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Infected Blood Inquiry
(1 day, 17 hours ago)
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The Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Nick Thomas-Symonds)
With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to provide an update on the Government’s progress in responding to the infected blood inquiry’s report.
I start by reiterating that the inquiry’s final report laid bare harrowing aspects of the scandal that make it vital that we provide regular updates on this work. The infected blood scandal is an injustice on an unprecedented scale that spans decades. Thousands of people have died and, sadly, continue to die every week. Lives have been shattered and the voices of victims have been ignored for decades. People have watched their loved ones die and—this is one of the most chilling facts that the inquiry brought to light—children were used as objects of research. It is hard to conceive of the scale of the damage done and the incredible suffering of all those impacted.
On 20 May, the country bore witness to the devastating findings of the infected blood inquiry’s report. It was a national moment, a profound moment of shame for the British state, and a moment of long-overdue recognition for the victims and their loved ones. My right hon. and learned Friend the Prime Minister, in his former role as Leader of the Opposition, acknowledged that
“suffering was caused by wrongdoing, delay and systemic failure”
by all parties
“across the board, compounded by institutional defensiveness.” —[Official Report, 20 May 2024; Vol. 750, c. 667.]
The former Prime Minister issued an apology on behalf of the state for the devastating impact that the use of infected blood and infected blood products has had on countless lives. Today, on behalf of this Government, I reiterate that deep and heartfelt sorry. First, let me reassure the House that the Government are committed to acting on the findings of the infected blood inquiry report to ensure swift resolution. We are also committed to working cross-party, and will work with others to deliver the compensation scheme and get final payments to victims as soon as possible. It is vital that we shine a penetrating light on the lessons that must be learned, and that includes paying comprehensive compensation to those infected and affected by the infected blood scandal.
I would like to thank hon. Members who have played prominent roles in pushing the work to this point. The Minister of State, Home Department, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson), has always been —and I know will continue to be—a powerful advocate for this cause. Her work in pushing forward the cause and representing the voice of those infected and affected was unquestionably pivotal to our reaching this point. I also thank my predecessor as Paymaster General, the right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen). As I said yesterday in Cabinet Office questions, I am grateful for his work in the lead-up to the announcement of the compensation scheme, and for his collegiate approach. I hope that we can continue to work together on this important issue.
The scale of the horror that was uncovered by Sir Brian Langstaff’s report almost defies belief. One of the issues that the report brought to light is the importance of addressing the unacceptable culture of defensiveness in the public sector. We must make sure that people’s reputations and protecting institutions are never put above public service. This Government will bring forward legislation to place a duty of candour on public servants and authorities to make sure that this kind of behaviour cannot happen again. That legislation must be the catalyst for a changed culture in the public sector by improving transparency and accountability. It will address the culture of defensiveness and help ensure that the lack of candour uncovered in the infected blood scandal —and, indeed, in too many other instances, such as Hillsborough and Horizon—is not repeated.
We recognise that as well as delivering institutional change, we must provide financial redress to people whose life has been irreversibly and tragically changed as a result of the infected blood scandal. One of the most powerful conclusions in the inquiry’s report is that an apology is meaningful only if it is accompanied by action, and it is now my responsibility to carry forward this action. I hope to lead that work not only with the support of this House, but with sensitivity and respect towards the people who have been so unfairly affected by this scandal. After all that has happened, listening to the voice of victims is crucial, and I will endeavour to work closely with the infected blood community as we progress this work.
I would also like to update the House on the progress being made in establishing the Infected Blood Compensation Authority. The Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 legally created the authority on 24 May, and since that point, the interim chief executive David Foley has been working closely with Sir Robert Francis KC, the interim chair, to set up the compensation service. It is, frankly, no small task. The Cabinet Office is supporting the organisation as it recruits and sets up a service that is easy to access and simple to use. The authority will provide regular updates to the infected blood community and all others interested in its work.
Let me turn to compensation. On 21 May, I welcomed the former Administration’s announcement on compensation. There is an urgent need to get money to people in the most timely way possible. On 24 June, further interim payments of £210,000 were made to beneficiaries of the infected blood support schemes living with infections, bringing the total paid in compensation to victims to more than £1 billion. However, we recognise that this is not enough, given that many others have also been waiting for far too long.
The Cabinet Office is working closely with the Department of Health and Social Care, the devolved Governments and the administrators of the existing infected blood support schemes to establish the process for making interim payments of £100,000 to the estates of deceased people who were infected with contaminated blood or blood products, and whose deaths have not yet been recognised. Work is progressing to ensure that these payments are made as soon as we are able to. I am pleased to confirm to the House today that applications for these payments will open in October, and we will set out further details in due course.
