti for her amendments and for the way she put them. She will see that my Amendment 2 seeks to say that the Act, as it will be, should comply with domestic and international law. I want to focus particularly on the international law aspects but, with respect to the debate we have had on domestic law, I refer noble Lords to the report from the Constitution Committee. The report made a number of challenges to the Government about how simply saying something was a fact in legislation accorded with the separation of powers.
Clause 1(2)(b) says that
“this Act gives effect to the judgement of Parliament that the Republic of Rwanda is a safe country”.
Paragraph 11 of the Select Committee report says:
“Clause 1(2)(b) could be interpreted as a breach of the separation of powers between Parliament and the courts. It is the role of Parliament to enact legislation. It is the role of the courts to apply legislation to the facts”.
The Bill says that the facts are not convenient so we will change them by legislation, saying that Rwanda is safe by an Act of law rather than by application of that legislation to the facts as they are within the country.
International law is also extremely important. In Committee, the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, helpfully pointed out that Clause 1(4)(b) says:
“It is recognised that … the validity of an Act is unaffected by international law”.
That is quite astonishing. The Bill later lists all the various laws and conventions which will not apply. As a country, is that really where we want our legislation to be? My noble friend Lady Lawrence referred to the UNHCR’s view that the Bill is incompatible. Do we simply dismiss that with a wave of the hand and pass legislation to say that it does not matter? Do we say that disapplying the Council of Europe from this legislation does not matter, despite the fact that it was mainly Conservative politicians, not least Churchill and Maxwell Fyfe, who moved forward the legislation on it? All sorts of other conventions are dismissed with a wave of the hand as though they do not matter.
Yet, time after time from the Dispatch Box, both here and in the other place, respect for international law is used as a justification for this country’s actions. The international law of the sea is used, rightly, as a justification for our actions against the Houthis in the Red Sea. When we say that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is illegal, it is because it breaks international law. We often talk about “foreign courts” as a disparaging term for international courts that we have agreed to join, but where do we wish to take Putin for what he has done in Ukraine? It is to an international court to be held to account by international law. In all these examples, we expect international law to apply to the actions of an individual or a Government.
My amendment says that it matters what this country does, with respect to both domestic and international law, because in all the international institutions of which we are a member we often stand up and say that international law is important and should be applied and adhered to. We do so because we recognise that if it is not, that will be the road to chaos, confusion and the problems across our world getting not better but worse.
The Bill is dealing with a difficult problem that we all wish to see solved. This is not between those who wish to see it solved and those who do not, but about the differences in how we would do it. There is a need to deal with the challenges of the small boats, immigration, migration, refugees and asylum seekers in this country, but let us do it in a way that is consistent with our proud tradition of respect for law—both our domestic law and the separation of powers, and the international law based on treaties that we signed as a free, independent country.
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Stewart of Dirleton) (Con)
My Lords, on behalf of the Government Front Bench, I will first speak about noble Lords who have recently passed out of this Chamber and out of this life. I echo everything said about my noble friend Lord Cormack. I did not know Baroness Henig as well as her colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, did, but I mourn her loss and those better able to speak about her will do so in due course.
As to Lord Cormack, I can say something. If the welcome which he extended to the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, on his entering the other place was as kind, heartening, pleasant and wise as the one which he extended to me on my coming among your Lordships a scant few years ago, I would not be very surprised. The House will miss his contribution to our deliberations.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, set out, Amendments 1, 3 and 5 add the purpose of compliance with the rule of law to that of deterrence in Clause 1, requiring the Secretary of State to consider all relevant evidence and lay a statement before Parliament that Rwanda is currently a safe country. Amendment 10, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, would mean that decision-makers cannot conclusively treat Rwanda as safe if the Supreme Court rules otherwise, even if Parliament had declared it safe.
The overarching purpose of the Bill is to deter dangerous and illegal journeys to the United Kingdom, which are putting people’s lives at risk, and to disrupt the business model of people smugglers who are exploiting vulnerable people. Picking up a point that my noble friend Lord Hailsham made, we know that deterrence can work. We have seen this through our Albania partnership, where we have removed more than 5,700 people, and the number of small boat arrivals has dropped by 93%. The number of migrants crossing the channel has fallen year on year for the first time since current records began, with the total arrivals in 2023 down more than a third on 2022. We know that this is not a Europe-wide trend—there has been a 16% increase in detected irregular arrivals to Europe.
This Government’s joint work with France prevented more than 26,000 individual crossings by small boat to the United Kingdom in 2023. Since July 2020, the joint intelligence cell and French law enforcement partners have dismantled 82 organised criminal gangs responsible for people smuggling of migrants via small boat crossings. However, as we know, the small boats problem is part of a larger global migration crisis—one that this Government are committed to tackling, along with our international partners.
The migration and economic development partnership—MEDP—with the Government of Rwanda is one part of our wider programme to stop the boats. This partnership will not only act as a strong deterrent but demonstrate that it is not necessary to take dangerous and unnecessary journeys to find safety, as promoted by the smugglers. This partnership with the Government of Rwanda has now been set out in a new treaty, binding in international law. As your Lordships’ House heard from my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth a moment ago, it has been ratified by the lower house of the Rwandan Parliament and is moving on to its upper house. This treaty has been agreed by the Governments of the United Kingdom and Rwanda and was worked on by both parties with close care and attention.
As was set out repeatedly in earlier debates, the Government respect the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of AAA v the Secretary of State for the Home Department. However, I remind noble Lords that the Supreme Court’s conclusions were based on evidence submitted prior to the High Court hearing in September 2022 and did not consider the subsequent, ongoing work that has been undertaken between the United Kingdom and the Government of Rwanda since the partnership was announced, to prepare for the operationalisation of the partnership and, later, to address the findings of the Court of Appeal.
Indeed, the Supreme Court recognised that changes may be delivered in future which could address the conclusions they reached, and as I have just set out, we have done this through the treaty. I repeat: the Bill and the treaty do not overturn or disregard the Supreme Court’s decision; they act on it.
Article 10 of the treaty ensures that people relocated to Rwanda are not at risk of being returned to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened. It ensures that people relocated to Rwanda who are not granted asylum will receive the same treatment as those recognised as refugees, including permanent residence. It strengthens Rwanda’s asylum system, including through the constitution of a new appeal body composed of judges, from Rwanda and other countries, with asylum and humanitarian protection expertise to hear individual appeals. It clarifies the availability of free legal representation for all stages of the process and availability of free legal representation for court appeals, and it enhances the functions of the independent monitoring committee.
Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend asserts that the Government are complying with the rule of law and respect the position of the courts and so on. Why does the Bill expressly rule out any court in future considering any evidence that Rwanda perhaps is not complying with the treaty that he has described, and why does the Bill expressly rule out the provision of various features of international law when it comes to consider future behaviour by the Government of Rwanda? The terms of the Bill seem to contradict the complete confidence with which my noble friend is putting forward this ideal situation that is likely to prevail for all time on the ground in east Africa.
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
My Lords, the point of the Bill is to move the matter into the diplomatic and political sphere. The Bill and the treaty make the point that the matters are better considered there than they are in the court. That is my answer to the point which my noble friend makes.
Regarding Amendment 2, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, I cannot accept that the provisions of this Bill undermine the rule of law. Amendment 2, implying that this legislation is not compliant with the rule of law, is simply not right. The Bill is predicated on Rwanda’s and the United Kingdom’s compliance with international law in the form of the treaty, which itself reflects the international legal obligations of the United Kingdom and Rwanda, as my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth pointed out following his recent visit.
As has been stated in the debates on this Bill, the Government take their international obligations, including under the European Convention on Human Rights, seriously. There is nothing in this Bill that requires any act or omission that conflicts with the United Kingdom’s international obligations. Along with other countries with similar constitutional arrangements to the United Kingdom, and again echoing points made by my noble friend Lord Murray, we have a dualist approach, where international law is treated as separate from domestic law and incorporated into domestic law by Parliament through legislation. This Bill invites Parliament to agree with its assessment that the Supreme Court’s concerns have been properly addressed and to enact the measures in the Bill accordingly. The Bill reflects the fact—going back to my noble friend Lord Howard of Lympne’s opening points—that Parliament is sovereign and can change domestic law as it sees fit, including, if it be Parliament’s judgment, requiring a state of affairs or facts to be recognised.
The principle of recognising that certain countries are safe for immigration purposes, as your Lordships heard from my noble friend Lord Lilley, is a long-standing one that is shared by many other countries as part of their respective systems. The European Union states are not the only countries that may be safe for these purposes. Therefore, to act as the Government are proposing in terms of the Bill would not an unusual thing for Parliament to do. There is other immigration legislation in which Parliament recognises that states are generally safe. It is not akin to Parliament stating something to be the case contrary to the actual position. The Bill reflects the strength of the Government of Rwanda’s protections and commitments, given in the treaty, to people transferred to Rwanda in accordance with it. The treaty, alongside the evidence of changes in Rwanda since the summer of 2022, enables Parliament properly to conclude that Rwanda is safe.
In addressing other points raised on this matter, and echoing what I said in response to my noble friend Lord Clarke, my noble friend Lord Tugendhat moved the sphere of literary references governing discussion of the Bill in your Lordships’ House from Alice in Wonderland to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. The point is not that the Government are proposing that Parliament should legislate contrary to the Supreme Court’s findings, but that Parliament should pass a Bill reflecting those decisions and acting on them. We are acting on the court’s decision, not overturning it.
I respectfully echo my noble friend Lord Howard of Lympne’s point, which again echoed his important speech at an earlier stage, that the theme of this matter is accountability—the accountability of Parliament and the Government to face the consequences of their actions and decisions before the electorate.
The importance of Parliament’s judgment is the central feature of the Bill and many of its other provisions are designed to ensure that Parliament’s conclusion on the safety of Rwanda is accepted by the domestic court. The treaty sets out the international legal commitments that the United Kingdom and the Rwandan Governments have made, consistent with their shared standards associated with asylum and refugee protection. It also commits both Governments to deliver against key legal assurances, in response to the conclusions of the UK Supreme Court. We are clear that we assess Rwanda to be a safe country and we are confident in the Government of Rwanda’s commitment to operationalising the partnership successfully in order to offer safety and security to those in need.
In answer to a point made by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, while Sir Winston Churchill was instrumental in drawing up the body or making possible the creation of the European convention, he did not say anything to alter the constitutional principle of the supremacy of Parliament, to which I have made reference.
I return to matters raised in the submission of the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool. He posed two questions, the first on the receipt of an answer to points made by committees of your Lordships’ House. I have checked that and it is anticipated that answers to the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Constitution Committee will be issued by Wednesday.
The noble Lord also raised costs. The point is not that doing nothing does not have costs. We will doubtless return, later at this stage of the Bill, to the enormous expense inflicted on British taxpayers—running to billions of pounds a year—by maintaining the status quo. It is that status quo that we seek to interrupt.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My point on the question of costs was not so much the £0.5 billion, but that the chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee in another place said that this was a staggering amount of money and that it was being veiled by so-called commercial confidentiality. When the Minister publishes his response to the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Constitution Committee “by Wednesday”, will he undertake to provide further details unpacking the so-called “confidentiality” of this £0.5 billion?
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
If the noble Lord will permit, I will defer answering that question until later.
So it is in order to prevent the current expenditure—the cost of housing asylum seekers is set to reach £11 billion per year by 2026—that the Government propose to act. As I have said, we assess Rwanda to be a safe country and we are confident in the Government of Rwanda’s commitment in that regard. I therefore invite the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, not to press his Amendment 2, and I also invite the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, to withdraw her amendment. If the amendments are pressed, I will have no hesitation in inviting the House to reject them.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I did not succeed in my urging of brevity, but never mind. I am grateful to all noble Lords none the less, particularly for the very worthy tributes to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and my noble friend Lady Henig. They were liberal patriots indeed.
I remind your Lordships’ House that the Prime Minister invoked the rule of law in his Downing Street address on Friday, but I am grateful to the most reverend Primate for reminding us that, in the post-war age, the international rule of law is part of that.
I will not be tempted down the rabbit hole of the slightly unorthodox and creative version of the rule of law presented by the noble Lord, Lord Howard, save to say that he and his noble and learned friend the Minister effectively gaslit the Supreme Court. But they should have compared notes first, because one accused the Supreme Court of trespassing on the province of the Executive, while the other, in his usual soft and seductive tones, said how much he respected our highest court. I guess one of them must be telling us the truth, but I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, who gave the best response to both of them: this is post-truth legislation indeed.
I am shocked if not surprised by the response of the Government and, for fear of some of the specious and nitpicking excuses around my slightly longer amendment, I urge my noble friend Lord Coaker to press his very short, very simple, and incontrovertible amendment requiring compliance with the rule of law. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Coaker
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to ensure that the eventual Act is fully compliant with the rule of law.
Lord Hope of Craighead
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment, read with new sections 1(7) and 1(8), seeks to give effect to the proposition that Parliament cannot judge Rwanda to be a safe country until the Rwanda Treaty has been, and continues to be, fully implemented.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, there are four amendments in this group, all of which are in my name and to which the noble Lords, Lord Anderson of Ipswich and Lord German, and the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, very kindly added their names. They are part of a single package designed to address a serious flaw in the working of Clause 1(2)(b), which states:
“this Act gives effect to the judgement of Parliament”—
I emphasise “the judgement of Parliament”—
“that the Republic of Rwanda is a safe country”.
The word I am concerned with is “is”.
As we were reminded on the previous group, the Supreme Court expressed a view about this in November last year. It said that there were substantial grounds for believing that the removal of claimants to Rwanda would expose them to a real risk of ill treatment by reason of refoulement. Your Lordships have been asked to reach a different judgment. In other words, your Lordships are being asked to declare that Rwanda is a country to which persons may be removed from the United Kingdom in compliance with all its obligations under international law, and is a country from which a person will not be removed or sent to another country in contravention of international law.
It is not my purpose, for the purpose of these amendments, to question the right of Parliament to look at the facts again. The facts have changed since November 2022, which was when the facts were found on which the Supreme Court based its view. If Parliament is to make a judgment on a matter of fact of such importance, great care must be taken in the use of language. By its use of the present tense in Clause 1(2)(b), Parliament is asserting that from the date of commencement that is the position now, and it is asserting furthermore that it will be the basis on which every decision-maker will have to act in future. That will be so each and every time a decision has to be taken for ever, whatever happens in Rwanda, so long as the provision remains on the statute book. As the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, said, the answer will for ever be the same. That is the point to which I draw your Lordships’ attention in these amendments. Article 23 of the treaty provides that the agreement will last until 13 April 2027 but that it can be renewed by written agreement, so it may well last a good deal longer and there is no sunset clause in the Bill. That is the background against which I say that a great deal hangs on the use of “is”.
The judgment that your Lordships are being asked to make is crucial to the safety and well-being of everyone, wherever they come from, who is at risk of being removed to Rwanda. Given what refoulement would mean if it were to happen to them, this could be for some a life-or-death issue. The question is whether we have enough information to enable us to judge that Rwanda is safe now and that it will be whatever may happen in future. I do not think so. I do not think I can make that judgment. That is why I have introduced this amendment and its counterpart, Amendment 7.
Amendment 4 seeks to remove “is” from that clause and replace it with “will be” and “so long as”—in other words, Rwanda will be a safe country when and so long as the arrangements provided for in the treaty will have been fully implemented and are adhered to in practice. That would be a more accurate way of expressing the judgment that your Lordships are being asked to make. The point it makes is that full implementation of the treaty is a pre-requisite. The treaty itself is not enough; it has to be implemented. That is what I am drawing attention to. Without that—without the implementation that the treaty provides for—Rwanda cannot be considered a safe country; in my submission, the Bill should say so.
Of course, there must be means of determining whether full implementation has been achieved and is being maintained. That is provided for in my Amendment 7. I have based that amendment on the method that the treaty itself provides: a monitoring committee, the members of which are independent of either Government. We have been told that that committee already exists and is in action, so what I propose should not delay the Bill, and it is not my purpose to do so. I simply seek the security of the view of the monitoring committee. The treaty tells us:
“The key function of the Monitoring Committee shall be to advise on all steps they consider appropriate to be taken to effectively ensure that the provisions of this Agreement are adhered to in practice”.
The Government’s policy statement in paragraph 102 says of the committee:
“Its role is to provide an independent quality control assessment of conditions against the assurances set out in the treaty”.
The Government themselves, then, accept that entering into the treaty is not in itself enough. That is why they had asked for a monitoring committee to be set up, and precisely why my amendments are so important. The treaty must be fully implemented if Rwanda is to be a safe country. The point is as simple as that.
My Amendment 7 says:
“The Rwanda Treaty will have been fully implemented for the purposes of this Act when the Secretary of State has … laid before Parliament a statement from the … Monitoring Committee … that the objectives … of the Treaty have been secured by the creation of the mechanisms”
that it sets out. If the Ministers say that Rwanda is already a safe country, it should be a formality to obtain the view of the monitoring committee and it should not detain the Government for very long. All I ask is that we should have the security of the view of that Committee to make it absolutely plain before we can make the judgment that Rwanda is, and will continue to be, a safe country. My amendment would then require the Secretary of State to
“consult the Monitoring Committee every three months”
while the treaty remains in force, and to make a statement to Parliament if its advice is
“that the provisions of the Treaty are not being adhered to in practice”.
