Grand Committee
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Stansgate) (Lab)
My Lords, in the event of a Division in the Chamber—which, let us face it, is extremely unlikely—the Committee will adjourn for 10 minutes.
Carbon Dioxide Transport and Storage Revenue Support (Directions and Counterparty) Regulations 2024
(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Callanan
That the Grand Committee do consider the Carbon Dioxide Transport and Storage Revenue Support (Directions and Counterparty) Regulations 2024.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Callanan) (Con)
My Lords, I beg to move that these regulations, which were laid before the House on 15 April this year under the affirmative process, be approved. I will also speak to the draft Carbon Capture Revenue Support (Directions, Eligibility and Counterparty) Regulations 2024. To save a considerable amount of time, I will hereafter refer to these regulations as the CO2 transport and storage regulations and the carbon capture regulations.
These regulations are part of a series of secondary legislation made under powers in the Energy Act 2023, a landmark piece of legislation, which received Royal Assent on 26 October; I am grateful for the support that noble Lords gave me in getting that important legislation through. I will first provide some important background on the UK’s carbon capture landscape before turning to the rationale and the details of the regulations.
Carbon capture, usage and storage, commonly known as CCUS, supports the UK’s legally binding commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. In 2021, HyNet and the East Coast Cluster were announced as the UK’s first CCUS clusters, where CO2 will be captured from a range of sources to support the low-carbon economic transformation of our industrial regions. The CO2 transport and storage network—the T&S network—is essential for building that CCUS capability, as it is the enabling infrastructure for captured CO2 to be transported to permanent, offshore storage.
To facilitate the development of T&S infrastructure, the Energy Act 2023 makes provision for revenue support to be available to any eligible transport and storage company, abbreviated to T&SCo. Revenue support is part of the broader T&S regulatory investment model, or TRI model.
Under the TRI model, an allowed revenue will be determined for transport and storage companies, and exposure to revenue gaps, which refer to instances where annual revenue from user charges is less than a T&SCo’s allowed revenue, will be mitigated. For example, where a revenue gap arises beyond a T&S company’s control, such as where a network user is late joining the network, a shortfall in allowed revenue may arise. In those instances, T&S companies can increase charges across the user base up to a cap.
Should the increase in charges across the user base up to the cap be insufficient, we are proposing that T&SCos be entitled to revenue support as a last resort mechanism, funded by the Government, enabling T&SCos to recover shortfalls through a revenue support agreement—hereafter shortened to RSA. Without this, there would remain a significant barrier to investment in T&S infrastructure in the early stages of development of the CCUS sector.
I turn to the detail of the transport and storage regulations. RSAs will be offered as a contract between a T&S company and a counterparty, which will be done under a direction of the Secretary of State in accordance with Section 60 of the Act. To maintain integrity of RSA allocation, the first aspect of these regulations places requirements on the Secretary of State’s directions and sets out circumstances in which a direction ceases to have effect, including where the Secretary of State revokes a direction before a T&S company accepts a contract in writing.
Secondly, the counterparty will be responsible for publishing each RSA contract, as well as for establishing and maintaining a public register of key project information. Ensuring transparency of these contracts is essential for encouraging greater understanding of the level of support for, and confidence in, this critical but nascent sector.
To be clear, the regulations allow sensitive information to be redacted by the Secretary of State, ensuring that any sensitive commercial information—for example, information that constitutes trade secrets—or personal data is removed before documents are made public. The statutory instrument’s final measure will require the counterparty to promptly notify the Secretary of State if it is unable to perform its duties.
Turning to the carbon capture regulations, I will first set out the context of industrial carbon capture, ICC, which is critical to decarbonising industries with hard-to-abate emissions and achieving net zero by 2050. The Government’s ambition is to capture and store 6 megatonnes annually of industrial emissions of CO2 by 2030, increasing to 9 megatonnes of CO2 annually by 2035. The ICC business models are designed to incentivise the deployment of carbon capture technology by industrial and waste users who often have no viable alternative to achieve deep decarbonisation.
I turn now to the role of the carbon capture regulations in facilitating the business models. The regulations broadly mirror those that I detailed on transport and storage in respect of the Secretary of State’s directions to a counterparty—in this instance for offering a contract with an eligible carbon capture entity, including where directions cease to have effect or may be revoked. The reporting requirements for a counterparty also remain, including a duty to publish contracts entered into, establish a public register and promptly notify the Secretary of State if the counterparty is, or considers that it is likely to be, unable to carry out its functions.
However, the regulations also satisfy the duty in Section 68(4) of the Act, by determining the meaning of “eligible” in relation to a carbon capture entity, specifically one where the CO2 to be captured and stored is produced by commercial or industrial activities, as set out in the Act.
In short, the regulations set out who can be eligible for support. The transport and storage regulations do not include a definition of eligibility, as an eligible transport and storage company is defined at Section 60(2) of the Act as a person who holds an economic licence or has been notified in writing by the appropriate parties that an economic licence is to be granted. The ICC business models have been developed to support decarbonisation of the industrial sector, including the waste management sector.
We do not consider it appropriate for the ICC business models to support carbon capture deployment for certain parts of the power sector. Therefore, the regulations set out that an entity would be ineligible if it is capturing CO2 produced by the generation of electricity and is connected to one or both transmission and distribution systems in respect of all the electricity that the generation station produces.
However, capture from combined heat and power plants and energy recovery generating stations would be eligible, regardless of how and whether they are connected to the transmission and distribution systems. It should be noted that these regulations form only one part of the assessment for whether projects would be awarded an ICC or waste ICC contract. Further eligibility criteria are expected to be set for individual allocation rounds in the appropriate allocation guidance.
In conclusion, in implementing transport and storage infrastructure and the industrial carbon capture business models, these draft regulations represent an essential step towards achieving our 2030 deployment ambitions and, ultimately, net zero. I therefore commend them to the Committee.
Lord Jones (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his explanatory and informative remarks, for these regulations are complexities for the uninitiated in these deceptively thinly paged dual sets of regulations. Surely, they are regulations to be welcomed. It is the war against CO2, and the Minister, if I may say so, has escaped the thickets of Brexit legislation to display insightful knowledge of the huge energy world.
Climate change is upon us. We should not be complacent. I hope the regulations will facilitate the successful overcoming of a big challenge. There are certainly ambitious targets. Can the Minister explain a little further the register and the counterparty in Regulation 6(2)? Also, in paragraph 4.2 of the helpful and necessary Explanatory Memorandum we see the power of the Secretary of State to “direct”. It is reasonable for a Back-Bencher in a Parliament to query that word. Here, at first glance, it is the granting of all-powerful influence. Is that so? I think I know the Minister well enough in parliamentary terms to know that he is not a person who seeks all-powerful directions, but he might like to explain with his usual expertise what that is all about. This is, after all, a Parliament.
At paragraph 4.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum, we have references to the nations and, not least, to Wales. How many likely carbon capture projects are mooted or in the pipeline for Wales, Scotland and England, not forgetting Northern Ireland? At paragraph 5.3, what is the department’s understanding of
“a reasonable return on investments”?
Is there a percentage in mind? Shall it not be a blank cheque? Can the Minister also explain further, for the uninitiated, what the “CCUS cluster” is at paragraph 5.5?
At paragraph 6.5, the department rightly points to “large upfront capital expenditure”. Can the Minister give a possible list of the scale of this up front? Surely there are in existence projects quite far down the line. I ask for the Minister to give his best guesstimate. At paragraph 5.9, it is welcome—to be very positive—that the public are to be made aware of deployment of a public register of projects. That has to be good.
Time is of the essence. I am aware that in north-east Wales, Connah’s Quay Power Station proposes carbon capture. This station is in the constituency that for 31 years one represented in another place. One visited regularly. It was once mooted for nuclear power, being on the substantial River Dee estuary. I emphasise that I have no registered interest whatever in raising this matter, but since I still live in the shadow of this establishment and have had a connection with it for the best part of 54 parliamentary years, I raise the matter. Currently the station is owned by a company called Uniper, about which I know very little. The company is briefing in the locality. I quote from the letter of invitation to visit for briefing. It is from a shrewd, practical managerial team that I encountered in response to its invitation.
Briefly, it says that it is
“developing plans for a new low-carbon, highly efficient gas-fired power station with carbon capture technology at the site … We expect to reuse an existing pipeline, which will connect to the regional CO2 infrastructure currently under development by Eni, enabling the captured CO2 to then be transported to permanent offshore storage facilities in repurposed depleted offshore gas fields”.
I visited this plant as a result of receiving that invitation for briefing and, on the face of it, the project seems to be very much related to these regulations. That is why I have quoted from that letter.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Jones, spoke about a war on carbon. Of course, that is a war we should not be having to fight. The arrival of these regulations is an expression of failure over decades. We have continued to dig up and burn coal, oil and gas, and now, having done all that damage to the natural carbon capture and storage—the best possible form of it, which nature has done for us over hundreds of millions of years—we are trying to find a mechanism to undo some of that damage. Yet what we are doing here is establishing an expensive, top-down framework for a technology that does not yet exist at any scale and which, if successful, will create natural monopolies.
This novel industry has zero customers and no guarantee that there will be any in the future. It will be heavily dependent on the Government to adopt an energy and industrial strategy down a route that makes the carbon capture and storage industry possible. It is heavily centralised, risky and expensive, which must be contrasted with the decentralised, readily available and readily deployable technologies that exist as an alternative to CCS. What the Government are proposing with these regulations are huge subsidies for decades, in the hope that at some point there will be economic developments that will start to reduce the cost to the taxpayer. This means that our situation is a bit like the problem we have with incinerators, whereby we build incinerators with contracts to supply them with waste for decades and then have to generate the waste. The Government are really combining science fiction with dinosaur thinking here.
I feel some sympathy for the Minister, because these regulations have landed in your Lordships’ Committee in a rather unfortunate week. To quote the Energy Mix website, referring to the carbon capture and storage industry,
“Industry Navigates Very Bad Week”.
This article reflects two developments in Canada, where Capital Power has cancelled a 2.4 billion Canadian dollar carbon capture and storage project at its Genesee generating station, saying that it is “technically viable” but “not economically feasible”. It also reflects, as the Canadian national organisation Environmental Defence said,
“the latest failure in carbon capture’s terrible track record”.
This project had already received 5 million Canadian dollars from the Government of Alberta and was being set up for further tax breaks and support from both the federal and provincial Governments. It is just not working.
The other bad week to which the website referred concerned figures that have come out of Boundary Dam Unit 3, a project worth 1 billion Canadian dollars. It promised to capture 90% of the CO2 that was being generated but, in fact, its capture rate has been only 57%. This gives me a question to ask of the Minister—and perhaps of the Labour Front Bench—about the regulations before us and the Government’s plans: if there are contracts promising a certain rate of capture but that rate of capture is not met and they fail to deliver what is promised, with the potential to cause considerable damage in this new industry, what will be done? I note that the Toronto Globe and Mail is saying that there are
“continuing tensions between industry and the federal government about the extent to which public dollars will be used to provide”
for this industry.
With that in mind, I note the Minister’s comments in his introduction. I also note paragraph 5.10 of the Explanatory Memorandum to the directions, eligibility and counterparty regulations and paragraph 5.9 of the Explanatory Memorandum to the directions and counterparty regulations, both of which refer to the importance of information being deployed publicly, as well as the Minister’s comments about commercial confidentiality. In so many areas of public provision, we have seen real problems with people hiding behind a total lack of transparency arising from that coverall of commercial confidentiality. Can the Minister assure me that that will not happen in this case?
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, I rise to speak to both of these SIs. I note that neither of them has been subject to any report by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee.
Both SIs relate to carbon capture, usage and storage—CCUS—and are broadly welcomed on these Benches. I will not partake in any debate on CCUS today. It is a suite of technologies that enable the mitigation of carbon dioxide emissions from large point sources, such as power plants and refineries, and the removal of existing CO2 from the atmosphere. In short, CCUS is one vital tool in the toolbox to help us reach net zero.
The Government envisaged building a competitive, self-sustained CCUS market in the UK. I note that, as of today, no commercial-scale CCUS projects are up and running. CCUS could provide economic growth potential as part of the transition to net zero—£1 billion of government money has already been made available for investment in four potential clusters, which aim to be capable of storing 20 to 30 megatonnes of carbon dioxide by 2030—but CCUS has had a slow and slightly rough start in the UK.
The revenue, directions, eligibility and counterparty SI establishes the process by which the Secretary of State can direct a carbon capture counterparty to offer to contract with an eligible carbon capture entity. It also sets out the requirement that certain information must be published by the counterparty in respect of contracts entered into, as well as the requirement on the counterparty to notify the Secretary of State promptly if it is likely to be unable to perform its functions. This instrument concerns the implementation of industrial carbon capture business models, or ICCBMs—there must be a better acronym—which are intended to support the ambition set out in the net-zero strategy to deliver carbon capture, usage and storage, or CCUS, in four industrial clusters. The ICCBMs have been designed to incentivise the deployment of carbon capture technology by industrial and waste users who often have no viable alternative, as the Minister set out, and are similar to contract for difference schemes.
My questions on this SI relate to the future review and scrutiny of those contracts. As they are commercial contracts—I note that they are in the public domain, but some of this may not be made public—and are signed off by the Secretary of State, can the Minister explain what, if any, further parliamentary scrutiny there will be of these processes? These contracts are for new and in some cases yet unproven technologies, so how will value for money be ascertained and reported back to Parliament in future, especially given that the SI allows for the amendment of those contracts in future and no statutory review is envisaged? I welcome the response to the consultation and the changes, including the use of the term “energy recovery generating station” and around the exclusions and support.
Because of time, I will not go through all that the SI on carbon dioxide transport and storage does. It seeks to help establish first-of-the-kind infrastructure in the UK to transport and permanently store the carbon dioxide that has been captured. It provides Exchequer-funded revenue support to mitigate the financial risks of the initial investors. The investment in this infrastructure is welcome, and I recognise the need for it, but what level of financial support is envisaged at this stage? If none is required now but money is perhaps required at some later point, can I ask if and how Parliament might be consulted on that and what limits are in place on those future financial investments in this scheme? If more money goes in, how will that be reported and noted by Parliament?
My other questions relate to parliamentary oversight and scrutiny of the new types of technology and new contracts—what they are delivering and whether they are delivering value for money, how they are monitored and how Parliament gets future say in scrutiny of them.
Finally, in relation to both SIs, the process is delivered via commercial contracts, and both SIs allow for alterations and a requirement on the parties to inform the Secretary of State if the counterparty is unable, or likely to be unable, to fulfil its role as entered into. What, if any, dispute resolution mechanisms exist here between the department and the contractors? I am particularly interested in what legal dispute resolution mechanisms exist to give adequate oversight of this process to Parliament before any potential legal disputes end up in court.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his in-depth introduction to the two SIs that are before us today and for the comments we have heard so far. There will be some repetition in some of our concerns and questions.
I start by setting a bit of the context. I admire the ambition that is expressed, as we discussed during the passage of the Energy Act, recognising that this whole area is just one part of the toolkit in addressing the need to remove carbon from our industry. The Minister outlined the sheer scale of the proposals here, which involves going from 6 megatonnes in 2030 to 9 megatonnes in 2035, but I do not think he expressed what that will mean in terms of the infrastructure required to support the operations. I have to be honest that this Government have so far not had a great track record in delivering infrastructure across the piece, particularly transport infrastructure.
I would like to have a bit more sense, given the backlog in transport investment, of whether investment in this area will jump the queue, if you like, in the planned progress. Is there a plan? That is a question we come back to again and again in terms of delivering on this agenda. Of course, the other major issue around all this is the way the planning system works, or does not work. Can the Minister assure us that we can move forward with confidence in delivering a fairly steep timetable approaching 2025—next year? The clock is well and truly ticking.
Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. Before I get into the detail on particular questions, I will talk about the general issue, particularly as raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, of CCUS and the principle. Obviously, that was a Second Reading speech for the legislation rather than for this particular statutory instrument, but let me explain why I think the noble Baroness is both misinformed and wrong.
First, most informed opinion disagrees with the noble Baroness on this, including the Climate Change Committee, which told us in its advice that CCUS is essential and not an option if we are to reach our decarbonisation goals. She said many other things that were incorrect. To take an example, she said that CCUS had never been tried and was unproven. Again, that is incorrect. There are many operating CCUS plants in the US. I witnessed one in Alberta, Canada, last year and, only last week, I was in Iceland to see the opening of the largest direct air capture greenhouse-gas removal plant in the world. It has an operating CO2 ejection system into the basalt rock, which has been working successfully for many years.
So, the technology does work and is proven. We are attempting it at a greater scale than many other countries, but that is a fantastic business opportunity for the UK. We are privileged to have fantastic, tremendous storage potential in the North Sea, where we can store not only our own emissions but possibly those produced by other nations and Europe as well. This has the potential to be a massive revenue earner for the UK, generating potentially tens of thousands of jobs and millions of pounds of contributions. There are a number—dozens—of really innovative UK companies that are experimenting and working in this area. There is great export potential for the UK, and potentially many jobs—or rather, there are hundreds of jobs already.
I can understand the noble Baroness’s point—and I agree with her—that we should seek to minimise emissions as much as possible by processes such as fuel switching. But what would she say to those industrial plants that generate CO2 as part of their processes rather than by heating? What about cement plants, for instance? Does she think that they should just close down? Should they not exist at all? These are the practical issues that, when dealing with policies that affect people’s jobs and livelihoods in the construction sector, we need to have a solution for rather than just airy-fairy academic views. As the CCC said, CCUS will be essential and is not an option. If the noble Baroness wants to make a point, I will be happy to hear it.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
I am not sure whether this is procedurally correct, but the Minister directed the question directly at me. Once we set up these CCUS plants and establish the contracts, as I said with reference to incinerators, we will need to feed them, whereas, if we look at different technologies that are being developed for cement, for steel or electric arc furnaces and so on, the point is to—as the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, said—have a transport modal shift. We need to plan for the shift in operations—in ways of doing things—rather than business as usual.
To address the point about the Climate Change Committee, we come back to the issues around growth and the assumption that we must have economic growth. If we look at social innovation and changing the way in which our society works, we are looking at a very different model for the future than is traditionally presented.
Lord Callanan (Con)
The noble Baroness is addressing issues that I never even raised. Her last point is for a completely different debate. Nobody is suggesting CCUS for transport emissions or steel emissions. Again, the noble Baroness is evading the central issue. Some industries have no choice but to produce CO2. Anyway, it is a separate issue—let us get back to the debate that we are here for today.
These two instruments are broadly administrative in nature but outline vital operational procedures to enable the Government’s proposed business models for carbon capture, transport and storage. I start with the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Jones, who asked for the directions of the counterparty and the register to be explained further. In relation to a direction to the counterparty, the counterparty would enter into and manage contracts at the direction of the Secretary of State and would be the conduit for HMG funding to successful projects. A direction to the counterparty would be a direction to offer to enter into a revenue support contract. The register would be a public register of contracts entered into, and the details that the counterparty would be required to publish are set out in the schedules to the regulations.
The noble Lord, Lord Jones, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, asked about confidentiality. It is appropriate for companies to be able to protect commercially sensitive or privileged information—for example, information that relates to a company’s intellectual property. We expect redactions to be made to published contract information only when there is strong justification for doing so. Any redactions or exclusions in the contract do not, of course, limit what information must be disclosed in that public register.
The noble Lord, Lord Jones, asked for a definition of “cluster”. We would define it as carbon capture projects, onshore and offshore pipeline infrastructure, transport infrastructure and the associated offshore storage site, all located in a defined geographical area. We have two in the so-called track 1 process in the UK: one is the HyNet consortium in the north-west and Wales, and the other is on the east coast and is centred around Teesside and, to a certain extent, Humberside. There are two additional ones in Scotland as well as the Viking consortium, which will be in the so-called track 2 process.
The noble Lord, Lord Jones, asked about funding for CCUS, and the geography. We have announced up to £20 billion of funding for the early deployment of CCUS in the UK and, as I have just said, we aim to establish up to four clusters in the UK by 2030. The noble Lord might be a little more interested in the details of the projects of the HyNet consortium, which is located in north-west England and Wales. From memory, there is one project in Wales; it is at the Padeswood cement plant, which we are negotiating with at the moment. I think I am correct in saying that that is the one. We are currently in negotiations on eight projects and transport storage systems in total across the two clusters. We hope to reach final investment decisions by the third quarter of this year for the rollout and deployment of this technology. We have announced those first two clusters and the track1 negotiation list with, as I have said, eight projects selected through the cluster-sequencing projects to progress to negotiations by—I hope—the third quarter.
In addition, we announced two further clusters in July last year: the Acorn cluster in Scotland and Viking in Humberside. Again, those will be two additional T&S systems. We think that, after the first two, they will be best placed to deliver on our objectives—again, subject to appropriate due diligence, consenting, subsidy control, affordability and value-for-money assessments.
The noble Lord, Lord Jones, asked what the department’s understanding is of a reasonable return on investment. I would say that that is the six million dollar question, but it is probably a bit more than that. Of course, this is subject to ongoing contract commercial discussions with the relevant projects. The noble Lord can be assured that we are subjecting all the negotiations to precise considerations on value for money, subsidy control and affordability. As an indication of the scale of support, we have announced up to £20 billion for the early deployment of CCUS in the UK.
Carbon Capture Revenue Support (Directions, Eligibility and Counterparty) Regulations 2024
(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Callanan
That the Grand Committee do consider the Carbon Capture Revenue Support (Directions, Eligibility and Counterparty) Regulations 2024.
Contracts for Difference (Sustainable Industry Rewards) Regulations 2024
(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Callanan
That the Grand Committee do consider the Contracts for Difference (Sustainable Industry Rewards) Regulations 2024.
Relevant document: 21st Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Callanan) (Con)
My Lords, I beg to move that these draft regulations, which were laid before the House on 21 March 2024, be approved.
The Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee have provided a very helpful review of these regulations and, I am pleased to say, have not drawn any special attention of this House or the other place to them. These regulations amend the regulations underpinning the contract for difference scheme. The CfD scheme is the Government’s main mechanism for supporting new low-carbon electricity-generating projects in Great Britain. It has been hugely successful in driving down deployment costs and driving up the share of renewable energy in the UK.
These amendments are about providing extra funding support through the CfD so that we can better support offshore and floating offshore wind supply chains. Offshore wind in particular is a critical industrial sector. It has been hard-hit by inflationary pressures and supply chain disruption resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Consequently, necessary investments in manufacturing and infrastructure have been delayed or, in some cases, abandoned altogether.
As the CfD currently focuses on prices of deployment and no other factors, offshore wind developers are incentivised to use the cheapest supply chain options available, regardless of where in the world or how dirty their means of production. We are therefore introducing sustainable industry rewards—SIRs—to rebalance CfDs, to address some of these supply chain challenges which are already causing bottlenecks in the supply chain, further increasing costs and slowing down deployment. This policy intervention has understandably been much welcomed by supply chain companies. It is intended to take effect for the seventh CfD allocation round, which should take place in 2025.
How does this policy work? These regulations require all offshore wind and floating offshore wind CfD applicants, as a condition of entry to the CfD, to obtain an SIR statement from the Secretary of State. Those applicants who obtain an SIR statement will receive additional revenue support through the CfD—a top-up, as it were—for investing in the economic, social and environmental sustainability of their supply chains. SIR statements are obtained if applicants make successful SIR proposals that fulfil one of two sustainability criteria. One is investment in shorter supply chains in UK deprived areas. This means investing in manufacturing in the most disadvantaged parts of the United Kingdom. The other is investment in more sustainable means of production. This means investment in manufacturers who have signed up to the Science Based Targets initiative for the reduction of carbon emissions.
The mechanism to allocate SIR funding will be a competitive auction just before the main CfD auction. An applicant that obtains SIR funding will be contractually obliged to deliver their commitments; undelivered commitments will be subject to a system of performance adjustments. SIRs will make more expensive but more desirable investments from offshore wind developers cost-neutral, and therefore will not impact the main CfD auction, held shortly after the allocation of SIR funding.
Noble Lords should note that the regulations provide the powers to run the SIR allocation. The explicit, detailed rules of that allocation are set in the draft SIR allocation framework that was released in parallel to these regulations. The regulations replace the current supply chain plan process for offshore wind and floating offshore wind. The Government are very conscious that this extra support for offshore wind will have an impact on consumers’ electricity bills as, like the rest of the CfD scheme, SIRs will be funded through the existing electricity supplier obligation levy, which electricity suppliers pay.