There is also the matter of the final compensation scheme. We are committed to delivering this work quickly. We are also committed to getting it right. The proposed compensation scheme was published on gov.uk on 21 May, and we are committed, as I indicated yesterday to the shadow Paymaster General, the right hon. Member for Salisbury, to making regulations to establish the scheme by 24 August, as we are obliged to by the Victims and Prisoners Act. However, we also recognise the importance of building support and trust among those who will access the scheme. Sir Robert Francis undertook an engagement exercise in June at the former Government’s request, with the support of all parties. The exercise engaged those who have been most impacted by the scandal on the content of the compensation scheme. I have been engaging with Sir Robert to hear his advice following his meetings with members of the infected blood community. I am considering his advice carefully, with a view to publishing both his report and the Government’s position on it in advance of 24 August.
Finally, I reassure the House that there will be an opportunity to fully debate the content of the inquiry’s final report. I am conscious that given the timing of the recent election, there has not yet been time for right hon. and hon. Members to do so. It is essential, in my view, that Members of this House have enough time to digest and debate the devastating findings of the report. The Government are considering Sir Brian Langstaff’s recommendations, and we will provide an update to Parliament by the end of the year on the progress that we are making on responding to the inquiry’s recommendations, as Sir Brian recommended in the report.
The infected blood scandal is one of the gravest injustices this country has seen. I want to end by paying tribute to the courage and determination of the victims of this scandal—those infected and those affected who fought so hard for justice. At every debate on this issue, we remember that they are at the centre of all this. It is for them that we must come together to restore the sense that this is a country that can rectify injustice. They deserve nothing less. I commend this statement to the House.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I congratulate you on your elevation. I thank the Paymaster General for his statement, and thank him very much for the customarily early sight of his statement this morning.
The findings of the infected blood inquiry remain a shameful moment for the British state. First of all, I reiterate our apologies to all those whose lives have been changed as a result of this appalling tragedy, which never should have happened. On 20 May 2024, the day of the inquiry’s final report, the then Prime Minister confirmed that the Government would pay comprehensive compensation to those who have been affected and infected, as quickly as possible.
Before the election was called, on 22 May, I took a number of steps to ensure that interim compensation of £210,000 would be paid as quickly as possible to those registered with existing infected blood support schemes, as well as those who registered with the support scheme before the final scheme became operational, and to the estates of those who passed away between then and payments being made. I am delighted that the Paymaster General this morning confirmed that over £1 billion has now been paid during the run-up to the general election.
The legislation passed on 24 May established the Infected Blood Compensation Authority to administer the compensation scheme, and appointed Sir Robert Francis as the interim chair. Sir Robert had previously led the infected blood compensation framework study, and I understand from engagement with senior officials right up till the day of the general election that he undertook a meaningful series of engagement meetings, as the right hon. Gentleman confirmed, with representatives of the infected and affected communities during the purdah period.
We also accepted the then Opposition’s call for regulations to set up the scheme to be made within three months of the legislation receiving Royal Assent. We asked for an update to be provided to the House within 25 sitting days of the inquiry’s final report being published. I believe that the statement this morning honours that. I welcome the fact that the new Government have continued to prioritise this issue, and to keep the House and, of course, the victims and their families updated on progress. However, there remain questions, and matters on which I think the infected and affected blood communities would, respectfully, expect me to challenge the Government.
Will the Paymaster General confirm that the debate that I promised after the Whitsun recess could be scheduled for September? That would give Members a reasonable amount of time over the recess to study this considerable report. Will he reiterate my commitment to respond to Sir Brian’s recommendations one by one, as quickly as possible, within a comprehensive response to the report?
I am grateful today that the Paymaster General is considering the advice from Sir Robert’s engagement with the infected blood community in June. I hope that he will not just consider it, but decide to publish it in advance of the 24 August deadline for making regulations. In my modest experience, any regulations laid would be open to misinterpretation unless the Government set out Sir Robert’s considered reflections on the engagement exercise that he supervised and his considered judgment on what changes, if any, to qualifying criteria and parameters may be required to ensure that the scheme has maximum credibility. I believe that the Paymaster General’s new ministerial colleague, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson), would also advise him that maximum early transparency will yield maximum understanding and acceptance of the path forward.
I am anxious that the guarded optimism I heard during my 18 meetings with representatives from 40 groups in May will be sustained, and that the good will generated on the path the delivery will not be squandered. I give my commitment this morning that I will seek to support the Paymaster General as he completes the delicate process of finalising regulations by building on the engagement exercises and the invaluable work of Sir Jonathan Montgomery and his expert team.