If that is so, the treaty can no longer be treated as fully implemented for the purposes of the Act until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament subsequent advice that the provisions of the treaty are being adhered to in practice. All that is built around what the Government have provided before in their own treaty: the work of the monitoring committee, on whose judgment I suggest we can properly rely.
Finally, and very briefly, I say that my Amendments 8 and 13 would make the directions to the decision-makers in Clause 2 conditional on full implementation of the treaty.
I should make it clear that I intend to test the opinion of the House on my Amendment 4—and, if necessary, Amendment 7 as well—if I am not given sufficient assurances by the Minister. I will not move my Amendment 8. That is because I do not wish to pre-empt the alternative qualification of Clause 2 proposed by my noble friend Lord Anderson of Ipswich. His Amendment 12, if moved, will in turn pre-empt my Amendment 13. I beg to move.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)
My Lords, I add my tribute to those already paid to Lord Cormack. My particular knowledge of him is that, when I was briefly a Member of the other place, my constituency abutted his and we shared an agent, a Mr Clive Hatton. I learned from the assiduousness with which Lord Cormack worked in his constituency and the importance that he ascribed to it. There was no cause too small nor person too irrelevant that Patrick Cormack was not interested in looking after them and considering them. I learned a lot from him.
I turn to the matter at hand. I shall comment on this group of amendments and, in doing so, pick up on some of the remarks I made in our debate on the Motion from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, on 22 January. I have two points. First, I have listened carefully to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, who, as an extremely eminent lawyer, I have to be respectful of. However, I hope he will forgive me if I have the impression that these amendments, taken together, collectively have the aim of rendering the Bill if not unworkable then inoperable. They are like a line of barbed-wire fences: each time you get through one barbed-wire fence, there is another set of obstacles or objectives to be fulfilled.
I recognise that a number of Members of your Lordships’ House do not like the Bill and do not think its approach is appropriate in any way. I think they are wrong, but obviously I respect that view. Why then are greater efforts not being made to kill the Bill? Because they know such an effort would fail. I do not want to get in the middle of the spat between the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, but such efforts would fail because His Majesty’s loyal Opposition would not support such a move. To wound is fine, but to kill would not be acceptable.
Why, in turn, is that? Because away from the Westminster bubble an overwhelming majority of the British people are appalled by the loss of life in the channel and want it stopped—witness the child of 14 drowning last week—are disgusted by the activities of the people smugglers, and are exasperated, furious or both at what are in large measure economic migrants seeking to jump the legitimate queue. The Bill is currently the only game in town, and to do away with it would be immensely unpopular.
Secondly, I disagree with the continued assertion underlying this group of amendments that somehow Rwanda as a country is untrustworthy unless every single “t” is crossed and every “i” is dotted. In this connection, noble Lords might like to read paragraphs 54 and 57 of the Government’s report on Rwanda dated 12 December 2023. The Ibrahim Index of African Governance, an independent organisation, rates Rwanda 12th out of 54 African countries. The World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report makes Rwanda 12th—the UK, by the way, is 19th. The World Bank scored Rwanda at 16 out of a maximum score of 18 on the quality of its judicial processes. Lastly, the World Justice Project index on the rule of law ranked Rwanda first out of 34 sub-Saharan African countries. Those are points that tend to get overlooked in the debate that we are having, which tends to focus on our domestic arrangements.
That takes me to my conclusion. The concept of the rule of law has featured prominently in our debate on the Bill and no doubt will do so in future. I am not a lawyer, as many Members of the House know, but nevertheless I strongly support the concept as an essential part of the freedoms that we take for granted. As I have said in the past, the rule of law depends on the informed consent of the British people. Without that informed consent, the concept of the rule of law becomes devalued. So if the House divides at the end of this debate, I respectfully say to Members that we need to be careful not to conflate the fundamental importance of the rule of law with what I fear I see in these amendments, which is largely a measure of shadow-boxing.
Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)
My Lords, I follow the noble Lord with much respect for his contributions to your Lordships’ House. The proposition made by my noble and learned friend Lord Hope, which I support strongly, is that these amendments seek to give effect to
“the proposition that Parliament cannot judge Rwanda to be a safe country until the Rwanda Treaty has been, and continues to be, fully implemented”.
What do the Government say? The Government say that Rwanda is a safe country because the Rwanda treaty has been achieved and, shortly, will be fully implemented. What are they afraid of in these amendments, for they simply seek to provide insurance for the proposition made by the Government about Rwanda?
To answer that question, I invite the Minister to remind himself once again of the report dated 17 January this year from the International Agreements Committee, which was discussed at some length in previous debates in your Lordships’ House. I draw his attention particularly to paragraph 45, which sets out nine
“further legal and practical steps”—
that is the term of art used—which are “required under the treaty” and which will make, in the opinion of that committee, Rwanda a safe country that operates the treaty in the way which is intended by its words.
Can the Minister, who has been challenged to this effect before, tell us quite specifically how many of those nine requirements in that paragraph have now been implemented, which they are and, in relation to the ones that have not yet been implemented, when will they be implemented? If the Government’s optimism is such that, as the noble Lord, Lord Murray, said in an earlier intervention, it is enough to go into the Rwandan Parliament and see that the treaty has been ratified—not the requirements in the committee’s report—for that to be a way of regarding the Bill as justified, what is the intellectual basis for that conclusion? I see none: unless these requirements can be demonstrably implemented in full, Rwanda is not a safe country. The insurance policy proposed by my noble and learned friend is exactly what is needed, unless we are told of full implementation.
Lord Deben (Con)
My Lords, I rise because of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. He suggested that those of us who have worries about the Bill are in some way wanting to stop anything of this kind. I want to make it clear that I do not have a theological or philosophic objection to the concept that you might have a system to deal with these problems which involved some other country. My problem is fundamentally this: I hope that, in all the years as a Minister and as a Member of Parliament, I never told a public lie—and I am being asked here to tell a lie.
The Government have told us that Rwanda is not a safe place at the moment but is going to be one. Indeed, the Minister himself explained that to us. However, they are asking us to say it is a safe place now. At the same time, the Government are pointing to the Supreme Court and saying it is perfectly reasonable to disagree with it, because the information which we now have makes a decision now different in kind from the one that the court made, because it did not have that information. Evidently, it was perfectly right for the Supreme Court to say that it was not a safe place then, but now we are in a different position. However, the Government have not provided us with any of the evidence which makes that different position tenable.
All the Government have done is said: “We have signed an agreement. That agreement is going through, and we are in the course of ensuring that that agreement is carried through in Rwanda”. I do not much mind how we do this, but what I want to be able to do is to vote to say that Rwanda would be a safe place if all these things are carried through. I want to make sure that there is a mechanism for checking that.
I also want to make sure that, if things should change, we could deal with that—after all, Governments change. Africa has been known to have very significant changes. Indeed, the present Government of Rwanda are a very hopeful change from what they had before. We need to have a mechanism whereby, should the situation alter, we would be able to deal with it. Normally, the courts would be able to deal with it, but the Government have specifically excluded the courts. Therefore, we need to have something of this kind in the Bill. The mover of this amendment is absolutely right in saying that the amendments can all be carried through without holding up the passage of the Bill.
I want to ask my noble friend very directly: given that this is not going to hold anything up; given that he is going to allow himself to tell the truth, instead of not telling the truth and, given that he can allow me to tell the truth, why does he not just allow us to do it? Many of the other issues are of high political and legal concern. This is a terribly simple, basic fact. Will you allow us to say that Rwanda is a safe place, when you can provide the information to allow us to tell the truth? For goodness’ sake, let us tell the truth.
Baroness Meyer (Con)
My Lords, I am standing to tell the truth. As a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, I was also in Rwanda very recently. We had a packed programme. Everyone we met told us that Rwanda is a safe country. This included women’s rights and the LGBT organisation, which told us that that is how they felt. We were also told that Rwanda has the largest LGBT community in Africa. Many people from that community flee neighbouring countries to go to Rwanda because they feel safe.
Critics also tend to overlook the fact that Rwanda has one of the lowest levels of corruption in Africa and that it is committed to the rule of law. It has more women participating in the labour market than in any country in Africa. The Supreme Court's decision, mainly based on the UNHCR report, failed to take any of those factors into account. The UNHCR representative we met admitted that Rwanda was at the forefront of improving its legal system and Rwanda was a safe country as such, but not safe enough to accept relocated individuals from the UK, as the current system was not capable or experienced enough to deal with them.
I need to point out that this was before the new agreement, in which a lot of the concerns of the Supreme Court have been addressed. She also pointed out that refugees from the UK came from different backgrounds to refugees from neighbouring countries. That comment was in direct contradiction to all the positive attitudes we witnessed. Everyone who we met expressed genuine readiness to accept and welcome the refugees coming from the United Kingdom.
The UNHCR representative’s conclusion, which I found most revealing, was that the UK should accept all immigrants arriving to its shores, rather than sending them off to Rwanda. But it is unrealistic to say that the UK has a responsibility to accept all asylum seekers, particularly if they come to our shores for economic reasons and line the pockets of traffickers. We are one of the most generous countries when it comes to refugees, but we have a responsibility towards our citizens, which includes securing our borders to ensure that no one takes advantage of our system.
Most of the people we met in Rwanda were surprised, if not deeply hurt, by the negative attention their country has received from both Houses and the media. I have to say that I was embarrassed. I felt that we are criticising a country that has had a terrible genocide and, in the past 30 years, has done so much to improve everything. It is so willing to accept new migrants. I was embarrassed. To be honest, Kigali is a beautiful city—I fell in love with it. It is clean, tidy and well organised. It has a young population full of optimism, looking forward to its future. I would not mind living there. I recommend that noble Lords who criticise Rwanda should go there, check for themselves and decide what they think, rather than making observations on hearsay and possibly—
Lord Cashman (Lab)
The noble Baroness referred to the LGBT situation in Rwanda. Can she indicate to the House which LGBT organisation she met?
Baroness Meyer (Con)
We met the Rwanda Women’s Network, which was very interesting. We also met the Hope and Care Organization, the Rwanda Men’s Resource Centre and My Rights Alliance. They campaign for LGBT rights.
Lord Cashman (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for that and will not detain the House any longer, but it is important to put this on the record. I say this with some knowledge of Rwanda, having been the chief election observer for the European Union in Rwanda in 2008, with subsequent knowledge since. The noble Baroness quoted the Hope and Care Organization, which does do a great deal of work. But I thought your Lordships should be aware of a recent quote. I will not name the individual, for fear of placing anyone at risk—but it is in my records if anyone needs it. It reads:
“Homosexuality is not criminalized in Rwanda, but many LGBTI people keep their sexuality and gender identity secret in an attempt to avoid rejection, discrimination and abuse, which in the long run inevitably denies them their basic human rights”.
Baroness Meyer (Con)
I am not LGBT, so I have no idea, but from the evidence we heard it seems to be a little frowned upon among the older generation or in the countryside—probably like in the United Kingdom. But, in Kigali, the capital, we were told that two men walking in the street holding hands is absolutely fine. This was the report we received.
Lord Cashman (Lab)
Again, I shall not detain the House, but I shall refer to this situation and the expression of one’s sexual identity in a later grouping—the fifth grouping. I thank noble Lords for their patience.
Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)
Briefly, I shall add a few comments to the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben. In his remarks, the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, said—and it is true—that there is a lot of concern and anxiety about the whole issue that we are discussing this afternoon. Probably, in this Chamber, there is nobody who knows less about Rwanda than I do—and I dare say that I am representative of the nation as a whole. The wider world is very concerned about this, and we have been talking about this from the perspective of this Chamber—but if you look at it from the perspective of the wider public, it would be to everybody’s great advantage to have something along the lines of what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, are advocating; it would be very helpful in trying to allay wider public concern. It seems to me—and I am sure that we all regret it very much—that, the way the world is now, the fact that the Government give it the thumbs up does not necessarily instil great confidence in the wider public.
Lord German (LD)
My Lords, I start by saying to the noble Lord, Lord Deben, that I have come to the same conclusion about these amendments, but perhaps from a different perspective. As noble Lords know, these Benches voted against the Bill in principle, but that does not mean to say, having not won that argument, that we will not support changes to the Bill in ways that mitigate the problems that we still see with it.
It is worth reminding the House of the decision that we took on the treaty—that we would not recommend the treaty being signed until certain conditions were in place. As noble Lords know, from the Standing Orders of this House, that that was a resolution of this House and is the view of this House. These amendments are simply seeking to amplify and recognise the decision of this House that is in place at present. If it is not in place, we are going to be asked to do that fictionalising thing, which is to change our minds from what we said before—that we need to see those conditions in place before we can see Rwanda as safe—simply because the Bill is before us.
This group of amendments recognises that we need to have those conditions in place before the consideration that this House has already given can be reversed. I must say to the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, that “safe” in respect of a country is not about the beauty of the country or the nature of its people; it is about the structures and the systems that it has in place to meet its obligations, including the obligations for refugees that we have laid out.
Given that the courts have given a decision of fact on the safety of Rwanda, it is deeply problematic that the Government want this Parliament to overturn its own decision and declare the opposite. We think that they would be better off going back to the courts to review the evidence and coming to a finding of fact, if they believe that the situation has changed. As the United Nations council responsible for public affairs said in its announcement last Friday, this Bill will
“unduly limit judicial independence by requiring judges to treat Rwanda as a safe third country now and in the future, regardless of any evidence to the contrary before them”.
It is clear that the terms of the treaty have not been met; that is what this House says, and that is the resolution of this House. They need to be met before the requirements of the treaty are satisfied. The mechanism by which the Government are asking Parliament to declare Rwanda safe is the treaty. The Minister confirmed in Committee that the safeguards outlined in the resolution of this House were not yet in place but were being worked towards. In Hansard for day one in Committee, 12 February, my noble friend Lord Purvis asked whether we could pursue the issue that the Minister had mentioned. He said:
“If the Rwandan Government are ‘working towards’ putting safeguards in place, that means they are not currently in place. Is that correct?”—[Official Report, 12/2/24; cols. 64-65.]
Hansard says that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart of Dirleton, replied, “It must do”.
This afternoon, letters have been delivered to Members who took part in these debates. I apologise for having to look on my phone, because these letters which relate to Committee of this House on the Bill were delivered by electronic mechanisms only after we had started discussing Report. That is not the way this House should be treated. If we want the evidence on which we can make decisions, we should have it in time to be able to make further progress. Anyway, I have to turn my phone sideways because it is very small writing, but I will do my very best. It says in a paragraph about whether these matters are in sight:
“The UK and Rwandan Governments will continue to work closely together to implement all the measures under the treaty and prepare to operationalise the partnership”.
So quite clearly, the facts required by this House are not there at present. I like to cite the analogy from the noble Lord, Lord Purvis. It is like saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are going by plane and we are working towards making the plane safe”. If you think about it, that is where we are at the moment. Would you get into that plane? Probably not. You would be foolish to do so—but, if you did get into it, you would have no guarantee that it would be capable of flying and not dropping out of the air.
So these amendments are clear that we must put the conditions in place. They have already been agreed by this House. We have made it clear that the conditions we as a House place on the treaty are to be adhered to, and that the conditions and procedures must be adopted to satisfy the House both before and after deportations can take place. They are sensible. They are what the House requires in order to fulfil the requirements of the decision we took on the matters of the treaty. I support.
Lord Lilley (Con)
My Lords, I do urge noble Lords to use some common sense. It is inconceivable, if this Bill is enacted, for the first few months—regardless of whether all the conditions of the treaty have been implemented—that Rwanda, under the full spotlight and glare of international publicity and the attention of the press, will not implement carefully and considerately or that it will refoule anyone that we send it.
The reason for having all the things in the treaty is for the period after the initial spotlight has been turned off and attention has waned. Then, it is important to have all those considerations in place; it is not initially. No one could really imagine that we will send someone out and within a few weeks they will be sent by Rwanda to some unsafe country. It will not happen. We know it will not.
But it is very important that we get this happening soon, and that we not only use common sense but are merciful, because the longer we delay, the more people will come across the Channel and the more people will die.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My Lords, I wonder whether the Minister would care to comment on whether he agrees with the analysis from the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, of the status of this Bill we are debating. The noble Lord said it was inconceivable that there would be any refoulement and that it is okay to proceed without the various recommendations in place. In the longer term, they would need to be in place—because it was in the longer term, I think, that he was suggesting that there might be justification in the suspicions that have been raised. I think that was the point the noble Lord was making.
I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, for tabling these amendments and for his constructive communication before doing so. In Committee there was clear interest in developing a mechanism to ensure that the terms of the treaty are and continue to be adhered to. I hope the House will see that there is value in how he has integrated these ideas into these amendments. Amendments 4 and 7 together provide a clear framework for ensuring the ongoing safety of Rwanda, rooted in the terms of the treaty the Government have negotiated. I will not say any more, because the noble and learned Lord set out the terms of his amendments very clearly.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. The partnership between the UK and Rwanda is rooted in a shared commitment to develop new ways of managing flows of irregular migration by promoting durable solutions, thereby breaking the existing incentives that result in people embarking on perilous journeys to the UK. We saw again only last week how perilous those journeys are, as my noble friend Lord Hodgson noted. The UK and Rwanda share a vision on the need for the global community to provide better international protection for asylum seekers and refugees, emphasising the importance of effective and functioning systems and safeguards that provide protection to those in most need.