The actual budget for SIRs is still being discussed with the Treasury. However, we estimate it could be in the region of £150 million to £300 million per year, for no more than three years, subject to the number of applicants. The impact on consumer bills will be very small, in the region of £2 per year per consumer. I hope that noble Lords will agree that £2 a year per consumer is a small price to pay for the benefits that sustainable industry rewards could bring to UK communities, through creating new and cleaner manufacturing facilities in deprived areas, alongside highly skilled jobs or carving out opportunities for businesses to become part of the offshore wind supply chain.
To ensure that the policy does not become a permanent burden on consumer bills, our proposal is that the intervention is time limited for three years; it is there to address specific market failures. The SIRs work as a prerequisite to the CfD for offshore wind, although applicants will have access to the main CfD round as long as they meet a required minimum standard of investment in their supply chain. The SIRs also complement other government support for renewable supply chains, such as the £1 billon Green Industries Growth Accelerator, which runs to a similar timeframe. I beg to move that these regulations are approved by the Committee.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I have some technical questions, although I begin by broadly welcoming the Government’s direction of travel on this. It really is urgent that we proceed with offshore and floating offshore wind schemes.
I have two questions, one of which refers to the Procurement Act, which I spent more hours than I care to remember debating in this very Chamber when it was a Bill. How does this provision fit with the social value provisions in the Procurement Act? These measures would seem to be carved-out and very narrow provisions within that, so I am wondering how those two legal elements interact. My other question is, this provision provides a mechanism for offshore and floating offshore wind; how will this impact potentially on bids for solar, hydro and other schemes? Will it create a disadvantage for smaller-scale schemes, particularly community schemes?
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, I note that this SI has not been the subject of any report by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. On these Benches, we broadly welcome the SI and its intention to grow the green economy. The UK is one of the best-placed countries in the world for developing and deploying offshore wind to help to provide energy security and meet our net-zero commitments. In 2023, a record 49 terawatt hours, 17% of the UK’s total electricity generation, was produced by offshore wind energy. The UK is aiming to triple its offshore wind capacity in the next six years and desperately needs a successful wind auction this year after the failure to attract any bids from offshore wind developers for the last round of contractual auctions.
The green economy in the UK grew by 6% last year and is crucial to delivering economic growth, the just transition and our climate goals. There are worries about the level of support for future investment in the UK offshore wind sector, and this SI is broadly welcomed on these Benches for recognising this and aiming to improve the situation.
This SI applies contracts for difference sustainable industry rewards—SIRs—which, it is said
“will help to address recent supply chain challenges that could otherwise hinder the deployment of offshore wind (OFW) and floating offshore wind (FOW). They will do so by providing additional revenue support to OFW and FOW developers, through a series of lump-sum payments in addition to their regular CfD payments, should they invest in the economic, social, and environmental sustainability of their supply chains”.
Lord Lennie (Lab)
My Lords, before I begin my comments on sustainable industry rewards, I want to place on record my congratulations to Gateshead Football Club, which on Saturday beat Solihull Moors at Wembley, after extra time and penalties, in the FA Trophy. I am sure that the Minister would want to join me in sending congratulations to Rob Elliot and the whole of his team up on Tyneside, where we both live.
This instrument amends the current contracts for difference regulations and is specifically about providing extra funding in order to support supply chains in the offshore and floating offshore wind sectors. As things stand, contracts for difference focus only on the price of deployment, as the Minister said; developers are therefore incentivised to use the cheapest supply chain, which may not always be the cleanest. This instrument introduces SIRs—sustainable industry rewards—to try to rebalance the CfD scheme in addressing the supply chain challenges.
All offshore floating wind applicants for a CfD will have to obtain an SIR statement from the Secretary of State as a precondition of having an application considered. Once the SIR statement is obtained, applicants will get additional support through what the Minister called a “top-up” in the CfD for investing in the economic, social and environmental sustainability of their supply chains.
I turn to the two criteria that the Minister outlined: investment in shorter supply chains in the most disadvantaged places in the UK; and investment in more sustainable means of production, where manufacturers committed to a science-based targets initiative for the reduction of carbon emissions. The impact on consumers, as suggested by the Minister, will be small—approximately £2 per annum per bill—and the proposed time is limited to three years or three rounds of allocation.
Labour is very supportive of these changes, as I am sure the Minister is aware. We believe that they will make a material difference to the quality of the scheme supported by the Government and to the impact on the whole industry with regard to UK-sourced materials, the maintenance of jobs, the sustainability of the supply chain and end products. There are, however, a few questions that I would like to put to the Minister.
The Minister again suggested, as was suggested in the previous debate, that the budget will be up to £300 million. When will this be finalised? When will we know what the budget for the SIRs will be? Secondly, why is the scheme limited to just three rounds or three years? Would it not be a good idea to make it a permanent or indefinite scheme, with an option to consider axing it at the end of the three rounds, if appropriate, rather than requiring new legislation to come before the House for it to continue? Is it possible for a company to bid in the final round allocation for the CfD if it meets the eligibility criteria for an SIR but does not win funding because of the scheme’s budgetary restrictions? If the budget has been spent, what happens to that application?
Finally, I repeat Dr Alan Whitehead’s question in the other place when these regulations were discussed; I do not know whether he has had an answer yet but, if the Minister could provide an answer today, that would be good. Is it the case that the most disadvantaged in the allocation round may well be those who bid for an SIR but lost, and have then adjusted their bid accordingly? Could it be that the smartest strategy for companies is to try to lose an SIR while having indicated that, in principle, they can meet its terms? They can then bid more competitively than if they had an SIR in the first place. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Callanan (Con)
I thank all three noble Lords for their contributions.
Let me say at the start that CfDs are a key pillar of our energy security. They have been fantastically successful in what they have delivered in terms of our renewable energy mix, but they need to adapt to changing market conditions. We are determined to make offshore wind deployment an even greater success story and are willing to look at various innovative steps to help make that happen. These SIRs represent one of those innovative steps. We have developed them with industry input and believe that they will provide much-needed support to a sector that has faced a tough economic environment and many supply chain disruptions. This support should trigger significant investments in expanding the supply chain’s capacity and capability in many deprived coastal areas around the UK—the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, and I should declare an interest in this matter—and in new, cleaner manufacturing processes. I mean that in terms of the fact that we are from the north-east of England and not in terms of any financial interests, by the way.
These investments will help deliver our levelling-up agenda and positively impact the communities hosting large infrastructure projects by providing new, well-paid, high-tech manufacturing jobs, as well as maintaining many existing successful jobs. Already, new offshore wind manufacturers, both British and from overseas, are looking to relocate to the UK thanks to this package of supportive measures.
It is true, as I said at the start, that these measures will have an impact on consumer bills. We are talking to the Treasury to get the balance right between the cost to consumers and what we can achieve through targeted revenue support in order to get investments in the supply chain back on track. However, I emphasise once again that we are looking at a very small impact on bills—around £2 per year per consumer—in all the scenarios we are considering, for a time-limited period of only three years, and that the competitive auction process will ensure that consumers see the greatest return on their investment. We believe that this is a small price to pay for the benefits that SIRs could bring to UK communities and beyond, as I articulated earlier.
These measures will also put us on a more equal footing with our direct competitors in the US and the EU, who are also investing heavily in their offshore wind supply chains. Considering how much deployment and potential we have here in the UK, it is only right that we, too, try to attract and support as much of that supply chain as possible. It is key, though, and important to emphasise, that we need to provide this support in a targeted and proportional way.
As Members have already indicated, allocation round 6 of the CfD is now live. The budget for AR6 was announced as part of the Chancellor’s Spring Budget and, at more than £1 billion, is four times larger than the budget for the previous allocation round. Although this current round does not include SIRs, I wanted to flag that as it is none the less a crucial step in our renewable energy deployment plans and it demonstrates the Government’s commitment to ensuring that the UK remains one of the world leaders in renewables. Of course, the Secretary of State will decide in due course whether to increase that budget later this year.
Let me deal with some of the points that were raised during the debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, asked how this SI fits with the social value provision in the Procurement Act and how CfD/SIRs impact on solar, hydrogen and other schemes. It is important to emphasise that the CfD is not a public procurement mechanism and therefore does not fall under the Procurement Act; it is a revenue support scheme, although many of the aims and mechanisms are of course similar. Solar, onshore wind and other technologies face different challenges to offshore wind; SIRs are therefore not appropriate interventions for them. For example, solar supply chains are currently massively dominated by China and the UK market alone will not help to shift that dominance, sadly.
The noble Earl, Lord Russell, asked how the value for money of SIRs will be assessed, what a sustainable means of production will look like and whether this policy is sufficient to meet future commitments. The budget, as I said, is still being negotiated with the Treasury. It is likely to be in the region of £150 million to £300 million; that will be determined shortly. The budget should be set out in June and value for money will be determined by a competitive allocation of that funding. I am happy to reassure the noble Earl that there will be a dispute resolution mechanism as part of the application process and that a sustainable means of production means either shorter supply chains made closer to the home in the UK, with a lower carbon footprint, or the use of firms signed up to the Science Based Targets initiative for the reduction of carbon emissions.
As to whether we are doing enough and what will happen afterwards, we will see in due course, but the global market for renewables has changed dramatically since Covid and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. CfD/SIRs is just one initiative we are using to address those new challenges. Of course, it complements the other initiatives that the Chancellor announced last year: the Green Industries Growth Accelerator, or GIGA, funding, which stands at over £1 billion and whose allocations will be announced shortly; and the Floating Offshore Wind Manufacturing Investment Scheme, or FLOWMIS, which is another policy that we are using to help support this industry. In answer to the question of whether this policy will be extended, it will depend on the market circumstances at the time, faced by whoever is in the Government at the time.
The noble Lord, Lord Lennie, asked when the SIR budget will be finalised and why we have limited the scheme to three allocation rounds. I think that I have just answered that question: it will be finalised in June. We will then take a view on how successful the current allocation round was and whether we will wish to extend it in future. If a developer is unsuccessful at the SIR auction, they would still be able to enter the main CfD auction as long as they have met the minimum standard of investment required in their supply chain.
Regarding the question posed by the noble Lord’s honourable friend in the other place, Alan Whitehead, the whole scheme is designed so that an SIR bid has no impact on the main CfD bid. We are covering the costs of the extra expenditure in a cleaner supply chain, which will allow an applicant to go into the main CfD auction on a cost-neutral basis, needing neither to increase nor to decrease their CfD bids. As I said, this scheme has initially been limited to three rounds over three years so that we can then reassess the market conditions and take a view on how successful the initial intervention has been.
I thank the Committee for the support that was expressed. I hope I have dealt with all the questions that were asked. I commend these draft regulations to the Committee.
Representation of the People (England and Wales and Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Regulations 2024
(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Scott of Bybrook
That the Grand Committee do consider the Representation of the People (England and Wales and Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Regulations 2024.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Scott of Bybrook) (Con)
My Lords, in 2022, Parliament passed the Elections Act, which, among many other measures, introduced measures to amend the franchise to reflect the UK’s new relationship with the EU and protect the rights of UK citizens living in EU countries. Last year, two statutory instruments were passed, one for England and Wales and one for Northern Ireland, which flowed from that aspect of the Elections Act. These included new registration requirements for applications from EU citizens in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The majority of these changes came into effect on 7 May.
I bring forward this instrument today to amend a drafting oversight in both regulations. This instrument will correct that oversight by replacing a flawed definition, thereby implementing the original policy intention. The erroneous definition has resulted in certain EU citizens with particular combinations of nationalities being legally required to provide immaterial eligibility information when they register to vote. For example, it will require an individual with French and Commonwealth dual nationality to provide this information despite them having the same voting eligibility as someone with a single Commonwealth nationality. That should not be necessary for a qualifying Commonwealth citizen, as they have voting rights in the United Kingdom. This is because the eligibility of an individual with more than one nationality to participate in elections is established based on whichever of their nationalities grants them the greatest voting rights.
One of the primary intentions of the two current instruments was to allow EU citizens who chose to make the UK their home prior to the end of the implementation period—that is, before the UK left the EU—to continue to have the same right to vote and stand. This group of electors is referred to as “EU citizens with retained rights”. People applying to register to vote under the retained rights criteria, referred to as “relevant EU applicants”, must make a legal declaration that they meet the criteria of an EU citizen with retained rights and that they have been legally resident in the UK since the end of the implementation period.
“Relevant EU applicants” were intended to be defined as individuals who are citizens of the 19 EU member states with which the UK does not have a reciprocal voting and candidacy rights treaty, and who are not citizens of Ireland, Cyprus or Malta. These exemptions exist because Irish citizens’ UK voting rights long pre-date the EU, while the voting rights of Cypriot and Maltese citizens derive from their Commonwealth citizenship.
The five countries with which the UK has voting and candidacy rights treaties are Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, Poland and Denmark. Citizens of those countries will not lose their voting rights in the United Kingdom. However, due to an oversight, for which I apologise, the requirement to indicate that they fulfil the retained rights criteria unintentionally applies to particular applicants with dual nationalities. The current legal definition of a “relevant EU applicant” means that citizens of the 19 relevant EU countries who also have another nationality which is British or Commonwealth, excluding Cyprus and Malta, or citizenship of a treaty partner state are legally obliged to indicate that they fulfil retained rights criteria as part of their application to register to vote, even though that answer is irrelevant to determining their eligibility.
While this issue exists in law, if an application to register to vote from a relevant dual national is received by an electoral registration officer and the applicant has not indicated that they fulfil the retained rights criteria, that application would technically be incomplete. As such, the electoral administrator would have to get in touch with the applicant to require this information, even though the answer to the question will make no difference to the outcome of their application.
In practice, this issue creates the potential for confusion among applicants, who could object on the grounds that being asked to indicate that they fulfil retained rights criteria is unreasonable. Worse, this confusion could even result in people abandoning an application to register and disenfranchising themselves. It also creates the potential for an increased administrative burden on electoral registration officers.
This new statutory instrument amends the definition of a “relevant EU applicant” in the England and Wales regulations, as well as the equivalent term used in the Northern Ireland regulations. The new instrument defines a “relevant EU applicant” as someone who is: a citizen of an EU member state; is not a citizen of an EU member state which has a treaty with the UK and/or; is not a British citizen, a qualifying Commonwealth citizen or a citizen of the Republic of Ireland. This will provide an enduring resolution to the issue, by which the affected dual nationals I referred to earlier will no longer legally be required to provide immaterial information as part of their application to register to vote. Until this instrument comes into force, measures have been put in place to minimise the extent of the issue.
Having set out the background to this statutory instrument, I hope that the Committee will appreciate the need to swiftly make the straightforward legislative amendment. It will remove the legal requirement for certain dual national applicants to provide immaterial information and revert to the original intention of the regulations. I beg to move.
Lord Hayward (Con)
My Lords, I take this opportunity to welcome my noble friend Lady Scott, back to her position. We have missed her through many SIs that we have discussed in this Room at different stages, and we are pleased to see her back. That is particularly so, because a number of people in this Committee, not least my noble friend Lady Scott, as well as the noble Lords, Lord Rennard and Lord Khan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, helped me to pass the Ballot Secrecy Act through the Lords and the Commons. That Act was implemented for the first time at the elections on 2 May. Now that it has completed its course and been fully implemented, I express my appreciation to them for their involvement at one stage or another in achieving that legislation. I merely observe that, unfortunately, in my polling station there was no notice relating to the Ballot Secrecy Act, but I will live with that.
While that legislation was going through, I wrote to my noble friend the Minister, raising the question of comments made in a ministerial write-round. She said that she could not comment; I well understand that, and I do not expect her to do so now. However, in her absence—I am sure it is not because of it—I have since received clarification that the Electoral Commission’s counsel’s opinion was received by officials on 26 August, which was a month and three days before a ministerial write-round said that we had been given some “headline information”. However, I appreciate the clarification at last.
To come back to this SI, the noble Lords, Lord Rennard, Lord Wallace and Lord Khan, and I, met the new chief executive of the Electoral Commission a few weeks ago, and we discussed the sheer quantity of pages of statutory instruments that are being passed in relation to all elections law. This error—the Minister has acknowledged that it was an error, and that this is intended to put it put it right—indicates the sheer quantity of pages that one is dealing with. I make a request of whoever are the next Government: there is a desperate need for the consolidation of all electoral legislation. To be honest, it is a mess at the moment, which I think we all agree on. There may be slightly different interpretations on one or two matters, but there is no question but that elections law needs consolidation. In that meeting, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, identified that we had considered in Grand Committee some 1,100 pages of SIs arising out of the Elections Act. It is impossible to give adequate scrutiny to that sheer quantity of legislation, and much of it arises from the lack of consolidation.
I seek specific clarification in relation to the one point that I wanted to raise. I referred just now to the elections of 2 May but I think I heard the Minister identify that this did not apply on 2 May. I think I heard her refer to the date of 7 May in terms of implementation, in which case my supplementary question becomes otiose—that is, did it have any implications for 2 May? Can my noble friend confirm that she used that date? I conclude with that question.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, and I commend the enormous amount of work that he does in the whole area of electoral space.
It is customary to thank the Minister for explaining; on this occasion, I say that with particular passion, because this is a very complicated SI, and the circumstances that led to its being necessary were clearly very complicated. As the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, just said, that is a reflection of how difficult it is both for electoral returning officers, but even more so for voters or potential voters—people out there on the street—to understand what is happening.
I assume that this situation came to light when people were affected, so I wonder whether we know how many people were affected by the circumstance that this is correcting. Looking at the list of countries here—Malta, Cyprus, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Luxembourg and Ireland—when I knock on doors and note the view on the street, most people who are not engaged in day-to-day politics have a general view that “since Brexit, European citizens don’t have a vote”. I think that this view is very widely held. What will the Government do, with a general election forthcoming, to ensure that all those who have a right to exercise their vote, as residents of the UK with these various criteria, have a chance to know this as individuals and will encounter the right answers if they ask questions at their local council office or other relevant place?
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, I take advantage of the fact that I have been relieved of the chairing of this Committee by my noble friend Lady Fookes to make one point. It follows the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, with which I wholly agree.
Last Thursday, I went to the Electoral Commission and had a discussion with the chief executive, with other colleagues. We were talking about various aspects of the preparations that they are making for the next general election. However, it will come as no surprise to anyone, and I rise only to make it clear to the Committee, that arising from that discussion was that there is bipartisan support for the point that I am making and which the noble Lord made. There is a crying need for the consolidation of electoral law. I very much hope that in a modest way, the Hansard record of this Grand Committee can be used as further proof of that, and that a future Government will find the legislative time to do this. It will be widely supported when it comes.
Lord Rennard (LD)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, has once again demonstrated the essential truth of one of his major campaign pledges during the 1993 Christchurch by-election—that he would be very good at scrutinising secondary legislation. It is always a pleasure to work with him on such matters.
I am tempted to ask the Minister how often the Government have had to bring forward measures such as this, as a tidying-up and housekeeping exercise, since the Elections Act of 2022 became law. I will resist. However, the current measure is one of numerous examples of the Government appearing not quite to understand what they were doing in seeking to implement a Brexit deal which lacked details when it was agreed.
In considering what is before us today, the Shadow Minister in the House of Commons, Florence Eshalomi, explained that understanding this measure required understanding five or six different Acts and regulations spanning over 40 years of legislation. To correct the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, it was in answer to a Question of mine in this place some time ago that it was revealed that at that stage there had been 16 statutory instruments involved in implementing the Elections Act 2022, running to 803 pages, all of which have been added to since then by one, two or three further statutory instruments. This is simply the latest of them. The scale of the statutory instruments required by the Elections Act has presented a significant problem, not just for Ministers but particularly for those responsible for the conduct of our elections. I believe that the burden may have become intolerable and the risk of mistakes in the conduct of our elections has been increased significantly by this complexity.
First, can the Minister update us on government thinking about what we are all asking for—the proper consolidation of all our election laws, as recommended by the Law Commission, which has done much work on this subject?
Secondly, does the Minister accept that the Government’s explanation of the difference in voting rights between EU citizens from Ireland, Cyprus and Malta and those from the 19 EU countries with which we do not have voting and candidacy treaties is an anomaly that requires a fundamental review of the franchises for all our UK elections? In particular, does she accept that the principle of residency would be a good basis for the local election franchise, as those who pay for and receive services from local government should be able to vote for the people in charge of those local authorities? The principle of no taxation without representation is a good one. The Government seem obsessed with removing people from the electoral rolls, making it unnecessarily hard to register and then harder to vote if you are among the categories of people without acceptable photo ID from the very tightly drawn list.
Thirdly, what steps will the Government take to ensure that the different levels of voting rights applying to different EU citizens will be explained to them all?
Finally, what progress is being made with the 19 EU member states with which we do not have treaties concerning voting and candidacy rights to agree such treaties, bringing EU citizens in those countries into line with those from Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, Poland and Denmark?
That said, the measure has our support as it provides some clarification and corrects mistakes that were inadvertently made.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, the fact that we are here yet again emphasises the enormity and complexity of the Elections Act and electoral statute. I echo the comments by the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, supported by my noble friend Lord Stansgate, about consolidation of all electoral legislation. As the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, indicated in a meeting with the chief executive of the Electoral Commission, there are 1,100 pages of SIs as a result of the Elections Act. We should never have to come to that situation again.
It is critical that our electoral law is as legible and transparent as possible, not only for the health of democracy but, as I have repeated to the Minister previously, for the workload of our understaffed electoral teams, which are tasked with keeping the integrity of our elections intact. Mistakes in legislation in this area make that challenge even harder. They could create confusion and concern among dual nationals who are entitled to vote, by not only collecting unnecessary information from those looking to register but increasing the workload of electoral officers, who already have to tidy up databases and deal with queries from so many different members of the public who are confused as to why this question is being asked in the first instance. Unfortunately, rather than helping our electoral administrators, the Government have introduced an Elections Act that significantly increases the load on them.
This is the second correction the department has had to make following the Elections Act. Given that the consequences of these mistakes could potentially change the franchise, what steps is the department taking to proactively review that the legislation is working as intended so that no other potential consequences are being missed? I would be grateful if the Minister could outline what support is being provided to electoral officers to carry out the amendment to the franchise for EU nationals. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that there are no mistakes in the system? What is the Minister’s response to the report on voter registration from the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, which highlighted a creaking system without any efficiency and with the huge challenges presented by the Elections Act? I would welcome her thoughts on that.
I recognise the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, that this is a complicated area of law; we appreciate that. In summary, we support this draft statutory instrument, but I would welcome reassurance from the Minister on the points I raised and those eloquently raised by noble Lords across the Committee. I look forward to her response.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I thank noble Lords for their contributions today. I will go through a few of the issues that were brought up.
First, the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, is absolutely right: the instruments in this amending SI had no effect on the elections held on 2 May. The changes to the franchise for EU citizens came into force on 7 May; that date was chosen specifically so that there would be no impact on the May local elections.
We have heard quite a lot about consolidation, as we did when the Elections Bill, which is now an Act, was going through. I think that will be for subsequent Governments to look at. This is complex; there are huge numbers of pieces of legislation impacting on top of each other within the elections arena. As the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, and the noble Lords, Lord Rennard and Lord Khan of Burnley, brought up, that is something which will have to be done by subsequent Governments.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, brought up the numbers affected. I do not know those numbers, but I will have a look and write to her. On the oversight occurring in the first place, as I said, I apologise—but it is recognised that, even with stringent checks in quite complex pieces of legislation such as this, there is always a chance of unintentional errors. Regrettably, sometimes they are overlooked and, unfortunately, this is one such case, but the main thing is that we are dealing with it now.
On the issues around differences in voting rights for residency, this instrument is focused on amending a definition in existing regulations. Those regulations have already been passed in Parliament—as I say, they came into force on 7 May—and there are no further plans to revise any of them. I remember well the debates held on the changes being introduced by those regulations, and this is not the time to go over them again. It is certainly not the time at this early stage, when the regulations have only just gone into law, to put forward further revisions.
The Electoral Commission will keep an eye on all these issues as they are put into place, as will the department. Of course, if there are any issues or problems, we will keep an eye on that. That was a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Khan of Burnley. It is important that we keep a close eye on any changes, particularly to electoral legislation, as it is complex. If anybody who wants to register to vote goes on to the Electoral Commission’s website, all the details are on there—and people do that. Also, our wonderful election officers in our local authorities are usually the first contact that people have. Even if they are complex voters, all the information will be given to them by our local authorities as well, which is important.