On wider matters, can the Paymaster General confirm that the £1 billion he referred to represents the completion of the 90-day interim compensation commitment, or indicate to the House what quantum is outstanding and confirm that that will be paid within the 90 days that I set out on 21 May? It is critical that Sir Brian’s forensic assessment of culpability across the medical, civil service and ministerial domains is properly addressed as part of the Government’s evolving thinking on legislation on the duty of candour. While recognising that this is ultimately a matter for this House, it would be good if the Paymaster General could define what role the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee could play in scrutinising the Government’s progress.
Following my statement on 21 May, the Paymaster General referred to potential criminal charges and asked me to ensure that all relevant evidence would be made available for consideration by the prosecuting authorities. Will he update the House now on whether he is in a position to be able to do so? I also ask him to reiterate my acknowledgement of the call for memorialisation and to say whether he will appropriately frame the commitment the Government will make to the recommendations by the end of 2024, as I committed to do.
Finally, I wish the Paymaster General every success in this delicate work. I believe that he is well supported by an excellent team of civil servants to complete this work, and he will have my full support as he operationalises the legislation that the previous Government passed on 24 May.
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the characteristically collegiate way in which he approached his perfectly reasonable questions. I shall deal with them one by one.
I will certainly push for the debate to be scheduled as soon as possible. It is really important that across the House we are able to comprehensively consider not just the recommendations, but the level and scale of the criticisms that have been made. Yes, the Government will respond one by one to the 12 recommendations made by Sir Brian Langstaff. In relation to Sir Robert Francis, I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the need for transparency. I certainly undertake to publish those findings and that report ahead of the regulation to operationalise the scheme being laid by 24 August.
In relation to the right hon. Member’s point about the 90 days, my understanding is that the payments were completed on 24 June, which is within that 90-day period, but there will be, as I announced in my statement, additional interim payments to the estates of infected people and that process will begin from October.
With regard to parliamentary scrutiny, I welcome the scrutiny that there rightly will be on this, whether it is by PACAC or, indeed, by the House more generally. I certainly undertake, as the right hon. Gentleman did, to ensure that all relevant information is provided to the prosecuting authorities as they see fit for any action that needs to be taken against specific individuals.
Finally, in respect of memorialisation, Sir Brian Langstaff set out that there should be memorials in the constituent parts of the United Kingdom, and also a specific memorial to those children who were sent to Treloar’s for protection, but who ended up in the hideous situation of being experimented on when they were at their most vulnerable. I look forward to taking forward the process, as the right hon. Gentleman committed to do, of ensuring that we do have appropriate memorialisation, which is crucial to recognising the scale of what happened.
Clive Efford (Eltham and Chislehurst) (Lab)
May I congratulate you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on your elevation to your position?
I welcome the Minister’s statement this morning, but can he say a little more about how the compensation authority will arrive at its decisions? There is concern that advisers have undue influence on the Cabinet Office and that the voices of those who have been infected and affected are not being heard sufficiently in this process. There are concerns about the compensation process and whether that will be in addition to, or conflated with, support payments; the non-payment of exemplary or punitive damages; the lack of recognition of the impact of illegal experimentation or the knowing use of contaminated blood products; and the payments that will be made to estates where people have died. The people who really should be scrutinising this are those who have been infected and affected, so will the Minister commit to involving them in the compensation authority, so that they can have confidence in the decisions that are being made?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his questions. First, may I say that, of course, the voice of victims should be absolutely central to this. I thank Sir Robert Francis for the work that he did in the general election purdah period to ensure that that is the case. I will consider very carefully the recommendations that Sir Robert makes on the basis of that engagement and hearing the voice of the victims.
I want to deal with one other point that my hon. Friend raised, which was to do with the future of the infected blood support schemes. I understand that there has been concern about this. The current proposal is that no immediate changes will be made to the infected blood support schemes. Payments will continue to be made at the same level until 31 March next year, and they will not be deducted from any compensation awards.
From 1 April next year, people who receive the England infected blood support scheme payments will continue to receive them until such time that their case is assessed under the new scheme by the Infected Blood Compensation Authority. Once assessed under the scheme, the applicant will be able to choose how to receive their compensation, either as a lump-sum or periodic payment. I hope that that gives my hon. Friend the reassurance he seeks.