Noble Lords will know that Rwanda has a long history of supporting and integrating asylum seekers and refugees in the region, for example through its work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to host the emergency transit mechanism. It has also been internationally recognised for its general safety and stability, strong governance, low corruption and gender equality. My noble friend Lord Hodgson noted this, and my noble friend Lady Meyer gave her very welcome perspective on her recent visit. I say gently to the noble Lord, Lord German, that I heard a great deal in her comments about structures and systems.
As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, has explained, these amendments seek to allow Parliament to deem Rwanda to be safe only so long as the arrangements provided for in the Rwanda treaty have been fully implemented and are being adhered to in practice. The UK Government and the Government of Rwanda have agreed and begun to implement assurances and commitments to strengthen Rwanda’s asylum system. In advance of agreeing the treaty, we worked with the Government of Rwanda to respond to the findings of the courts by evidencing Rwanda’s existing asylum procedures and practice in standard operating procedures relating to and reflecting the current refugee status determination and appeals process.
Amendment 7 imposes a duty on the Secretary of State to obtain a statement from the independent monitoring committee confirming that the objectives specified in Article 2 of the treaty have been secured. This is unnecessary; the Government will ratify the treaty in the UK only once we agree with Rwanda that all necessary implementation is in place for both countries to comply with the obligations under the treaty. We have assurances from the Government of Rwanda that the implementation of all measures in the treaty will be expedited, and we continue to work with the Rwandans on this. The legislation required for Rwanda to ratify the treaty passed the lower house of the Rwandan Parliament on 28 February and it will now go to the upper house, as my noble friend Lord Murray noted in the debate on the previous group. Once ratified, the treaty will become law in Rwanda. It follows that the Government of Rwanda would then be required to give effect to the terms of the treaty in accordance with its domestic law as well as international law.
The Bill’s provisions come into force when the treaty enters into force. The treaty enters into force when the parties have completed their internal procedures. These amendments therefore confuse the process for implementing the treaty with what is required for the Bill’s provisions to come into force. The Bill builds on the treaty between the UK and the Government of Rwanda signed on 5 December 2023. It reflects the strength of the Government of Rwanda’s protections and commitments given in the treaty to people transferred to Rwanda in accordance with the treaty. Alongside the evidence of changes in Rwanda since summer 2022, published this January, the treaty will enable Parliament to conclude that Rwanda is safe and the Bill provides Parliament with the opportunity to do so. I say to my noble friend Lord Deben that that is the truth.
Lord Deben (Con)
I accept everything the Minister says, but it is all about what will happen in future. He is asking me to accept that what will happen in future has happened now. That is the only argument. He would not ask me to do that in any other circumstances. Can he explain why I have to do it now?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I have been extraordinarily clear on this subject. As I said, the Bill provisions come into force when the treaty enters into force. The treaty enters into force when the parties have completed their internal procedures, and these amendments therefore confuse the process for implementing the treaty with what is required for the Bill provisions to come into force.
Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)
My noble friend says that it will confuse it; it is actually perfectly straightforward. If everything happens as smoothly as he says it will happen—and I hope it does, because I do not object to the safe country policy that is being pursued if we can find a safe country—the monitoring committee will presumably confirm that it has happened. Why is he resisting it, except to save the Secretary of State having to send a letter asking for the monitoring committee’s principle? Why is this amendment a threat to the Government’s stated policy?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I say to my noble friend that I am about to come on to the workings of the monitoring committee in great detail, if he will bear with me.
I turn to the points raised with regard to introducing a duty on the Secretary of State to consult with the monitoring committee every three months during the operation of the treaty. The committee is independent of both the UK and Rwandan Governments. It was always intended to be independent, to ensure that there is a layer of impartial oversight of the operation of the partnership. Maintaining the committee’s independence is an integral aspect of the design of the policy, and, as my noble and learned friend Lord Stewart of Dirleton set out, the treaty enhances the monitoring committee’s role.
The committee will ensure that obligations to the treaty are adhered to in practice and, as set out in Article 15(4)(b), it will report to the joint committee, which is made up of both UK and Rwandan officials. As per Article 15(4)(c) of the treaty, the monitoring committee will make any recommendations it sees fit to the joint committee. Therefore, these amendments are both unnecessary and risk disturbing the independence and impartiality of the monitoring committee.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
I apologise for interrupting the Minister. Could he confirm to the House that the Minister, which I assume means the Secretary of State for Home Affairs, will not seek to bring the Bill—the Act—into force until he is satisfied that all the provisions of the treaty have been implemented and are being properly operated?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I think I have already answered that. The Bill provisions come into force when the treaty enters into force, and the treaty enters into force when the parties have completed their internal procedures.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
Sorry for interrupting again, but that is not quite an answer to my question. Could the Minister give the House an assurance that the Home Secretary will bring the treaty into force only once he is satisfied that the treaty’s provisions have been implemented and it is operational?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I disagree. I am afraid that is an answer to this particular question. I think it is. To assure noble Lords further, the joint committee met on 21 February to discuss implementation and readiness for operationalisation and, as set out in the published terms of reference for the joint committee, minutes will be produced after each meeting for agreement by the co-chairs.
The monitoring committee will undertake daily monitoring of the partnership for at least the first three months to ensure rapid identification of and response to any shortcomings. This enhanced phase will ensure that comprehensive monitoring and reporting take place in real time. As I set out in earlier debates, during the period of enhanced monitoring, the monitoring committee will report to the joint committee in accordance with an agreed action plan, to include weekly and bi-weekly reporting as required.
During the enhanced phase, the monitoring committee will place particular emphasis on monitoring asylum procedures, asylum case assessments, and any asylum decisions made in this timeframe. The monitoring committee will ensure that decisions are objective and based on a legally sound foundation in accordance with international laws and convention.
The following minimum levels of assurance have been agreed by the monitoring committee for the enhanced phase: two visits to the UK to see the selection process; observing two boardings and two disembarkations; observing three induction sessions; weekly visits to accommodation and reception centres; monthly visits to health and education facilities; observing education and language training sessions; observing interviews and appeal hearings; reviewing the process and paperwork for all individuals relocated to Rwanda in this phase; monitoring the status of people relocated to Rwanda, captured through the quarterly reporting process and visits to resettlement areas; reviewing a sample of at least 25% of complaints, including all serious incidents; investigating all complaints received directly; and interviewing on a voluntary basis a sample of one in 10 relocated individuals at various stages of the process.
The published terms of reference are accompanied by a detailed monitoring plan—as agreed by the monitoring committee—which was published on 11 January. These documents provide a comprehensive and transparent framework for the operations and procedures of the monitoring committee, starting from the immediate departure period of the first cohort of relocated individuals and including the details of the enhanced initial monitoring phase.
The plan provides an overview of the monitoring committee’s specific activities, monitoring techniques, and the personnel involved. It also outlines reporting procedures—
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
I am most grateful to the Minister, who has given us a great deal of new information about the monitoring committee. But all he has told the House demonstrates that the monitoring committee is extremely well placed to provide the Government the information they need to act as in my noble and learned friend’s amendment. What is holding them back? The fact of the matter is that the monitoring committee has no means of reporting to this Parliament, but the Government do. That is what this amendment suggests is the right thing to do.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I hear what the noble Lord says, but I have answered this in considerable detail now.
Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)
The more detail the Minister gives about the virtues of the monitoring committee, the stronger his argument is in favour of the amendment proposed to this House by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. The briefing he has been given is totally contradictory to the conclusion that he is trying to invite us to reach.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, as set out in the monitoring plan, the monitoring committee will ensure that there is a daily presence of the support team on the ground through the initial enhanced phase. For the enhanced phase, a minimum of two monitoring committee members will be actively engaged in the monitoring.
Implementation continues at pace, including of the support team for the monitoring committee and the new appeals body. I put on record my thanks to all officials, including those in the Government of Rwanda, for all their hard work in implementing the treaty and delivering the crucial partnership. The partnership is one important component of a much broader bilateral relationship. We co-operate closely with Rwanda on a number of issues, including the Commonwealth, climate change, education, trade, governance, and conflict issues, and delivering a successful and long-standing development partnership.
To conclude, we have agreed and begun to implement assurances and commitments to strengthen Rwanda’s asylum system. These assurances and commitments provide clear evidence of the Government of Rwanda’s ability to fulfil its obligations generally and specifically, to ensure that relocated individuals face no risk of refoulement. I therefore respectfully ask the noble and learned Lord—
Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)
Before the Minister sits down, I return to the question I asked him earlier: will he now tell the House which of the nine provisions highlighted in paragraph 45 of the International Agreements Committee’s report are now completed?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, as has already been discussed, the lower house of the Rwandan Parliament passed its treaty ratification only earlier this week. As I have just tried to explain, implementation continues at pace. I do not yet have the very specific information the noble Lord requires, but, as I have also explained, we will not implement until all the treaty obligations are met.
I therefore respectfully ask the noble and learned Lord to not press his amendment, but, were he to do so, I would have no hesitation in inviting the House to reject it.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I do not want to take up time by going over the issues all over again, but I want to pick up two points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts.
First, I think the noble Lord suggested that my amendments were treating Rwanda as a country that is untrustworthy; I absolutely refute that. When I introduced the amendments in Committee, I made it absolutely clear that I do not, for a moment, question the good faith of Rwanda, and I remain in that position. I absolutely understand that both parties to the treaty are treating each other on that basis. I am certainly not, in any way, questioning the good faith or commitment of Rwanda to give effect to the treaty; what I am talking about is implementation.
Secondly, I think the noble Lord said that my amendment would make the Bill unworkable. I simply do not understand that. I cannot understand why relying on the word of the monitoring committee in any way undermines the effectiveness or purpose of the Bill. For those reasons, I wish to test the opinion of the House.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Geddes) (Con)
I must advise the House that, if Amendment 4 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 5, due to pre-emption.
Lord Hope of Craighead
“(7) The Rwanda Treaty will have been fully implemented for the purposes of this Act when the Secretary of State has obtained and laid before Parliament a statement from the independent Monitoring Committee formed under Article 15 that the objectives referred to in Article 2 of the Treaty have been secured by the creation of the mechanisms listed in that Article.(8) The Secretary of State must consult the Monitoring Committee every three months during the period that the Treaty remains in force, and must make a statement to Parliament at the earliest opportunity in the event that the advice of the Monitoring Committee is that the provisions of the Treaty are not being adhered to in practice.(9) If the advice of the Monitoring Committee is as referred to in subsection (8), the Rwanda Treaty shall cease to be treated as fully implemented for the purposes of this Act unless and until the Secretary of State has obtained from the Monitoring Committee, and laid before Parliament, subsequent advice that the provisions of the Treaty are being adhered to in practice.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to provide a means by which it can be determined for the purposes of this Act that the Rwanda Treaty has been, and continues to be, fully implemented.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, I wish to test the opinion of the House on this amendment.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)
My Lords, before I call the next amendments, I will explain the order of pre-emption, because it is important. If Amendment 8 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 9 to 11 due to pre-emption. If Amendment 9 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 10 and 11 due to pre-emption. If Amendment 10 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 11 due to pre-emption. I will remind your Lordships at the relevant points. I now call Amendment 8.
Clause 2: Safety of the Republic of Rwanda
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)
I remind noble Lords that, if Amendment 9 is agreed to, I will be unable to call Amendments 10 and 11 due to pre-emption.
Amendment 9
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
Member's explanatory statement
The amendments to Clause 2 in the name of Lord Anderson of Ipswich would allow the presumption that Rwanda is a safe country to be rebutted by credible evidence presented to decision-makers, including courts and tribunals.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)
My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 9 and address Amendment 12 in my name and those of my noble friend Lord Carlile, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and the noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Nottingham. I will be brief, because the equivalent amendments were discussed in detail in Committee. I am also very grateful to my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead for how he has dealt with pre-emption, which, your Lordships willing, may allow both groups of amendments to stay alive.
Amendment 9 would allow Ministers, officials and courts to depart from the presumption that Rwanda is safe when presented with credible evidence that it is not. Amendment 12 would remove various detailed barriers to that course. Their combined effect is to reverse two of the most revolutionary—I do not use that word in a positive sense— aspects of the Bill. They are the requirement for decision-makers, including courts, to stop their ears to any evidence that does not agree with the Government’s position and the requirement that they should do so for an indefinite period, even if things in Rwanda—as we all hope that they do not—take a turn for the worse.
If noble Lords are in any doubt about how truly remarkable Clause 2 is, I invite them to look at subsection (4). It does not matter how compelling your evidence is of what could happen to you and people like you when you get to Rwanda, it must not even be considered if it questions the proposition that Rwanda is safe.
Subsection (5) sets out the legal principles that have to be ignored to make this clause work—not just the Human Rights Act and international law but
“any other provision or rule of domestic law (including any common law)”—
an insight into the sheer range of legal protections, ancient and modern, that may have to be disregarded in the interests of avoiding the impartial scrutiny of the courts.
If Rwanda is safe, as the Government would have us declare, it has nothing to fear from such scrutiny, yet we are invited to adopt a fiction, to wrap it in the cloak of parliamentary sovereignty and to grant it permanent immunity from challenge—to tell an untruth and call it truth. Why would we go along with that? Clause 2 takes us for fools. Subject to anything that the Minister may say, when these amendments are called, I fully expect to test the opinion of the House. I beg to move.
Lord Blunkett (Lab)
My Lords, I rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich. I am glad that this evening I have started to understand the processes of the House of Lords, having been here only eight years. Therefore, I will not speak to Amendment 6, which had to be withdrawn in order to vote on Amendment 7, even though Amendment 6 was in group three, but there we go.
I can be even briefer than I intended to be, by just saying that when something is a nonsense, it remains a nonsense at whatever stage we happen to be voting on it. Crucially, in terms of what the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has rightly said, when circumstances change, most people change their minds. If minds are not allowed to be changed when circumstances change, then we are all extremely foolish.
I heard the noble Lord, Lord Howard, on the radio this morning explaining in great detail why Parliament had primacy over the courts. In many respects, as with the doctrines of Lord Jonathan Sumption, I agree. However, when the Government step outside the norms of international conventions which Parliament has ratified and signed up to, then the courts obviously continue to have a substantial role, because those are the checks and balances we have built in.
This evening, we are trying to make sense of a nonsensical piece of legislation. No doubt the House of Commons will just nod through the Government’s rejection of these amendments, but in times to come, when historians look back, I think they will ask: “Where were you and what did you do?” If you cannot answer that in a way that makes you comfortable about your grandchildren seeing it, then do not do it.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow my noble friend Lord Blunkett. I apologise to your Lordships for my mistakes earlier on, with standing up at the wrong time.
I have Amendment 19 in this group, with the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale of Richmond, the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. However, I commend all other amendments, in particular the simple and clear amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich. While we suggested a rebuttable presumption, his formulation—that a finding of safety may be displaced by “credible evidence to the contrary”—is clearer and even more attractive. Therefore, I urge him, as he has indicated, to press his amendment to a vote.
In concluding, I merely flag, as a sort of advert for Wednesday, that it is very important that as many noble Lords as possible can be here early on Wednesday to support Amendment 33, which introduces a new Clause 4. That will be debated and pressed then, because without that amendment, which restores the general jurisdiction of the courts, other amendments, even these ones, could well be illusory. The purpose, as I say, is to restore the jurisdiction of courts and tribunals to decide what the facts are, based on the evidence before them, including to invoke this rebuttable presumption. That is what our courts are for, despite all the dancing we heard before about novel interpretations of the rule of law. Our courts are admired for that jurisdiction all over the world. That is what we mean by the rule of law.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, I rise briefly to support what the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has said, as well as, of course, the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti; I signed her Amendment 19. This House should try to insist that, if the facts change, a mechanism is provided to the courts to reassess the situation. Anything else is profoundly unjust. Therefore, if the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, moves his amendment, I will support him.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, as well as supporting the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, I rise to speak to Amendment 16, which seeks to minimise the risk of torture arising from the Bill and to safeguard torture survivors. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, and my noble friend Lord Cashman for their support. They will speak to the first part of the amendment, while I will focus on the second. We brought it back because of our dissatisfaction with the response from the Minister in Committee. We hope that we might do better now, given the existential importance of torture, which represents one of the most serious of human rights violations.
We know from the work of organisations such as Freedom from Torture and Redress, whose help I am grateful for, that a good number of the asylum seekers in line to be sent to Rwanda will have survived torture. We also know, including from a recent report from the Mental Health Foundation, of the high incidence of mental health difficulties among asylum seekers, the risk of which is increased by traumatic experiences such as torture. These difficulties can only be exacerbated by removal to Rwanda.
In Committee, the Minister pointed out that an individual could challenge removal on the grounds of their “individual circumstances”. But Freedom from Torture warns that providing, in the time available, the necessary “compelling evidence” to meet the exceptionally high bar set by the test means that this does not offer torture survivors an effective safeguard. Indeed, the Minister himself admitted that successful claims on this basis are expected to be “rare”. That might have implications for some other amendments.
In response to my questioning about what mental health support will be available to torture survivors in Rwanda, the Minister referred me to Article 13 of the treaty, but that refers only to the special needs of victims of modern slavery or human trafficking. I can find no reference to the needs of torture survivors.
My noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws interjected that the mental health situation in Rwanda is very poor, with high levels of mental illness but very few suitably trained medical professionals. Since then, I have been referred to WHO’s 2020 mental health profile for Rwanda. This confirms the low level of provision and seems to show that there are no out-patient mental health facilities. If this continues to be the case, would traumatised torture survivors have to be admitted to a mental health unit to obtain any support? As was noted in Committee, civil society remains weak and therefore is unlikely to be able to step in.
More recently, last October, a press release from Interpeace, while commending the efforts that the Rwandan Government have made in this area, warns that
“the country still faces challenges such as the scale of mental health needs that outstrips the capacity of available professionals, low awareness and knowledge of mental health issues”
and “poor mental health infrastructure”.
From the Minister’s responses, it would appear that the Government simply do not know what support will be available and have made no attempt to find out, yet they are happy to condemn this highly vulnerable group to a life in a country that, with the best will in the world, is ill placed to provide that support. Of course, ideally, I would want the Government to accept the case for not sending torture survivors to Rwanda. At the very minimum, I ask the Minister to take this issue back to the Home Office—although I am not quite sure which Minister will respond—and give an undertaking that he will ask his colleagues to talk to the Rwandan Government about support for torture survivors and, if necessary, provide the necessary resources to ensure that support is available, perhaps earmarking part of the enormous sum to be paid to Rwanda identified by the NAO.
Baroness D'Souza (CB)
My Lords, what needs to be said about the risk of torture and inhumane treatment has already been set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. I simply emphasise the credibility of the reports of ongoing torture of even mild political dissenters, which continues to this day in Rwanda. Nor do freedom of expression and association exist there, however narrowly the terms are defined. However, the genocide ideology law is broadly defined and now carries criminal sanctions. The criminal code has recently been expanded to include
“creating a hostile … opinion of Rwanda”
by criticising the Government. These irrefutable reports indicate that Rwanda does not comply with the international obligations under various UN conventions, including the convention against torture. This can only add to the evidence that, at present, Rwanda cannot be regarded as a safe country.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, for sponsoring Amendments 9 and 12, to which I have added my name. They take up matters that I and the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, raised in Committee. This evening, Rwanda might be the safest country in Africa for all I know, but over the last few years we have seen a number of military coups and takeovers across African countries. To enshrine in legislation the notion that Rwanda will remain safe whatever seems to beggar belief. Who knows in what state that country might be in six to 12 months’ time? Who knows how safe it will be then? The courts need the ability to take new facts into consideration, to recognise that Rwanda may not be the same in a certain number of weeks, months or years as it was on this evening at the beginning of March 2024. We must have that flexibility. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, will press these amendments to a Division. I will support him in the Lobby if he does.
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
My Lords, as a member of the JCHR delegation, I had the benefit of visiting the very hospital in Kigali that will provide mental health support to relocated individuals. It was an impressive experience. That hospital has very capable psychiatric and psychological care. This is perhaps unsurprising given the context in which Rwanda finds itself. This is a country that, 30 years ago, was caused mass trauma as a consequence of the genocide against the Tutsi, which cost 800,000 lives in Rwanda. You can imagine the impact that has on relatives and those who knew those 800,000 people. Mental health is a widely understood and widely acknowledged issue in Rwanda. The community schemes to work on mental health are abundant. This is a country that understands mental health. The points raised against Rwanda on the basis of mental health are, in my view, unfounded. I do not accept the contentions advanced by the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady D’Souza.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Murray, and his trying to portray mental health provision within Rwanda. To use his words, the understanding of the illness may be there, and he says that the provision is significant. I point out that there are 13,170 psychiatrists in the UK, which equates to one for every 5,200 citizens. What the noble Lord, Lord Murray, did not tell the House is that there are only 15 psychiatrists in the whole of Rwanda, which equates to one for every 953,000 people. Clearly, the provision is not on the ground. The number of clinical psychologists is not known, but the latest evidence is that it probably runs to fewer than 200. The people who are vulnerable and critically scarred mentally will need the use of psychologists and psychiatrists. The fact is that they are not there. When the noble Lord, Lord Murray, presents his views of what he has seen, they are important, but they must be put into context of exactly what provision there is in Rwanda. Even though the Government may wish to see mental health provision as important, it is not on the ground to treat people already in Rwanda, never mind people who will be going because of the Bill.
Lord Cashman (Lab)
My Lords, as I said earlier when talking to a group of amendments, I spent a great deal of time in Rwanda. As anyone who visits knows, the first thing you do is go to the genocide museum to look at the faces of those lost and the skulls, there to remind us that it should not be forgotten. Indeed, the genocide strikes at the very psyche of Rwanda and laws within the country. It is because of our deep concerns, and for the progress that Rwanda has made, that we put forward these amendments based on the safety of those whom we believe are among the most vulnerable in the world.
My name has been added to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Lister. I believe that she and the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, have set out adequately the reasoning for this amendment, so I will not go into further detail. But I will say this: there is evidence of ongoing torture in Rwanda. That was made plain to us during Committee by my noble friend Lady Whitaker. It has been made plain to us in the briefings that we have received from Redress, among others. I make these criticisms with deep regret, because the UK Government cannot be easily forgiven for the harsh spotlight they have put on a country that has striven to improve since that genocide and continues to improve. That is why I say with the greatest respect that our concerns are for the most vulnerable. Those who will go there will pull up the resources there already for those in need.
Therefore, if the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, puts his amendments to the test, I hope your Lordships will support them. As I have said before—I am repeating myself, like a cheap curry—they are so sensible. That is probably why the Government will encourage us to reject them.
Finally, as I said, these amendments are about supporting the most vulnerable and those most in need. If we cannot offer support and consideration to those most in need, then I must ask: what kind of country have we become and what principles do we serve—except perhaps naked self-interest?
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 23 and 27, in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. They deal with Clause 4(1)(a) and (b), and relate very simply to “compelling evidence”. The threshold is quite simply too high for someone to be found to require “particular individual circumstances” to be considered. The point of these amendments is to take away “compelling”.
Lord Horam (Con)
My Lords, I am concerned about Amendment 9 from the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, which on the face of it seems extremely reasonable. If new, clear evidence and facts emerge, they should obviously be presented and tackled appropriately, but I wonder whether we are mixing up what the law can do with operational issues. After all, as was explained at some length from the Front Bench in the last debate, we have a monitoring committee with all sorts of bells and whistles, which should be able to pick up anything that is going wrong on the ground floor; it is the ground floor that matters. It is that issue—operational versus the law—that concerns me.
I quote to the House the remarks of Sir Robert Neill, who is a lawyer and chairman of the House of Commons Justice Committee, at Second Reading in the other place:
“Equally, the idea that legislation is the sole or even the principal solution to this situation is, I think, wrong. Ultimately, an operational solution is required … Ultimately, it will be operational measures that make the real difference”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/12/23; col. 783.]
This is the point: there is a danger of mixing up operational issues, which may be dealt with by the Rwandan Government, the British Government, and the instruments put in place by the treaty, and getting the courts involved at too early or inappropriate a stage. That is the risk with the commendable idea that the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has.
The Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich
Noble Lords would expect the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich to support the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, which I will do, but I want to say a few words about Amendment 39, which the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, tabled and to which is added my name and that of my right reverend friend the Bishop of Bristol. It simply asks that the right be given to those who have gone to Rwanda and been granted refugee status to be able to return in some circumstances, because it may well be that Rwanda is not a country where they should remain. Noble Lords can imagine issues around language, the possibility of destitution, risks to victims of modern slavery—various circumstances. Not allowing those granted refugee status to return to the UK seems a failure in the Bill.
This is not unprecedented. Indeed, the arrangements currently being made between Albania and Italy mean that those processed in Albania can, if they choose to do so, return to Italy. I urge that this amendment be considered as a way of making that option available.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, we very much support Amendments 9 and 12, which the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has led on. They would allow the presumption that Rwanda is a safe country to be rebutted by credible evidence presented to decision-makers, including courts and tribunals. If he were to test the opinion of the House, we would support him.
I will refer to my Amendment 29, which I hope gives some evidence of the need for the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Anderson. Amendment 29 would take out Clause 4(2). I tabled it because Clause 4(2) says that
“subsection (1) does not permit a decision-maker”—
however that is defined, whether it is the Secretary of State, a court or a tribunal—
“to consider any matter, claim or complaint to the extent that it relates to the issue of whether the Republic of Rwanda will or may remove or send the person in question to another State in contravention of any of its … obligations”.
In other words, an individual cannot put before the court or a tribunal not that they “may” be refouled but, using the Government’s own words in Clause 4(2), that they “will” be refouled. I could just about understand it if it had “may”, but if an individual cannot even argue that they “will” be then I would find that quite astonishing. Therefore, I suggest that my Amendment 29 highlights why Amendments 9 and 12, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, are needed.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. I will turn first to Amendment 39, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. As I set out in Committee, we do not consider it necessary to make this amendment.
Clause 1 sets out the obligations that the Government of Rwanda have committed to under the new treaty. The addition the noble Lord proposes does not reflect the arrangements under the treaty. Enabling persons whose claims are successful in Rwanda to return to the UK would be entirely inconsistent with the terms and objectives of the treaty. Those relocated to Rwanda are not intended to be returned to the UK, except in limited circumstances. Article 9 of the treaty clearly sets out that Rwanda shall process claims for asylum in accordance with the refugee convention and this agreement.
Since the partnership was announced, UK officials have worked closely with the Government of Rwanda to ensure that individuals relocated under the agreement will be safe and that their rights will be protected. Human rights have been a key consideration throughout this work, including the treaty, to confirm the principles for the treatment of all relocated individuals in an internationally binding agreement and strengthened monitoring mechanisms to ensure practical delivery against the obligations. For example, individuals, once relocated, will have freedom of movement. They will not be at any risk of destitution, as they will be accommodated and supported for five years. They will have access to a generous integration package so that they can study, undertake training and work, and access healthcare.
For those who are not registered as refugees, Rwanda shall consider whether the relocated individual has another humanitarian protection need. Where such a humanitarian protection need exists, Rwanda shall provide treatment consistent with that offered to those recognised as refugees and permission to remain in Rwanda. Such persons shall be afforded equivalent rights and treatment to those recognised as refugees and shall be treated in accordance with international and Rwandan laws. For those relocated individuals not recognised as refugees or granted protection, Article 10 of the treaty provides that Rwanda shall regularise their status in the form of a permanent residence permit and provide equivalent treatment as set out in Part 2 of Annex A.
It is the Government of Rwanda, and not the UK Government, who will consider asylum or protection claims and who will grant refugee or protection status to those relocated to Rwanda under the treaty that will underpin the migration and economic development partnership. As is made clear in the agreed terms of the treaty, those relocated will not be returned to the UK except in limited specified circumstances. Obtaining refugee status in Rwanda does not grant that person any rights within the UK, as would be the case for any other person granted refugee status in Rwanda who had not been relocated from the UK. Anyone seeking entry to the UK in the future would have to apply through legal routes, such as the work or family route, with no guarantee of acceptance.
Amendments 9 and 12 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and Amendment 19 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, seek to qualify the requirement for decision-makers, including courts and tribunals, to conclusively treat Rwanda as a safe country, thus allowing individuals to challenge removal decisions on the grounds that Rwanda is not a generally safe country.
The treaty, the Bill and the evidence together demonstrate that Rwanda is safe for relocated individuals and that the Government’s approach is tough but fair and lawful. The Government are clear that we assess Rwanda to be a safe country, and we have published detailed evidence that substantiates this assessment. This is a central feature of the Bill, and many of its other provisions are designed to ensure that Parliament’s conclusion on the safety of Rwanda is accepted by the domestic courts. The conclusive presumption in the Bill that Rwanda is generally a safe country is not, as the noble Lord suggested, a “legal fiction”.
The courts have not concluded that there is a general risk to the safety of relocated individuals in Rwanda. Rather, the Supreme Court’s findings were limited to perceived deficiencies in the Rwandan asylum system and the resulting risk of refoulement should any lack of capacity or expertise lead to cases being wrongly decided. As we have repeatedly set out, the treaty responds to those key findings. The assurances we have since negotiated in our legally binding treaty with Rwanda directly address these findings by making detailed provision for the treatment of relocated individuals in Rwanda, ensuring that they will be offered safety and protection, with no risk of refoulement.
We have been clear that the purpose of this legislation is to stop the boats, and to do that we must create a deterrent that shows that, if you enter the UK illegally, you will not be able to stay. We cannot allow systematic legal challenges to continue to frustrate and delay removals. It is therefore right that the scope for individualised claims remains limited, to prevent the merry-go-round of legal challenges and enable us to remove from the UK individuals who have entered illegally. We cannot allow illegal entrants to be able to thwart their removal when there is a clear process for the consideration of a claim based on a risk of serious and irreversible harm. We cannot allow the kinds of spurious legal challenges we have been seeing for far too long to continue.
It is for this reason that I cannot accept Amendments 23 and 27 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, which seek to lower the threshold for a claim or appeal brought on the grounds that Rwanda is unsafe to succeed. These amendments undermine the core principle of the Bill, which is to limit challenges brought against the safety of Rwanda. The Bill makes it clear that Rwanda is generally safe and that decision-makers, as well as courts and tribunals, must treat it conclusively as such. This reflects the Government’s confidence in the assurances of the treaty and in Rwanda’s commitment and capability to deliver against these obligations. As I have set out, the UK Government and the Government of Rwanda have agreed and begun to implement assurances and commitments to strengthen Rwanda’s asylum system.
Following on from my previous point with regard to relocated individuals in Rwanda being offered safety and protection with no risk of refoulement, I now turn to Amendments 11, 14, 15 and 29 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. I consider these amendments to be unnecessary. As I have just stated, yes, the Supreme Court did find deficiencies in the Rwandan asylum system that meant there was a risk that those relocated under the terms of the previous memorandum of understanding with Rwanda could be refouled. However, the UK and Rwanda have since worked closely together to address the court’s conclusions.
As noble Lords are aware, the Supreme Court could consider evidence only up to summer 2022, which was not reflective of the current evidential position. Not only could the court not consider additional work undertaken with the Government of Rwanda to build capacity in the Rwandan asylum system, but it had not had the opportunity to consider the terms agreed under our new legally binding treaty with Rwanda. The treaty makes very clear that no one relocated to Rwanda will be returned to another country, except, in very limited circumstances, back to the UK. This expressly addresses the court’s conclusions by eliminating the risk of refoulement.
As I have said previously, and as I stated in my letter to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, following the debate on this matter in Committee, the treaty contains, among other provisions, a definitive undertaking from the Government of Rwanda that they will not remove any person relocated under the MEDP, except to the UK, in accordance with Article 11(1).
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
Can the Minister confirm that the arrangement described in Article 10(3) of the treaty has been devised: that is, the arrangement to ensure that refoulement does not in practice occur? The treaty imposes an obligation on both parties to agree a process. Has it been agreed, and can we see it?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I am afraid I do not know the answer to that question. I will find out and come back to the noble Lord on whether it has been agreed and where we are.
We therefore believe that there is no need for this to be considered when making individualised assessments as to the safety of Rwanda.
The treaty also enhances the role of the independent monitoring committee, which we discussed on the previous group. The monitoring committee will provide real-time, comprehensive monitoring of the end-to-end relocation and asylum process, ensuring delivery against the terms of the agreement and in line with both countries’ international obligations. This will prevent the risk of any harm to relocated individuals, including potential refoulement, before it has a chance to occur.
Rwanda is one step closer to ratifying the treaty, as discussed, which has passed through its lower house in Parliament. Once ratified, the treaty will become law in Rwanda. It follows that the Government of Rwanda would be required to give effect to the terms of the treaty in accordance with its domestic law, as well as international law. Those in genuine need of safety and security will be provided with it in Rwanda.
Turning to Amendment 16 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, we do not accept that individuals relocated to Rwanda would be at risk of torture or any other form of inhumane or degrading treatment. The Government’s assessment is that Rwanda is a safe country that respects the rule of law. Rwanda is a signatory to the United Nations convention against torture, the convention on refugees and other core UN human rights conventions. It has also signed the treaty with us which guarantees the welfare of all those relocated under the partnership. The enhanced monitoring committee will be in place to robustly monitor adherence to these obligations. Should somebody with a particular vulnerability be relocated to Rwanda, there will be the necessary treatment and specialist support available, with safeguarding processes in place.
Furthermore, Clause 4 preserves the ability of individuals to challenge removal due to their particular individual circumstances if there is compelling evidence that Rwanda is not a safe country for them. That is the appropriate mechanism to ensure that an individual’s circumstances have been considered.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
I am sorry to interrupt. What investigations have the Government made of whether that support is available in Rwanda? This is not a criticism of Rwanda but an acceptance of the fact that it is a country that has poor provision, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, and others. On being able to say that it is not safe for an individual, as the Minister’s colleague said in Committee, the Government expect this to be successful very rarely, so that is no safeguard, really.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I was about to answer the noble Baroness’s questions, because safeguarding arrangements are set out in detail in the standard operating procedure on identifying and safeguarding vulnerability, which states that, at any stage in the refugee’s status determination and integration process, officials may encounter and should have due regard to the physical and psychological signs that can indicate that a person is vulnerable. The SOP sets out the process for identifying vulnerable persons and, where appropriate, making safeguarding referrals to the relevant protection team.