I think that is everything I had to answer. I know that the House believes that ensuring the smooth running of our democratic processes is of paramount importance. This amendment is therefore important, and I thank noble Lords for supporting the instrument to get this right. I commend it the Committee.
Lord Rennard (LD)
My Lords, the Minister has referred to the Electoral Commission’s website and to the excellent work done by local authorities in registering people to vote. How does she explain the fact that, according to the Electoral Commission, we have 8 million people who are either not registered, but should be, or are incorrectly registered?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I do not know about “incorrectly registered”. I will take that back and look at the numbers but we have to accept that, in any democracy, some people just do not want to vote. I do not know whether noble Lords have been knocking on doors but I have; there are certainly people in this country who do not want to vote, for whatever reason. That impacts on us all as politicians and party members. We should encourage people to want to vote but, unfortunately, some people do not want to do so. We are not a country that forces people to vote.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
I want to respond to that response. The Minister talks about knocking on doors. I am sure that we have all encountered people who think, “But I’ve got my driver’s licence and I pay my council tax. I must be registered to vote because I’m on the system”. Does the Minister acknowledge that significant numbers of people who would like to vote do not find a way to navigate the system—or, indeed, do not know that they have to navigate it until it is too late?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
No, I do not accept that. The Electoral Commission and the Government have always been out there advertising and promoting the need to vote in this country, as have the political parties. Since we have had to have voter ID, that has not seemed to be an issue; most people have it and know that they have only to go to their local authority to get a voter identity document if they do not. I do not think that that is the case; I think that some people do not want to vote.
House of Lords
Public Bus Collisions
(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Hampton
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to reduce deaths and injuries of vulnerable road users from public bus collisions in England.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Davies of Gower) (Con)
My Lords, the Government are determined to make our roads safer for all users. The National Bus Strategy made it clear that local authorities and bus operators should work together to ensure that bus services are safe and perceived to be safe by all. We also introduced changes to the Highway Code in 2022 and have delivered high-quality walking and cycling schemes, which will be vital to ensuring the safety of vulnerable road users.
Lord Hampton (CB)
I thank the Minister for his Answer. Every six weeks, according to Transport for London’s own statistics, on average one person is killed and 100 people hospitalised by preventable bus incidents. This is getting no better, despite the fact that the number of bus journeys has actually reduced. Given that the London business model is being rolled out to the rest of the country, do the Government still think that having bus companies investigating their own incidents is a good idea?
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, as I have said, road safety is a priority for the Government. The department is determined to make roads safer for everyone, and the delivery of high-quality walking and cycling schemes, coupled with the changes to the Highway Code in 2022, will play an important part in addressing the safety concerns of people wanting to walk, wheel and cycle. Active Travel England is working with local authorities to ensure that walking and cycling infrastructure is of the right quality and in the right places to maximise its value and impact. On the issue of bus companies investigating themselves, as the noble Lord knows from debates on the Automated Vehicles Bill, we have no intention of introducing separate investigation for buses.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that many injuries caused by buses in fact occur inside the bus, especially to the elderly and vulnerable? Care needs to be taken in examining any statistics that suggest how many bus-related injuries arise in a particular period, to ensure that a distinction is made between those occurring inside the bus, often because of excessive braking, and those involving pedestrians in the street.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My noble friend makes a very good point. It is a matter for individual bus companies, and of training. This issue is clearly of great importance to bus users but, as I say, it is for the bus companies themselves to ensure that their drivers are properly trained and take great care.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, there is a particular problem for disabled and vulnerable passengers using the new bus stops that are in lanes between cycle paths and the main pavement—not least a very narrow pavement for wheelchair users trying to leave a bus, and a ramp, as a result of which you often almost go straight in front of the cycles. I must tell your Lordships that when you are coming down a steep ramp, you are not in control of your speed. Are there any plans to monitor accident numbers and to assess the risks associated with this new bus stop/cycle lane arrangement?
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for that question. The phrase used for these stops is “floating bus stops”. Local authorities are bound by the public sector equality duty, and it is for them to ensure that any infrastructure they install is safe, fit for purpose and delivered in a way that enables them to comply with equalities legislation. The department is aware of concerns raised by some groups about these floating bus stops, and that is why we co-funded research into the issue, led by Transport Scotland. This concluded recently and we will consider the findings carefully in deciding the next steps.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, in fact, bus deaths and injuries are coming down quite dramatically compared with car deaths and injuries. The latter have barely moved, whereas bus and coach injuries have come down by 40% in the last year. I want to congratulate the Government because, clearly, their policy of depriving local councillors of funding means that there are fewer bus services and therefore fewer deaths and injuries from buses.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
I note the noble Baroness’s comments.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, there are concerns, and this issue arises from a Question we had about road safety. In view of some recent unsatisfactory accidents, is any consideration being given to obliging cyclists, particularly those on e-cycles, to have proper accident insurance in place, and to follow speed limits, like all other users of the road?
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, like all road users, cyclists are required to comply with road traffic laws in the interests of the safety of other road users. This is also reflected in the Highway Code. Dangerous cycling is completely unacceptable, and that is why there are already strict laws in place for cyclists who break the law. The police have the power to prosecute if these are broken.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, can the Minister say how many cyclists were prosecuted last year? My own background tells me that very few are.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
I am afraid I am unable to help the noble Lord with a number. I do not know whether we keep a record of that. I shall find out and if we do, I will write to the noble Lord.
Lord Kamall (Con)
In answer to a previous question, my noble friend said that the bus companies themselves investigate such accidents and the cause. Is that information shared among the bus industry as a whole, or with any regulators or departments, to make sure we learn lessons from these accidents and that they do not happen again?
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
I am not aware of that, but I take my noble friend’s point. It is a question of bus companies taking their own steps to ensure that people are safe while they travel, and that drivers are trained properly.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that, for all the points that have been made in this short discussion, in the vast majority of cases, bus drivers, particularly in our cities, deserve our thanks and respect for safely and successfully navigating the multiple and increasing challenges they face on our roads? Since buses are the main means of transport for the elderly, the young, young mothers with children—the less well-off in our society—should they not be valued by society as a whole for the public service they offer us day in, day out?
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
I could not possibly disagree with that. I am a regular bus user and I agree that they provide a tremendous service, whether it is in our cities, towns or, indeed, our rural areas.
Lord Londesborough (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that pedestrians, cyclists and e-scooter riders make themselves even more vulnerable and dangerous to others, including bus drivers, through the increasing and distracting use of headphones, AirPods and smartphones in general while on pavements and roads? Are the Government taking any steps to address this?
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
I agree with what the noble Lord says, but it is an individual responsibility. It is not for the Government to say, “You should take care”. A Government can encourage people to take care, but it is a matter of your own assessment of the risks on the road. If you wish to wear headphones and take that risk, more fool you.
Lord Haselhurst (Con)
My Lords, if the present level of injuries, which has been described, continues, is there not a strong case for introducing greater regulation? In ordinary circumstances it would not be necessary, but it does seem to be very necessary in this sphere.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
There is quite a bit of legislation on reckless and dangerous cycling—the penalties are quite high—and on drinking alcohol or taking drugs while cycling. The penalties and offences are there; it is a matter of the police enforcing them.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister says that it is a matter of the police enforcing them. Will he tell us how exactly they are expected to do that, given their current level of resourcing and that there is no system of licensing or, indeed, of identifying cyclists, who may simply cycle away having committed the offences to which he refers?
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
The noble Lord asks how the police are supposed to do it. It is a matter of being out there and patrolling. I did it myself for 32 years, and I managed to nab a few cyclists.
Modern Slavery National Referral Mechanism: Waiting Times
(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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The Lord Bishop of Bristol
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to reduce waiting times for ‘conclusive grounds’ decisions under the National Referral Mechanism for modern slavery.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)
My Lords, the Government remain committed to ensuring that victims are identified promptly. We have taken steps to shorten the timelines for making decisions in the national referral mechanism, including new guidance for making reasonable grounds decisions, changes to the online referral form and setting timescales for information to be provided to the competent authorities. We have also significantly increased staffing for the competent authorities and are seeing the results through increased output of decisions.
The Lord Bishop of Bristol
I thank the Minister for that Answer. The median waiting time for conclusive grounds decisions in 2023 was 526 days but, for women, the median waiting time rose to 904 days, nearly double that for the whole group. This has a negative impact on them, their families and their children, and it makes it very difficult for swift enforcement action to be taken against perpetrators. What assessment have the Government made of why this discrepancy is so large and what steps are they taking urgently to reduce waiting times for women?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I thank the right reverend Prelate for that question. We are working to improve the timeliness of all decisions from all angles. That includes increasing the capacity for decision-making, testing alternative approaches, improving the quality of the information provided as part of the decision-making process, and reducing opportunities for misuse. The statistics are trending in the right direction. In the past two years, almost 30,000 people have had access to the protections of the NRM. Last year, 9,825 conclusive grounds decisions were issued, the highest number since the NRM began. In the first quarter of this year, 5,161 reasonable grounds decisions and 3,893 inclusive grounds decisions were issued, far higher than in any other quarter since the NRM began.
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
Can the Minister answer the question about the discrepancy between women and men in the cases cited?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I apologise; I should have addressed that. I do not know the precise reason for those discrepancies, but I will look into the details and come back to the noble Lord.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, I declare that I am co-chair of the parliamentary group on modern slavery and vice-chair of the Human Trafficking Foundation. Can the Minister say how the NRM will deal with potential victims of modern slavery when the Illegal Migration Act is in force?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
These are discussions that we have had at considerable length over the past few months. When the IMA is commenced, its modern slavery provisions will strengthen the UK’s continued efforts to mitigate risks to public order by withholding modern slavery protections from those who enter the UK illegally and who therefore put themselves and first responders at risk and place acute pressure on public services. Where someone has entered the UK illegally and is identified as a potential victim of modern slavery, we will ensure that they are either returned home or sent to another safe country, and away from those who have trafficked them.
Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as the chairman of the Human Trafficking Foundation. Home Office figures for 2023 include bad faith disqualifications, where someone has been disqualified from protection because the referral or claim was made in bad faith. As it appears that there were zero bad faith disqualifications last year, can my noble friend the Minister say what the evidence is for the claim we hear that the NRM is being abused?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
The public order disqualification is part of the Nationality and Borders Act, which has also been discussed extensively from this Dispatch Box and over a number of debates. It provides a definition of public order which makes it operationally possible to withhold the recovery period in certain circumstances, in line with Article 13 of the European Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. All decisions are made on a case-by-case basis.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, can the Minister explain why the last annual report on modern slavery, as required by the Modern Slavery Act, was published in 2021? When will the Government publish the next annual report? Would that not help us to understand the statistics?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I have already highlighted that a lot of statistics have been published. I do not know specifically when the next report is due to be published, but I will find out.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, will not the new provisions that the Government introduce make it less likely that witnesses come forward? Will that not be welcomed by traffickers, who will see it as an easy way of not getting caught?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
No. I do not see why it would make witnesses less likely to come forward.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister not recognise that delays with the NRM leave potential victims without the security that they would otherwise have and—following on from the last question—make them more open to further exploitation and re-trafficking? Does he also recognise that many victims of trafficking are British citizens?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
What I recognise is that this is very complicated. Referrals into the national referral mechanism are made by a number of public authorities, including the police, local authorities and so on, as well as non-governmental organisations. Then, one of the two competent authorities takes a look and makes an initial reasonable grounds decision, following which a potential victim is entitled to a minimum 30-day recovery period, unless there are grounds to disqualify them from that entitlement. The recovery period lasts until a conclusive grounds decision is made. These cases are very complex. In many cases, there is insufficient evidence and information in the referral form, so the competent authorities must consider all the information available to them and request it from various other authorities over which they have little or no operational control, and they do not have investigatory powers. This is extraordinarily complicated, but of course I recognise the victims’ distress.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, the Minister must have had in mind the Salvation Army when he was talking about non-governmental agencies. Over the past 13 years, it has dealt with over 22,000 cases that it has referred to the national referral mechanism. Yet, in data that it has produced, it points out that the delays have risen from the very modest five-day target in 2023, which was often realised, to 47 days now. It also says that there are technical deficiencies with the NRM. Will the Minister agree to meet senior officials from the Salvation Army to discuss the practicalities and issues arising as a result of the delays?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
Yes, I am very happy to do so. The Salvation Army deserves great credit, because it is contracted to offer a lot of the services that are delivered via the NGOs to the victims.
Lord Meston (CB)
My Lords, as the Minister has said, assessments to identify and support victims of trafficking, for whom any delay is harmful, can be complex and time-consuming. How many children are involved in the increasing backlog, either as victims themselves or as the children of victims? Do cases involving children receive any priority—and, if so, how?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
Of course, there are a lot of age-disputed cases in the system, so it is difficult to give the noble Lord a precise answer on that. There are decision-making pilots for children which are much quicker at making decisions. They are taken through a multi-agency structure of the local authority, health and police as a minimum. The safeguarding partners have a responsibility to obtain and present evidence at meetings where decisions are taken, so they are dealt with slightly differently.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
My Lords, this morning in the High Court in Belfast, a judgment disapplied certain elements of the Illegal Migration Act as they contravened Article 2 of the Windsor Framework. What assessment does the Minister, who brought the legislation through this House, have of that judgment?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I am afraid that is the first I have heard of it, so I have no opinion on it.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, the Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre’s paper on the 2023 national referral mechanism statistics notes with some concern that the data raises
“significant questions over the decision-making process”
as a result of changes to the statutory guidance that came in in January 2023 and not changes in the number of likely victims of modern slavery. Can the Minister say that the systems do not put victims of modern slavery at further risk?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I go back to an earlier answer I gave, that these are extraordinarily complex cases and, therefore, the guidance has to be refined in light of those cases periodically. I do not know to what specifically the noble Baroness is referring but, as far as I am aware, it does not make it any more complicated.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, I should have referred to my interest as a trustee of the Human Trafficking Foundation, as laid out in the register, at the beginning of my question. I apologise for that.
Care Leavers: Universal Credit
(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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The Lord Bishop of Manchester
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the potential benefits of bringing the rate of Universal Credit for care leavers under 25 in line with the rate for over-25s.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Viscount Younger of Leckie) (Con)
My Lords, the Government have assessed the impact of raising the rate of universal credit for care leavers under 25 in line with the rate for the over-25s. While we are not currently planning on changing the rate, we understand the challenges that care leavers face. That is why we continue to provide additional, dedicated support to simplify and improve their interaction with the benefits system and help them into sustained employment and rewarding careers.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester
I thank the Minister for that Answer. Care leavers are those for whom the state has been the corporate parent. Parenting does not stop at the age of 18; indeed, the rationale for the lower level of benefits for under-25s was always that they should continue to be supported by family until they achieve that full independence to which the Minister referred. I have to say that my own local branch bank of Mum and Dad is still very much taking on new business even though my kids are in their 30s. Will the Minister commit to looking again at the evidence, including that in the recent YMCA report on young people in supported accommodation, something that care leavers disproportionately need to access? Will he consider how we can be a better parent to the many wonderful but vulnerable young people who leave our care system each year?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
This is an important subject. As I said earlier, we recognise the challenges that care leavers face as they move out of the care system. We look forward to continuing our very close partnership with the Department for Education, to ensure that care leavers can access the right skills, opportunities and wider support to move towards sustained employment and career progression. It might be helpful to the right reverend Prelate to know that we are providing over £250 million across this spending review to support care leavers on a whole range of issues, including housing, improving access to education, employment and training, and to help them develop social connections and networks, which can be very helpful to them as they set out in life.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, can the Minister confirm that the acquisitive crime rates among care leavers under 25 are significantly higher than the acquisitive crime rates for care leavers over 25? We know that these care leavers are exceptionally vulnerable. If there is this discrepancy between the acquisitive crime rates, can he say clearly that we need to increase the universal credit rates for under-25 care leavers?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
The noble Baroness’s first point is correct: there is an element in the crime rate. I have the statistics somewhere here. We are well aware of it and are working very closely with the MoJ on it. Putting that aside, it is ever more important that care leavers have the best possible help to move on from the pretty challenging start that they have had in life, to show them the light—the way forward into work or education—and see them into a better life.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, we have been talking about universal credit, but international research shows that stable relationships are essential to care leavers’ resilience. They enable them to hold down jobs and live independently, hence support to form and maintain relationships is mandated in councils’ local offers for care leavers. Guidance refers to helping them to keep in touch with people who were important to them when they entered care. This is what the Lifelong Links approach achieves. It was very positively evaluated by the Department for Education, so are councils using it?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
The subject of relationships is very important indeed for care leavers. Judgments on the quality and breadth of a local authority’s so-called local offer for care leavers forms part of Ofsted’s inspection framework for local authority children’s services, hence the link with the Department for Education. The reports published following an inspection include a judgment on the experiences and progress of care leavers and a supporting commentary on the local offer. The Department for Education is providing £99.8 million to local authorities through the Staying Put programme to increase the number of care leavers who stay living with their foster families in a family home up to the age of 21. Again, this links into the relationship angle.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, further to the excellent Question from the right reverend Prelate, I say that young parents are one group particularly disadvantaged by the differential rates. As many of us probably know, having a child is very expensive, and is not made cheaper for the parent by their being under the age of 25. This was reflected under legacy benefits, where the higher rate was paid to young parents. Last year, the price of nappies—that well-used product—went up by about 30%. Will the Government review the rate paid to young parents to help them to do the vital work of caring for children? I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some assurance that this disparity in allowances is under review.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
The noble Lord makes a good point. The Government and local authorities should work in tandem, particularly in relation to care leavers who may have married young; I think that is the implication of his question. Local authority children’s and housing services should and do work together to ensure a range of suitable, move-on options, including for accommodation, because housing is often one of the key factors. Personal advisers should help young people to plan—particularly those who might be married—and agree which option is best to see them forward. This includes paying for items such as nappies.
Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (PC)
My Lords, would the Minister not agree that the price of rent and food was similar for those aged 25 and those aged 24? Will the Government review this policy, which is not fair to young people?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
In my opening Answer, I already alluded to what we might or might not do about that. In addition to the £250 million help that we give to care leavers, there is much cross-government support. For example, the Second Chance Learning scheme supports care leavers between the ages of 18 and 21 who wish to catch up on their education, particularly secondary education. I have already mentioned housing. There is an exemption from the shared accommodation rate—the SAR. Importantly, we are improving the transition from local authority support to DWP benefits, so that those who are not able to find a job immediately can be transitioned quickly on to the universal credit system; that was alluded to in a previous question. I do not think that the noble Baroness should be shaking her head; these are genuine issues.
Lord Sahota (Lab)
My Lords, the savings threshold to qualify for universal credit is £16,000, and that has been the case for years. Do the Government have any plans to increase it?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
We do not have any such plans, although the noble Lord will know that we keep all these matters under review. I have already outlined a number of initiatives that we have taken to help this important sector and to be sure that care leavers are given a better start in life, where they might have had a challenging and troubling start.
Lord Laming (CB)
My Lords, the Minister will well understand that, sad to say, the vast majority of care leavers leave care much younger than 25. It must be really rather frightening to find themselves in that situation at a young age, often with few educational qualifications and little to rely on in terms of future employment prospects. Does he agree that we as a state have a responsibility for those children who have been in public care, and therefore that we need to do everything we can to support them at a critical stage in their lives?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
That is absolutely right and I could not have put it better myself. That is why it is so important that at particular stages of life—that is, from the age of 14, and particularly 16, until the age of 25—initiatives are taken forward to look after this often very vulnerable group. I have outlined a number of those, and the initiatives are kept under review. I do not think I have yet mentioned the DWP Youth Offer, which is designed to help work coaches to support young people aged 16 to 24 and to encourage them to get into work as soon as possible.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that in 2017 the Children’s Society did some research into care leavers and benefits. It reported that care leavers were five times as likely as anyone else to be sanctioned by the benefits system, and that they were less likely to challenge that. Since then, the DWP now has a care leaver covenant saying that there should be a special point of contact who has to be notified before such a sanction can be applied. Can the Minister tell us how that is going and whether it has reduced the numbers?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I cannot tell the noble Baroness whether it has reduced the numbers, but it has been a considerable success. It is all part of what I was saying about our joined-up thinking in working with local authorities, as well as across government. She will be aware that we have a cross-government support group for care leavers, covering in particular the DfE, the DWP, DLUHC and, as mentioned earlier, local authorities.
Craftspeople: European Union Travel and Trade
(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the challenges for craftspeople in (1) travelling to and from, and (2) trading with, the European Union.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade (Lord Offord of Garvel) (Con)
The Government recognise the value of the crafts sector, which contributed £400 million gross value added to the UK economy in 2022, as well as the importance of trade between the UK and the EU. We acknowledge that UK crafts exporters may face challenges regarding export requirements, visas and work permits. To help businesses navigate those challenges, including the visa and work permit rules of EU member states, the Government have published detailed guidance on GOV.UK.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
I thank the Minister for that Answer. However, official advice about trading with the EU is not really tailored to self-employed craftspeople, nor to crafts microbusinesses, and in some cases it has simply been wrong. In addition, makers exhibiting or selling their crafts have to pay considerable sums for their own work to be imported back to the UK from the EU. As a result of all this, and various other challenges, the easy movement of those wishing to learn, teach and train in craft from and to the UK and the EU has now virtually ceased. Bearing in mind the contribution made by crafts that the Minister has underlined, would he consider going further than he suggested and agreeing to look at existing short-term routes to exempt the immigration skills charge, in line with the sciences; reducing the cost of the certificate of sponsorship, in line with sports; and an immigration health surcharge, based on shorter work durations?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness. I recognise her detailed involvement in this sector, which is part of the creative industries sector—one of the five identified by the Chancellor that will power our economy in the 21st century. It is a small part, run and characterised by microbusinesses, which no doubt have more difficult travel arrangements than they had before. The Government are working to support the creative sector. We see good growth in the creative sector—higher growth than in many others. We are working with the EU on a state-by-state basis and 23 of 27 countries now have bespoke arrangements and rules for travel for crafts folk, as well as, for example, our musicians. We will continue to encourage that bilateral.
The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)
My Lords, the problems the Question alludes to are undoubtedly mutual; they are problems for British craftsmen trying to go to Europe and the other way around. The trade and co-operation agreement produced 24 committees to look at issues between Britain and the EU. Could the Minister tell us which committee is charged with looking at this issue? Can he assure us that that committee does have this on its agenda?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank the noble Earl. I am well aware that there is a large number of committees. In DBT we are trying our best to remove barriers to trade and perhaps reduce the number of committees. In this case, I will need to go and ask the question to find out which committee is looking after craftspeople.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, is participating remotely.
Lord Strasburger (LD) [V]
My Lords, crippling restrictions on working in Europe are blighting the lives of 2 million people employed in our creative industries. This is because the Government completely omitted our largest sector after financial services from the Brexit trade deal, and then spent four years failing to fix their blunder. Will the Minister take this opportunity to apologise to those who previously had a career in music, dance, theatre or fashion but are now having to drive taxis or flip burgers?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for that question. We have a trade and co-operation agreement. In fact, our Brexit deal was one of the most progressive trade deals we had at the time of Brexit, which has been capitalised upon now, to 73 countries comprising 60% of global trade. Therefore, we have no tariffs and quotas for UK-EU goods trade. The Government’s aim is to maximise and make the best of that. The British people voted for Brexit to release the benefits of Brexit, which are increasingly coming through in our economy and trade. There are some costs to be borne along the way.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, could the Minister explain to the House how it is that you do a deal with the EU on a state-by-state basis?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I refer the noble Lord to my colleague in the other place, Greg Hands MP, who is the Minister for Europe. He is spending an increasing amount of time in European capitals. We also have 300 embassy staff working in the EU on deal-by-deal arrangements with countries to help, for example, our musicians and crafts folk. It is working very well.
Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)
My Lords, craftspeople, like all other travellers to the EU from the UK, face increasing delays again in the autumn when new strictures come in, with new requirements for fingerprinting, et cetera. Can the Minister bring the House up to date with what is happening on that front? Will there be yet more postponements?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for that. The craft sector is being supported. My own department, DBT, is delivering a programme of trade promotion activity in Europe and elsewhere. We also have a new means of trade, by way of digital, as well as by having to go there. Perhaps our carbon footprint has been reduced by making fewer trips to some of those shows. For example, we will be doing one in Dubai in July, for Middle East design and hospitality week. We are taking a group of craftspeople to sell their wares.