I have absolute confidence in Sir Robert Francis to run the Infected Blood Compensation Authority in an entirely appropriate way. I was in the Chamber when his appointment as the interim chair was announced, and it was welcomed warmly, as I recall, from the Public Gallery by the infected blood community.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair following your election, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank the Paymaster General for early sight of his statement, and I welcome the tone and the cross-party approach that have been taken on this serious issue.
Victims of the infected blood scandal and their families have been waiting for decades to see justice. As we know, tragically, thousands have died without ever receiving compensation. The report of the inquiry into the scandal chaired by Sir Brian Langstaff laid bare the suffering inflicted, the cover-ups and the systemic failures across the British state. Not only did the state fail to help the victims, but in many cases people were lied to, treated with contempt and outright dismissed.
Now we have the evidence, and we have heard and read the most personal and courageous testimonies from victims. One of my constituents in North East Fife was a participant in the inquiry, and I have met others in the constituency. It is imperative that every one of us works across the aisle to deliver this effective and just compensation scheme.
We welcome the work by Sir Robert Francis and David Foley in setting up the IBCA. It is clear that transparency is vital in establishing trust between the IBCA and the infected blood community, so I am pleased to hear that the IBCA met with the community over the election period, but I would be grateful for more detail from the Paymaster General about what the ongoing work with the community will look like.
Not only do we have a duty to support the victims and their families with a fair compensation settlement, but, in order to create a lasting solution, we must ensure that the state cannot let such scandals happen again. Therefore, I am glad that the Paymaster General agrees that we need to adopt a duty of candour for public officials to ensure that victims are never treated in this manner again. Given that we have so many inquiries ongoing, can he give more detail on when the legislation on candour that he referred to will be brought forward?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for those questions, and I look forward to working with her on this issue on a cross-party basis throughout the next few months and, I suspect, for quite a bit longer. I really do echo her point about the need for cross-party working.
The hon. Lady made a very fair point about the need to establish trust between the victims and the compensation body; that will be vital. She also asked me to say a little more about the voice of victims being heard. It will be for the Government to consider Sir Robert Francis’s recommendations, which follow on from his extensive engagement with victims and victims’ groups during the purdah period. As I said to the shadow Paymaster General a moment or two ago, I agree with him entirely about the need for transparency in the publication of Sir Robert Francis’s work and report ahead of 24 August. I will be writing to the victims’ groups to ensure that their voice continues to be heard.
The duty of candour stands alongside other measures that we are bringing forward, including the public advocate and ensuring that families who find themselves in the tragic situation that many did with Hillsborough are able to be appropriately represented at inquests. We need to see those measures as a collective package, but we will be bringing them forward as soon as we can.
Tracy Gilbert (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab)
My constituents Justine and Rachel Gordon-Smith lost their father six years ago on Wednesday. He suffered from haemophilia and was given infected blood in the 1980s. I welcome today’s statement. The current compensation scheme makes provision for children of affected persons only while they are under the age of 18, which does not take into account the long-term impact faced by my constituents. Will my right hon. Friend meet me and my constituents to discuss this matter and ensure that the scheme supports all affected persons in Edinburgh North and Leith and across the country?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
First, I think the whole House will have every sympathy with the situation that my hon. Friend’s constituents and their family find themselves in. In the scheme, there are of course those who were infected and those who were affected, who include partners, parents, children, siblings and, quite rightly, those who provided care to infected people, because there were often situations where the carers were not necessarily close relatives but none the less provided significant care. If my hon. Friend could please write to me, I can ensure that there is an appropriate ministerial meeting.
Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)
I too congratulate you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on your recent elevation.
I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement, which was very welcome. I echo his words by acknowledging that the infected blood inquiry is one of the greatest scandals of our age. I pay tribute to the victims and their families, who have fought tirelessly to bring matters to this point.
I am glad to hear that the Minister is committed to meeting the 24 August deadline for laying regulations to establish the final compensation scheme, but I am a little disappointed that he did not set out a full timescale for the full operation of the scheme. It would be helpful if he said a little more about that. Will he comment on his commitment to working closely with the Scottish Government on the scheme’s implementation in Scotland, to ensure that victims seeking redress face no further delay?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I echo what the hon. Gentleman said about the scale of the scandal and his appropriate tribute to the victims. On the timescale, as I indicated in my statement, the additional interim payments to the estates of the infected will start from October. As I indicated at questions yesterday in respect of the full scheme, I would expect the final compensation payments to start being paid from the end of this year.
It is my intention to meet the Health Ministers of the devolved Administrations in my native Wales, in Scotland and in Northern Ireland. I am committed to working with the devolved Administrations. As I indicated earlier, they will have a key role to play in the memorialisation process, too.