Screening interviews to identify vulnerability will be conducted by protection officers who have received the relevant training and are equipped to competently handle safeguarding referrals. The protection team may trigger follow-up assessments and/or treatment as appropriate. In addition, protection officers may support an individual to engage in the asylum process and advise relevant officials of any support needs or adjustments to enable the individual to engage with the process. Where appropriate, the protection team may refer vulnerable individuals for external support, which may include medical and/or psycho-social support or support with their accommodation. Where possible, this should be with the informed consent of the individual.
As regards capacity, of course it will be in place. The policy statement sets out at paragraph 135:
“In line with our obligations under the Refugee Convention and to ensure compliance with international human rights standards, each Relocated Individual will have access to quality preventative and curative primary and secondary healthcare services that are at least of the standard available to Rwandan nationals. This is provided through a comprehensive agreement between the Government of Rwanda and medical insurance companies for the duration of 5 years and through MoUs with hospitals in Kigali”.
I also say at this point that it would be in the best mental health interests of those seeking asylum who are victims to seek asylum in the first safe country that they come to. Why would they risk their health and mental health crossing the channel in much more grave circumstances than they need to?
Noble Lords will know that over 135,000 refugees and asylum seekers have already successfully found safety in Rwanda. International organisations including the UNHCR chose Rwanda to host these individuals. We are committed to delivering this partnership. With the treaty and published evidence pack, we are satisfied that Rwanda can be deemed a safe country through this legislation. I would ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)
I thank all noble Lords who have participated in this fast-paced debate, and for the generous and constructive contributions that we have heard from all corners of this House. I shall not dwell on them individually, but I will single out the contributions that we heard from the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady D’Souza, and the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, on the subject of torture. Although my amendments are broader than theirs, theirs serve as a reminder that even evidence of widespread torture would be off limits if Clause 2 were not amended as they and I wish.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Murray, that I am delighted by what he says he has seen in Rwanda. However, with great respect to him, the points that he makes in no way remove the desirability of ensuring that, should protections not prove to be adequate—including, for example, protections against the risk of refoulement contrary to the terms of an agreement, as we saw when the Rwanda/Israel agreement was in force—the decision-makers and courts should be able to take those matters into account. That is all that these amendments contend for.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Horam, that it is operational measures that will make the difference; he must be right about that. Those are the sorts of measures that were identified by the International Agreements Committee in its list of nine or 10, and in Article 10(3) of the treaty. As the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, pointed out, these will be unfinished business even when the treaty is ratified. The purpose of the courts is simply to check that those measures meet the minimum thresholds laid down by law.
The Minister made the point that the concerns expressed by the Supreme Court were limited to specific issues regarding refoulement and suggested that, had they not been resolved already, those issues would be easily resolved in the near future. The Minister asks us to take a good deal on trust. I understand that a letter has been circulated this afternoon; it certainly did not reach me. Whether that includes, for example, full details relating to the Rwanda asylum Bill, which nobody seemed to have seen when we debated this in Committee, and whether it contains full details of the arrangements to ensure non-refoulement, which are referred to in Article 10(3) of the treaty, I cannot say.
Lord Scriven (LD)
Speaking for myself, I would just say in answer to the noble Lord’s questions that the answer is no.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)
I am grateful. I should say in fairness to the Minister that I did have a letter about Northern Ireland. It did not touch on those issues.
I acknowledge the confidence with which the Minister defended the position on the ground in Rwanda. This is all the more reason to accept these amendments. The more confident the Government are in the safety of Rwanda, the less they have to fear. For these reasons, I am minded to test the opinion of the House on my amendment.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)
My Lords, I cannot call Amendments 10 and 11 due to pre-emption. I remind the House that Peers should not cross the Floor between the Woolsack and the clerks during voting. If Amendment 12 is agreed, I cannot call Amendments 13 to 16 due to pre-emption.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
Member’s explanatory statement
The amendments to Clause 2 in the name of Lord Anderson of Ipswich would allow the presumption that Rwanda is a safe country to be rebutted by credible evidence presented to decision-makers, including courts and tribunals.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)
My Lords, I would like to test the opinion of the House.
Baroness Lawlor
“(5) This Act and the Illegal Migration Act 2023 will have effect in relation to removals to Rwanda notwithstanding—(a) any provision made by or under the Immigration Acts,(b) the Human Rights Act 1998,(c) EU derived law and case law retained under sections 2 to 7 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018,(d) any other provision or rule of domestic law (including any common law), and(e) international law, including any interpretation of international law by the court or tribunal.(6) Nothing identified in paragraphs (a) to (e) of subsection (5) may prevent or delay the removal to Rwanda of an individual under this Act or the Illegal Migration Act 2023, or affect the interpretation or application of any provision of this Act or the Illegal Migration Act 2023, including the actions or policies of public authorities, in relation to the removal of a person to Rwanda. (7) To the extent that any provision or requirement included in paragraphs (a) to (e) of subsection (5) has been given effect to in legislation (including the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993, the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 and the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc) Act 2004), that legislation does not apply in relation to provision made by or by virtue of this Act or the Illegal Migration Act 2023 in relation to the removal of an individual to Rwanda, and shall not prevent or delay the removal to Rwanda of an individual under this Act or the Illegal Migration Act 2023.(8) A person or body to which subsection (9) applies may not have regard to international law, in the circumstances mentioned in subsection (11).(9) This subsection applies to —(a) the Secretary of State or an immigration officer when exercising any function related to removing, or considering for removal a person to Rwanda under this Act or the Illegal Migration Act 2023;(b) a court or tribunal when considering any application or appeal which relates to a decision or purported decision to remove, or to consider the removal of a person to Rwanda under this Act or the Illegal Migration Act 2023.(10) No inference is to be drawn from this section as to whether or not a person or body mentioned in subsection (9) would otherwise have been required to have regard to international law.(11) The Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993 is amended as follows. (12) In section 2, at end insert “except in relation to the removal of a person to Rwanda under the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 and the Illegal Migration Act 2023”.”
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
My Lords, I support the aims of the Bill and I hope that it—and they—will succeed, that it will not be challenged and that there will be no further obstacles put in the way of removing people who come to this country illegally and by these dangerous routes.
My Amendment 17 would leave out Clause 2(5) and substitute the text on the Marshalled List. The aim is to tighten the Bill on what may
“prevent or delay the removal to Rwanda of an individual”
under any of the Immigration Acts, the Human Rights Act 1998,
“EU derived law and case law … under sections 2 to 7 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018”
and
“any … provision … of domestic law (including … common law), and … international law”
relevant to the aim, so as to limit legal challenges to the Bill. I do not share the views of those who say that the Bill contravenes the rule of law. Their view rests on assumptions about the role of international law, its place within our own system, the creative approach of the Strasbourg court in applying the convention and the tendency now to accord something of a primacy to courts over Parliament.
These assumptions are contested within the legal profession itself. I will refer to one KC, Anthony Speaight, whose paper was published at the weekend by Politeia, of which I am research director. I therefore declare a special interest in the matter. Speaight explains the comparative novelty of the view, which he dates from Lord Bingham’s 2010 book, that the rule of law requires adherence to international law.
I am not a lawyer. I approach the question as a historian of British political and constitutional history. It is a history, by and large—and certainly in the era since the franchise was extended in the 19th century—of the interplay between Executive and Parliament, with the Government accountable through Parliament to the will of the people, even before the extension of the franchise. At the moment, both the Government and Parliament are intent on being accountable on the matter of curbing illegal immigration. But they are prevented by laws and the judiciary that operates them or, as in the case of the Strasbourg court, interprets them in a manner that takes from and does not protect their liberty, on which good law is based—the freely expressed will of the people who are governed.
On immigration, legal and illegal, the people have spoken loud and clear. They want Britain’s borders controlled and the flow of immigration curbed. Parliament has passed the laws to bring such control, but each Bill it brings forward meets a challenge in the courts. Is removal to Rwanda to be stopped not by a recalcitrant authoritarian monarch or an oligarchic, aristocratic, landowning Parliament, as in the past, but by a judiciary acting—I do not doubt in good faith—to give effect to a cocktail of legislation binding this country from an era whose laws are not our own and from times that are not our own?
There are practical limits to what a good Government can achieve. It is recognised, perhaps more clearly by voters than by rulers, that uncontrolled immigration facilitated by the obstacles now put by the courts, often—as in the case of illegal immigration through asylum claims—has consequences for the economy in terms of the budgetary costs. It puts demands that cannot be satisfied on Britain’s domestic arrangements—not just for processing claims but on every manner of the support that the UK’s people have over the centuries shown to those who, for whatever reason, come to make their lives in this country.
If our constitution is to survive the onslaught of legal challenge, the will of Parliament, reflecting the mandate of the voters, must triumph and, with it, the stability, transparency and accountability it has brought to Britain and its people, rather than be challenged on account of international or our own laws.
This country is no outlier. Across the channel, the political systems of western European neighbours are buckling under the political immediacy of uncontrolled immigration, each seeking to exploit or avoid the system to which in law they are bound under EU law, convention law and the mass of internal legislation to which these have given rise. They also have to take account of Schengen.
Take the case of France. Its political system was practically frozen for two years, haggling over an immigration Bill that many see as promising too little, too late. The problems with which it grapples are immense. Constitutional arrangements and stability are under threat at different levels. Departments are pitted against national powers, as in the recent stand-off with some mayors, who refuse to accept and look after unaccompanied minors because they have no ability to do so. At government level, against the ruling of the Strasbourg court, it is voters against the traditional systems of the political parties, the republicans and the socialists.
In this country, we are free to make our own laws. Other noble Lords will speak to their amendments on the same theme. My amendment aims to tighten the Bill and to pre-empt further challenge. As the Minister mentioned earlier, a core principle and aim of the Bill is to prevent further challenge to the workings of ordered, representative and accountable democracy. It aims to promote the aims of the Bill to delay illegal and unsafe crossings and deter the horrid loss of life, such as the death of a little girl of seven in freezing waters in the channel on Sunday night. I therefore beg to move.
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, I will also speak in favour of Amendment 17, tabled by my noble friend Lady Lawlor, to which I have added my name. As I said at Second Reading, I support the Bill. I am afraid that the Rwanda policy is a bit of a Heath Robinson arrangement. It shies away from some of the tough decisions needed to solve the problems. But I support the Bill because it is the plan we have, and we must hope it makes a difference.
It can certainly be improved. Most of the amendments discussed today would make it worse rather than better, and less effective rather than more effective. Amendment 17 is one of the few exceptions to that. It aims to provide a more clearly drawn Bill—one that can withstand challenges and fulfil its purpose more effectively, by making clear that no other legal provisions of any kind, whether in domestic or international law, can be used to frustrate the policy.
I do not want to repeat issues that have already been raised in Committee and discussed again at length today, but I will briefly explain why I support this amendment and then make one comment based on my involvement in recent years in the intersection between international and domestic law.
First, it is absolutely clear that this Parliament may legislate against international law, and indeed the Government may act in contravention of international law. As we have already heard, Clause 1(4) makes that clear and nobody is seeking to amend that. It is a long-standing, fundamental element of our constitution. It is not some sort of weird, UK-specific provision; there is good reason for the dualism in our system. First, otherwise Governments could act to create domestic law merely by signing an international treaty and thereby sidestep normal democratic processes. Secondly, it reflects the reality that international treaties are in practice very difficult to adapt to changing conditions because all the parties must agree to changes. It has been suggested by some noble Lords today and in previous debates that that is what should happen and that we should seek to renegotiate the international framework. The refugee convention, for example, has 149 state parties, including such well-known supporters of international law as China, Russia and Iran. Are we going to wait for them all to agree to amend this framework? We are clearly not, but if national Governments accept that they can deal with pressing national challenges only by renegotiating these treaties, they are in effect abandoning their duty to govern their own countries on matters of huge importance.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I will briefly support Amendment 17 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor. I will say a few words about the Northern Ireland perspective on this, because whether this will really apply to Northern Ireland has been discussed at various stages, as have the effects if it does not.
A number of things in the Safeguarding the Union Command Paper have already been exposed as not correct. I would have liked more specific language in proposed new subsection (5)(c) in the amendment and more specific mention of Section 7A of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act when we talk about international law. The noble Lord, Lord Frost, is absolutely right: this will not go away and, sooner or later, we will have a legal challenge, probably first in Northern Ireland, on Section 7A and whether this applies.
Last week, we saw that the effect of the protocol framework is to give EU law supremacy in Northern Ireland, even to the point whereby the legacy Act that was passed—whether you agreed with it or not—could be struck down due to inconsistency with EU law applying because of the protocol. The Government and the Minister need to clarify because there is a lot of confusion and—I will put this gently—misleading information about how Article 2 works.
In a Written Answer to me on the Rwanda Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Caine, claimed that the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights did not apply to Northern Ireland via Article 2 of the protocol framework, and this is directly at variance with the High Court judgment in Angesom and the High Court in Northern Ireland disapplying 10 provisions of the legacy Act last week. The Government cannot keep making claims that are so obviously not true and then get almost angry when we point out things about how it is working legally.
This is another example of the degree to which control over part of the United Kingdom has been genuinely surrendered by this Government while they pretend that it is not happening. Let us not forget that the Windsor Framework is very specific: paragraph 46 of Safeguarding the Union says that
“the Windsor Framework applies only in respect of … trade”
and that Article 2 does not apply to immigration issues. I think we will find that this is not correct.
On the Rwanda Bill and the effect of Article 2 of the protocol framework, the proponents of the deal need to be clear. The Bill does not apply in the same way in Northern Ireland because Article 2 prevents it from doing so. The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights continues in Northern Ireland, and we should be honest about that. The protocol framework provision trumps domestic law and the wishes of our sovereign Parliament. Noble Lords should be aware that, whatever your views on this Rwanda Bill, we will find that this will ultimately end in another legal challenge. Whether the Bill has gone through or not, this will delay its implementation. I support the amendment, even if it does not specifically mention the Windsor Framework.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 18, and Amendment 20 which I share with the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale of Richmond, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. I support the starred Amendment 21 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord German.
Amendments 20 and 21 both restore Human Rights Act protection in full for those subject to the Bill pending removal to Rwanda. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord German, does this in even clearer language by not referring internally to last year’s immigration Bill but clearly stating for the lay reader that Human Rights Act protection is restored.
However, Amendment 18 is a revision of the amendment tabled in Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope. It is a modest revision to address the concerns of some of his noble friends. He is not able to be here this evening. I begin with that one because it is so mild and in keeping with the thrust of the Bill, and it cannot be described as wrecking or disturbing the framework—even of a Bill I object to—in any way.
Noble Lords will know that, in Clause 3, most Human Rights Act protection is removed for these vulnerable people. The one thing that is left is the possibility of a declaration of incompatibility. Contrary, I fear, to some of the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Nottingham, and others, there is no possibility in our arrangements for the Supreme Court to strike down the Bill, were it to become an Act, because that is not the arrangement that we have in the elegant British constitutional compromise of the Human Rights Act and the balance it strikes between the rule of law, which is the bedrock of any democracy, and parliamentary sovereignty.
If an Act is declared incompatible, that declaration has merely moral and persuasive effect, and the Act continues in operation. That is why, with the greatest of respect to him, the noble Lord, Lord Clarke, was optimistic to the point of being wrong about that. What the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, came up with last time was just the suggestion that, if there were to be a declaration of incompatibility made by a higher court in relation to this legislation, there should be accelerated consideration in Parliament. That is it. I am flabbergasted by the Government’s response, that they would not even have a look at that most modest amendment from their noble friend—a former Immigration Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate.
In the noble Lord’s absence, I have retabled the amendment, and it has been tweaked slightly to address some of the points made by his noble friends last time—and I really look forward to hearing what the objection is to that modest suggestion that he made, that, if is there is a declaration, Parliament should have an accelerated timetable, and Ministers should put their arguments to Parliament, not to a court, and Parliament should be given the opportunity to consider what to do next.
As for our amendments to restore Human Rights Act protection, that is another way of trying to restore the protection of the domestic courts. I say to the Government—and here the noble Lord, Lord Frost, has a point—that where they have left us with this Bill, if it passes unamended, is in a situation whereby the only court that will really be seized of these matters and have full jurisdiction over the safety of Rwanda and individual removals, from this country to that country, will be the European Court of Human Rights. Of course, interim measures will be ignorable by a Minister of State, but final orders of the European court will still be an international legal obligation, which is not removed by the Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Frost, is the one who is telling the truth about the logic of where this Government are heading—really, for walking out of the European Court of Human Rights and walking out of the Council of Europe. We can follow Russia and be the next one out. At least the noble Lord is honest about that position, whereas the Government are trying to have it both ways. They have defenestrated domestic courts and gaslit the Supreme Court, but the only court that will be left for redress in any real terms will be the Strasbourg court. Then the Prime Minister can say, “I told you what I said about foreign courts”, because foreign courts will be all that is left, if that is what we now say about international courts. Goodness me, what terrible politics.
The noble Lord, Lord Frost, has had enough of international law, really—that is where he is coming from—but how on earth are we going to address in a unilateral way the pressing challenges of the 21st century, facing not just the United Kingdom but the world today, whether it is climate change, war and peace or the challenge of the ungoverned continent that is the internet, AI or robotics? It is just nonsense.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, does not seem to like law, whether it is domestic or international, I hope that she never has need of it and that she is never subject to the kind of abuse of power that sometimes people are subject to, and they need the protection of the courts.