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)
My Lords, one of the other great issues facing the skilled craft industry today is that 98% of skilled practitioners are solo traders or microbusinesses, as we have heard. That means that without effective apprenticeship schemes, their skills and knowledge will retire with them— knowledge and skills such as clock-making, Scottish carpentry, paper marbling, tinsmithing and cricket ball making. Despite this, apprenticeship starts have fallen by a third over the past decade, and £1 billion raised by the apprenticeship levy goes unspent each year. What steps are the Government taking to address this decline and to save some of those 150 varieties of craft apprenticeships or craft businesses?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for that. He is basically describing the characteristics of this sector, which is populated by a large number of small, individual microbusinesses, quite often sole traders, all of whom are passionate about what they do and many of whom come to this as a second or third career. Therefore, it is a difficult sector to organise with a top-down approach from government. There is no question that many schemes are available to help and encourage people, not least in the charitable sector. I was a trustee of DofE, which does a lot around the crafts sector, and we know what the King does in terms of his programme at Dumfries House. We see how popular “The Repair Shop” is on television; the most popular charity in my town of Greenock is called the men’s shed.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, when Henry III ordered the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey a mere 750 years ago, there were craftsmen from Italy, France, Germany and the Low Countries working on it. Many of the English masons and others had also worked on cathedrals in France, the Low Countries and elsewhere. Now it seems much more difficult to get that sort of easy exchange between highly skilled craftsmen. Have we gone backwards?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for that question. We should get a report on the rebuilding of Notre Dame Cathedral and work out exactly where the tradesmen and craftsmen have come from. I think we will find that the French are very keen to promote that as an opportunity for their own craftspeople, not necessarily for the wider community.
Lord Krebs (CB)
My Lords, I treat scientific research as a craft. Will the Minister, either now or later in writing, give us the numbers of PhD students studying scientific research coming from Europe to the United Kingdom and flowing in the other direction, from the UK to other European countries in the European Union?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I am very happy to write to the noble Lord with that information.
Immigration (Leave to Enter and Remain) (Amendment) Order 2024
(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Sharpe of Epsom
That the draft Order laid before the House on 11 March be approved.
Considered in Grand Committee on 7 May.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Legal Aid: Domestic Abuse) (Amendment) Order 2024
(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Bellamy
That the draft Order laid before the House on 25 March be approved.
Considered in Grand Committee on 7 May.
End of Custody Supervised Licence Scheme: Extension
(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Bellamy) (Con)
My Lords, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer given in the other place on 8 May by my right honourable friend Minister Argar, concerning an extension of the end of custody supervised licence scheme to a maximum of 70 days. The Statement is as follows:
“Protecting the public is our No. 1 priority, so it is right that we take tough and decisive action to keep putting the most serious offenders behind bars, and for longer, as the public rightly expect. We are carrying out the biggest prison expansion programme since the Victorian era, and we are ramping up removals of foreign national offenders.
We have a duty to ensure that the prison system continues to operate safely and effectively, with offenders held in safe and decent conditions. This means ensuring that no prison exceeds a safe maximum operating limit. ECSL allows lower-level offenders to be released before their automatic release date. In March, the Lord Chancellor stated that we will
‘work with the police, prisons and probation leaders to make further adjustments as required.’.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/3/24; col. 157.]
This extension is in line with what the Lord Chancellor said.
ECSL operates only when absolutely necessary and is kept under constant review. I know that many Members of this House will be concerned about the early release of offenders into the community, but I make it clear that only offenders who would soon be released anyway will be considered for ECSL.
We have put in place safeguards, including that the Prison Service retains the discretion to prevent the ECSL release of any offender where early release presents a higher risk than if they were released at their automatic release date. There are strict eligibility criteria, and anyone convicted of a sexual offence, a terrorist offence or a serious violence offence is ruled out. Public safety will always be our No. 1 priority, and all those released will be subject to probation supervision and stringent licence conditions”.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My Lords, the ECSL scheme was launched last October as a temporary response to the capacity crisis, which has seen the prison population soar to 88,000. At that time, it was for 35 days’ early release. The Government’s narrative was that this would relieve increasing pressure on prisons and allow probation staff to manage clients back into the community safely and effectively. That has not worked sufficiently, so they are increasing the early release to 70 days. Does the Minister agree with me that this shows that the Government have failed to properly manage the prison estate for capacity, safety and basic decency? Does he also agree with me that there needs to be a renaissance in our probation services so that we make more use of community orders and suspended sentences, rather than ever increasing the prison population?
Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, I think the House is well aware of the pressures on the prison estate. We have had considerable difficulties in recent times, particularly with a highly increased remand population and the ongoing effect of Covid. The Government have embarked on the largest prison building programme since Victorian times. We have opened two new prisons, and there are two more on the way for which outline planning permission has now been achieved. We are working as well as we can to deal with the situation, but temporary measures are unavoidable, I am afraid, as the Labour Government found when they were in power some time ago. I agree with the noble Lord that sentencing, in terms of community orders and suspended sentences, is very much a subject that should continue to be considered fully.
Lord German (LD)
My Lords, the Government’s approach to this has been rather haphazard. We have moved from 18 to 70 days, and it does not look as if this is getting any better. Has the Minister any news on the Sentencing Bill and the Government’s proposals for people with sentences of 12 months or fewer generally not going to prison? Secondly, when does the Minister expect Dartmoor to be able to take its full quota of prisoners again, having been emptied of most of them?
Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, I am not in a position to update the House at the moment on the Sentencing Bill, except to say I understand that it will indeed be progressing through the other place in early course. I will write to the noble Lord about the situation at Dartmoor, on which I am not at this moment informed.
Lord Garnier (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a trustee of the Prison Reform Trust. Would my noble and learned friend accept that there is much of merit in the ECSL scheme, but there are not just prisoners who are going to be released early but also IPP prisoners who are still in prison 10 to 15 years after their tariff? Only last month or the month before, we heard how an IPP prisoner took his own life because he was beyond hope. There are far too many people in prison far too long. Could targeting that not be a way of reducing the prison population and emptying those cells that the Government seem so keen to fill up with other people at the other end?
Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, the subject of the IPP prisoners will be fully discussed in the Report stage of the Victims and Prisoners Bill, now scheduled for next Tuesday. Noble Lords will be aware that extensive government amendments have been tabled with the clear intention of reducing the population of IPP prisoners.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
As somebody who has faced the dilemma that the current Lord Chancellor faces, I am not unsympathetic to the position of the Government. I understand they are doing it because the prisons are too full. Could the Minister explain what effect the fact that the prisons are too full is now having on the way the Government are dealing with the backlog in the Crown Court? There are 66,000 cases waiting to be tried in the Crown Court. I assume there is no desire to speed them up, because the prisons will get fuller and fuller.
Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, the Government are working as closely as possible with the judiciary to reduce the backlog in the Crown Court as early as possible.
Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, more prisons are now in special measures than have been for some years, including flagship prisons such as Wandsworth. Reports on how they got into this position mention low morale, drug use, violence and some terrorist elements exercising control over prisons. While having sympathy with the Government in so far as they do not, in and of themselves, determine how many people are in prison, I ask: have we not reached the point where the system is in part broken? Therefore, we need a radical appraisal of how it is going to continue. With so many significant prisons now in special measures, it is perfectly clear that something is radically wrong with the whole system.
Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, there are certainly problems in some prisons, but the overall picture is by no means as painted. We have had major refurbishments at sites including HMP Birmingham, HMP Liverpool and HMP Norwich. Your Lordships may have seen the picture of Liverpool the other day in the papers. It was a most impressive refurbishment. Constructions of new houseblocks at four prisons are going on; we have opened HMP Fosse Way and HMP Five Wells. I would encourage noble Lords to visit those very modern and effective prisons. We now have outline planning permission for two more.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester
My Lords, I declare that I am a trustee of the Clink Charity: we are involved with training people in prison for qualifications for restaurants, catering and the like. Those last few weeks in prison are often a crucial time for prisoners gaining the qualifications they need to get a decent job when they are released. I am sure every prisoner wants to go as soon as they can, but is the Minister aware, and will the Government take consideration, of the effect of prisoners not receiving their qualifications because they have not quite been completed by the time their advanced release date comes?
Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, it is a priority of this Government to improve employment opportunities for persons in prison. I would like to pay particular tribute to the Clink Charity, which has done excellent work over the years. The rate of prisoners in employment six months after their release has significantly increased under this Government, and various steps, which I think I have outlined on previous occasions, have been taken to improve the qualifications of prisoners leaving prison.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, is it not incumbent on this and future Governments to focus on prolific offenders, those who have committed more than 16 offences, and hyper-prolific offenders, who have committed more than 45? In so doing, we could cumulatively redirect funding for less serious prisoners to rehabilitation and reducing recidivism to make sure that that group has a better chance of making good when they leave prison.
Lord Bellamy (Con)
My noble friend makes a very serious point, which has considerable force. The Government are well aware of it and will take it forward.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, 50 years ago, when the prison population was about 40,000, some of us proposed radically—and, it was thought at the time, dangerously—that non-state or semi-state organisations, institutions and enterprises should play their role in reorganising the Prison Service and that there should be a radical appraisal, as we heard called for a moment ago, of the nature of custody and penalties so that we could be more in line with other countries on the proportion of people in prison in relation to population. We are still miles ahead, except for America. Can my noble friend reassure us that, whichever party is in government, there will be a serious, organised effort to grip this custody issue and bring us into line with civilised patterns in other countries and away from the problems with overcrowding and drugs and the endless stories of difficulties to which we are at present subjected?
Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, if my noble friend is suggesting that we need a radical and thorough debate on sentencing policy and the use of custody, I entirely agree with him. Any Government would need to take that very serious issue forward.
Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)
My Lords, has any assessment been made of the impact of prisons being so full and there being such a long backlog in court? One of the biggest drivers of crime in the poorest communities in this country is the idea that you will get away with it. I have been speaking to a number of people at street level who are saying that the jails are too full to send anybody there, which they say is a driver for new criminals to get involved.
Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, the purpose of this measure—the increase in the early release under licence scheme—is absolutely to make sure that there is always space in jail for offenders. People who commit offences can expect to go to jail if their offence merits it.
Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill
Monday 13th May 2024
(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Act 2024 View all Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Act 2024 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 29 April 2024 - (29 Apr 2024)
Lord Offord of Garvel
That the Bill be now read a second time.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade (Lord Offord of Garvel) (Con)
My Lords, I am pleased to present the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill for Second Reading today. Noble Lords will have followed the passage of this historic Bill through the other place and will be well aware of its significance and the cross-party support it has received. This legislation will address one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history. It will quash the convictions of those affected by the Post Office Horizon scandal in England and Wales, and, following government amendment in the other place, Northern Ireland. This will ensure that postmasters are not disadvantaged by the unique challenges of expediting legislation faced by the Northern Ireland Assembly. The Government will continue working closely with the Scottish Government to support their approach to addressing the scandal, ensuring that every postmaster who has been affected, irrespective of where they are in the United Kingdom, receives the justice they deserve. The financial redress scheme will be open to postmasters throughout the UK, regardless of where or how their conviction was quashed.
This Bill will clear the names of postmasters whose lives were destroyed because of the Horizon scandal—those who received wrongful convictions or cautions for offences, including false accounting, theft and fraud, because of the Post Office’s faulty IT system. The legislation cannot undo the damage caused by the Horizon scandal. However, it is a crucial step in restoring the good names of those affected and ensuring they can access fair and full redress.
This new legislation will quash all convictions which meet the following clear and objective conditions: that the case was prosecuted by the Post Office, the Crown Prosecution Service or Northern Ireland’s prosecuting authorities; that the alleged offence was committed between certain dates in 1996 and 2018; that the postmaster was convicted of theft, false accounting or similar offences listed in the Bill; that the convicted individual was working in a Post Office which was using the Horizon system; and that the alleged offence was carried out in connection with running the business of that Post Office or with the person’s work in that Post Office.
The Bill will not quash convictions that have already been considered by the Court of Appeal, as defined in the Bill. The safety of those convictions has been considered by judges in the senior appellate court. The Government’s view is that, given the constitutional sensitivities, extreme caution must be exercised over whether Parliament should interfere with these decisions. Convictions will be quashed automatically when the Bill receives Royal Assent, removing the need for people to apply to have their conviction overturned. This will ensure that those affected receive justice as soon as possible.
The Bill includes a duty on the Secretary of State—or in Northern Ireland, the Department of Justice—to take all reasonable steps to identify convictions that have been quashed. It also creates a duty to notify the original convicting court, so that records can be updated. Other records, such as police records, will be amended in response. Similarly, the Bill makes provision for records of cautions relating to this scandal to be deleted.
I am well aware that the approach we are taking in the Bill is novel. In the Bill, we are using legislation to fulfil a function that in normal circumstances is rightly reserved to the independent judiciary. I am equally aware that these are not normal circumstances. Given the number of postmasters involved, the passage of time since the original conviction, the loss of evidence over that time, and the loss of trust in the system—meaning that many affected simply will not come forward to appeal—it is right that the state provides an exceptional response. Postmasters have suffered for too long, and we must end their fight for justice as swiftly as possible.
However, it is vital to make two points clear to your Lordships’ House. First, the Government’s position is that it will be Parliament and not the Government that is overturning the convictions: there will be no intrusion by the Executive into the proper role of the judiciary. Secondly, we have been clear throughout the passage of the Bill that this legislation does not set any kind of precedent for the future. It is also important to be unambiguous that the passage of the Bill is in no way a reflection on the courts or the judiciary, which have dealt swiftly with the cases before them.
Upon Royal Assent, this legislation will quash all convictions in its scope with immediate effect, as a matter of law. This means that victims will not have to take any action to receive exoneration. It also means that this unprecedented provision expires once it has done its job on the day of Royal Assent. This supports the Government’s aim that the Bill should not be seen as a precedent for Parliament’s acting outside its usual constitutional role. The Government will take all reasonable steps to notify the relevant individuals and direct them to the route for applying for financial redress. Further details of this process will be set out in due course. Importantly, there will also be a process for anyone to come forward where they believe their convictions meet the criteria. If they meet the criteria in the Bill, their records will be amended to reflect the quashed conviction in the same way.
Turning to financial redress, this new legislation will be followed by a rapid route to financial redress, on a similar basis to the existing redress arrangements for those with overturned convictions currently administered by the Post Office. However, the Government, rather than the Post Office, will be responsible for the delivery of the scheme for those whose convictions are overturned by the Bill. Final decisions will be made by independent panels or individuals, where they cannot be agreed with the postmaster.
We do not need provisions in the Bill to deliver that scheme; the legal basis on which redress is made is already in place. We place great importance on ensuring that this redress is delivered promptly. Information about redress will be provided to each individual alongside the notification that their conviction has been overturned. Each exonerated postmaster will have the choice between accepting a fixed offer of £600,000, which will be paid rapidly, or having their claim individually assessed. This new scheme will join the three schemes already being run by the Post Office and my department. In total, over £200 million has already been paid to over 2,800 claimants. Some 72% of claims received have been settled, but the Government continue to strive to accelerate matters. Ministers are advised on these issues by the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board. We are very grateful to the board’s members, notably the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, in his usual place, who has done so much to drive the resolution of this scandal.
In summing up, this Bill amounts to an exceptional response to a scandal which is wholly exceptional in nature. It is a scandal that has shaken the nation’s faith in the core principles of fairness and equity that underpin our legal system. We recognise the constitutional sensitivity and unprecedented nature of this legislation, but we believe that it is essential for us to rise to the scale of the challenge. The hundreds of postmasters caught up in this scandal deserve nothing less. Of course, no amount of legislation can fully restore what the Post Office so cruelly took from them, but I hope this Bill at least begins to offer the closure and justice for which postmasters have so bravely campaigned over so many years. I hope that it affords them the ability to rebuild their lives. I beg to move.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for setting out the provisions of this very important legislation in such plain language. I think that most, if not all, of your Lordships understand what this Bill sets out to do. I feel honoured to be the first speaker from these Benches to welcome this Bill, particularly when I see who the next but one speaker in your Lordships’ debate is; my admiration for the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom, goes back to even before his work on Horizon. I admire him greatly for what he has done, and he is deserving of the recognition of that work that he and my right honourable friend Kevan Jones did for years in trying to get proper redress for this egregious miscarriage of justice.
There is no doubt that the Post Office Horizon scandal is, if not the worst, one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history. I think I remember that, in January, when the Prime Minister made a public statement that this Bill would come before Parliament, he described it as the worst miscarriage of justice in British history. I am inclined to agree with him: I do not always, but in this case I think I do. As we know, it robbed many people of their good character, their livelihood, their liberty and, in some cases, their life. Because of the nature of the damage that was done to the sub-postmasters, it has been carried down and will be carried down in generations of their families; it has influenced very badly the families of these great public servants. It caused unimaginable pain and suffering, which can never be fully compensated or fully alleviated.
To make matters worse, the fight for justice for the sub-postmasters has become bogged down in a great many delays and barriers, and some of those affected, tragically, as I have already alluded to, have passed away before having the chance to see the justice they deserve. What we do know is that this Bill will free hundreds of innocent people of their wrongful convictions. It will not restore their character, because that can never properly be fully restored, but it will give them an opportunity to try to put it behind them. Importantly, it facilitates the opportunity to make much-needed progress in otherwise righting the wrongs. Those are the reasons given by my honourable friend Jonathan Reynolds in the other place, and they are why Labour will give this Bill our full support.
However, not only must the convictions be overturned but, thereafter, compensation must be delivered at pace. Justice and accountability must follow the conclusions and recommendations of the ongoing independent public inquiry.
I was struck by the words of Sir Robert Buckland at Second Reading in the other place. On more than one occasion in debates and questions on these issues, he has hit the nail on the head. In his first intervention, he said that
“it is important that we emphasise the wholly exceptional nature of this legislation, but we are dealing with wholly exceptional circumstances”—
which were described very clearly by the Minister. I also agree with his emphasis that we have to look again at our evidential
“presumptions about machines and what they produce when it comes to criminal litigation”.—[Official Report, Commons, 20/3/24; col. 960.]
This is unfinished work that should be done in lockstep with the work that is being done to try to resolve the challenges of Horizon.
I wish to pause for a moment from talking about the Bill itself to recognise the work of the many people who have brought us to this landmark occasion. The postmasters themselves demand a great deal of credit for that. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for people who had been so badly damaged to pick themselves up and fight over tens of years, as some of them have, to get justice not just for themselves but for their colleagues. They deserve the greatest amount of credit.
I have already referred to the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, but the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board also requires a great deal of credit for getting us here. As I understand the chronology of how we got here in the last stages, its letter of December last year to the Minister explained in some detail just how difficult it was for anybody to get redress in the Court of Appeal. I think the statistics when the letter was written to the Lord Chancellor showed that there had been 900 prosecutions, but only 93 people had had their convictions overturned at that stage. I cannot work out what that meant and how long it was going to take, but I recently overheard somebody say that, at the pace that those convictions were being overturned, it was going to take the Appeal Court process 50 years.
For the reasons set out in the letter, the board told the Lord Chancellor that the only viable approach was to overturn all the Post Office-driven convictions. Remarkably, within a matter of days, Kevin Hollinrake, the Minister with responsibility for this, said he was taking legal advice on what could be done. By 10 January, the Prime Minister announced publicly that this Bill would be brought before Parliament. Anything would be fast compared with the alternative that was going through, but that was remarkably quick for a Government, because of the number of people who have to be satisfied, and I congratulate and thank all persons involved in getting us to where we are.
In many ways, this is a very unusual piece of legislation, but it is also unusual in this sense: I do not think anybody can make a speech saying that it has come to this House without having had the attention that it deserved in the House of Commons. I know the other place did it all in one day, but it did go over the Bill very carefully and Members deserve some credit for that. There is not much in it that we will need to look at carefully, although I did get an email from the Law Society—as I am sure did all Members who are on the speaking list—which goes on for about four pages. I have not had a chance to consider it, but the Law Society recommends some probing amendments to reinforce the idea that this is not a precedent. I do not think it needs to be reinforced, to be honest; I think enough Ministers have said enough about that at the Dispatch Box for people to establish that it is not a precedent.
However, I am a recovering lawyer, and I must say that, although this is not my Law Society, I am a bit disappointed that there was not a word in it about the number of lawyers involved in getting us to where we are. I will be in correspondence with it and will raise that point. I will ask it whether at some point it might want to say something about the number of lawyers who must have been involved in helping to create this system that has got us to where we are.
Noble Lords will be pleased to hear that I do not intend to speak for much longer, but I want to make two points, which I think we should consider. First, I fear that the issue of extending the Bill to cover Scotland will come up again somewhere in our debates. The Justice Minister in the Scottish Government, the former First Minister Humza Yousaf, and any number of SNP Members in the other House have used some quite critical language about the Government and this Parliament for not extending the Bill to Scotland. The simple answer to that is to remind them that justice is a devolved matter in Scotland. They usually defend devolved matters quite strongly.
My second point is regarding the Lord Advocate—a woman I know well and who is a very good lawyer. For those noble Lords who do not know what the Lord Advocate does—this is important in terms of their requests that the Bill be extended to Scotland—she is, among many other things, the principal legal adviser to the Scottish Government. She is also the head of the system for investigation and prosecution of crime in Scotland. Essentially, she is a public prosecutor, and she spoke to the Scottish Parliament at length about the Horizon cases. She made a statement there on 16 January 2024. I will not read it all to your Lordships because it is four to five pages long, but the important part of it is that, as the Scottish Government’s legal adviser and head of the prosecution service, and having spelled out the circumstances of the Horizon cases as far as they apply to Scotland, she said:
“It is important to recognise that in Scotland, there is an established route of appeal in circumstances such as this. That route involves the SCCRC”—
the equivalent of the committee in England and Wales that looks at cases before sending them back to the Appeal Court—
“considering cases in the first instance prior to referring appropriate cases to the Court of Appeal. This is an important process because not every case involving Horizon evidence will be a miscarriage of justice and each case must be considered carefully and with regard to the law. It is also important to recognise the important and established constitutional role of our Appeal Court in Scotland and that due process must be followed”.
That is the Scottish Government’s lawyer’s position. She is part of the Government. That is how it should be done.
There is another way it could be done in Scotland. The Lord Advocate could, as a prosecutor, say to the procurators fiscal and to the Crown Office, “Look at these cases, tell us whether they can be sustained on appeal and, if they can’t, just take them to the Appeal Court and say that you no longer stand by these convictions”. There is a very simple way—in my view, and this is a view held by many lawyers in Scotland—for the devolved Administration in Scotland to get these cases dealt with through the existing prosecutorial system.
I have a final point I would like to put to the Minister. Why do we persist in excluding from this Bill those who have had their convictions held up on appeal? There is no doubt that the public inquiry has revealed considerable further evidence since those appeals were refused. There is no question that if any of those cases involve Horizon-generated evidence, they should be given the same consideration as the cases that have been prosecuted to conviction but not appealed. Every single witness who gave evidence to the Justice Committee in the other place when it was considering the Bill said that that should be the case. I urge the Government to reconsider that issue.
I have nothing further to say. I will participate in further debates but will continue to support the Bill.
Lord Burnett of Maldon (CB)
My Lords, the wrongful conviction of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses as a result of prosecutorial misbehaviour has caused personal harm—indeed, tragedy—and a national scandal. Wrongful convictions must be quashed, and a bespoke process is necessary to accelerate justice. But the legislative solution His Majesty’s Government have chosen was described in a Written Statement in February by the Minister, Kevin Hollinrake, as raising “constitutional sensitivity” and being “unprecedented” in nature. The constitutional sensitivity arises from the fact that Parliament does not quash convictions; that is a matter for the courts. What the Bill proposes is indeed unprecedented since the constitutional settlement that followed the Glorious Revolution at the end of the 17th century.
The Lord Chancellor, in his recent appearance before the Constitution Committee, said:
“Anybody who cares about the system has misgivings”.
Indeed they do. In the House of Commons, Sir Robert Neill said:
“Frankly, it is most undesirable that we should ever go down that route”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/3/24; col. 317.]