Mr Alex Barros-Curtis (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I congratulate you on your new position, Madam Deputy Speaker. I welcome the Front Benchers to their roles and thank them for the content and tone of the statement—my constituents will welcome that update. However, this is not an isolated incident in which the state has failed to protect its citizens. We have had the Horizon Post Office scandal, the Hillsborough families, and the child migration scheme—a matter in which I must declare an interest—for which former Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave a national apology back in 2010. Will the Paymaster General assure me and my constituents that the Government are committed to bringing about the culture change that is so clearly needed, as those scandals show?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
Yes, I can give that commitment. I should really emphasise its importance. As I indicated a moment or two ago, we are committed to the introduction of a duty of candour; we are committed to ensuring that families are supported at inquests and inquiries, particularly for situations such as Hillsborough; and we are committed to a public advocate. Those are all really important steps that we need to take. Ultimately, that has to be accompanied by leadership and a change of culture, to move away from what Sir Brian Langstaff described as “institutional defensiveness.” That is absolutely critical.
Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)
As your constituency neighbour, may I congratulate you on your elevation to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker?
I must put on record my sheer admiration for one of my constituents, Clive Smith, who chairs the Haemophilia Society. When I was first elected to this place in 2019, one of my very first constituency meetings was with Clive at his home, to talk specifically about the importance of pushing these matters through the House. I thank the previous and current Government for their collective work to get the House to this position of providing reassurance to those who have been impacted. I also thank the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson) for her work as part of the all-party parliamentary group on haemophilia and contaminated blood.
There are still concerns about how the payments will be made to the estates of those who have died. There is a risk that if such payments are made to the estates, they will be directed away from those who have been most impacted. My understanding is that it is currently expected that the executors of wills will decide how compensation payments are made to family members, and the payments may not go to those who have been most impacted. How will the Paymaster General ensure that the payments get to those who are most impacted?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. I echo his tribute to his constituent Clive Smith for all his remarkable campaigning over many years. In respect of the hon. Gentleman’s second point on the probate process and ensuring that the money actually reaches those it is supposed to reach, the Government are considering how we can best support victims through the probate process. I hope to have further details on that in due course.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
Huge congratulations to you on your elevation, Madam Deputy Speaker. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson) for her dogged work in getting everybody to this point.
I want to raise with the Minister the interesting report that has come out from the National Audit Office this week, which looks at compensation schemes across the piece and makes recommendations to the Cabinet Office. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Mr Barros-Curtis) said, there have been a number of compensation schemes, but they seem to be ad hoc, and lessons are not always learned about how to deliver them, so victims in the middle get squeezed. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister can tell us that he will be considering that and coming out with recommendations in due course.
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. She is entirely right that we need to learn lessons from previous compensation schemes, where they have gone well, and, frankly, where they have gone not so well—where, after looking at and reflecting upon them, we see that the proportion of money that we wanted to go to victims did not quite make it. I certainly give the reassurance that we are looking at those previous schemes and trying to learn best practice from them.
Sonia Kumar (Dudley) (Lab)
Congratulations on your elevation, Madam Deputy Speaker.
This statement is welcome in my constituency, where it is estimated that between 80 and 100 people were infected with HIV and approximately 26,800 were infected with hepatitis C after a blood transfusion. Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to the campaigners who have fought so hard to move this campaign and search for justice forward for those victims?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I certainly join my hon. Friend in doing that. As we speak today, we really should recognise that it took decades—a frankly unacceptable length of time—for people to achieve justice in this scandal. Not only did we have that profound moment when Sir Brian Langstaff announced the inquiry’s report, but it is so important that we now take the time that is necessary to learn the lessons for the future.
Ian Lavery (Blyth and Ashington) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for this update. He mentioned that one of the crucial points in this scandal is the fact that children were identified because of their genetic condition. Would my right hon. Friend explain how that issue will be looked at? How on earth can we compensate children who were identified at a very young age? Many of them have since died. They need substantial compensation and much more support than I think they are currently getting.
Nick Thomas-Symonds
My hon. Friend refers to one of the most chilling aspects of this scandal. There is no varnishing this; the reality is that children with haemophilia went to an institution—Treloar’s school—for protection. The school was set up in such a way that it was meant to give reassurance to parents that their children’s condition would be appropriately cared for, but they were actually used for medical experimentation. It is absolutely shameful and appalling. Of course my hon. Friend is right about appropriate compensation, but it is also vital that, as we go through Sir Brian Langstaff’s 12 recommendations, we put in place procedures, standards and structures so that something like that can never happen again.