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
I ask the noble Baroness to be clear about what I proposed and to what I was referring. I was referring to the laws of this country, made by the people of this country, with the support of the people of this country—good laws. Yes, they support international treaty law, when that is in the interests of this country, and other wider interests that arise, whether they are trade treaties or international agreements over other matters. It is wrong to suggest that I am not in favour of law; I am in favour of good law, but not politicised law, as it very often is, by the interpretations of the Strasbourg court of the convention.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for her clarification. As I pointed out, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Frost, was nodding, the Strasbourg court is unaffected in its final jurisdiction by the Bill—it is our domestic courts that are defenestrated by this government policy.
I look to the noble Baroness’s amendment, which abrogates domestic laws. It refers to
“any provision made by … the Immigration Acts … the Human Rights Act”
and other domestic statute, as well as
“any other provision or rule of domestic law (including any common law)”—
in case Magna Carta still got a shout-out there—and, of course, international law. The noble Baroness has been pretty comprehensive in her approach to law in the amendment, whether domestic or international.
Of course, the noble Baroness says that it is only bad law that she does not like—but of course we all have our own views about good and bad law. Some of us believe that there should be referees in a democracy that is built on the rule of law, and the rule of law was invoked by the Prime Minister, even in his slightly odd Downing Street declaration on Friday.
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
May I clarify that my amendment is designed to promote the aims of the Bill to remove people who come to this country illegally to Rwanda and stop obstructions on that matter?
Baroness D’Souza (CB)
My Lords, perhaps I might add a few words to this debate on the Human Rights Act. I point out that this is the first time that I have spoken in this group. This amendment seeks to return the responsibility of interpreting the law to the courts and specifically underlines the unacceptability of a law on the statute book that is incompatible with domestic law, which of course includes the UK Human Rights Act. Unless and until the courts affirm that the Act conforms with the strictures of the Human Rights Act, it must not have any effect; to do otherwise would be to reject the rule of law, which is one of the pillars of the UK constitution.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, I wanted to make a couple of brief points in support of Amendments 20 and 21. In Committee, the Minister, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart, quoted at length the Lord Chancellor’s submission to the Joint Committee on Human Rights to justify breaching the universality of human rights. Clearly, the Lord Chancellor did not convince the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which in its majority report concluded that the provision
“threatens the fundamental principle that human rights are universal and should be protected for everyone”.
I still do not understand, given the concerns expressed by the JCHR, as well as the EHRC, the Law Society and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, why this Government continue to try to argue that disapplication does not affect the principle of universality, which the noble and learned Lord waxed lyrical about in his speech.
Secondly, the noble and learned Lord promised to write to me in response to my concerns about the implications for the Windsor Framework and the Good Friday agreement—following on from the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey—and the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ request for a full explanation before Report as to why the Government consider Clause 3 to be consistent with these agreements. I thank the noble and learned Lord for his letter but, to echo what the noble Lord, Lord German, said earlier, I gently point out that it was sent at 3.24 pm this afternoon, after Report began. That really is not good practice, and it does not meet the JCHR’s request that a full explanation should be published before Report. It seems that the actual full publication will not be until some time on Wednesday, when we will be finishing Report.
I am not convinced that the answers to my questions would satisfy the JCHR, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission or the Human Rights Consortium of Northern Ireland. I am also not clear why the letter was not copied to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, given that she originally challenged the Minister on this point at Second Reading. I am not going to pursue the matter here, except to point out that I do not think we yet have a satisfactory explanation of the interactions with and the implications for these agreements.
Lord German (LD)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 21 in my name and also link that with Amendments 20 and 18. If Amendment 20 had had any space, I would have signed it as well, because it makes the same case. I will address Amendment 17 later and look forward very much to seeing how the Government deal with it in their response.
At the moment I will just repeat the universality issue of human rights—they are for all. I read once again the response from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart of Dirleton, about legitimacy and I am sure we will hear it again today. But the underpinning of the Human Rights Act is that the protections should not be disapplied just to some people. Human rights are for all; if they become qualified, they are no longer human rights but only rights for some people. This violates the principle of the universality of human rights, which is why this amendment is in place.
It does not matter that this is directed at illegal migrants: once the Government do this for one group, they will choose—or could choose—to use it for other groups such as protesters.
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
Is the logic of the noble Lord’s point therefore that the Government would be better to repeal the Human Rights Act completely and revert to the pre-1998 situation?
Lord German (LD)
No, we simply keep the Human Rights Act, which does the job we are seeking here. Naturally, of course, if the Government want to move and create a special group, as here—what they call “illegal migrants”—what about the other groups that might follow from it? It is very clear that there may well be an issue with protesters—groups that are not in vogue with the Government. It is a very dangerous precedent and this is a warning sign. Fundamentally, what we are seeing here is a chasing of short-term headlines that will have a significant consequence for people’s rights in this country.
Not content with arguments that they are having with the views of the ECHR and the UNHCR, the Government in the last seven days have now drawn swords with the United Nations Human Rights Council. Published last Friday, the council’s report said:
“Prohibiting courts and tribunals in the UK from applying and interpreting principles of domestic human rights law and international law would undermine the ability of the courts to protect all those under UK jurisdiction from violations of their human rights as provided under international law”.
It goes on to say that the Government should look at this matter again and the United Nations has offered to work with the UK Government on this matter. So, when he responds, will the noble Lord tell us whether the Government have read the United Nations Human Rights Council’s review and whether they are prepared to meet the council and discuss this matter further?
There is also a logical inconsistency in what the Government are doing; they cannot have it both ways. They want to rely on the international convention and jurisprudence in justifying the disapplication of the Human Rights Act, but they are then seeking to disapply the findings of that same court in relation to the same international convention with respect to the consideration of interim orders. You cannot have it both ways and the Government need to be clear on that matter.
All the comments that the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, made about Amendment 17 are absolutely accurate, but one thing worries me completely and that is the part of the amendment that basically takes away every law that this country might apply in this direction—domestic law and common law. For goodness’ sake, with common law as interpreted by the courts, I do not know how you find which parts of it you want to disapply. You have to be specific in what you say if you want to disapply anything of this nature. Amendment 17 looks to me like a complete wiping out, blanking out and blindfolding of every single possible piece of legislation that might stand in the way of this Government’s view, and that absolutely must affect the balance of the rule of law in this country.
I look forward to seeing how the Government will deal with that amendment, but I suggest they might need to consider how they move forward with no further disapplication of the Human Rights Act.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak quite briefly. The amendments in this group again demonstrate the threat to the domestic rule of law posed by this Bill. This is not the first Bill that threatens the Human Rights Act in this way, but the fact that it now seems almost commonplace for the Government to strip back human rights legislation does not mean it should go without objection each and every time.
There is much to object to in this Bill and Clause 4 is no exception. Each cut to the Human Rights Act matters and each piece of domestic law cut away in search of a quick political gain matters as well. I hope the Government listen to the arguments put forward by my noble friends and see sense.
I have to say I found this relatively brief debate quite refreshing. The noble Lord, Lord Frost, was perfectly candid with the House, and for a layman it was much easier to understand the political differences between the view articulated by the noble Lord and the view on the other side of the House. It was much easier to understand that difference than when I try to decipher the words of the Ministers when they respond to these amendments. Nevertheless, I look forward to what the Minister has to say.
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, has flung down the gauntlet and, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, I am happy to pick it up.
I am grateful to all who participated in this debate and sincerely echo the words of the noble Lord when he said that there was a refreshing quality to this short debate. I think that the House articulated some important points and contrasting positions were properly and clearly laid out for the consideration of the House.
My noble friend Lady Lawlor opened with the support of my noble friend Lord Frost and I begin by saying, as I said at an earlier stage in the handling of this Bill, that it is important to recognise, as my noble friend did, that the levels of illegal migration to this country, perhaps to the whole of western Europe and other comparatively prosperous parts of the world, are not only placing enormous strain on us economically but straining the fabric of society and straining perhaps also public confidence in the ability of our courts and democratic legislatures to address problems.
I am grateful to both my noble friends for their broad support for the aims and objectives of the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Frost, put it clearly and accurately in constitutional terms when he repeated that this Parliament may legislate in contravention of international law and that it is a long-standing element of our constitution.
The noble Lord also correctly identified that the high price to be paid for any such step is a matter of reputation. Reputations of countries, as of people, may be easily lost. I echo what he said about how it is difficult to adapt international treaties drawn up at different times and in different circumstances. The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, intervened on him; it seemed to me that he was not saying that he had had enough of international law but that he wished it to operate in its proper context.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
I think a closer reading of Amendment 18 will demonstrate that it is not ensuring that the Government respond in a certain way. They can respond favourably or negatively to the declaration; they just need to come to Parliament and have the debate.
Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)
In her address today and I think at an earlier stage, the noble Baroness described the functioning of declarations of incompatibility in Section 4 of the Human Rights Act 1998 as an elegant compromise. I freely agree that it is an elegant constitutional compromise, which ultimately reflects parliamentary sovereignty, which lies at the very heart of our processes and constitution.
As detailed in Committee, Section 4 of the Human Rights Act in relation to the system of declarations of incompatibility is designed to strike an appropriate compromise between scrutiny of human rights and parliamentary sovereignty. Section 4 does not oblige the Government to take any specific action as a result of a declaration of incompatibility, and Section 4(6) expressly does not allow a judicial ruling to prevent the operation and enforcement of legislation passed by Parliament.
The operation of the section is to afford the Government the opportunity to reflect on matters, to listen to concerns brought by the courts and to act upon them as they see fit. I do not consider it necessary to adopt the amendment which the noble Baroness has tabled and argued for. I do so purely on the basis that the history of the application of this section, in my view, respectfully, shows it to be working.
The noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, tabled Amendment 47, seeking to undermine Section 4(6) of the Act by providing that a declaration of incompatibility results automatically in the legislation ceasing to have effect. It seeks to give such declarations a binding character, and, as I said a moment ago in relation to the noble Baroness’s point, that is contrary to what those provisions were designed to be and removes discretion or oversight as is currently afforded to the Government and Parliament as to what action would be most appropriate to take in the circumstances.
It has been the accepted practice since the introduction of the Human Rights Act for the Government to address such declarations either through primary legislation or by way of a remedial order. Again, given how well the declaration of incompatibility procedure is working and has worked in the past, I respectfully submit that there is no reason for us to innovate on that basis. These amendments are therefore not only unnecessary but inappropriate in their attempt to legislate for parliamentary procedure in this manner. The declaration of incompatibility procedure works well to strike the right balance, and there is no reason to upset it.
I was addressed on the subject of the remarks made by the Lord Chancellor to the Joint Committee on Human Rights. As your Lordships have said—it was predicted that I would refer to this again, and I will—the Lord Chancellor recently set out in his letter to the Joint Committee that while
“it is a fundamental tenet of modern human rights that they are universal and indivisible … it is legitimate to treat people differently in different circumstances”.
For example,
“a citizen may legitimately be treated differently, and have different legal rights from, a non-national”,
recognising that there is a difference between a citizen and a non-national. The convention,
“as interpreted by the case law of the ECtHR … recognises this principle”
in full.
“There is nothing in the … Bill that deprives any person of any of their human rights: in accordance with Article 1 of the ECHR, we shall continue to secure to everyone within our jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined in the Convention. What we can legitimately do, and what we are doing, is to draw legal distinctions between those with a legitimate right to be in this country, and those who have come to this country illegally”.
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
I thank my noble friend the Minister; I am very grateful to him for his courteous and thoughtful reply on my amendment. I also thank all noble Lords who spoke in this debate. As others have commented, we have had a very refreshing debate, and it has been very spirited too. We all share a commitment to and a respect for the rule of law, but we differ over the interpretation we give to that, and the weight we give to the different parts of our constitutional powers: government, the judiciary and Parliament.
I especially thank my noble friend Lord Frost for reflecting on the continuing tension between laws made in this Parliament on the express wish of the people of this country, which command popular support, and laws made elsewhere, very often originating from different times to apply to different circumstances. I understand that my noble friend the Minister is keen to reject this amendment, but I hope he will reflect further on the aims of this measure: to prevent legal challenge to removing to Rwanda people who come to this country illegally, and to ensure that we operate a deterrence to stop the ghastly tragedies that we see too often in the channel. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Etherton
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and the related amendments to Clause 4(1)(b) and Clause 4(4) provide for the situation where the person in question is a member of a particular social group, the members of which have a well founded fear of persecution, and following the decision of the Supreme Court in HJ (Iran) v SSHD [2010] UKSC 31 the focus is on the group and not the individual circumstances of each member of the group.
Lord Etherton (CB)
My Lords, I will also speak to related amendments that I have tabled: Amendments 24, 26, 28 and 30. I am extremely grateful to those who have co-signed all or some of those amendments: the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.
I will speak very briefly, because I spoke previously about this both on Second Reading and in Committee. The current version of Clause 4(1) enables an applicant to oppose removal to Rwanda on the grounds that it is not a safe country for the applicant, but only if the applicant provides
“compelling evidence relating specifically to the person’s particular individual circumstances”.
Similarly, Clause 4(4), on the ability to obtain interim relief from removal to Rwanda, depends on particular individual circumstances relating to the applicant in question.
The defect in those provisions—a very basic defect—is that no provision is currently made for applicants in one of the important categories of refugee defined in Article 1A(2) of the 1951 refugee convention. That category comprises applicants who have a well-founded fear of persecution because of their
“membership of a particular social group”.
You can immediately see the difference between other categories of refugee under the convention, who are individual persons, and this category—which is probably the largest, or certainly the most important—comprising a large number of people who qualify as refugees because they are members of a particular social group. Yet when we look at Clause 4—I mentioned subsection (1) as well as subsection (4) on interim relief—there is no reference whatever to “group”, so one category of refugee has simply dropped off the list completely.
The proper approach of courts and tribunals to such a refugee was described in detail by the Supreme Court in HJ (Iran) and HT (Cameroon) v Secretary of State for the Home Department, a 2010 decision, especially in the judgment of Lord Rodger of Earlsferry. I will not take the House through the case in detail. It is sufficient for me to say briefly that the approach to be taken, as established by that case, is that, if the applicant for asylum claims to be a member of a particular social group, the other members of which have a well-founded fear of persecution, the applicant is entitled to be considered a refugee provided that they satisfy the particular decision-maker that they are a member of that social group.
HJ (Iran) and the other case I mentioned concerned men who wanted to live an openly gay life and would have faced persecution in their home country had they done so, but the principle that I just described of the way to treat this category of refugee, as set out in HJ (Iran), applies across the board. It is not limited to people who are LGBT but applies to those who are members of a particular social group because of their ethnicity or gender or who hold a particular religious or political belief. For example, by way of analogy with the LGBT men who applied in HJ (Iran), if people hold particular philosophical, political or religious views that they have not expressed because of a real risk of persecution, but would like to do so and to live a life in which they can express those views, they are to be treated as members of a social group and granted the status of a refugee accordingly.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said in Committee, the Bill presents us with a false dichotomy. On the one hand, it is all about me—the claimant, the individual; on the other hand, it is about Rwanda generally. The former, the Bill says in Clause 4, allows you to make a claim for interim relief or removal generally to Rwanda, but the latter does not. In between those two extremes is the category of a member of a social group with a well-founded fear of persecution. This is not a torpedo point; it is not intended to undermine or delay this legislation. It is a reflection of the omission of a basic category of refugee defined in the convention, and an extremely important category as well. On that basis, I beg to move.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, I have put my name to the four amendments tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton. I support everything he says and, since we are on Report, I do not propose to add to it. I also have my own Amendment 42. I declare an interest as the co-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery and the deputy chair of the Human Trafficking Foundation.
I spoke to this in Committee. Quite simply, and taking on what the noble and learned Lord has just said, this is a very special group of people who are in this country not because they have chosen to take the boat trip but because they have been brought here, by boat, lorry or some other route, and they are victims. When one starts complaining about people who should have stopped in France because France is a safe country, it absolutely does not apply to victims of modern slavery. They are here on an involuntary basis and need to be regarded in a totally different way.
Since I have been opposing much of the Rwanda Bill, I have heard endlessly, “What is it that you or other opposition would do to improve the situation of those crossing the channel?” I deeply regret those crossing the channel and I do not have an answer, but I do not believe that the need to stop people crossing the channel in a dangerous situation is any reason to pass an utterly shocking Bill. It is constitutionally incorrect and does not look at genuine victims, such as those victims of modern slavery. It is no answer to those of us who cannot accept what is going wrong in this country and what is going wrong in this Bill that, because we cannot offer an answer to the people crossing the channel, therefore we should be disregarded. Modern slavery is one of the most shocking crimes, making vast sums for perpetrators across the world. About a third to half the victims of modern slavery come to this country. The Government are ignoring the plight of this most vulnerable group of people. I hope that, at this last moment, they will think again about victims of modern slavery.
Lord Cashman (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. Before I refer to the amendments in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, I mention Amendment 25, in the names of my noble friend Lord Dubs and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester. Sadly, my noble friend cannot be in his place, but I raised this issue in another amendment in Committee. Our concern is about freedom of religion or beliefs and the effect that Rwandan legislation could have on such beliefs, particularly minority religious beliefs, and the conflict that could arise with the Rwandan blasphemy law. The right reverend Prelate might say more.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, has made a powerful case for the amendments in his name and for others within this group. I have added my name to his amendments. From Second Reading onwards, we have repeatedly made the case for these amendments. I will not return to the same arguments, pertinent and important though they are.