The Minister responded by saying:
“We agree that this is unprecedented and undesirable, but we believe it is the least worst option”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/3/24; col. 317.]
I endorse the Government’s sentiment that this legislative proposal is undesirable, but not that it is the least worst option. An alternative scheme, which would have kept within the well-understood constitutional boundaries that separate the roles of Executive, Parliament and the judiciary, was considered but rejected by the Government. I declare an interest in having sketched out such a scheme in early February; I will identify its key features in a few moments.
First, it might be useful to bring together some of the facts. The Bill seeks to capture 950 or more convictions over a period of a little more than 20 years. The helpful Library briefing note tells us that the Post Office has identified 730 individuals it prosecuted where evidence from Horizon may have been used. The balance was prosecuted by the prosecuting authorities in England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. I shall focus on England and Wales, which accounts for most of that total. Those cases were pursued in the magistrates’ court as summary offences, and in the Crown Court on indictment—about half in each court. In answer to a question on Radio 4 on 26 March, the Lady Chief Justice explained that in over 90% of cases the defendants had pleaded guilty.
The High Court judgments in civil proceedings before Mr Justice Fraser in Bates v Post Office at the end of 2019 exposed the flaws in the Horizon system; the first tranche of appeals in the Court of Appeal Criminal Division in 2021 revealed more. The evidence heard by the public inquiry has raised further questions about non-disclosure, the suppression of evidence and worse, and so the original grounds of appeal to the Court of Appeal are now much expanded.
More than 100 appeals have been allowed in England and Wales—about three-quarters in the Court of Appeal on appeal from the Crown Court and about one-quarter in appeals from the magistrates’ court to the Crown Court sitting in its appellate capacity. Some have involved appeals brought out of time by the convicted defendants themselves; others are references by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. A few appeals have been dismissed by the Court of Appeal because the court concluded that the conviction was safe. That is the statutory test. An appeal to the Court of Appeal will be allowed only if the conviction is unsafe. By contrast, an appeal from the magistrates’ court is a complete rehearing. If the prosecution does not call evidence, the appeal will be allowed. No appeal to the Crown Court from the magistrates’ court has been contested by the prosecution.
Both the Post Office and the Criminal Cases Review Commission have contacted all those they can identify to help get their cases back to the appeal courts. The response has been disappointingly poor. Many may just have had enough. That has raised the question of what to do. The Government’s answer is this Bill, but what of the alternative? The outline was simple: legislate to confer power on the Secretary of State to refer cases to the relevant appeal court if she considers that the conviction may be unsafe—that could include cases that have already gone through the courts—and give the Court of Appeal Criminal Division the powers of the Crown Court sitting in its appellate capacity, so all appeals could be dealt with in one place.
The burden on an appellant from the Crown Court to the Court of Appeal is to demonstrate that the conviction is unsafe. The reality is that if an appeal of this sort were not contested in the Court of Appeal, the appeal would be allowed. But any doubt about that could be resolved by reversing that burden with a statutory presumption that the conviction is unsafe. The prosecution would have to rebut it positively to sustain the conviction. The appellants would need to do no more than identify the grounds on which they rely, which are now almost pro forma. To cater for the cases where a defendant has died or lacks capacity, the Attorney-General could be given a representative role. In this scenario, the Secretary of State would be able to inform all those whose cases she intended to refer. Representation could be lined up. The cases would go thought the courts en bloc and be dealt with swiftly.
What, then, of the objections? At their heart is the proposition that many of those affected will not initiate proceedings. The outline scheme caters for that. Next, it is suggested in the Explanatory Notes that an appeal
“relies on there being sufficient evidence that the conviction is unsafe and in many cases that evidence no longer exists”.
The reversal of the burden in the Court of Appeal caters for that and, in any event, the point does not run for appeals from the magistrates’ court. I have also heard it suggested that the courts could not deal with these cases quickly. That has been flatly contradicted in public by the Lady Chief Justice and is confounded by the speed at which appeals are being dealt with at the moment.
All schemes have rough edges but, for the sake of conforming to accepted constitutional norms, a scheme of the nature I have outlined would—with respect to the Minister—be preferable. It would avoid the Executive inviting Parliament to do something about which Ministers themselves have said they have “misgivings” on constitutional grounds and have described as “undesirable”.
It would also avoid one of the anomalies of the Bill: that there is no scope to exclude convictions which are sound. As Sir Robert Neill has pointed out, the Bill sets out to quash convictions
“even if Horizon evidence did not form part of the prosecution”.
That is right. Condition E is simply
“that, at the time of the alleged offence, the Horizon system was being used for the purposes of the post office business”—
not that it was being used by the defendant, nor that it was material to the conviction, but simply that it was there. There may be no Horizon evidence at all in many cases that this Bill would quash. This Bill would quash convictions not affected by the Horizon scandal. It might be thought that that matters not only for constitutional reasons, but because of the Government’s plan, which the Minister explained, to give anyone whose conviction is quashed by this legislation at least £600,000.
It may be that this Bill can be improved by amendment, but its flaws are fundamental. It seeks to achieve a desirable outcome by a novel and unconstitutional route when a satisfactory alternative is available. It will provide food for academic debate and will long feature in university courses on the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary and the separation of powers. The repeated suggestions from the Government and the Opposition that it provides no precedent are perhaps the clearest indication that its proponents know that it is wrong in principle to ask Parliament to quash convictions. However, it does provide a precedent, as no future Parliament can be bound by what is said in connection with this Bill. Whether any politicians in the future will try to use it as a precedent, we shall have to wait to see.
Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board, although I think it has now been renamed the Horizon redress advisory board. It is a genuine honour to be able to follow a speech such as that from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett. I am grateful for what he said and for the immense amount of work that he has put into this most terrible of problems. I want to comment on some of the points that he made during his remarks, but I am grateful to him.
In the face of one of the most widespread injustices in this country—we all know the background—we needed to do something. This Bill is the Government’s answer, and I welcome it. I am extremely grateful to my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, my noble friend the Minister in this House and the Post Office Minister in another place, Kevin Hollinrake, for their astonishingly fast appreciation of the need for urgent, dramatic action and for following it through in this way. I am also grateful to my right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor for having some really difficult discussions, as we have just heard, with the judges about this.
As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, has told us, the Bill could have gone two ways: it could have gone his way, or the way that it has. The argument in favour of involving the judges, based on the separation of powers, has been carefully set out by the noble and learned Lord. It is an uncomfortable thing—some would put it much stronger—to have the legislature overturning decisions made by the judiciary, because that could form a constitutional precedent, and I accept that it does form a constitutional precedent, which would take us in the direction of totalitarianism.
I will not express a preference between the suggestion of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, and the Government’s suggestion in this legislation, because this is the Bill that we have, and I am thankful for it. I understand—of course I do—the constitutional difficulty of Parliament overturning judicial decisions: I practised as a barrister, my wife is a judge and I value the separation of powers. But I also value timely justice and the early reversal of some of the greatest unfairnesses that this country has ever seen. I want to set out the arguments against involving the judges, if only for the record. I accept that the points made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, deal with many of the points that I will make, but, as I said—and as I know he accepts—we have the Bill that we have.
The Fraser judgments in Alan Bates’s group litigation came out in 2019. The clear consequence of those judgments was that many hundreds of convictions were unsafe. We do not know exactly how many—which is odd—but it was in the region of 1,000. Yet, by the beginning of this year, only a few more than 100 sub-postmasters had even applied to have their convictions overturned. There were several reasons for this. The first and the most important was that too many sub-postmasters wanted nothing whatever to do with a court system that had, in their view, treated them so badly. They had been utterly traumatised and wanted to put the whole ghastly experience behind them. They were simply not applying to have their convictions overturned. They wanted no contact with officials, lawyers, politicians, journalists or anybody else at all, for understandable reasons. Yet appeals rely on the appellant applying, and the current system has no procedure for mass appeals brought by the state itself. I did not quite get to the bottom of what the noble and learned Lord suggested to redress that, but it would have probably been workable. Nevertheless, we have the Bill that we have.
The second reason for not involving the courts was that, in many cases, there is no evidence. In some cases, the Post Office will have taken the evidence away from the sub-postmasters and destroyed it; in other cases, the sub-postmaster himself or herself will have given up and destroyed it; and in yet more cases, the sub-postmaster will have died. To overturn a conviction on the basis that it is unsafe, you need to establish with evidence that it is unsafe. I approve of the suggestion of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, of a presumption of unsafety, but we have the Bill that we have.
The third reason was that appealing against convictions must be done through several different stages. Appeals go to the Post Office, then to the Criminal Cases Review Commission and then to the court at different levels, with the application of different tests, sometimes leading to different outcomes, which is strange in itself. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, touched on that.
The fourth reason was that the Court of Appeal overturned only those convictions for which Horizon computer evidence was essential to the prosecution. That was an arguable limitation—although, in my personal view, wrong and unfair—in the earlier stages of the process. However, as the public inquiry has uncovered new facts about the behaviour of the Post Office, I suggest that it is a limitation that is no longer tenable. I tread carefully here because the inquiry has yet to report, but it seems that the Post Office investigators, incentivised as they were to recover money rather than to achieve justice, and the Post Office lawyers, intent on concealing evidence, tainted all the evidence produced by the Post Office in any trial.
The deaths of many of the sub-postmasters makes me remind your Lordships that this is urgent. We have to get on with it, and this Bill does that. The Bill quashes certain convictions and, by doing so, it gives rise to redress being paid to hundreds of sub-postmasters. The Bill does not itself deal with that redress. When people say that only a small proportion of sub-postmasters have received redress, they are right, but that will rapidly change with the passage of this Bill. It is an essential step to getting us to where the country wants us to be.
The question of which convictions are to be quashed is a difficult one, but nothing about this saga is easy. The Bill quashes convictions in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but not in Scotland. I listened with interest to the suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Browne, as to how the procurator fiscal could operate in Scotland. The Scottish Government are legislating to achieve something similar; I hope that that can be looked at carefully in Committee.
The quashed convictions under this Bill have to have been prosecuted by the Post Office or the CPS, or by the Northern Ireland authorities, but those prosecuted by the Department for Work and Pensions, for example, are not included. This too will need careful consideration in Committee. Certainly, the DWP will need to give very careful thought to the extent to which it relied on Post Office evidence and investigations, and to consider whether the convictions that it secured were any more safe than those secured by the Post Office and the CPS. Should we consider perhaps in Committee widening the scope of the Bill, so that those convictions too are overturned? I have to say that I do not know. I should very much like to hear why the Government consider that DWP convictions are safe when CPS convictions are not. I should also like to hear what the DWP is doing to re-examine its convictions to ensure that it has not relied upon tainted Post Office evidence and investigations.
Another category of convictions not quashed by this Bill is those that have already been considered by the Court of Appeal. I listened carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Browne, said about this, and I agree with what he said. There are 13 of these cases. I am very uncomfortable indeed about this, for the following reason. The Bill overturns many hundreds of convictions. The Government accept, as they should, that some of the convictions overturned will in fact have been of sub-postmasters who were guilty of a crime. That is the price that we pay for the exoneration of the innocent. Those who have been in front of the Court of Appeal, in exactly the same way as those sub-postmasters who have been in front of other courts, may or may not be guilty. I do not think it is acceptable to tell them that they can go back to the Court of Appeal if there is new evidence, because other sub-postmasters are not being required to provide individual evidence of their innocence—a reversal of the burden of proof. These 13 sub-postmasters are being punished for their efficiency and courage in being early in taking their convictions to the Court of Appeal.
There is, of course, one new bit of evidence which the Court of Appeal did not consider in relation to these 13 cases: that all the sub-postmasters, other than these 13, are about to be exonerated. It stretches credulity to believe that the Court of Appeal would say that, out of all the hundreds of convicted sub-postmasters, it would choose for these 13 to remain convicted. Can it be fair that they should be the only sub-postmasters in the country to be left with convictions? I cannot see that the Court of Appeal would welcome a new application from them, because how could it consider anything other than the facts of these individual cases? We shall need to consider this very carefully in Committee.
The Government are to be congratulated on their speed and courage in bringing the Bill to us, but I first became involved in this matter in 2009 and Alan Bates did so in 2003. “Speed” is obviously a relative term. Let us get on with it.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
My Lords, the heroes of this story are Alan Bates and the sub-postmasters. Having been wrongly convicted, and in order to establish their innocence, they brought a piece of incredibly expensive civil litigation. This was fought all the way by the Post Office. As Sir Wyn Williams will tell us, there are signs that it deliberately suppressed evidence even then. Alan Bates won in front of a judge in the civil courts. That began the exoneration process.
As everyone else in the House has done, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom, and Mr Kevan Jones. They pursued a terribly unfashionable cause for literally decades, and never gave up on it when the whole establishment was against them, including all the senior Post Office executives and its board, senior civil servants, and Ministers who did not pay enough attention. There was absolutely nothing in it for them, but they persisted. They make one admire politicians and they shame most of the rest of us.
I welcome and support the Bill. I actively support the solution adopted by the Government. I do not support the solution proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett of Maldon. I say that with enormous trepidation because he is someone whom I greatly admire. His judgment is good. He took the courts through the pandemic, making good legal and wider judgments throughout. With the greatest respect to him, I think he is wrong in relation to this case.
The miscarriages of justice span a period of 22 years. The number of people wrongly convicted of serious offences and who had their lives comprehensively ruined is not known. Maybe it was 700, maybe 900. The number of people who went to jail is not known. Maybe it was 230, maybe more. The period of time in which the miscarriages lasted, the number of people affected and the lack of reliable information is quite unprecedented. The destruction of the lives and livelihoods of the sub-postmasters and their families is unspeakable. The responsibility for this lies first and foremost with the Post Office, which pursued and prosecuted them on a false basis, and Fujitsu, which knew the truth and colluded in its suppression.
As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett of Maldon, has said, a significant number—I do not know how many; I am not sure about that figure of 90%—of the convictions were on guilty pleas, often to a charge of false accounting.. Do not be comforted by that. No doubt those guilty pleas were obtained by a combination of what lawyers would have advised the defendants was the irrefutable evidence of the Horizon system. It was irrefutable not because of some principle of law but because there was simply no evidence to undermine that system—because the Post Office had suppressed such evidence. There was also the prospect of the Post Office not pursuing more serious charges if they pleaded guilty to the lesser charge—as it was presented—of false accounting.
The Bill addresses only one aspect of the scandal: how to extinguish the wrongful convictions. In many of the cases, as everyone who has spoken in this debate has identified, much of the underlying written and other material has been lost, partly because the Post Office has destroyed it and partly because the defendants want nothing more to do with what was a terrible period in their lives.
As far as the process of appealing successfully against the convictions is concerned, there have been an unspecified number of appeals against conviction in magistrates’ courts, which have generally been heard in Southwark Crown Court. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett of Maldon, has said, in all those appeals the Post Office called no evidence and in consequence the appeals, being by way of rehearing, were automatically allowed.
In relation to the appeals from the Crown Court, up to the end of January 106 appeals were completed in the Court of Appeal, of which 70 were allowed, 26 were withdrawn by the appellant sub-postmaster upon sight of the Post Office’s response, and seven were dismissed. I appreciate that that leaves three cases unaccounted for, which I cannot explain but which is symptomatic of the lack of reliable information about the scale and extent of the problem. The Court of Appeal, as the noble and learned Lord said, accepted the unreliability of the Horizon system. Other reasons have come to light, as he said, that should justify appeals, including and in particular the withholding of exonerating material by the Post Office in the prosecutions.
As the noble and learned Lord said, there are already well-established processes for setting aside wrongful convictions in our system. His proposal is that we would let the existing processes take their course with modifications, some of them no doubt required by primary legislation. In my view, that has a number of problems. First, it would not be possible to identify all the cases, simply because there are not the records. Many innocent sub-postmasters would not connect with the process, whether or not they wanted to, and as a result would not be exonerated.
Secondly, it would take a long time. Some 50% at least of the English cases would have to be dealt with in the Court of Appeal. I have absolutely no doubt that the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal would do its bit as quickly as reasonably possible, but time would be required to identify the cases, to prepare the appeal material, to undertake some form of investigation on the part of the prosecution, and then to list those appeals.
Thirdly, as the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom, said, a significant number of sub-postmasters would refuse to participate because of their lack of faith in the system. The current system, as everyone has said, does not allow for an unwilling defendant, unless they lack capacity, to have their case referred to the Court of Appeal against their wishes.
Fourthly, it will be for the Post Office—or the Crown Prosecution Service if it replaces the Post Office as the prosecuting authority—to determine which of the appeals to contest. The evidence that Sir Wyn Williams is hearing in the inquiry suggests that little faith can be placed in the Post Office properly performing any duty placed on it in connection with Horizon. No doubt the obligations of the prosecutor can be passed to the Crown Prosecution Service, at least in England, but that would create yet further delay.
As the noble and learned Lord has said, the Lord Chancellor could be given power to refer the cases of unwilling postmasters to the Court of Appeal. There could be a presumption that the defendant was innocent unless the prosecution could actively convince the Court that the convictions were safe. None of that would obviate the need for investigation within, if not by, the prosecution at a time when the material is limited, and it would not prevent some appeals being resisted on the basis of which documents had survived. The Court of Appeal could no doubt hear cases en bloc of, say, 50 or 60 cases at a time and list them within weeks of the court being told they were ready.
All that is possible, but it would be bending our justice system out of its normal shape. Our justice system prides itself, rightly, on providing a fair and reliable system of adjudication, where above everything it decides cases on the evidence before it in accordance with settled principles of law. The courts have the key role of deciding disputes between private individuals and between the state and private individuals, without fear, favour or interference of any sort—particularly from the state. As the Executive control the legislature in our system, they can interfere with court processes by legislation. If unfavourable court decisions were overturned by legislation, the rule of law would be undermined—not where the legislation was to change the law, but where it was to overturn an inconvenient finding of fact. That is the argument of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett.
There are three alternatives. First, you could legislate to exonerate in a Bill like this. Secondly, you could use a royal pardon. Thirdly, you could adapt the current system of appeals to allow for mass exoneration by the courts. A royal pardon is inappropriate. It involves pardoning somebody for committing a crime, maybe because modern practice would not regard the act a crime. The sub-postmasters did not commit crimes. They should not have pardons; they should have exoneration.
Of the other two routes, I favour legislation like this, because it best does justice, which is the best protection for the rule of law. It is no criticism of the courts. It involves neither a slur on the judges nor the setting of a precedent which undermines the rule of law to say that the exceptional facts of this case cry out for legislation and not appeals.
This legislation identifies the group—sub-postmasters convicted in connection with their Post Office work while the Horizon system operated—and automatically and immediately exonerates them. A court process will take time. It will be much quicker than normal, but for many it will take years and not months. The court process will miss people because of the bad record keeping. If it is exoneration by court, when those missed emerge, as many will, they will not have been exonerated. Then they will have to go through a court process, when all the urgency has gone, to petition for acquittal.
The court process will produce anomalies and inconsistencies, bred very often by the uneven loss of documents and the unreliability of the Post Office. For those postmasters challenged to establish their innocence, wherever the burden lies in the court process, it is difficult to imagine that they would have faith in the conduct of such a prosecution. The legislature should take responsibility for putting this mess right, and not the courts.
What precedent does this Bill set? I completely accept what the noble and learned Lord said; it does set a precedent. It is a precedent that, where the court system, because of the exceptional nature of the miscarriage of justice, cannot effectively right the wrong, intervention by the legislature is appropriate. I cannot imagine this precedent ever being repeated. The Irish terrorist cases in the 1970s and 1980s demeaned and besmirched our court system, but they were put right by a process of appeals. The court system was able to remedy it, and to have intervened by legislation there would have been hugely undermining. The hallmarks of this exception are, first, the time it has lasted—24 years. Secondly, the need to use bulk hearings suggests that the courts cannot deal with it in a normal manner. Thirdly, justice must come soon. Fourthly, only legislation provides consistency and clarity.
Separation of powers is vital to the rule of law. The courts must be copper-bottomed, protected from interference by the legislature and the Executive. In a constitution based on parliamentary sovereignty, that separation also involves Parliament and the Executive providing necessary support for the courts in funding and in judicial appointments. It involves support in the face of public pressure, not legislating in any way that undermines the rule of law, and—very exceptionally—legislating where justice cannot be done without it.
This legislation is supportive and not undermining, so I support it in principle. I have a number of points on the detail: first is the decision to exclude from exoneration those cases which have already been dealt with by the Court of Appeal. I am strongly against that; I support the noble Lords, Lord Arbuthnot and Lord Browne, in saying that everybody should be exonerated. The fact that someone has got to the Court of Appeal is not a reason for not exonerating them. Those postmasters who got to the Court of Appeal almost certainly had the strongest cases because they got through; they should not be left out in the cold.
Secondly, I would be interested to hear from the Minister about the position in Scotland. If the Scottish Parliament is willing for one Bill to do it, it should be done by one Bill. Thirdly, I would like to hear why the DWP cases are being separated from everyone else. Maybe this House could contribute to this Bill by dealing with the Court of Appeal cases and the DWP cases and streamlining the position with Scotland.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester
My Lords, I admit to being a little nervous as a non-lawyer entering a debate that has already heard from so many distinguished minds. Some may think that they have heard enough from the lawyers and do not need to hear from me.
I am grateful to the Minister for introducing the Bill. I concur with other noble Lords in hoping that it will be swiftly passed into law. The many victims of this long-running scandal and injustice must now benefit without further undue delay. As the noble Lord said in opening this debate, Parliament is not the usual route by which we overturn wrongful convictions. I echo others today, as well as what I have said in debates on other matters, in believing that we need to tread very carefully when acting in ways that move us on to territory more normally occupied by the courts and the judiciary. That is particularly important in Britain, because we give such huge weight to precedent. The Minister has, I am pleased to note, assured us that this Bill should not be considered a setting of precedent, and others have concurred. However, I think that that aspect of what we are doing merits, albeit briefly, deeper consideration. What one Government do today, no matter how warily, may be drawn on by future Governments in ways that stretch the original intentions well beyond breaking point. Our best defence against that, perhaps our only defence, is to set down very clear principles, not merely general assertions, at the outset.
Things happen very differently in different places. American presidents have regularly pardoned political cronies who have committed crimes in their support. I doubt whether many of us in your Lordships’ House would be surprised if a Republican victory later this year resulted in mass pardons, even for convicted insurrectionists. Closer to home, it is not beyond imagination that far-right movements in Europe, notorious for combining political organisation with street violence, might, should they gain a say in government, seek to overthrow their criminal associates’ convictions. Let me pick a cause closer to my own heart: let us suppose a future coalition Government here, needing the support of a minority party more to the left, were told that the price to pay included quashing the convictions of environmental protesters.
The question is how we in Britain safeguard the rule of law for the long term, while ensuring that the Post Office victims are speedily exonerated. Let me briefly offer four simple criteria; I hope that in responding to the debate the Minister will indicate whether he agrees, or has better ones to propose. I am not at all precious about my suggestions, but I am precious about respecting the role and political independence of our judges and courts. I believe that this is how we can best avoid future claims of precedent.
First, evidence has emerged since those original convictions that sets out so clearly the failings of the Horizon software that had that information, which was known within the Post Office and to Fujitsu at the time, been made available to the defence, it is unimaginable that any jury would have convicted. Indeed, it is doubtful whether any judge would have allowed a case to proceed that far. For me, this is the most compelling argument for the course of action we are taking today. Our justice system is based solidly on evidence, and where fresh and powerful evidence emerges, we need to be able to take it into account in a timely and effective way.
Secondly, I note the arguments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett of Maldon, who reminded us that, unless cases are looked at individually, there is a risk that someone who had stolen money might now be let off. However, the principle that it is better that a guilty person go free than an innocent one be convicted lies at the root of our British justice system. It is enshrined in the requirement that guilt be proven beyond reasonable doubt—yet it goes back much further, to the Book of Genesis and a conversation between Lot and God over the fate of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. To save time, I will leave noble Lords to look that up for themselves.
Thirdly and importantly, we are well clear of partisan political territory here. Although I know that we in this House and the other place can proceed to legislate on a simple majority, were any major grouping in your Lordships’ House to feel that the Bill contained political bias in any direction, it would not be safe for us to proceed.