Andrew Lewin (Welwyn Hatfield) (Lab)
Last week in my constituency I met Mike and Diana Blake, who told me the harrowing story of their son Stuart. Stuart was infected by contaminated blood, and was then infected with HIV and hepatitis C—he was just six years old. Stuart lived and suffered, and passed away aged 27 in 2006. The torment of the Blake family has been compounded by the fact that they have not received the full compensation that I know everybody in this House believes they are due. I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement from the Dispatch Box, setting out the intention to move forward with compensation for bereaved families such as the Blake family. I would be grateful if he could say a little more about that process.
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I am sure the whole House sends its sympathies to the Blake family on the loss of their son Stuart in such appalling, tragic circumstances. As I indicated a moment or two ago, I do not think any of us can conceive of the grief of losing a child in those circumstances, but Stuart’s parents are clearly people who are affected—they are exactly the kind of people whom the scheme has in mind. Whether they are partners, parents, children, siblings or those who provided care, it is absolutely critical that the compensation body recognises their suffering.
Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. I would like to talk about Linda, one of my constituents, who sadly lost her husband Bill Dumbelton because of the infected blood scandal. He contracted HIV and hepatitis C, and lost his job when he told his employer that he had HIV. He had no life insurance—he was unable to get life insurance at that time because of his HIV status—so Linda had to pick up the pieces and deal with all the financial problems when he died. Can the Paymaster General please update the House on how the scheme will be used to compensate those affected by the scandal, including spouses such as Linda? Are the Government still aiming to make those final compensation payments by the end of the year?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. We are looking to make and start those compensation payments by the end of the year. Again, I am sure the whole House offers its sympathies to Linda on the loss of her husband. My hon. Friend highlights another problem when she speaks about the fact that Linda’s late partner could not secure life insurance at that time. Another aspect of this scandal was that the people who were both infected and affected were, in decades past, unable to access the support that they should have been able to access.
Dr Allison Gardner (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
I congratulate you on your elevation, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I thank the Paymaster General for his statement. Can he update the House as to what measures are being put in place to learn the lessons of this scandal, including on the indefensible time it has taken to put it right and on improving mechanisms for whistleblowing?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
My hon. Friend raises a really important question. First and foremost, we need to consider very carefully the 12 recommendations that Sir Brian Langstaff has made. The Government will respond to them as requested in the timeline that Sir Brian mentioned in the report. In addition, we need to introduce the duty of candour and the public advocate, to support families at inquests and inquiries, and above all—in relation to my hon. Friend’s point about whistleblowers—to lead a change that moves away from the culture of defensiveness and towards one of putting the public interest first.
David Burton-Sampson (Southend West and Leigh) (Lab)
I welcome you to your new place, Madam Deputy Speaker—congratulations. I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement today, and for the swift actions of this Government in starting to resolve this situation. As we have heard, there have been far too many scandals over recent years, such as Hillsborough, Horizon, this infected blood scandal and the women against state pension inequality. Does the Minister agree that people have to fight far too hard and for far too long to get the recognition and justice they deserve, and that this simply has to change?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Hillsborough, Horizon, a number of other past scandals and this one are all severe and awful injustices, but what makes them even worse and compounds them is then having to fight for decades and decades. That is simply unacceptable, and it is one of the things that this Government are determined to change.
Michelle Scrogham (Barrow and Furness) (Lab)
Like many others in the House, I have constituents who have been deeply impacted by this scandal and will welcome the statement. Does the Minister agree that it is vital that we take action not only to deliver the compensation, but to tackle the culture of defensiveness, which we have seen in this scandal and in every other scandal that has emerged? If we do not tackle it now, it is never going to change.
Nick Thomas-Symonds
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Anyone who reads Sir Brian Langstaff’s report will see the emphasis he puts on culture and the chilling nature of what he talks about as institutional defensiveness. That is something we need to change. We will put forward legislative measures that we hope will make a significant difference, but it is also a question of attitudes and culture, and changing that will require leadership.
Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)
Can the Paymaster General clarify whether an office for the whistleblower would be an independent office? That would be helpful in progressing the sort of clarity and transparency that he has referred to.
Nick Thomas-Symonds
Protection for whistleblowers is important; it is something the Government are considering and keep under constant review.
Alison Hume (Scarborough and Whitby) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and congratulations on your elevation. I thank my right hon. Friend for updating the House so quickly after the general election. This issue is one that families in my constituency, and across the country, care about deeply. Will he commit to ensuring that hon. Members are regularly updated as we move toward drawing a line under this dreadful scandal?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I do give that commitment, and I hope the House will see that the Government have moved swiftly to update Members. It is critical that the whole House gets to have a full debate on Sir Brian Langstaff’s report and its recommendations. I certainly commit to keeping the House regularly updated.