The Government insist that belonging to this particular social group—LGBT—would pose no threat in Rwanda because there is no discrimination in law. However, there are no clear protections against discrimination or persecution within law. I refer your Lordships to the comments that I read into the record from activists in Rwanda, who detailed their direct experiences of societal discrimination, which directly affects them and their quality of life.
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
The characterisation of the mentality in Rwanda that the noble Lord asserts does not reflect that of the community representatives whom the JCHR met last week. It is clear from the evidence that they gave us that Rwanda is very much a leading light in east Africa, being an open and tolerant home for LGBT+ people. Indeed, it is very much felt in the region that gay people are at home there. Therefore, I do not accept the characterisation that the noble Lord sets out. I encourage him to think again about the welcoming nature of society in Kigali, particularly given what is going on in neighbouring east African states—for example, Uganda and the DRC.
Lord Cashman (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for that considered intervention. I can speak only according to my direct experience in Rwanda, from 2008. As I said earlier, in discussion on another group, I worked in Rwanda for several months as the chief election observer for the 2008 elections. At that time, I had to intercede on behalf of activists who were directly experiencing discrimination. I have not given up on that. I recognise what is going on in Uganda and other countries, but comparisons are not always helpful—indeed, they are somewhat odious when it comes to the lived experience of people with whom I am in direct contact. This is not academic; I am talking about what is reported to me, as the noble Lord is referring to what was reported to him and other parliamentarians on a parliamentary visit.
Following on from my previous references to divisionism and the consequences caused by one group being pitted against another, I therefore assert that LGBT people could not live openly. To do so would be a challenge to others that would not be accepted. It would and could be portrayed as divisionism.
This is in direct contrast to the protections that arise from the judgment referred to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, in HJ (Iran) from the Supreme Court of 2010. It affects characteristics that come from belonging to a particular social group. Again, I refer to my intervention in Committee, where I represented some of the concerns of LGBT activists. I will not repeat them, but if Members of your Lordships’ House request me to do so, I would be more than happy to oblige.
At the end of last week, I again made contact with LGBT activists, and asked again what the situation was like for LGBT asylum seekers in Rwanda. The reply was succinct and stark, written in four separate messages so that it could not be connected or traced:
“Rwanda is not a safe place for LGBTQ asylum seekers at all.
Though there are no laws
Community is facing
So much violence and discrimination”.
They are not my words, but the words of people living in that region. That is the reality of life for the LGBTQ people that we send to Rwanda, and sadly not the representations made to visiting parliamentarians.
The Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich
My Lords, I support Amendment 42 tabled by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. My right reverend friend the Bishop of Bristol regrets that she cannot be in her place today to speak in support of this amendment, which she has signed.
The question of deterrence is central to the Government’s premise in the Bill. The threat of being removed to Rwanda should, in theory, be sufficient to discourage asylum seekers from taking dangerous crossings in small boats across the channel. Even if we accept that this will work for individuals trafficked to the UK against their will—I have not seen evidence that suggests it will—how can the Bill possibly have a deterrent effect? This point was made repeatedly in Committee, but it has not been adequately addressed.
There are as many as 4,000 people in the national referral mechanism who could potentially be eligible for removal. Can we not give them assurance that we will not subject them to further upheaval? The Global Slavery Index estimates that the rate of modern slavery in Rwanda is more than twice as high as the rate in the UK. Can we be sure that victims will be safe from the risk of re-trafficking?‘
The provisions of the Bill are incompatible with protective obligations, but potential victims will not even be able to put this injustice to the courts under the Rwanda treaty. Not identifying victims or sending them to another country before their claim has been properly assessed will also set us back in our efforts to bring perpetrators of modern slavery to justice. Victims are often the only witnesses of this crime; without them, the case against perpetrators will be significantly harder to make. Safeguarding victims of modern slavery from removal to Rwanda will have a negligible impact on the supposed deterrent effect of the Bill, and every effect on the safety and flourishing of the victims of modern slavery.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, my name would have been on the amendment of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, but I was not quite agile enough to get in as number four. The treaty provides at Article 13 that
“Rwanda shall have regard to information provided about a Relocated Individual relating to any special needs that may arise as a result of their being a victim of modern slavery or human trafficking, and shall take all necessary steps to ensure that these needs are accommodated”.
If the Home Office rushes through its processes, as it will under the legislation of 2022 and 2023, I doubt that the individual needs will be adequately identified. It is hard enough to do even under the pre-2022 procedures.
Of course, what Rwanda is told is necessary and what it actually can provide are not necessarily the same thing, as has been covered pretty fully today. Its record is not exemplary. Just last year, the 2023 US Trafficking in Persons Report of 2023 told us that Rwanda
“did not refer any victims to services”.
That there were none is, to me, literally incredible.
The report also refers to widespread cultural prejudice, as we have just heard, along with a lack of capacity and resources that inhibits effective procedures, and so on. Referring to the words of the treaty as if that made them actually happen seems simply an extension of the argument of “The legislation says that Rwanda is safe and it therefore is”. What assessment have the Government made of the risks of Rwanda being safe in this respect? What assessment have they made of its capacity to provide services? Do they accept that Rwanda is able carefully to assess each individual’s risk of being re-trafficked? The risk in this country is enough—my goodness, what must it be there? Indeed, what assessment have they made of how those people sent to Rwanda by Israel disappeared? Common sense gives me a likely answer.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, I speak to Amendment 44 in this group, which is in my name and supported by the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Stirrup and Lord Houghton of Richmond, and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard. Before turning further to Amendment 44, I say that I support the amendments in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, and the amendment in the name of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I have had the benefit of hearing about these amendments in Committee and today in your Lordships’ House. I do not plan to say anything further on this, but I cannot for the life of me understand why the Government’s attitude to those who have been trafficked or other victims of modern slavery should be that they were in control of their own decision-making and to categorise them as such, when manifestly they were not. I also support Amendments 31 and 32 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, which I am sure she will speak to immediately after I sit down, and Amendment 25 in the name of my noble friend Lord Dubs.
As the explanatory statement in relation to Amendment 44 makes clear, the new clause proposed by this amendment would exempt from removal to Rwanda people who are in a very special case: those who put themselves in harm’s way in support of His Majesty’s Armed Forces or through working with or for the UK Government overseas. It extends this exemption to their partners and dependants. In Committee on 14 February, responding to a debate on this amendment, the Minister said:
“Of course, we greatly value the contribution of those who have supported us and our Armed Forces overseas, and we have accepted our moral obligation. … Anyone eligible for the Afghan relocations and assistance policy and Afghan citizens resettlement scheme should apply to come to the UK legally under those routes. As regards the specific case of British Council personnel, they are qualified under the third pathway of the ACRS and places are offered to them”.—[Official Report, 14/2/24; cols. 287-88.]
I know and admire the Minister, and he is correct, but his restatement of the eligibility framework and criteria for these schemes does not engage, never mind undermine, the necessity for this exemption. It is clear that we have a moral duty to those who have served at our behest and in our interests. However, despite serving shoulder to shoulder with British troops, most of the Triples were not evacuated in August 2021, and many have subsequently been rejected under the ARAP scheme. We know now that they were rejected because of misunderstandings on the part of decision-makers of the terms of ARAP and, often, the nature of the service of the applicants, despite the existence of compelling evidence to the contrary, and there is now credible evidence suggesting that the UK Special Forces department blocked eligible applicants from being accepted. The group was refused wrongly by the bureaucracy or blocked for self-serving, venal reasons by the country’s Special Forces, whose Government and Ministers have a moral obligation to promise them, and still promises them, sanctuary.
It comes to this: many applied for the status that would allow them a legal route to resettlement in the UK. They were refused in error. Then, fearing what materialised as their comrades were murdered or tortured by the Taliban, they faced the choice of staying in Afghanistan and facing certain death or getting here somehow. They chose to get here somehow. They were in extremis and had no alternative. There was no legal route open to them because of our failures. In Committee, I shared accounts of the experience of five Afghans who were driven to this extreme and acted accordingly. I do not intend to repeat them but they are freely available in open source media, and I am sure many others will become apparent over time.
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, having tried earlier in the day during Questions to be supportive of the Minister, let me now seek to redress the balance. I have appended my name to Amendment 44 for two reasons: first, because I regard it as essential that we meet the obligations we have undoubtedly accrued to those who have supported the UK’s overseas endeavours in the past; but, secondly and equally, because we need to protect our ability to garner such support in future—support that will be crucial in many instances to the success and safety of our own Armed Forces. It is for this reason that faster and better handling of currently outstanding issues, such as those pertaining to the Afghans, will not resolve the issue.
The Bill has passed the other place and will undoubtedly become law. This amendment does not in any substantive way affect the powers and arrangements set out in the Bill. It carves out a limited exemption. The Government will undoubtedly argue that the more exemptions, the weaker the Bill. That may be, but it seems to me that is a pretty important exemption. That really is the question before your Lordships: would the harm done to the UK by not agreeing this amendment outweigh the impact that agreeing it would have on the Government’s objective of ceasing illegal immigration? The answer, it seems to me, is an overwhelming yes, and therefore I believe we should agree the amendment. The Minister will undoubtedly disagree. My proposition to your Lordships is therefore this: let us pass the amendment and send the issue back to the other place and let us then see what importance it attaches to the safety of those who have hazarded their security and their very lives in support of global Britain’s overseas endeavours.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
My Lords, there is an irrefutable case, in my view. It is very odd when you think about it. We had three days in Committee and a long Second Reading, and the Government have heard nothing from us which is of any interest to them. There are no government amendments on the Marshalled List today, not a single one, and the Government have shown no signs of picking up, improving, adjusting, or taking advantage of any of the amendments tabled by anyone all around the House. I am tempted to say it is rather contemptuous. We have taken their Bill seriously. I am not sure that they have taken seriously what we have said about the Bill, but now we come to the test because this group contains nothing which would in any way detract from what the Government are trying to do.
Having heard the explanation by noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, of the modern slavery amendment, that it cannot be right to treat the victims of modern slavery as perpetrators and it cannot be right to penalise victims; having heard the arguments advanced by noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, who has drawn attention to what clearly is a lacuna—not a large lacuna, but a real lacuna—in the Bill; and having heard the noble Lord, Lord Browne, explain what seems to me to be a debt of honour, it would not cost the Government very much to say, “Okay, we have heard you. Maybe we want to adjust your wording, but we are prepared to incorporate your thoughts because you hit on three real points, not seriously damaging to our Bill, where changing our view would be the honourable course to take”.
I very strongly support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Browne. The service that I was privileged to lead is a small service, which, in my time, employed more than 10 locally engaged staff for every single member of the Diplomatic Service in our high commissions and embassies around the world. The vice-consuls, the clerks, the drivers, the security guards, the messengers: many of them worked for us for a lifetime. In certain countries, at certain times, having worked for us puts such people in grave danger. One thinks nowadays of Russia, Belarus, Iraq, Iran and, of course, Afghanistan.
I strongly support the case for doing the right thing for those who have assisted our military, but those who have assisted the King’s servants on the ground in diplomatic missions, without diplomatic immunity, and who are now, as a consequence, at risk deserve the same degree of support. It is a matter of honour; not to pick up the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Browne, would be dishonourable.
Baroness Coussins (CB)
My Lords, I strongly support Amendment 44 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, to which I would have been more than happy to add my name had there not been a limit of four sponsors for each amendment.
As we have already heard, one of the groups of Afghans to whom this exemption would apply would be the interpreters who worked with the UK Armed Forces in Afghanistan, whose predicament at the hands at the Taliban I have been highlighting in your Lordships’ House for over 10 years now. I am happy to say that many thousands of Afghan interpreters have succeeded in being relocated to the UK with their family members, but there are others whose claims under the various schemes have been unfairly or inexplicably rejected and who still live in fear, as do their family members. Only two weeks ago, I was contacted by one such individual, who had worked as an interpreter and translator. He said it was common knowledge in his community that he had been working for the British, so he felt forced to flee to a third country where he is now living in hiding, in fear of his life, with his mother and younger brother.
The importance of this proposed new clause to this individual and others like him is that his application under ARAP was refused on the grounds that he was not directly employed by HMG. His employment as an interpreter and translator was with a global agency under a contract that that organisation had with DfID to provide translation and interpreting services to the Armed Forces and to UK government projects in Afghanistan. So he would clearly fall under the terms of proposed subsection (1)(b) of this new clause in relation to indirect employment, and his family would fall under Clause 1(c).
To me he appears to be typical of the brave linguists who worked with pride for the UK but who, in the end, may feel forced to seek access to the UK by what would be treated as illegal means. In no way should he then have to face the indignity of being further removed to Rwanda. His loyalty is to the UK.
I am equally concerned about those who worked for the British Council as well as the so-called Triples, whom the noble Lord, Lord Browne, mentioned. Some of these Afghans are also in hiding, in fear of kidnap, violence and death threats at the hands at the Taliban. If forced to seek asylum here other than through an official route, they also deserve our gratitude, respect and protection. I appeal to the Minister to accept the amendment and to undertake to review all ARAP rejections, not just those of the Triples.
Lord German (LD)
My Lords, this group, similar to the third group, demonstrates the risk to individuals where their safety, due to their individual circumstances, cannot be properly considered under the Bill before they are sent to Rwanda. We have had a focus on LGBT, on modern slavery and on Afghans and other people who have served this country.
My noble friend Lady Hamwee raised the issue of modern slavery. Undoubtedly, this is an area where there is a lacuna in the Bill, because these people are victims. My noble friend asked the Government to do a complete analysis of the way in which they deal with this group of people in order to understand what sort of facilities they are going to need and, more importantly, to make the assessment here, and to understand that these people are victims who are suffering; their case should be heard so that we can judge that victim base.
On the other hand, we have talked about the Armed Forces, families and the carve-out for Afghans. It is not correct to assume that those at risk due to their association with UK forces have all been brought to the UK through safe routes. It is clear from the contributions that we have just heard that many of them remain. They have no alternative but to go into hiding or, if they see their life threatened, to take dangerous routes to reach safety in the UK, the country that they believed would protect them for all that they had put their lives at risk for.
I have two points to make to supplement that. The evidence from the UNHCR to the Supreme Court detailed that citizens from Afghanistan had a 0% success rate for claims processed in Rwanda between 2020 and 2022. During that same period, 74% of Afghans who came to the UK had had their claims processed successfully in that time period. I ask the Government: to what extent will the risk to Afghans, due to their association with allied forces in Afghanistan, be both understood and considered in Rwanda?
This question raises the issue of discharging our responsibility towards these people who were placed at risk because of their association with the UK but were then not given protection by the UK and were instead sent elsewhere for another country to deal with—a country that has a 0% success rate in giving people asylum in that country. These are people who put their lives and those of their families at risk in support of the UK’s enterprise and our forces in that country.
This group of amendments needs to be examined further. It needs a much more sympathetic approach from the Government because we are talking about victims and people who have given service to this country. Those people need to have special treatment, rather than us simply looking at the legislation and passing them through. I ask noble Lords to imagine if someone from Afghanistan who got to this country, who would have qualified if they had had the chance but their qualification was misrepresented for whatever reason, was then sent to a country where there was a 0% chance of their being recognised as a refugee.
This group of amendments has demonstrated that there is a risk that the Government have to pay attention to, in trying to make sure that they fulfil the requirements that I think are both humane and important.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, as we come to the end of today’s consideration of the Bill before us, I start with the important point that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, mentioned. I raised it in debate on the first group of amendments, when I said that the constitutional position is that the Government have the right to get their Bill through, but the House of Lords also has a constitutional position, which is the right for it to expect that its views and the amendments that it passes are considered properly by the Government. Unless I got it wrong, the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, was saying—it is certainly what I think—that our belief is that the Government are simply saying, “We’re not going to change the Bill at all. We don’t mind what the amendments are or what inconsistencies are brought forward, or how illogical what we are saying is. Such is our determination that we are going to drive this through and use our electoral majority to do it”. To that extent, the Government are undermining the constitutional conventions on which our Parliament is based.
I have been lectured, as many of us on this side of and across the House have been, on the Government’s right to get their Bill through. Indeed, the Home Secretary was at it again this morning in a newspaper, warning of the consequences of us not allowing the Bill through. Why would the Government simply ignore what the House of Lords is saying, which appears to be the intention? It may not be the intention of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart, or the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, but it will be interesting to see what amendments, if any, the Government make in response to what has happened in your Lordships’ House in Committee and, more importantly, in the votes that have taken place today.
I would appreciate us having some understanding of the Government’s view of what is being done here. As the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, mentioned, and as I am sure many other noble Lords feel, we have a right to be heard—and, at times, for our amendments to be acted upon—rather than simply ignored and dismissed as people who do not understand the problem and are simply trying to get in the way of dealing with the boats.
I started with that important point, notwithstanding the fact that some really important points reflecting on the Bill have been made on this group of amendments, as with many other groups. This group of amendments deals with individual claims and exemptions that may be made with respect to the general principle of the law. As somebody who has great respect for the law, although not a lawyer myself, it has always been my understanding that not many good laws do not have exemptions within them. A good law may have a generality of application to the population—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart, will know this better than me, in his current position—but it will have exemptions within it because the impact of a general law on an individual may be such that justice is not served. Because of that, law therefore has to have exemptions built into it. As it stands, the Government are simply not able to have any exemptions within this. There is a blanket application of the law to particular individuals, whatever their circumstances.