Finally, as so many noble Lords have said, we are dealing with such a large number of convictions that handling them in any other way would tie up the court system and delay justice for the Post Office victims and even for others in unconnected cases, who could not get their matters to court. Hence it is that combination—the compelling new evidence, the presumption of innocence, the political neutrality and the sheer number of cases—that allows me to offer my support to the Bill.
I look forward to hearing what other criteria noble Lords adduce in favour of its passing—some have already done so—and I look forward to the response of the Front Benches in their winding-up speeches.
Lord Sandhurst (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the Government on moving swiftly with this process. This saga has dragged on for 20 years. A trusted public body has been guilty of the most appalling want of care, and others might say much worse. I leave that to the judgment and observations of Sir Wyn Williams’ inquiry and of my noble friend Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom, without whose fantastic work we would not be here today.
It is evident now—we must remember this—that individuals pleaded guilty out of fear when offered charges of a lower gravity that offered the chance to avoid imprisonment. Fear in the face of overwhelming but fatally flawed evidence is what induced those pleas. Since then, the courts have in many cases, notwithstanding those guilty pleas, overturned those convictions. That highlights where we are. It is an exceptional and appalling situation, and anyone who has appeared in the Crown Court, as I used to in the first 10 years of my practice, will know what it is like when you say to someone, “Come on, the evidence is overwhelming”. Just occasionally, they do not plead guilty and, very occasionally, you get an acquittal. That is where we are; that is really important.
The Secretary of State for Justice and his Ministers have rightly seen it as a priority to go as far and as fast as they can to close this down, to bring justice to these sub-postmasters who have suffered so grievously. Speaking as a lawyer—but not so distinguished a lawyer as some who have spoken today—I have great admiration for our judges and for legal process. I thought hard about whether this statutory approach is right. Like others, I have had my misgivings, but I have come to the view that it is undoubtedly the right course. In saying this, I have the greatest respect for, and fully understand, the serious and powerful reasons for concern advanced by the former Lord Chief Justice, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett. We are right to be concerned about interference by Parliament with the courts. It must not happen. We have lived many happy years, relatively, since the Bill of Rights, and we must continue to do so. These two pillars of our constitution must remain separate, and we cannot interfere with the courts.
While I say that, we have to accept what has happened here. I am sure the courts could move fast, but the process of renewed appeals would none the less be complex. It would take longer than the process we are embarking on here. Quite possibly, some of the deserving sub-postmasters would die before their names were cleared. A pardon does not overturn a conviction; the conviction is still there. Innocent individuals will fall through the cracks if left to ordinary process. Some will simply not come forward; they have had enough of the courts and legal process and are exhausted. Understandably, they do not want to engage. We have to do everything we can to help them, and we cannot leave others wrongly convicted in these cases. It is clear that the Post Office’s own records relating to these prosecutions are lacking, and it has the potential to drag on however hard the judges push, so the knot must be cut. In this sense, I am happy to adopt what has been said by Dr Robert Craig, a lecturer in law at the University of Bristol. He has expressed the clear view that the legislation is justified and necessary. The whole process, he says, has been
“an affront to the conscience of the court”.
I could not put it better myself.
Looking forward, can I suggest a practical step—and I have another to suggest later—that does not require primary legislation? I suggest that it is important that, once the process is set in chain by this Bill when it becomes statute, there is established a website where any individual who wishes to know if they have in fact been cleared by the process or are eligible to be cleared but have not yet heard should be able to log on and request that they be informed where they stand and notify the powers that be of their interest. Publicity must be given to the existence of what is, in effect, a central clearing house, to make certain that people whose records may be in a brown folder somewhere are not left unhelped.
We know that, in the landmark case of Hamilton in 2021, the Court of Appeal quashed the convictions of 39 sub-postmasters and found their conviction by the Post Office to be an “abuse of process” and an “affront to justice”. The main issue in those appeals, we know, was the reliability of Horizon. Notwithstanding this, since that decision, 13 cases have been back to the Court of Appeal and have been held to have been safe convictions. Those are the category in Clause 3 who will stand; their convictions will not be quashed. My noble friend Lord Arbuthnot has expressed profound concerns, which I understand, about this. But the Government are in something of a dilemma here, and I understand where that starts.
None the less, Hamilton was in 2021. Since then, much more evidence has come out. Sir Wyn Williams will report within the next year. It is undoubtedly the case that much evidence will have come to light, which may cast a different light on those 13 convictions. If that is so, of course those persons can apply to the Criminal Cases Review Commission and ask for their appeals to be reopened. I suggest a simple, practical step. In those 13 cases, the Ministry of Justice should, in the near future when this Bill is passed, personally inform those 13 individuals that they will not be acquitted under the Bill and are in a different category but that the inquiry may well have produced new material to justify reopening it. For that purpose, they should be provided with a reasonable sum to enable them to consult solicitors and review the dismissal of their appeal in light of any fresh evidence that the inquiry or other investigations since 2021 may have brought to light.
I invite the Government to put in train the two practical measures I have indicated: namely, a website to give access to verification for individuals that they are in fact among those who will stand acquitted as a result of this legislation; and a resource for the 13 who have been convicted and whose appeals have been dismissed since 2021. With that said, I commend this Bill and wish it a safe and swift passage.
Lord Sikka (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome this Bill, as it enables some postmasters wrongly convicted to secure some compensation and wipe the slate clean, though the scars of injustice will remain with them and their families for ever.
I will raise four broad areas of concern. First, as has been pointed out, Clause 1 quashes convictions prosecuted by the Post Office and the Crown Prosecution Service only. It does not quash the 61 cases prosecuted by the DWP against postmasters in England and Wales. The DWP was the state prosecutor of postmasters until the end of 2012, when its prosecutorial function was assigned to the CPS by the Director of Public Prosecutions. Can the Minister say whether any of the CPS prosecutions being quashed were initiated by the DWP?
The omission of the DWP prosecutions from the Bill is utterly unfair. Just like the Post Office and the CPS, the DWP used Horizon-generated data and faced lies and cover-ups from the Post Office. It has now been conclusively shown that the Post Office and the CPS convictions were unsafe because of unreliable evidence, lies and cover-ups. It is hard to see why the same data, evidence and channels of generating evidence are somehow considered reliable for prosecutions by the DWP.
The DWP convictions were mostly prosecuted between 2000 and 2006, when there was a clear conspiracy of silence and cover-up around the flaws in the Horizon system and when the Post Office concealed a lot of information. Since then, many of the Crown Court transcripts and bundles of evidence relating to those convictions have been destroyed. Therefore, the Government’s argument of investigating these on a case-by-case basis is pretty much impossible and unlikely to provide any fairness to those individuals.
The DWP position is stated in a letter signed by Mrs Alison Riley, a senior lawyer with the DWP legal advisers in the Government Legal Department, from 28 September 2023, addressed to Professor Christopher Hodges of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board:
“I can say with some confidence that in the majority of cases we have found that those cases prosecuted by the DWP did not rely on evidence from the Horizon system but rather relied on physical evidence such as order books, vouchers and date stamps”.
Let us look at those words again. The letter used the phrase
“with some confidence”,
instead of “with absolute certainty” or “with 100% confidence”. The letter seems to suggest that there is some doubt. It also used the phrase
“in the majority of cases”.
Does that mean that there were cases where somebody was wrongly prosecuted by relying upon Horizon-generated data? Were there cases in which the DWP used Horizon-generated data to secure prosecutions? How many cases were there, which this letter is perhaps not identifying? I hope the Minister will be able to tell us.
Can the Minister say whether any convictions secured by the DWP have ever been quashed by the courts, at any time, from the year 2000 onwards? Has any DWP investigator, official or witness retracted evidence given on oath? If so, that makes all the convictions unsafe. Can the Minister categorically say that all 61 cases have been independently reviewed? Which documents were reviewed, when was this done and by whom? Were the victims invited to respond to the review? Has any post-conviction disclosure ever been made to postmasters who were previously prosecuted and convicted by proceedings brought by the DWP? Were they given the appropriate information? Against a wall of silence and lies by the Post Office, some people convicted by the DWP may even have been denied appeal, but the revelations of last three years surely change that. Can the Minister say how many of those prosecuted by the DWP have actually been denied appeal and are perhaps now deserving of it?
I am reminded of the maxim of the English jurist, William Blackstone:
“It is better that 10 guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”.
I therefore urge the Minister to amend the Bill and quash the convictions of those prosecuted by the DWP. If not, he should at the very least appoint an inquiry to examine the safety of the DWP convictions.
My second point is this. On 16 January, at Second Reading of the then Post Office (Horizon System) Compensation Bill in this House, I urged the Minister to remove the Post Office’s involvement in setting the terms of compensation and in administering any aspect of compensation schemes, as that would only multiply the pain for postmasters. I understand from some postmasters—one of whom I spoke with earlier today—that the Post Office is still involved with the group litigation order scheme. It is also involved with the Horizon shortfall scheme, at least where some 360 to 370 disputed cases are concerned. It is good to know that there is a panel of King’s Counsels, but the problem is that the Post Office set the terms of reference, the guidance and the principles of the scheme. No matter how independent the panel, it is duty bound to follow those guiding principles. The Post Office basically cannot be trusted, and its involvement is a source of discomfort. Can the Minister shed some light on why the Post Office is still involved in these schemes, and what is to be done to remove it from them?
Thirdly, the Horizon inquiry has provided strong evidence of wrongdoings which warrant criminal charges. However, whenever any question is asked, the Minister’s standard response is that we must wait until the end of the Horizon inquiry and the subsequent report before any action is taken. That position is deeply unsatisfactory. It is hard to know why prosecutions have not already begun on the basis of evidence which has already been provided to the inquiry. Any delay would mean that many would escape justice altogether. It is quite conceivable that, in time, many will simply say that they are fragile, too old and have selective amnesia so simply cannot remember.
Just last Friday, the inquiry took evidence from Mr Rod Ismay, who used the phrase “I do not know” 125 times and said “I cannot remember” at least 40 times. What will happen when these individuals are eventually charged, possibly in another five or six years? They will simply get away. I urge the Minister to begin some criminal inquiries and charges now and not wait until the end of the inquiry.
My final point is the observation that the root cause of the Post Office scandal is the power of giant corporations to bludgeon people into submission and silence, all with a view to boosting profits, executive salaries and improving the bottom line. That is evident in many other cases: for example, P&O Ferries knowingly flouted the law to sack workers; water, rail, and energy companies are all abusing people; there is Grenfell; there is the finance industry, a serial offender in mis-selling financial products; drug companies are overcharging the NHS; G4S and Serco, which is overcharging the Government for contracts. Yet we have not really seen any move from the Government to democratise corporations, to empower the people, and to hold this unaccountable power to account. Can the Minister explain when exactly we can expect some reversal and some checks on the corporate power? People at the moment are struggling—they cannot get legal aid to take anybody to court. Regulators are, basically, in bed with many of the companies, and they are promoting competitiveness rather than safeguarding the customer’s interests. Governments are shielding corporate misdeeds. In this House, I provided evidence of how the Government shielded and covered up HSBC’s money laundering and made sure that it did not really face the full consequences. Without empowering citizens and curbing corporate power, Post Office-type scandals will recur. Can the Minister explain to the House why, in 14 years, little or nothing has been done to call corporations to account?
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, this scandal is rightly recognised as one of the gravest miscarriages of justice in the history of the English legal system. It seems so obvious now because so much has been reported, but for years hundreds of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses were labelled as dishonest and convicted of dishonesty offences when they were telling the truth. One of the most fundamental elements of our justice system is that it is supposed to ensure that innocent people are found innocent because, if innocent people are at risk of being found guilty, trust in our justice system will disappear. In that light, exceptional steps are needed to put these injustices right, and although the Bill proposes a novel and controversial constitutional innovation, it is being done in aid of the powerless against the powerful and therefore, despite quite strong misgivings, I feel it is justified.
To talk about this Bill setting a precedent is to overgeneralise the circumstances of the Horizon scandal. We are not talking about overturning one or two questionable cases: we are talking about rectifying what has been revealed as an industrial enterprise to maliciously prosecute hundreds of innocent people. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, made the point about how all should be exonerated. That is absolutely right; it is not enough to create, again, two tiers of those people who were so badly treated. If such a wholescale injustice does take place again, victims and the wider public can be assured that Parliament will intervene on behalf of the powerless against the powerful to secure justice, but let us all hope this is the first and last time that this unprecedented legislation is ever justified.
There is a grey cloud hanging over this Bill: to have real justice, Fujitsu’s role should be thoroughly investigated and prosecutions should start. As the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, said, it is wrong to wait until the end of the inquiry, because we already know that Fujitsu was guilty of many infractions. It was aware of the problems from the start. It was aware of its employees having remote access and, in 2009, Computer Weekly made it aware of the link between the glitches in the Horizon system and the prosecution of sub-postmasters. The chief executive of Fujitsu at the time, Roger Gilbert, said that Computer Weekly was not a publication to which he subscribed, so he clearly could not know anything about it. His press office was scandalously lax.
Fujitsu is still a major government contractor which gives money to the Conservative Party. It has numerous other government contracts and, for ideological reasons, the Government have been outsourcing all their IT expertise—exactly as the Post Office does. The next Government need to reverse this process and take that expertise back in house, or at least employ enough in-house expertise to know when a company is getting it wrong, hiding the truth or providing a service that is a complete liability and security risk. If you let major corporations run your Government, taxpayers will be ripped off and find that they are paying out millions when things go wrong.
I have two final points. First, Fujitsu should be in the dock and prosecutions should already have begun. Secondly, Fujitsu should pay the costs back to sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses, not us taxpayers.
Lord Etherton (CB)
My Lords, the Horizon scandal was described in the Explanatory Notes as a
“miscarriage of justice of unparalleled scale and impact”.
I do not know of anyone who would challenge that description. I certainly would not. It has had a devastating impact on huge numbers of sub-postmasters over a long period, leading to shattered lives, including huge trauma and mental distress, suicides, financial and reputational ruin, and the loss of a normal happy retirement.
The sub-postmasters, who have waited for far too long for recognition of their suffering and of the injustice that has overwhelmed their lives, deserve a speedy and simple route to bring that suffering and injustice to an end. The question for this House is whether this Bill is, in all respects, appropriate to achieve that goal.
The difficulty, which we must confront head on, is that the Bill infringes one of the most fundamental and critical tenets of our constitution: the independence of the judiciary. The judiciary is one of the three pillars of our constitution—the Executive, Parliament and judiciary. Each of those has its allotted function, providing the checks and balances essential for a democratic state.
Increasingly, in our own state, there has been a blurring of lines between the Executive and Parliament. The Minister, in his opening address, said that it is really Parliament and not the Executive that should be regarded as the body responsible for the legislative acquittals en masse provided for in the Bill. The reality, however, is that the Executive, especially one with a significant majority in the other place, almost always secure the implementation of their policies—an elective dictatorship, it has been called.
Reducing the Bill to its essence, the Executive are using Parliament to strip the judiciary of one of its central functions—determining who is guilty and who is not guilty of a criminal offence. That intrusion into the judicial pillar of the state is made as plain as could be from the wording of Clause 7(1), which states that
“a person whose conviction is quashed by section 1(1) is to be treated as if, on the coming into force of this Act, the conviction had been quashed by a court on an appeal”.
It is a characteristic of every autocracy and dictatorship that the Executive directly or indirectly nullify one or more aspects of judicial independence. History has demonstrated that there can be no liberty without judicial independence. This may seem a long way from the benign Bill that we are now debating, but it is not. We must guard our basic constitutional norms ferociously. Perhaps the most important duty of this House, performing its essential role as a check and balance in the lawmaking process, is to do precisely that when it is faced with draft legislation that is the result more of political expediency than of constitutional compliance.
Paragraph 24 of the Explanatory Notes states, as did the Minister, that
“the Bill does not set any constitutional precedent”.
That, however, is a quite meaningless statement. Of course, the Bill does not set any constitutional precedent since no Parliament can bind a future Parliament—each one is sovereign. By contrast, the Bill, if enacted, will provide an historical example of an overreach by the Executive, through Parliament, into the judicial pillar of the state. In that sense it is indeed a precedent for any Government with a sufficient parliamentary majority, even where the object of the Government is not a benign one.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, suggested that the precedent was a very narrow one, in effect, confining it to the precise facts and circumstances of the present scandal. I see no reason at all why a non-benign Executive should not take the wider view that I have just described.
The precedent is all the more egregious because, contrary to the impression created by the Explanatory Notes, it is not at all clear that the Bill is necessary to achieve the desired objective. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett of Maldon, has described several practical arguments as to why our constitutional norms can be preserved while delivering the justice that the sub-postmasters so urgently require. I wish to make one or two points in relation to this.
The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill, the Lady Chief Justice of England and Wales, addressed the Justice Committee of the other place on 16 January this year on the Prime Minister’s announcement the previous week that there would be emergency legislation to quash en masse the convictions of people prosecuted by the Post Office on the basis of Horizon data. The Lady Chief Justice refuted any suggestion that the judiciary had given the proposed legislation the green light. She said that she had had two short conversations with the Justice Secretary at his urgent request, and that was the extent of the consultation that had taken place. She also refuted any suggestion that the courts had been unable to cope with the cases or would be unable to cope with future volumes.
Where do we find anywhere, in the Explanatory Notes or elsewhere, any analysis by the Government of why the courts would be unable to make special arrangements for expedited appeals in relation to all convictions, or as to how quickly that could be done? The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, gave a range of speculative difficulties that would arise in relation to a wide variety of matters. As I understand it, he acknowledged that it might be possible to provide alternative arrangements that would satisfy the giving of justice in a speedy and effective way but said that this would result in bending our justice system out of balance. But all of this is a balance. I suggest it is better to bend the justice system out of its ordinary shape—if this can be done, as I think it can—if that would give proper, fair and speedy restitution and acquittals to the sub-postmasters, rather than drive a coach and horses through one of our most important and fundamental constitutional norms.
The second point I wish to emphasise in relation to the various examples given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, is that, as I have mentioned, his examples of difficulties and his expansion of the problems are all speculative. As far as I am aware, there has been no proper discussion between the Executive and the senior judiciary as to what it might be possible to achieve. The truth of the matter is that every problem said to make the Bill a necessity is capable of resolution without legislative en masse acquittals, including speed of appeals, reluctance of those convicted to become further involved in our court proceedings, lack of evidence, and the test for a successful appeal against conviction. I do not accept that these matters are impossible of achievement outside the context of the present Bill.
What we need is evidence of actual discussions as to what is viable, rather than to deal with speculation as to what may or may not occur. For my part, in the absence of any clear and public explanation by the Government, following discussions with the senior judiciary, and for the reasons I have given, I do not consider that it would be right to support the approach of acquitting through this legislation all those who have been convicted.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, this has been a sober and serious Second Reading—understandably so. How does one even begin to find the words to describe such an unspeakable set of circumstances? Perhaps one pulls on the words of those who have been faced with many miscarriages of justice: the CCRC itself described this as
“the most widespread miscarriage of justice”
it had seen. It is for that reason at least that I support this legislation.
I am well aware, and completely supportive, of the separation of powers, and the fine and delicate balance of our unwritten constitution, but in passing this legislation, it is as clear as it can be that Parliament will be carrying out the will of the people. It is also clear that this will set a precedent. I am delicately untroubled by that, because it sets a precedent for a set of circumstances where, were they to occur again, it may well be the case that the will of the people and Parliament need to step in. It is that set of circumstances which—I say delicately and with respect—argue against the claims that this tends towards autocracy and totalitarianism.
This is not something that any of us are undertaking lightly, but it is a means of securing justice for those who have waited far too long, many serving prison sentences and all carrying the sentence of having been convicted, often for decades. This is why I believe Parliament is right to take this Bill through, to enable justice around in the most timely manner. It is difficult to even call it “timely”, bearing in mind how long this has already taken.
To ensure justice and equity for all those who have suffered for so long, I need to ask my noble friend the Minister: how can the Government act to ensure that justice for all happens on a similar, if not identical, timeline? How can the Government, while understanding the reserved nature of the Post Office and the devolved nature of justice, work even more with the Scottish Parliament to ensure that all postmistresses and postmasters in Scotland can achieve justice at the same time or in a similar timeframe to those in England, Wales and Northern Ireland?
Similarly, as other noble Lords have rightly stated, it seems inequitable for those who have already been to the Court of Appeal to be excluded from this legislation. They are effectively being punished for having been able to pursue their claims quickly and effectively, only to find themselves receiving no remedy and the outcome that the court, at that stage and on the evidence provided, delivered for them. We know that justice delayed is justice denied. We have the opportunity to at least bring justice through the legislative process—yes, it is novel and unprecedented—through this Bill.
I turn to the means by which the private prosecutions were brought about in the first place: Section 6(1) of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985. Many members of the public were shocked to discover that the Post Office could pursue such prosecutions in this manner. They were even more shocked when they realised that this was a power in no sense available just to the Post Office but available across the piece. The Post Office was effectively acting as investigator and prosecutor in cases where it was the alleged victim. Does my noble friend the Minister not agree that this is self-evidently prima facie problematic?
If we are to deliver justice for all those who have suffered, how many sub-postmistresses and sub-postmasters will be left with their convictions not quashed even after this legislation is passed? As much as we can be clear on the numbers, there are approaching 1,000 convictions and so far—again, as much as we can know—around 103 convictions have been quashed: 10%. This Bill, when it comes into statute, will certainly address a large number of those convictions, but how many people—to the Minister’s best knowledge, on the evidence he has available to him—will still be left unhelped after we pass this legislation?
Without moving away from the serious matter of today, I would like to ask the Minister about what thoughts the Government have put to reflecting on Section 6(1) of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985. What are the safeguards? How did they work in these instances? Are the Government satisfied to continue with this legislation in its current form? Is the Law Commission looking into this?
Similarly, looking to a potential future beyond this unprecedented set of circumstances, what are the Government’s thoughts in terms of the future of the Post Office? It is a unique entity. It has been in our communities, on most of our high streets, for over half a millennium—but 500 years-plus of history does not give any organisation any right necessarily to continue in any form. Does the Minister agree that urgent thought on the structure of the Post Office, potentially looking at mutualisation or other such models, could, at least once we are through this, enable a brighter, better Post Office?
With sub-postmistresses and sub-postmasters, the pillars of our community, knowing our communities and the business better than anybody else, would it not make sense to have their voices, past and present, involved in shaping that future? In equalities discussions, there is a useful mantra, “Nothing about us without us”. I gently suggest that that mantra should apply to considerations about the Post Office going forward, where all the sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses right across the country are able to have a voice in shaping what needs to be a very different future for the Post Office.
Lord Sahota (Lab)
My comments are, as we say in politics, from the grass roots about what some postmasters are saying and their feelings. As for the legal matters of this case, I leave it to your Lordships’ great legal minds.
I wholeheartedly support this Bill. It is long overdue, and the sooner we get it on the statute book, the better. The sub-postmasters have suffered long enough. The sooner we close this shameful chapter in our Post Office history, the better. This Bill must give faith to all those who have lost theirs in our justice system and in the Post Office management. Most important of all, I hope the end result of this Bill will satisfy all the sub-postmasters and that they will be properly compensated for their suffering.
I fully support the blanket quashing of their convictions or any other wrongdoing they are accused of, wherever the Post Office acted as judge, jury and executioner. Let me make it quite plain from the outset that my heart goes out to each and every one of the victims of this scandal, whatever their background and whichever community they belong to. This is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in the history of our country.
Although all sub-postmasters were treated badly, some were subjected to extra layers of suffering. I bring to noble Lords’ attention in particular the victims who had an Asian heritage or background, although my concern is equally applicable to those from African and Caribbean backgrounds as well. This issue was reported on “Newsnight” around Christmas time by Sima Kotecha, one of its journalists. According to a Post Office survey in 2012, over 40% of the sub-postmasters in the UK were from an Asian background. Personally, I think that it could be more than that. They run the post offices not only in inner cities where there are large ethnic-minority populations but in small villages up and down the country.
When the news of this miscarriage of justice began to break over 20 years ago in local media and on social media, Asian sub-postmasters were the hardest hit, for two reasons. First, it was alleged that the Post Office officials investigating them treated them with racial malice and disdain. Their comments, which are in the public domain, include, “All you foreigners are the same—money grabbers—stealing money from the Post Office and sending it to your own country”. It was reported that they were often spoken to with condescending language and in a different tone. Secondly, there is the importance of shame and family reputation in the Asian community. Every culture and society is perceptive to social shame, but because of the closeness of the Asian society, it is more keenly felt by them. To understand it, you have to be Asian and of a certain age—like me.