Dan Aldridge (Weston-super-Mare) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and congratulations on your elevation to the Chair. I thank the Paymaster General for his statement and action so far. I was proud to stand on a Labour manifesto promising a duty of candour. After 14 years of broken promises, people in my constituency, as in so many others, have lost trust in politics and public institutions, and cynicism is a toxic consequence of these broken promises. I was so glad to see the duty of candour in the King’s Speech, but can the Minister update us on progress on this long-overdue measure?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. He points to one of the deep issues across this debate, and indeed across other scandals such as Horizon and Hillsborough: there is a lack of trust in public institutions. This has happened because it took far too long—decades—for the truth to come to light. The Government are committed to bringing in the duty of candour. It was in the King’s Speech alongside the measure to create a public advocate and to support families in inquests. I look forward to that being brought forward as soon as possible.
Jessica Toale (Bournemouth West) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and congratulations on your elevation to the Chair. I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement, and I pay tribute to the brave campaigners whose lives have been changed in the worst possible way by this scandal, including in my constituency. Many of the campaigners are children of people who have died as a result of their infections, and they have suffered immeasurably. I am pleased to see that there is support for this community across the House. Can the Minister confirm that the voices of the affected children will be included in his ongoing discussions and in the implementation of the recommendations in order to ensure fair and proper compensation and true accountability for this scandal?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
We have to listen to the relatives, including the children, of those who have died as a result of this scandal. It is an awful fact that thousands of people have died. Now we must listen to their relatives, who are their voices for today in this process.
Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
Like many Members, I have constituents who have been affected. Indeed, I grew up without a grandmother, due to infected blood. Not only did my constituents in Barnard Castle lose a child, but their other son experienced severe mental health challenges, which are lasting throughout his adult life, as a consequence of the strain that has been placed on the family because of their long struggle for justice. I am grateful for questions about the duty of candour, but will the Minister agree to regularly update the House on the other measures that will bring about culture change? Culture change is difficult, and it is difficult to know if and when it has been achieved. I would be interested to see a regular update on that.
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I am sure the whole House extends its sympathies to my hon. Friend on the loss of his grandmother as a consequence of this scandal. He is entirely right to highlight the impact that it has had on others: the people we call the affected people as a consequence of this scandal. With regard to the culture of institutional defensiveness, the critical thing is that people do not put protecting individual reputations or the reputation of institutions above what is in the public interest or above the duty of public service. I am not suggesting for a moment that that is an easy thing to lead on, but it is certainly something that this Government are determined to lead on, and of course I undertake to update the House regularly on that.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call John Slinger to ask the last question.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and congratulations on your elevation to your position. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the public note that all too often in such cases of egregious state failure, prosecutions do not follow? It appears to the public that there is, in some ways, impunity. Compensation is belatedly given; reforms are made; but all too often individuals are not held accountable. That is part of the problem that we are discussing this morning. Will he commit to giving further updates on the steps that may be taken to ensure that individuals are held properly accountable?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
Whether individuals are prosecuted is rightly a matter that is independent of Government; that is for the Crown Prosecution Service. What I do undertake to do is ensure that all relevant information is made available to the prosecuting authorities, so that the decision can be an informed decision based on the evidence. I also undertake, as my hon. Friend asks, to keep the House updated on that.
Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower
(1 day, 17 hours ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Michael Shanks)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of making Britain a clean energy superpower.
It is a genuine pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, and a privilege to open this debate on the Government’s plan to make Britain a clean energy superpower. It is also a genuine privilege to have been asked to do the best job in Government— I think the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) would concur—and serve as Energy Minister.
The urgency of the multiple challenges that we face as a country is the reason why this Government are moving at such pace on this mission. First, we have the challenge of energy insecurity and our over-reliance on fossil fuel markets, which was laid bare by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. According to the International Monetary Fund, the soaring inflation that Britain suffered as a result of the energy crisis was far worse than in any other G7 country.
That led to the second challenge, which many of our constituents are still facing: skyrocketing consumer bills, with the default tariff price cap rising by approximately £2,800 in the year after the invasion.
Thirdly, while families continue to face the worst cost of living crisis in a generation, there is still huge demand for good jobs with good wages across every part of the UK, but perhaps particularly in the industrial heartlands that have too often been left behind in both the good and the bad times.
Fourthly, there is the challenge posed by the climate crisis, which grows more and more urgent every day. We are now halfway through the most decisive decade in preventing irreversible damage to our planet. This is our last chance to limit global warming to 1.5° and, frankly, we are way off track.