We heard three very passionate and moving speakers leading on these amendments. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, supported by my noble friend Lord Cashman, outlined the circumstances that may occur with a particular social group. My noble friend mentioned the LGBT community, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, will also appreciate that. Does that need to be considered within the Bill? We will have to see, but it appears to be another thing that the Government will just dismiss.
We heard from the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, about her amendments with respect to victims of modern slavery and trafficking. People who are trafficked have no choice. They do not say “Yes, traffic me”. That is different; that is smuggling. We are talking about people who are trafficked and have no part in the decision. The Government’s Bill just does not care about that. Those people will be subject to automatic deportation or going to Rwanda. As the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, quite rightly, surely that could be considered for exemption under the terms of the Bill.
My noble friend Lord Browne’s amendment, supported by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, and others, pointed out that a consequence of the Bill as it stands will be that people who served this country and put their lives on the line for us will simply be treated as illegal and deported to Rwanda. Does the Minister think that is right? Does he actually agree with that? It would be interesting to know whether he thinks that somebody, as my noble friend Lord Browne pointed out, who has fought for this country, served this country and put their life on the line, and who has had to come because of the situation in Afghanistan that my noble friend outlined, should be deported. Who in this House thinks that they should be deported to Rwanda? I do not believe the Government Front Bench think that. It is a rhetorical question; I will save the Minister from answering it. If they do not think that, then they should sort it out.
We are not playing at this; these are things that affect real people’s lives. The point the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, made, is really important. What credibility will this country have if it finds itself in a similar situation in the future and says, “Work with us because we will ensure that you are protected”? What possible credibility would we have as a country or as part of an alliance? If we said to people, “If you serve with this country, do not worry about the consequences of it, because you will be protected”, what will we be able to say to them when, as the noble and gallant Lord pointed out, they simply turn around and say, “That is not what happened with those who served in Afghanistan”? Many of them were forced to stay and the consequences of that for some of them have been very severe.
The Government need to act on my noble friend Lord Browne’s amendment. We do not need warm words such as, “Yes, we need to consider this and think about it. It is a very important, interesting point that has been made”. The Government make the law. With respect to this, they should change the Bill to make sure that those people are protected and they should change the Bill in the way the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has outlined, with respect to victims of modern slavery and trafficking. As my noble friend Lord Cashman and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, said, the Bill needs changing with respect to LGBT people—although I note my noble friend’s Amendment 33, which we will consider on Wednesday, may be a way of doing that. We will leave that for Wednesday.
This is a very important group of amendments dealing with individual claims and exemptions. This is not only about the law; it is about the way that justice works in this country. Justice demands these changes and I hope the Government respond.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, these amendments go to the issue of whether it is safe to relocate a person to Rwanda for particular individuals. It remains the Government’s view that these amendments are not necessary. I will again set out the Government’s case. Before I do, on the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, regarding amendments from noble Lords, obviously I cannot pre-empt what the other place will do or what that will prompt. I am sure that noble Lords will understand that.
Amendments 22, 24, 26, 28 and 30, tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, would undermine one of the core principles of the Bill, which is to limit the challenges that can be brought against the general safety of Rwanda. The Government do not accept that these amendments are required to safeguard claims against removal to Rwanda on the basis of an individual’s LGBT identity, or indeed for any other characteristic, such as religious belief. These amendments would unnecessarily and significantly broaden the Bill’s provisions.
The Bill provides appropriate safeguards to ensure that decision-makers will make a case-by-case decision about the particular circumstances of each case. The Bill also allows decision-makers and the courts to consider certain claims that Rwanda is unsafe for an individual person due to their particular circumstances, despite the safeguards in the treaty, if there is compelling evidence to that effect.
As in all cases, decision-makers will make case-by-case decisions about whether the particular circumstances of each case would mean that an individual would be at real risk of harm were they to be relocated to Rwanda. That consideration would include an assessment of whether individuals faced a real risk of harm as a result of their sexuality. Furthermore, for LGBT individuals, that consideration would include any assessment of any compelling evidence reviewed in line with the principles outlined by HJ (Iran)—to which many noble Lords referred—that being LGBT would mean that Rwanda was not safe for them in their particular circumstances.
Lord Scriven (LD)
Can the Minister tell the House what legal provisions are on the statute book in Rwanda for the “T” part of “LGBT” in particular?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
No, I cannot. I will have to come back to the noble Lord.
Rwanda is a signatory to the 2011 United Nations statement condemning violence against LGBT people, and it has joined nine other African countries to support LGBT rights. As part of the published evidence pack, the updated country policy information note gave careful consideration to evidence relating to the treatment of LGBT individuals in Rwanda. The Rwandan legal protection for LGBT rights is generally considered more progressive than that of neighbouring countries, as has been alluded to.
Amendment 25, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, relates to claims on religion or belief grounds being taken into consideration for whether Rwanda is a safe country. The amendment specifically mentions an individual’s “religion or belief”, but the effect would be to permit the Secretary of State to consider whether an individual who is due to be relocated to Rwanda has any refugee convention reasons why Rwanda would not be safe for them, including on grounds of religion or belief. In effect, this would be considering a protection claim for a third-country national whose home country is not Rwanda.
A number of noble Lords raised concerns about religious tolerance in Rwanda and sought to argue that it would be unsafe for individuals who followed minority faiths or had no faith at all. The Government disagree with this contention. As our policy statement and the country information note on human rights make clear, and as I set out in my letter following Second Reading, the Rwandan constitution provides protection for individuals of different religions and faiths, as well as prohibiting discrimination of the grounds of religion or faith. Taken with the appropriate safeguards, which are set out in the Bill and elsewhere in our partnership with Rwanda, decision-makers will be in a position to consider the particular circumstances of each case, including where they involve an individual’s religious beliefs.
As I set out during an earlier debate, the Bill, along with the evidence of changes and the treaty, makes it clear that Rwanda is safe generally, and decision-makers, as well as courts and tribunals, must treat it conclusively as such. This ensures that removals cannot be delayed or frustrated by systemic challenges on safety. For this reason, I cannot accept Amendments 31 and 32 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher.
Amendment 31 would remove the need for the risk of harm, when a serious and irreversible harm test is carried out, to be imminent. If accepted, this would enable a court or tribunal to delay or prevent a person’s removal to Rwanda based on a risk of harm that may not materialise for many months, if not years, after the person’s removal to Rwanda. This cannot be right. We cannot have a position whereby a person’s removal from this country is prevented based on a risk that does not currently exist and may not exist until a significant amount of time has elapsed after the person is removed. These provisions are consistent with the measures introduced in the Illegal Migration Act, agreed by this House last year. “Imminent” features in the European Court of Human Rights’ practice direction on interim measures. Clause 4(4) is not out of step with the Strasbourg court.
Amendment 32 would disapply Section 54 of the Illegal Migration Act, enabling the UK courts to grant an interim remedy preventing removal to Rwanda in cases where the duty to remove applied. This would undermine the suspensive claims procedure provided for in that Act. It risks vexatious claims being brought at the last minute in an attempt to frustrate removal, which would weaken the effectiveness of that Act. These amendments ultimately undermine the core principles of the Bill, and the Government cannot support them.
I turn to the position of potential and confirmed victims of modern slavery. The UK has a proactive duty to identify victims of modern slavery. We remain committed to ensuring that, when indicators that someone is a victim of modern slavery are identified by first responders, they continue to be referred into the national referral mechanism for consideration by the competent authorities. For all cases, steps will be taken to identify whether a person may be a victim of modern slavery. If a person is referred into the national referral mechanism, a reasonable grounds decision will be made.
The amendment proposed would act to impede the provisions already passed in the Nationality and Borders Act and the Illegal Migration Act, which introduced the means to disqualify certain individuals from the national referral mechanism on grounds of public order before a conclusive grounds is considered. Furthermore, the amendment is unnecessary, because it is important to be clear that the Government of Rwanda have systems in place to safeguard relocated individuals with a range of vulnerabilities, including those concerning mental health and gender-based violence.
If there is a positive reasonable grounds decision in a pre-Illegal Migration Act case, the provisions in Part 5 of the Nationality and Borders Act will protect the person from removal pending a conclusive grounds decision, unless they are disqualified on the grounds of public order.
As I set out in my letter to the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, under Article 5(2)(d) of the treaty the United Kingdom may, when necessary for the purposes of relocation and when UK GDPR compliant, provide Rwanda with
“the outcome of any decision in the United Kingdom as to whether the Relocated Individual is a victim of trafficking”,
and this includes positive reasonable grounds decisions. Under Article 13(1) of the treaty, Rwanda must
“have regard to information provided about a Relocated Individual relating to any special needs that may arise as a result of their being a victim of modern slavery or human trafficking, and … take all necessary steps to ensure that these needs are accommodated”.
Lord Scriven (LD)
The Minister has just said something at the Dispatch Box that is not factually correct. He said that under Article 13(1) on trafficking Rwanda must take all necessary steps. The treaty actually says that it
“shall take all necessary steps”.
Those are two very different things.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
Is that correct? It sounds very moot to me, legally. I said that Rwanda must
“have regard to information provided about a Relocated Individual relating to any special needs that may arise as a result of their being a victim of modern slavery or human trafficking, and … take all necessary steps to ensure that these needs are accommodated”.
That sounds very much the same to me.
All relocated individuals, including potential and confirmed victims of modern slavery, will receive appropriate protection and assistance according to their needs, including referral to specialist services, as appropriate, to protect their welfare. So it is simply not correct to assert that the Government do not care.
Finally, if, despite those safeguards, an individual considers that Rwanda would not be safe for them, Clause 4 means that decision-makers may consider a claim on such grounds, other than in relation to alleged onward refoulement, if such a claim is based on compelling evidence relating specifically to the person’s individual particular circumstances, rather than on the ground that Rwanda is not a safe country in general.
I turn to Amendment 44, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, and spoken to by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. Although this amendment is well intentioned, it gives rise to the possibility that criminal gangs operating in northern France and across Europe will exploit this carve-out as a marketing model to encourage small boat illegal entry to the UK. The terms “agents, allies and employees” will likely result in people who have arrived illegally falsely claiming to be former agents and allies as a tactic to delay their removal, completely undermining this policy’s priority to stop the boats and promptly remove them, either to their home country or to a safe third country such as Rwanda.
The Government deeply value the support of those who have stood by us and our Armed Forces overseas. As a result, there are established legal routes for them to come to the UK. For example, those who enlist and serve in His Majesty’s Armed Forces are exempt from immigration control until they are discharged from regular service. After this time, non-UK HM Armed Forces personnel can apply for settlement under the Immigration Rules on discharge when their exemption from immigration control ends.
There are also provisions for family members of HM Armed Forces personnel to come to the UK legally. Anyone eligible for the Afghan relocations and assistance policy and the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme should apply to come to the UK legally under those routes.
I take what the noble Lord, Lord Browne, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, say very seriously, and His Majesty’s Government regret that so many cases need to be reassessed. The MoD is taking the necessary steps to ensure that all future decisions are made in accordance with the enhanced guidance being produced for the review to which the noble Lord, Lord Browne, referred. This was recently announced by the Defence Secretary and while many former members of Afghan specialist units, including the Triples, have been found eligible under ARAP and safely relocated to the UK with their families, a recent review of processes around eligibility decisions demonstrated instances of inconsistent application of ARAP criteria in certain cases. In light of that, the MoD is taking the necessary steps to ensure that the ARAP criteria are applied consistently through reassessments of all eligibility decisions made on ineligible applications with credible claims of links to Afghan specialist units on a case-by-case basis.
This review will move as quickly as possible, but we recognise that ARAP applications from this cohort present a unique set of challenges in assessing their eligibility. These units reported directly into the Government of Afghanistan, which means that HMG do not hold employment records or comprehensive information in the same way we do for many other applicants. It is essential that the MoD ensures this is done right and provides the opportunity for applicants to provide further information—which I note can sometimes take time—from these individuals.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
Will the Minister answer the question I asked in February when this review was announced: will anyone who is eligible for ARAP but was told they were ineligible—and acted in a way in which a small number of them did in extremis to protect themselves from possible death—be disqualified from being allowed to become eligible on review? Will they be excluded from the requirement of the Illegal Migration Act and this Bill if it becomes law that they must be deported to Rwanda?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
As I understand it, they will be deported to Rwanda.
In conclusion, the Government of Rwanda have systems in place to safeguard relocated individuals with a range of vulnerabilities. The Bill already includes adequate safeguards which allow decision-makers to consider certain claims that Rwanda is unsafe for an individual due to their particular—
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
In relation to modern slavery, is there any law in Rwanda that protects those suffering from modern slavery or human trafficking?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I am unable to comment on Rwandan law, but, of course, the treaty takes care of this and I went into detail on that earlier. Under Article 5(2)(d) of the treaty, the United Kingdom may where necessary for the purposes of relocation provide Rwanda with
“the outcome of any decision in the United Kingdom as to whether the Relocated Individual is a victim of trafficking”,
and that includes a positive reasonable grounds decision. Under Article 13(1) of the treaty, Rwanda must have regard to information provided about a relocated individual relating to any special needs that may arise as a result of their being a victim of modern slavery or human trafficking, and must take all necessary steps to ensure that these needs are accommodated.
I have to answer the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, by saying that at the moment I do not know whether it has those laws enshrined in domestic laws, but when the treaty is ratified, it will.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
As far as I know, there is no legislation to that effect in Rwanda.
Baroness Coussins (CB)
My Lords, will the review of ARAP decisions apply to the Afghan interpreters and translators and not just to military personnel?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
When I was explaining the ARAP situation, I pointed out the difficulty of assessing and accessing some of the records, but I will certainly make sure that is taken back to the Foreign Office, which, as I understand it, administers a large part of the ACRS, which is the agreement under which the Afghan interpreters come to this country. I will find out the answer.
Lord Scriven (LD)
The Minister will not be able to answer this, but I would appreciate it if he could write to me and the House on it. He keeps referring to the treaty saying “must”. There is a difference between “must” and “shall”. In law, “must” is an absolute obligation. Article 13(1) says that Rwanda they “shall” take necessary steps, not “must”. Will he write to me, as I have the treaty here and it says something different from what he has said three times from the Dispatch Box?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I am advised by my noble and learned friend Lord Stewart of Dirleton that “must” and “shall” both have a mandatory quality, but I will of course write to the noble Lord.
If there is compelling evidence, despite the safeguards in the treaty, decision-makers will be able to consider certain claims that Rwanda is unsafe for an individual due to their particular circumstances, as we have discussed a number of times. However, I say again that these amendments are unnecessary. On that basis, I invite the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment and urge other noble Lords not to press theirs.
Lord Etherton (CB)
I am very grateful to the Minister for that analysis of the speeches made and the Government’s response to them. I am also grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, which has raised some important points about people who are extremely vulnerable.
The noble Lords, Lord Kerr and Lord Coaker, articulated the point that all these amendments dealing with exemptions are objectively extremely reasonable and important, and do not involve huge numbers of people such as to undermine the effectiveness of this proposed legislation. Descending to details to say that they are not necessary, when it is plain that they are, shows a certain lack of not only sensitivity to the Chamber but a spirit of humanity which should underlie the Government’s response.
Turning to my Amendment 22 and its consequential amendments, I find it difficult to understand how the Government can justify dropping and effectively disfranchising one of the expressly specified categories of refugee in the convention. There is nothing in the policy statement issued by the Government when the Bill was published or in the Explanatory Notes to say that they would do this. I would have thought that dropping a specific category of refugee defined by this convention which we have signed up to is an extraordinary move.
The justification seems to be that the Government will not permit reference to groups because it would significantly enlarge the number of those entitled to claim. However, if they are entitled to claim by virtue of a convention which we have signed up to, the Government must accept that, like all the other 149 states signed up to it. You cannot simply say, “We’ll ignore this or that category of refugee” or “We’ll just rely on this category of refugee”. There must be an ability, in one way or another, for all those mentioned as refugees to explain why removal would result in persecution and serious harm.
Leaving that matter aside, I will comment on the intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Murray, on comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, about the situation of LGBT people in Rwanda. I do not want to go through this again, but there are two factors on which the noble Lord, Lord Murray, did not comment, and in fact have never been commented on appropriately by the Government, by way of some sort of excuse in relation to LGBT people and the risk that they face in leading an openly gay life in Rwanda.
First, the travel information provided by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office remains the same as it always has done, as it was at the time of the Illegal Migration Act: there is a danger to LGBT people living openly as such in Rwanda. Secondly, and importantly, no reference has been made to something that I mentioned in Committee: the country report on Rwanda of the US State Department, which was published only one year ago, and which talks about persecution and the possibility of physical harm to LGBT people. The Government have never addressed those points at all, but I am not going to go further into that.
As to the others, I personally strongly support all the other exemptions, which seem to me to be reasonable, humane and entirely appropriate, not designed to undermine the Bill but really rising to the level of morality which we should display as a country in relation to these categories of people. Having said all of that, and having heard the Minister, the best thing that I can do is to leave it to the amendment in the next group, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, which contains reference to groups. For my part, having had this debate will have been useful in honing the points that will have to be met in relation to that. On that basis, and that basis alone, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.