Some of these Asians came to the UK with nothing, and out of their sheer hard work they built a comfortable lifestyle for themselves and their families. It is a well-known fact that some Asians work hard not for themselves but to leave behind something for their children, so that they would not have to go through all the same problems again. When they are falsely accused of being thieves, that is the deepest cut of all in the community. They try to hide not just from their community but from themselves. Worst of all is what their children and grandchildren think of them.
It is no wonder that some of the sub-postmasters suffered mental breakdowns and tried to commit suicide. Take the case of Jess Kaur, from the West Midlands, and the ordeal that the Post Office put her through. I have spoken with her a number of times. She had 14 electric shock treatments. When she was in hospital for her treatment, the Post Office did not believe her, so it sent its own doctor to verify her condition. How low can you get? We all pray to God that Jess will recover from her terrible ordeal soon.
Another Asian lady, Rubbina Shaheen, from Shropshire, my home county, lost everything—her business and her home—and was forced to live in a van on the streets of Shrewsbury. She said that she felt suicidal. Another Asian lady, Seema Misra, from London, was sent to jail while pregnant. Mrs Kashmir Kaur Gill, from Oxford, was prosecuted in 2009 for false accounting and was given a five-year suspended sentence. Her reputation and that of her family was destroyed in the community. She suffered decades of hell and developed a mental health problem. I could go on and on with these examples.
On Asian suffering, I do not think that the famous ITV drama that we all know even scratched the surface of this race and cultural issue. I hope that the Bill will acknowledge these particular issues. As I said earlier, my heart goes out to all the sub-postmasters, irrespective of their background.
Finally, it is my personal view that although all the Post Office senior managers, directors, chief executives and solicitors, and software company managers and directors—who went above and beyond the call of duty to protect the Post Office brand and their jobs and did not care about the human suffering—have apologised, as have all who have been giving evidence to the Williams inquiry and to Parliament, apologies are just words in the wind. There should be some kind of financial sanction on them. That I leave to your Lordships, with thanks for letting me make these comments.
Lord Sentamu (CB)
My Lords, I was not intending to speak, but the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and other noble Lords here, have posed for me a conundrum. By the way, I live in a village where there is a Conundrum road, right near the Scottish border. When you face a conundrum, what do you do? I want to support this Bill, but I have a problem: the issue that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, raised about the 13 people whose appeals were turned down. If you include them in this Bill, you would be directly interfering with the Court of Appeal, by saying to the court that you do not agree with what it did and so are pardoning these people.
My suggestion is that, in the light of the evidence that we have been hearing at the inquiry, the Minister and the Government need to go back and find other lawyers to see whether there is still fresh evidence that can emerge, so that those 13 people can go back to the Court of Appeal. My worry is that, if you legislate en bloc, as has been suggested, you run the danger that you are definitely interfering and telling the Court of Appeal that its decision was not the right one. That needs resolving. If you do not resolve it for the likes of me, I will find myself in a conundrum.
Secondly, why do the Department for Work and Pensions convictions not require the same examination as for all other convictions? Somebody somewhere has got to bend their mind to those 61 cases. If you do not do it, you give the impression that they had better evidence, and that because people have not appealed it is therefore not going to be followed up on.
For me, this Bill should not have a say in what the Court of Appeal’s decision was in those 13 cases. On the Department for Work and Pensions, again I suggest that somebody needs to look afresh at those 61 cases and at whether there is a possibility—not through this Bill—of fresh hearings by the Court of Appeal.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, it is an honour to follow so many noble Lords in speaking at this Second Reading.
On these Benches, we too support the Bill. I am grateful that the right reverend Prelate pointed out that there is not one single party grouping or other grouping against it. That speaks to the highly unusual circumstances. While I am sure that will not entirely comfort the noble and learned Lords, Lord Burnett and Lord Etherton, I hope it will give them some reassurance that the Bill is meeting the issues that they both raised about the potential for future totalitarian moves. If you read the progress of this Bill in another place, you will see that exactly the same happened there. There was much thought about the difficulties of the constitution and how this fits in while trying to balance that with the difficult circumstances the country finds itself in following this extraordinary miscarriage of justice.
I thank the Minister for our meeting last week. I also thank the House of Lords Library and the Law Society for their helpful briefings. I am speaking from these Benches today in the absence of my noble friend Lord Fox, who hopes to be able to join us for the next stage of the Bill.
For those of us who perhaps have been sad enough to sit and watch many of the hours of evidence in this phase of the inquiry, it is vital to remember that the lives of the sub-postmasters and other Post Office front-line staff have been ruined by Post Office Ltd and Fujitsu. Both of them convinced magistrates, juries and judges that the software package could not be accessed remotely. As the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, outlined and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, also spoke about, Fujitsu will need to face justice, as will the management at Post Office Ltd. Evidence in recent weeks has now put into the public domain the fact that staff at both organisations knew many years ago that it was possible to access Horizon remotely, and that it was done to remedy glitches and errors.
The noble Lord, Lord Sikka, referred to the oral evidence of Rod Ismay as unimpressive. Helpfully, though, the written evidence presented to him from emails and reports during that period made absolutely plain who knew what and when. Despite that, since 2000, the Post Office has prosecuted some 730 individuals, many of whom were convicted and imprisoned on what appear to have been false evidence and assertions. Many were not only bankrupted but lost their homes, their businesses and the faith of their local communities when they served in their local Post Office branch, as the noble Lord, Sahota, rightly pointed out. As we have heard, some postmasters committed suicide.
As with other scandals, such as the infected blood victims, compensation and interim compensation schemes have been set up. Those whose convictions have not yet been quashed are ineligible to apply for them. The Horizon Compensation Advisory Board has made a specific recommendation that all the affected sub-postmasters’ convictions are unsafe and should be swiftly overturned. As I have already outlined, what we are hearing in the inquiry reinforces this beyond any shadow of doubt. We must leave it to Sir Wyn Williams to present his report and his findings in due course, but it is evident that things have gone badly wrong.
The noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, reminded me of a software engineer’s description of error-filled software. I am married to an engineer who is involved with software. A common phrase in our family is “garbage in, garbage out”. Yet, one of the problems of this case is that everybody believed that the software was invincible. Therein lay the miscarriage of justice.
It is public knowledge, through both the Court of Appeal judgment in 2021 and the evidence given under oath at the public inquiry, that the technical reason relied on for every single prosecution was that it was impossible for anyone, apart from the sub-postmaster, to access an individual’s account. We know that that was demonstrably untrue. Worse, POL and Fujitsu continued to rely on it, even when they knew it was not the case. That is an even worse miscarriage of justice. On these grounds alone, every single one of the remaining Horizon convictions should be overturned.
I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, for saying that the judiciary could and should be able to proceed with appeals. There are real concerns about capacity, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, said. The noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, also expressed concerns about the timescale. We know that there is a large backlog in cases coming to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, let alone the issue of finding time in the Court of Appeal. The one thing that we have heard from every speaker today is that these issues must be resolved at pace.
Some convicted postmasters are dying. Others are at retirement age, having lost everything decades ago as a result of these convictions. It is not just unfair that they cannot access justice swiftly; this is itself an injustice. I support the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, about DWP convictions between 2000 and 2006 being treated differently from CPS convictions. Will the Minister ensure that the DWP is required now to assess its prosecutions in this case? I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, for going into further detail on the question of DWP convictions being reliable. Given that Post Office Ltd has now given up its right to conduct prosecutions, I wonder whether the same should be true for the DWP.
I have questions for the Minister that I warned him about last week. First, in Clause 2, the relevant offence is defined by time, between 1996 and 2018, and by offence; Clause 2(6) specifically mentions the Horizon system, as does Clause 10; and Clause 8 provides a power for the Secretary of State to make further consequential provision. The Delegated Powers Committee supplementary memorandum confirms the narrow scope, and all this should give reassurance to the House that that is true.
However, there is a problem. The system prior to Horizon, Capture, is now revealed to have had serious software glitches and errors in the same way. I am grateful that the Government have now instituted an inquiry into that, although, hopefully, of a more limited nature. The Independent newspaper reported that former sub-postmasters had suffered unexplained shortfalls caused by Capture, which was rolled out in the early 1990s. Details show that the Post Office knew Capture was prone to faults and glitches, yet prosecutions went ahead.
Following the inquiry that the Government have now instigated into the Capture convictions, would it be possible—I suspect the answer is no—to add Capture to the Horizon inquiry? Yes, the software definitely predated Horizon, but everything else, including the bizarre and unexpected shortfalls and the way the Post Office conducted the prosecutions, including repeated assertions, is very similar to the Horizon case. If that is not possible but the Capture inquiry comes to the same conclusions as are now evident from the Horizon inquiry, what route to redress is available for the Capture postmasters?
The noble Lords. Lord Arbuthnot and Lord Sandhurst, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, spoke of the 13 people post the Hamilton case who had their sentences upheld by the Court of Appeal, of whom seven are entitled to appeal but six were refused leave. Assuming that the final inquiry report confirms that cases relating to Horizon should never have been brought to court because of the Post Office relying in every case on Horizon, saying repeatedly that it was not possible for anyone to be able to access postmasters’ Horizon accounts, can the Secretary of State ensure that these cases are entitled to make an application to appeal? There are consequential rights, although the Bill says they are limited in scope, for the Secretary of State to do so. Would a particular finding from the inquiry be something that could happen? The noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, said he believed those people would not be able to get any of their convictions overturned under the Bill. Is that true? He is shaking his head, so if I misunderstood him then I apologise. Could the Secretary of State’s power be used in regulation as it relates to Horizon?
I hope we will be able to progress with the same carefulness with which we started this Second Reading.
Lord Sandhurst (Con)
Under Clause 3(2) of the Bill, you do not get your appeal allowed if it has been dismissed by the Court of Appeal.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
I am referring to Clause 8, which is the power of the Secretary of State to make further consequential provision. I wondered whether the recommendations and report from the Horizon inquiry might be able to be used by the Secretary of State to make that happen.
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister and the departmental team for their work on this Bill and for being available to meet me, my noble friend Lord Leong and others from across the House.
In reading back over some of my speeches from 2019, 2020 and 2021—I am just a newbie to this—one theme shines through, and that is the sheer injustice of the Post Office Ltd and Fujitsu scandal. I use Post Office and Fujitsu rather than Horizon, as Horizon is just a faceless IT system. The Post Office Ltd is culpable, with senior management to blame, the board negligent and the department and its representatives missing. There are two main parties to this: Fujitsu and Post Office Ltd. I am sure we will come back to the board, the individuals, the non-execs and the department representatives, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has raised many times in previous debates.
Naturally, I pay tribute to the many sub-postmasters and mistresses who have campaigned tirelessly for justice. Their resolve in the face of unimaginable levels of abuse and suffering is testament to their courage. It was their stories that galvanised the country behind taking the urgent and unprecedented action in this Bill. Although it may have been a television drama that finally ignited public consciousness on this issue, I also want to reiterate the tributes to the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, and to Kevan Jones MP, for their years of work in Parliament and outside to lay bare the great injustices and the fight of the sub-postmasters and mistresses.
This is not an academic debate; this is fundamentally about people’s lives. I am not a lawyer, but I understand the focus on legal precedents, the debate around the judiciary, Executive and Parliament, and the inference on the constitution and the independence of the judiciary. But this is about people. That is the balance this House needs to reach.
I made a speech in 2020 in response to the court case Bates v Post Office, which was settled in 2019, in which I mentioned a number of individual cases. My noble friend Lord Sahota has touched on two of those, but it is worth putting on record what happened to those individuals. There was Seema Misra, who ran a post office with her husband in Surrey. Time and again she had to put her own money into the till. A shortfall of £80,000 was ultimately found and she was sentenced to 15 months in jail while pregnant with her second child. Rubbina Shaheen was jailed for 12 months in 2010 after she was accused of stealing over £40,000 from the Greenfields post office in Shrewsbury. We all know Jo Hamilton’s story. Jo was accused of taking £36,000 from a village shop she ran in Hampshire. After pleading guilty to false accounting to avoid a more serious charge, she gave up her shop and found it difficult to get a new job due to her criminal record. During today’s debate, we must not lose sight of the impact of the failures on those families.
This is an important Bill, and those of us on these Benches support it wholeheartedly. Labour committed itself to working with the Government to ensure the best possible outcome for the victims. I am glad that the Government agree with us that these wrongful convictions ought to be quashed and that compensation needs to be delivered urgently.
I am particularly encouraged by the Minister’s desire to see convictions overturned prior to the Summer Recess. That deals with a number of the legal arguments about other options. If we followed those, the overturning of convictions would not happen before the Summer Recess. I am glad that the Government have worked constructively with Members of the other place to expand the terms to include Northern Irish sub-postmasters in the Bill. It is our hope that the Scottish Parliament also soon passes a similar Bill, as my noble friend Lord Browne touched on, so that victims all across the UK can benefit from having their convictions overturned.
This is one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice in British legal history, and I am heartened to see people from across all parties and none working together to deliver justice for those innocent people who have served at the heart of our communities. The many stories we have heard in this debate in this House and the other place never fail to shock me, and they emphasise the sheer scale of the suffering that this scandal has caused.
The noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, touched on Justice Fraser’s judgment in 2019. We have come a long way since 2019, but we have not come that far, and it is worth reminding ourselves. I was very struck by the vivid language that Justice Fraser used in his judgment, stating that Post Office Ltd demonstrated
“the most dreadful complacency, and total lack of interest in investigating these serious issues …”
amounting to
“the 21st century equivalent of maintaining that the earth is flat”.
The judge concluded that sub-postmasters were treated in
“capricious or arbitrary ways which would not be unfamiliar to a mid-Victorian factory-owner”.
It does beg the question, though: how did our judicial system allow so many sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses to be found guilty over so many years? It is deeply shameful that justice did not come quickly enough for those sub-postmasters who died or killed themselves before they could find redress. We want now to see justice for all victims. How confident is the Minister—this has been a theme throughout the debate—in the identifying criteria? Can he assure the House that all those affected are included in it?
It is important that we recognise the impact on sub-postmasters’ families, as the Lost Chances for the Children of Sub-Postmasters campaign group has highlighted. I also look forward to the publication of Wyn Williams’ inquiry report, as it will give an important opportunity to reflect more broadly on how we may be able to resolve further issues in a timely and dignified manner.
It will be vital for the legal system and the Government, as well as corporate bodies, to learn the lessons of these cases. As I said in a debate on this issue in January, we need to see a cultural change that sees an end to the constant stream of scandal after scandal. The destruction of people’s lives, the cover-ups, the vindictive way in which victims were treated once they came forward, the lethargic way in which justice is served, the culture of not being held responsible for failure and instead even being rewarded—that must all end. It remains my hope that this brings about a serious shift in the way that those in positions of power are permitted to act.
I am glad that the Bill can give sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses some relief, dignity and official acknowledgment of their innocence. However, it is important to note that this is an exceptional Bill and an isolated case. The House’s agreement on this Bill must never be misconstrued as any kind of desire to set a precedent. The independence of the judiciary must be upheld. I welcome the Government’s reassurances on this particular concern, but I ask for more. Will the Minister consider a more explicit element in the Bill? In addition, can he elaborate on the decision to include CPS prosecutions but not the DWP ones or the 13 Court of Appeal cases, as outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, and touched on by a number of noble Lords and noble Baronesses?
We on these Benches welcome this vital piece of legislation, but of course this is not the end: there is more to be done to right the wrongs. The Bill is a positive step on the road to justice for victims. It may not be the final destination but it is nevertheless an important milestone. I will finish with the words of the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, which are a great subtitle for the Bill: “the price that we pay for the exoneration of the innocent”. They are fine words.
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
My Lords, this has been a thoughtful and considered debate, and I am grateful for the broad and insightful contributions from noble Lords across the House. I was particularly grateful for the opening contributions of the noble and learned Lords, Lord Falconer of Thoroton and Lord Burnett of Maldon, one speaking as a former Lord Chancellor and the other as a former Lord Chief Justice. They were able to frame so eloquently the two potential solutions available to your Lordships’ House to right these wrongs.
The Government acknowledge that the quashing of convictions by an Act of Parliament is an exceptional step, but we believe it is required to respond to a factually exceptional situation. We know that many postmasters are simply too traumatised or disenchanted with authority to consider appealing, no matter how easy we make it. They want to see no further lawyer or court; they are scunnered. In many cases, evidence simply no longer exists anyway in order to help their cases. The scale and circumstances of prosecutorial and investigatory misconduct over such an extended period are unique in our history. The scale of this miscarriage of justice is an affront to the rule of law itself. Therefore, it is right that the Government intervene to deliver justice to hundreds of postmasters, who deserve this without having to make a huge amount of effort themselves. We need to do this while respecting the delicate constitutional balance so eloquently put forward by a number of noble and learned Lords this afternoon.
I will start by covering the legislative approach we are taking. I understand the concerns of the noble and learned Lords, Lord Burnett of Maldon and Lord Etherton, and the right relevant Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. We all share their respect for an independent judiciary. I have been clear that the Bill is not a comment on the outstanding work of the courts and judiciary, which have dealt swiftly with the cases before them. I am cognisant of the assurances given by the judiciary that it would move fast in this case.
However, I respectfully disagree with how the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, characterised the legislation. We agree that the separation of powers is a vital part of our justice system, but public confidence and faith in the system are also vital. This is a miscarriage of justice on a scale never seen before, and the circumstances are exceptional. We have carefully considered other approaches, including court processes. However, ultimately, no reform short of this legislative approach provides the swift remedy needed as a result of these unprecedented circumstances.
Many postmasters would not see justice through the courts, because much of the evidence about individual cases has now been destroyed or because many postmasters no longer trust the criminal justice system and therefore will not come forward. It is therefore right that the Government take action to put this right.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett of Maldon, raised the possibility of legislating to give Ministers powers to refer cases to the Court of Appeal and assume that all convictions were wrongful unless new evidence was presented. Reconsideration of cases by the Court of Appeal would take time even if court processes were expedited. Further, a presumption that all relevant convictions are unsafe is rebuttable, and we cannot be sure that every case would pass through the courts swiftly and without adjournments. This approach would not avoid interfering with the independence of the judiciary; it would raise other constitutional concerns, as it would make an assumption about the outcome of the cases being referred, meaning that the Government were still interfering in the judicial process of the senior appellate court.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, also spoke about comments made by the Lady Chief Justice. She said that in over 90% of cases the defendants pleaded guilty. We are not able to verify this figure, which in itself tells noble Lords quite a lot about this case. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, rightly raised, we are also aware, from Sir Wyn Williams’ inquiry, of evidence suggesting that individuals pleaded guilty because they were told to or felt under pressure.
I turn to the specific issue of the Court of Appeal cases, which was highlighted at the beginning of the debate by the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom, and then raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond. This is a difficult issue; I thank noble Lords for raising it.
Let us start by reminding your Lordships’ House of the unprecedented and constitutionally sensitive nature of this legislation. That is why it is vital that we legislate in a way which respects the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary as far as possible. Including convictions that have been upheld by the Court of Appeal would override decisions taken by the senior judiciary. Of the 13 such cases we know of, seven were upheld by the Court of Appeal and six were refused leave to appeal. They are excluded from the Bill because the Government believe we should tread very carefully where judges in the senior appellate court have considered a case on its merits. We recognise that this approach may leave a small number of individuals concerned about the way forward for their cases. In cases where the Court of Appeal has upheld a conviction, the usual routes of appeal remain available to them.
I turn to the matter of the DWP cases—
Baroness Brinton (LD)
I am sure that is right for the seven who could appeal, but there were six who were not given leave to appeal. What would their route be to getting justice?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
My understanding is that six were given no right to appeal because it was considered they did not have the evidence to do so; in effect, they are considered with the 13 whose convictions were not overturned. Therefore, they are included within the same category.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
I have been focusing on the recent trips to the Court of Appeal. I do not know whether there were trips to the Court of Appeal in the immediate aftermath of the convictions that started in 1996. Are we talking only about recent trips to the Court of Appeal or are we including trips that might have been a decade ago, before the nature of the scandal was known?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
My Lords, I will cross-check the record, but my understanding is that these 13 cases are recent and came to the Court of Appeal after the Hamilton judgment, so the courts were aware of the background in those cases.
The noble Lords, Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom, Lord Sikka and Lord McNicol, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, questioned why this legislation does not include the cases prosecuted by the DWP, which we believe amount to 62. The noble Lord, Lord Sikka, asked whether any DWP-prosecuted cases were quashed; we are not aware of any convictions being quashed by the Court of Appeal. These cases, unlike many of the cases prosecuted by the Post Office or the CPS, involved wider corroborating evidence beyond that supplied by the faulty Horizon system, so are unlikely to be unsafe in the same way. The existing and established appeal processes remain available in relation to these cases.
I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Lords, Lord Sikka and Lord Holmes of Richmond, about the importance of delivering financial redress as quickly as possible. I am pleased to say that, as of 30 April, we have paid out more than £200 million in redress to over 2,800 claimants. Under the main Horizon shortfall scheme, 88% of claims have now been received and 72% paid out. We are going as fast as we can; we are reliant on the appeals coming forward and claimants making claims. We expect that, at the moment, many of those with overturned convictions are waiting for this Bill to pass and we expect their claims to come in more quickly following this legislation.
Financial redress is clearly not in scope of this legislation, but I hope it reassures noble Lords to know that, once the necessary legislation has been passed, we will provide a route to full, fair and rapid financial redress for quashed convictions. We will include information about redress in the notifications which we send to postmasters when their convictions are overturned. Our aim is that the redress process will follow seamlessly from the process of overturning convictions.
Lord Sikka (Lab)
Before we leave the issue of DWP convictions, can the Minister confirm or otherwise—he might wish to write—whether any DWP investigator, official or witness has at any point retracted evidence given under oath to any Crown Court?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I will need to write to the noble Lord on that point.
As my colleague in the other place, Minister Hollinrake, said, we want to minimise any pause between the Bill coming into effect and redress payments being made.
To be clear, the GLO compensation scheme is independent of the Post Office. As requested by postmasters in our consultation, it is run by the Department for Business and Trade. Claims which are not agreed will be assessed by a panel whose members are independent of government and the Post Office. Any errors in decisions from the independent panel can be taken to the reviewer of the GLO scheme, Sir Ross Cranston. The Government are funding postmasters with overturned convictions to receive independent legal advice on their claims and offers. Retired High Court judge Sir Gary Hickinbottom has been put in place to chair an independent panel to resolve disputes on pecuniary losses. Horizon shortfall scheme claims are assessed by an independent panel of experts who provide a recommendation to the Post Office. To date, there have not been any instances where the Post Office has offered a lower amount than the recommendation of the panel.
The noble Lord, Lord Sikka, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, raised the accountability of Post Office executives. We await the outcome of the Wyn inquiry, which will provide clarity on this issue. Finding people guilty without looking at all the evidence is how we got into this mess in the first place. Postmasters were prosecuted without proper disclosure; we must not make the same mistake again in holding people accountable for this scandal, however tempting it might be. The public can be very reassured by the detailed investigation being conducted in public by Sir Wyn Williams. Each week reveals more shocking news, and I have no doubt that justice will be served by the inquiry.
A number of noble Lords have quite rightly mentioned Fujitsu. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, has raised Fujitsu and its role in the scandal a number of times in this Chamber. It is right that the company has voluntarily decided not to bid for future government contracts for the time being while the inquiry is ongoing, unless the Government ask it to. The Government also welcome Fujitsu acknowledging that it has a moral obligation to contribute to compensation. The Government are in active conversations with the company at a very senior level about this.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, who has consistently raised the concept of the interrogation of computer evidence used in prosecutions. The Government are committed to preventing any further miscarriages of justice, like the Horizon scandal. There has been a proliferation of digital material in modern criminal cases, particularly in cases such as fraud and serious sexual offending but also in lower-level high-volume offences such as drink-driving. For this reason, any hasty changes to the legal position risk serious and significant unintended consequences for the running of the criminal justice system. However, the Lord Chancellor is fully considering all options available, and more consideration can be given to this matter and reported to the House through this process.
I thank the noble Lords, Lord Browne of Ladyton and Lord Holmes of Richmond, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, for their comments on the territorial extent of the Bill. We all wish to see justice being applied in all four parts of the United Kingdom. The other place has agreed to extend the Bill to Northern Ireland, in recognition of the unique challenges faced by the Northern Ireland Executive in bringing forward their own in a similar timeframe to the rest of the UK. Their legislative process is lengthy and difficult to expedite, and the legislation would have to compete with the many other priorities accumulated during the two-year suspension of the Assembly. The Government are also cognisant of the extent of cross-community support for the extension of the Bill to Northern Ireland.
The Government’s position on Scotland remains unchanged. Scotland does not face the same challenges in bringing forward legislation within its Parliament as Northern Ireland does. It is for the Scottish Government to bring forward their own proposals to address prosecutions, and for those to be scrutinised by the Scottish Parliament in line with the devolution settlement. I hope that reassures the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, and the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, that my officials have been supporting their counterparts in the Scottish Government to bring forward their own legislative proposals. I understand that they intend to do this shortly.
I turn to another of the very uncomfortable situations raised by the Horizon scandal, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Sahota, who spoke so powerfully about the racism experienced by victims of the Horizon scandal. I agree that this issue is very important. The Sir Wyn Williams inquiry has touched on this already in its oral evidence sessions. The Government are keen to hear anything that the inquiry concludes on this matter, including any recommendations for the future.
On the issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, in relation to Capture, the precursor computer system to Horizon, at this point we have not found sufficient evidence to conclude that Capture led to people being wrongly convicted. Capture was very different from Horizon: it was a stand-alone spreadsheet, not an integrated accounting system. There were bugs in it, but they were admitted to by the Post Office. It was not an interactive system that could be manipulated by a third-party source, as was the case with Horizon. It helped postmasters balance their accounts, rather than operating as a black box, reporting accounts across the network to Post Office headquarters. Given the limited information that we currently have about Capture and resulting convictions, there is not yet any evidence that any miscarriages of justice took place. It is therefore the Government’s position not to seek to overturn these convictions or to consider Capture cases within the Horizon system inquiry.
However, I would like to reassure the noble Baroness that we are looking into what can be done on Capture. As soon as the Government found out about issues with the Capture system, we asked the Post Office to investigate. We are in the process of appointing an independent forensic investigator to look into the Capture software and how the Post Office addressed concerns about it. Once the investigator has reported, we will return to the House to set out our plans, but we do not consider that this should hold up the more important matter before us, which is overturning the Horizon convictions.
On the post-legislative process, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for his very useful contribution and his two points about creating a website for those who have been exonerated by this Bill. He has indicated that we do not have full contact details for all our claimants in this case. For reasons of confidentiality, it would not be right to create a public web page that would list the names of those exonerated. However, all those that are in scope will be written to on Royal Assent, and those that we have been able to identify in scope but have not been contacted can get in touch with the Government to have their cases looked into. We will ensure that GOV.UK is utilised to promote access to exoneration and financial redress. All guidance on the exoneration process and the financial redress scheme will be on GOV.UK.
I am grateful for the cross-party support shown towards this legislation and the valuable support of the Opposition Front Benches, represented by the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.
In closing, the Government recognise the profound impacts that the Horizon scandal had on those who were falsely accused. I listened to the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, refer to individual cases, and we all know of examples in our local area where lives have been ruined, and each one is a very sad story on its own. Therefore, we legislate with that at the forefront of our minds, and the objective of this Bill is to exonerate those who were so unjustly convicted of crimes that they did not commit and provide fair redress as swiftly as possible. I beg to move.
Passport e-Gates Network Outage
(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for the repeat of this important Statement, which deals with the recent eGates outage affecting border control and security. I join the noble Lord and others in paying tribute to the staff who responded and the passengers who waited patiently for flights, often for many hours.
We all care passionately about our border security and are united in recognising its importance. There are, however, a number of serious points and questions for the Government that arise from what happened just a few days ago. This example is just the latest in a number of failures with the eGates system. Can the noble Lord reassure us that the Government’s confidence in this system has not been shaken and that the intention is still to expand the eGates network? Is the technical issue that was responsible in this case the same issue that caused previous outages?
The security of our borders is crucial, so can the noble Lord again confirm that the outage was the consequence of a technical failure and not of any malign actor? Can he also confirm that, although the system was down for a number of hours, no aspect of our border security was compromised in any way? Can he confirm that there was no cyber element to the attacks and that there are no weaknesses that could be exploited by adversaries?
In discussing this matter, the Minister in the other place said
“how we got to this point in the first place—as soon as the fix was put in place, the posture changed to getting us to a place where we better understand that root cause. That work is ongoing, and it would not be right for me to speculate on it”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/5/24; col. 594.]
Is there still a problem, on which we have put a sticking plaster and called it a fix, while the root cause, as yet unidentified, remains? If so, what are we doing about it?
Can the noble Lord also reassure us that any lessons learned are being implemented as a matter of urgency and that all the contingency plans that were in place are being reviewed in light of how well they did or did not work?
As an aside to this issue, can the noble Lord also take the opportunity to give a guarantee that all necessary preparations are in place in Dover for when new entry and exit checks are introduced in the autumn?
Alongside the introduction of eGates, automation and new technology, do the recent issues that have arisen not highlight once again the need for a visible, physical Border Force presence at our ports? Yes, we need people to help and advise—that is crucial and important—but also those whose job it is to ensure compliance with and the enforcement of our laws at the border.
There cannot be another repeat of the chaos we saw recently at our borders. These problems seem too persistent and to occur regularly. That undermines the confidence of all of us in the security of our borders. It undermines that public faith which is so crucial to the integrity of our country, as we all must believe that our border security system works and works well—because that is in all our interests, is not it?
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, I too pay tribute to the staff involved, both Border Force staff and other airport staff, who took the pressure when this occurred. It is now five days after this Statement was made in the other place and, understandably, the Minister there was able to give only limited detail and indicate that investigations were ongoing. Clearly there will be more known now than was known then, so can the noble Lord give us more detail and a commitment that, when the final report is produced, he will return to inform us about the lessons that it revealed? Getting this right is obviously vital.
The Government were lucky this time, as the issue occurred in the early evening, midweek, in early May—at a quiet time of the day, a quiet time of the week and a quiet time of the year. If it had occurred at peak time, the story would probably have been very different. This is the third eGate failure in a year. It simply cannot be acceptable to regard it as an inevitable part of a technology-based system, because even more complications are coming in the near future.
The UK Government are introducing the ETA—the electronic travel authorisation—for non-visa countries. This has already started with the Gulf countries, and plans to roll it out gradually—first to the rest of the world other than the EU, and then to the EU—are scheduled for October 2024. The EU is also introducing the EES—the entry and exit scheme—including facial recognition and fingerprints. This scheme’s full implementation has been delayed until after the Olympics and is now also expected in October. Surely it is a potentially fatal mistake to introduce both the ETA and the EES at the same time. Can I ask what discussions the Government are having with the EU to ensure that everything does not all coincide at the same time?
The general public are blissfully unaware of what lies ahead. What plans do the Government have to alert and inform people well in advance of the introduction of these changes? Can the noble Lord assure us that the technology for this is fully ready and thoroughly tested?
Both UK and EEA citizens can use eGates, and the Government have recently added 10 more countries to the list of those that can use them. That is why eGates are so busy. Ironically, instead of taking back control of our borders following Brexit, we have in fact reduced the number of controls at our borders. Noble Lords will know that when we UK citizens go abroad to the EU now, we are not able to use eGates in most cases; we are required to queue up, and very often we have to answer detailed questions about our visit, rather like we do if, for example, we visit the USA. We no longer have the privilege of easy entry and exit from EU countries. We are making life easier for people coming here, but life is not being made easier for us going to other places.
We all know that having a physical presence is a major deterrent to people wanting to abuse access to this country. Does all this not underline the need to keep a strong physical presence of Border Force officers at our points of entry and exit from this country?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)
I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for their questions, which I will endeavour to answer. I join them in thanking all the Border Force officers for their efforts.
On a question that the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, asked me, I take this opportunity to reassure the House that border security was not compromised in any way. I am also grateful to the public, who were extremely patient, and I join my honourable friend in the other place in offering our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused to them.
It is worth giving a little context about eGates, because they have revolutionised the experience at the border, as I am sure all noble Lords can attest. Many more checks are performed automatically than was previously possible, and it is now quicker, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, has just noted, for many passengers to land in the UK.
The eGates generally continue to perform extremely well, and most ports report that an average of 90% of passengers eligible to use eGates use them very successfully. The Border Force facilitated over 132 million passenger arrivals last year, with 90% of those within current service standards. The number was even better in the fourth quarter of last year; it was 96.7%. I am grateful for its efficiency and, much as it will regret the occasional blip, none the less it is generally speaking a very strong story.
The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, asked whether the root cause has been identified and rectified. Engineers identified the cause of the outage—and it was an outage—as a capacity issue. That was on an element of the network that controls network traffic within the data centres. The incident was caused by the cumulative effect of changes we have been making to sustain and modernise the network environment; incidentally, those will produce increased resilience over the summer. All the incidents that have affected the eGates have been singular and nothing has been repeated. The technical term for the outage was something to do with a logical network route—at which point, I confess I rather glazed over and did not really understand the further technical remarks that were made to me. But I am reassured that that has been entirely dealt with; capacity has been increased, and this therefore should not happen again—I hesitate to say it will not happen, but it should not.
I turn to the other questions asked of me. There was no malign actor, hacking or cyberactivity associated with this; it was simply a capacity issue with regard to the network infrastructure. That also rules out software and hardware problems; it really was just about system capacity. As I have already said, there were not any vulnerabilities at the border.
I was asked questions about the EU Entry/Exit System. As I have said before from the Dispatch Box, the Government are doing as much as they possibly can to prepare for the implementation of the EES and its impact on British travellers, particularly at the juxtaposed border controls in Dover, at Eurostar in St Pancras and at the Channel Tunnel. We engage regularly with the Commission and the French Government at every level. Beyond this, we hosted the director-general of the Police aux Frontières on his visit to Dover, St Pancras and Folkestone last month. We continue to work with the port operators to understand the impacts of the EES and obviously support their plans to mitigate them.
We are working up plans to make sure that the public are kept abreast of all these new requirements, and that any impacts they may have on their future travel plans are well understood in advance. I believe my right honourable friend in the other place is due to appear before the European Select Committee on this, at which point no doubt much more will become available. The European Commission guidelines have not yet been issued, so there is not much more I can say about the European side.
As regards the timing and phasing of this, obviously the ETAs have now been in operation for a while—certainly going back to last year. They are not, as it were, coincident. The simple fact of the matter is that it may be inconvenient for us if the EU is tightening its border controls, but I respect and defend its right to maintain its own border integrity, as we do.
I was asked about a physical presence at the border. I agree: of course, there must be a physical presence. However, there has been much chatter about things such as roving officers, and so on. I reassure noble Lords that the border is not compromised by a roving officer not being present; they do not control who can pass through the eGates. The eGates undertake all the security measures of passengers who use them.
It is simply not true that this involves reduced control. Individuals who use these eGates—this answers one of the questions asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson—are not routinely questioned by Border Force officers, but they continue to conduct a full range of security checks, and the biometric check they undertake to compare the person with their travel document means that they are a highly effective means of detecting imposters. They are also able to identify pre-existing adverse information about travellers, and individuals subject to information will be seen by a Border Force officer. If officers require information about any person’s previous immigration history, the Home Office has access to data, including advance passenger information and exit record checks, to be able to verify a person’s individual history. Those officers retain the ability to exercise the full range of their powers at the border, and will continue to refuse entry, where appropriate, to those they deem eligible. I agree that it needs to be visible, but it is effective.
To go back to what the ETA actually is, it is a digital permission to travel to the UK for those who want to visit who do not need a visa. As the noble Baroness correctly pointed out, the scheme has already launched for nationals of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the UAE, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Other non-visa nationals will be able to apply for ETAs later this year. We believe they are making the UK safer, because they enhance the Government’s ability to screen travellers and prevent those who pose a threat getting on a plane, ferry or international train. Of course, by knowing more in advance of travel, our ambition is to increase automation of passenger clearance at the border and generally improve the experience.
I think I have answered all the questions, but I reassure noble Lords that this was a one-off incident and I am reliably informed that it has now been corrected and that additional capacity has been put in place. Obviously, I would not like to claim that it will never happen again but, as far as I am aware, the situation has been dealt with and again I thank Border Force officers and those in the Home Office data and digital team who worked very hard on this.
Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)
My Lords, the eGates software is provided by a fairly small Portuguese company called Vision-Box, under a contract that was signed in 2013 and has been extended to at least 2027. As someone who spends most of his life working in software mergers and acquisitions, I can say that it would be pretty normal, when a key contract such as this is entered into with a smaller supplier, that a change of control clause would be included in the contract, allowing the customer—the Government in this case—to obtain safeguards about future performance before any takeover of the company is completed.
Vision-Box was taken over in April by a very large Spanish group called Amadeus. Was there a change of control clause in the contract? Were suitable undertakings obtained from Amadeus before Vision-Box was acquired? Can the Minister confirm that the outage was not related to changes made by Amadeus as a result of the takeover? Looking forward, I understand that the Vision-Box software is currently based on Windows 10, which will no longer be supported beyond 2025—so is the Minister confident that Amadeus is committed to a suitable upgrade path?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I will address the last points first. As I said, it was not a software issue that caused this particular outage, so I can deal with that relatively straightforwardly. As regards government contracts, as the noble Lord will be aware, I think they are all published on GOV.UK. I am not sure if this one was or if I am wrong there, but I will check and find out and come back as required.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
Yes, I will also check on that.
I did not know about the Amadeus takeover of this particular Portuguese company, but I will make further inquiries and, if there is more to be said, I will write to the noble Lord.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, will the Minister agree that one of the lessons from earlier outages was the need to be able bring in extra staff and surge staff if it ever happened again? Of course, it did happen again and the fact that the staff were able to get into place very quickly is to be commended and the staff involved need to be thanked and congratulated on their swift response.
The Minister in the other place said that he could not comment further on the root causes of the outage: however, the Minister here went into more detail on that. Is that the update the Minister in the other place promised last Wednesday and is there nothing more that can be mentioned about that and elaborated on? Also, when the EES comes in—which the noble Baroness dealt with at some length—can the Minister tell the House whether it will apply to flights from the UK to airports in the Republic of Ireland?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
As I have already said, I do not know to what my right honourable friend in the other House was referring when he talked about updates, so I am afraid I do not know whether I have just given an update on his points. What I can say—and should have said in my opening remarks—is that the lessons learned exercise is still ongoing, so I cannot say that that is fully concluded yet because it is not. I am afraid I do not know the answer regarding the Republic of Ireland. From memory, I do not think the Republic of Ireland is a member of the Schengen agreement, so I am not actually sure how that affects it.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, the House will be relieved that what happened was not the result of a cyberattack and did not compromise our borders, but nevertheless, in the Minister’s own words, it was the result of a capacity issue and cumulative changes. In the light of the question asked earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, is the Minister, in effect, telling the House that there was an upgrade issue? He said that he hoped it would not happen again, but it has happened in the past, and it was because of an upgrade issue. Can the Minister be honest with the House about this, especially bearing in mind that the reputational damage to the UK is so obvious when something like this happens?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I can reassure the noble Viscount that I am being honest. The simple fact is that this is not a repetition of the previous outage, which was unrelated to this capacity issue. The capacity relating to this incident has now been doubled, in effect, so I am confident that the problem is currently fixed. The previous issue related to a different set of upgrades, as far as I understand.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, I shall be a little bit more positive and say, first, that since their introduction these gates have been tremendous in terms of increasing mobility and getting people through airports generally. I welcome them in terms of people being able to travel relatively freely. At the moment—this may be slightly different data from that of my noble friend—I understand that seven non-European nations are able to use the gates, including South Korea. Can the Minister say whether more negotiations are going on and whether we will be able to welcome more nations to this facility? Secondly, Ireland is not part of Schengen; it is part of the common travel area that we are the major part of. One key area for security was the Schengen Information System, which has an alert system in terms of bad guys and people who we would not want to come into this country. Can the Minister remind me whether we are still seeking entry or sharing Schengen Information System data, whether that is still possible or whether it has happened?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for his positivity, and I could not agree with him more. It is perfectly possibly now to get off a plane and, if you do not have luggage, to be out of an airport within 15 or 20 minutes, which is remarkable—Singapore levels of efficiency, some might say. As regards the sharing of information and Schengen, I am afraid I do not know the answer; I will have to write on that.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, I have an interest in this question. I do not think it is a declarable interest, but I have an interest to this extent: I was a Minister in the early 2000s when these gates were put in the first time. I was responsible, with my noble friend Lord Blunkett, who was the Home Secretary, for installing eGates. I think they have transformed the ability of people to go through our airports, and I am very supportive of them.
I am obliged to Tom Pursglove for reinforcing on 8 May what we were debating for some hours in the previous business, which is that you can never guarantee that any IT system will be 100% reliable 100% of the time. Persuading people that that was the case is what led to the Horizon scandal. I do not want to take the Minister back to where he has been since my noble friend Lord Coaker asked him a question and the two other questions, but Tom Pursglove’s answers need clarification. The Minister has given us some. If the noble Lords do not mind, I am going to read consecutive sentences that Tom Pursglove used when answering this question in the other place. He said:
“When it comes to the root cause of what happened—how we got to this point in the first place—as soon as the fix was put in place, the posture changed to getting us to a place where we better understand the root cause. That work is ongoing, and it would not be right for me to speculate on it, but I can absolutely assure the hon. Gentleman that we will get to the bottom of the issue”.
He then went on to say—and this is what confuses me:
“As for the specific technical issue last night, I am assured that the technical team are confident that there is now a permanent fix to that issue”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/5/24; col. 594.]
That seems to suggest that he was in a position to say what it was. The important question was asked by my honourable friend Dan Jarvis, against the background of previous e-outages. He sought to find out whether this was the same problem recurring; that was the simple question. If it is not the same problem recurring—I infer from what the Minister said that it is not—that is the answer to the question, but if it is still an issue, I would like to know, as I am sure would other noble Lords. In any event, I suggest that the Minister goes back to Mr Pursglove and tells him to be more specific in answering the question, rather than being in places.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I will repeat what I said earlier: there is no relation to any previous incident. In effect, I am being asked to unpick what my right honourable friend in the other place might have meant a week ago, which I simply do not know. I will tell the House what I do know—I have already said this, but I will repeat it. At 7.44 pm on 7 May, a loss of network connectivity caused a number of Home Office IT systems to lose service, including customer services and migration and border systems. Operational policing systems were unaffected, although Home Office access to them was. Due to the timing of the outage, the primary visible impact was at all ports where both eGates and primary control point desks were unavailable. Border Force officers reverted to using PCP laptops, which are not reliant on the network, and the Warnings Index to process passengers. Service was fully restored just after midnight on 8 May. As I said, DDaT engineers identified that the cause of the outage was a capacity issue on an element of the network that controls network traffic in the data centres. The incident was caused by the cumulative effect of changes that we have been making to sustain and modernise the Home Office network environment. That is all I can answer.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)
My Lords, I will recount a personal anecdote, and ask my noble friend the Minister some questions, because I travel frequently between here and the European Union. I had the good fortune to arrive at Gatwick in the mid-afternoon of the day in question; had I not, I might have been stuck, so I felt much relief from my adept timing. However, I am somewhat anxious, given the amount of traffic that one can expect at places such as St Pancras station and the like. I went there with a group from this House to see what is being done to anticipate the queues of people. I know from experience that being at St Pancras and boarding a Eurostar train can be a very time-consuming business—however hard you try, it will be difficult. I am told that a lot of the shops will have to be demolished to provide room for the ETA system to be effectively applied.
Is my noble friend the Minister prepared to give us some notional guidance on how the changes at St Pancras station are developing? The use of eGates there is to be applauded. Schiphol airport has an open eGate system now; I have spent too many hours there waiting for somebody to stamp my passport to know that that is a great advantage. It will be a great advantage to use eGates because of the extension that has been granted from this country into the Netherlands and the reciprocal measure here. What is the situation with St Pancras and its Eurostar eGates?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I thank my noble friend for that, and I am delighted that he did not get caught in the disruption last week. As I said in my opening answer to the Front Benches opposite, the Government are doing everything that we can to prepare for the implementation of EES and mitigate its impacts on British travellers, which particularly applies to the juxtaposed border controls. As I mentioned, the director-general of the Police aux Frontières visited Dover, St Pancras and Folkestone last month. I cannot speculate on what physical changes may be required at St Pancras to accommodate the new systems. My noble friend mentioned the ETA system, but I do not think that that is what he meant; I think that he is talking about the EES. I suspect that the ETA system will not have much impact at all at St Pancras. As soon as I am in a position where I can give an update on any physical or infrastructural changes required in and around St Pancras—and, indeed, at the other juxtaposed border controls—I will be very happy to come back and explain them.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, on the point about outage, the same thing happened 12 months ago. It was not necessarily the same issue of capacity but, nevertheless, it is not good enough. We rely so heavily now on numbers to make sure that these eGates work. We work on reciprocity. Reciprocity means that we welcome people from other countries into the UK, inbound, and they can use eGates—not all of them, but we have agreed with a number of countries that this can take place.
That is not the case now when, as UK passport holders, we go to places where we could formerly use eGates. We are fine in Spain and one or two other countries but, when we travel to other places, which are not off the map, we find that we are not allowed to use eGates. Can I ask my noble friend to look into this? It is a matter of fairness that, if we are willing to welcome other countries’ citizens into our country using eGates, it should be a reciprocal arrangement.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
First, I say again, for the record, that this was not an outage that we have seen before but a unique situation; I say this just to shoot that particular fox. My noble friend makes some very good points. These are matters of high-level diplomacy but I will, of course, look into the reciprocity arrangements that she talks of and see whether there is any more that I can say about that. I suspect that negotiations are ongoing and I imagine that they form part of much bigger discussions.
Viscount Waverley (CB)
My Lords, technical challenges have been referred to in some detail in relation to Portugal, with the potential that that country, in which I am resident, is to be suspended from the Schengen system in July. This will presumably cause a whole plethora of additional challenges for the UK tourist industry. All the countries seem to be having these technical problems. I wonder, could there be some kind of discussion to see what could be done working in unison to try to sort it out?
While on my feet, I encourage the Minister to consider the provision under Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, whereby residents of a country, if non-nationals, may avail themselves of foreign immigration lines. The SEF authorities in Portugal would welcome Ministers from both countries, Portugal and the UK, sitting together, as it would ease their burden. The systems are exactly the same whether you are resident or non-resident, in respect of which lines you have to go through. However, because of Article 50—dare one say it, a colleague in this House was responsible for drawing up that process; a colleague who says, “Not me, guv”—the SEF authorities would very much welcome the Ministers getting together to sort this out by agreement.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
Again, I am not particularly qualified to comment on Portugal’s internal systems and processes. Perhaps, since he lives there, the noble Viscount could bring his considerable diplomatic weight to bear and help us out a bit. Those discussions should be ongoing. It is, of course, our oldest alliance, so I am sure there is plenty of good will.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I will return briefly to the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, about the new owners of the software provider having full provision for the ending of support for Windows 10. I do not think the Minister answered that, so perhaps he could write to us later about it.
There are broader questions raised by this incident about the robustness and resilience of critical official systems. I have a Written Question down at the moment about their robustness and resilience against the solar storms we are currently experiencing. I will park that to one side, except to note that, as the noble Lord, Lord Browne, said, external threats will lead to internal breakdowns. We have seen this again and again with the border gate systems. Do the Government have a list or register of the systems for which there has to be an alternative manual arrangement which can deliver at reasonable speed and in reasonable volumes? There is obviously a risk when we are digitising so many systems. Are the Government saying that there are some things for which there has to be a manual emergency system and that they are ensuring that provision?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I answered the noble Lord’s question in that I genuinely do not know, so I shall write. As far as I can tell, the noble Baroness’s question ranged from matters of diplomacy to matters of astronomy. It has certainly covered a wide area. She will not be surprised to know that I am not an expert on either. As to whether there is a list of systems where a manual resilience process needs to be maintained, I do not know. Of course, there are certainly lists of priorities which must be maintained at all costs to maintain national security, border integrity and so on. I do not have this to hand but I will investigate the manual side of things. If there is anything useful to say, I will come back on it.