This Government are determined to address these challenges, but, unlike our predecessors, we do not see them as separate issues pulling us in different directions —a case of either green or growth. Each of these challenges points to the same solution, a green energy future, because investing in clean energy at speed and scale is the only way to deliver energy security and to save families from future energy shocks. It will also create tens of thousands of good, skilled jobs.
Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman mentions families and energy prices. During the general election campaign, the Labour party and Labour candidates across the country claimed that GB Energy will save the average British household £300 a year. However, the Secretary of State refused to repeat this claim when given the chance last week. There has been quite a lot of confusion in the national media over the past couple of days, with Downing Street saying one thing and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero saying another. Can the Minister now confirm, on the parliamentary record, how much GB Energy will save or cost British bill payers by the time of the next election? He is absolutely right that all these things are part of Labour’s energy plan for the country, so we need to know how much it will cost or save British taxpayers.
Michael Shanks
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question, but it takes a bit of brass neck to come here and talk about bringing down bills when the Government he supported for so long saw those bills skyrocket. We have been very clear that bills will come down. We said it throughout the campaign, we said it yesterday and we stand by it, because bills must come down, but this will not happen overnight. [Hon. Members: “Ah!”] The Opposition Front Bench make noises now, but they have wasted years. We now need to catch up on this mission. We will catch up, and we will bring down bills.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East) (Lab)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Michael Shanks
I will make a bit of progress, if that is okay.
We will create thousands of skilled jobs, which, crucially, will also tackle the climate crisis that we have not done enough to tackle in recent years. It is for these reasons that the Prime Minister has made making Britain a clean energy superpower one of his five missions. The Government have a clear long-term plan to deliver that mission by increasing our energy independence, protecting consumers, and delivering good jobs and climate leadership. The outcome of that plan will be the decarbonisation of our power supply by 2030 and an acceleration to net zero across our economy.
To achieve that mission, we need to forge a new path that moves away from these volatile fossil fuel markets. That is why I was so delighted to introduce the Great British Energy Bill to Parliament yesterday. The Bill corrects an anomaly in our energy ownership, in which we have widespread public ownership of energy in this country, just not by us. We have offshore wind farms that are owned by the Governments of Denmark, France, Norway and Sweden, but not our own.
Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)
Many of my constituents in Ealing Southall are incredibly excited by the Minister’s plans for Great British Energy, for taking back control of our energy system and for lowering the bills of hard-pressed families, but does he agree that the Conservative party will have confused many of my residents with its support for public ownership of energy infrastructure only by foreign Governments, and not by the British Government? Taking into account his great plans to make this country an energy superpower, does he agree—
Michael Shanks
I thank the hon. Lady for her helpful intervention, and I am very happy to agree with her. There is confusion at the heart of the Conservative party’s plans. They have been very happy to hand over key parts of our national infrastructure to foreign Governments, for the profits go to the public in those countries, but they have been ideologically opposed to any suggestion that the British taxpayer should have any stake in those futures. That is something that we will turn around.
Andy McDonald
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I welcome him to his position. I think it is clear to everyone that the early advance of the Great British Energy Bill demonstrates the Government’s priority, their commitment to driving down carbon emissions and the cost of energy, and their recognition that that can happen only through public ownership and private investment. That is something that the last Government failed to understand. I know that we will debate the Bill’s Second Reading after the summer recess, but could my hon. Friend say something about GB Energy having a controlling stake in new energy projects, and support to ensure that the public benefit? Perhaps he might also say something about the vexed issue of energy storage, because that will constitute a huge part of the programme.
Michael Shanks
My hon. Friend has raised two important points. To answer the first, GB Energy will invest in a range of projects and will have a key stake in them, delivering a return for the British taxpayer. There will be a range of projects, in some of which we will certainly have the controlling stake, and some of which we might help to get over the line, but in every single project there will be a return for the British taxpayer.
My hon. Friend’s second point is vital. I have been in this role for only a couple of weeks, but every meeting I have comes back to this question of connection, storage, and how we make sure that renewables can be delivered throughout periods in which there is electricity demand. Storage will be important, and GB Energy will have a part to play in that, as well as in answering wider questions about grid and network.
Let me return to the point about ownership by foreign countries. British waters are home to one of the largest offshore floating wind farms in the world, Kincardine, off the coast of Aberdeen. It is a good example of the problem with the current model. The foundations were made in Spain, the turbines were installed in the Netherlands, and only then was it towed into British waters. Our view is that British taxpayers should own some of that infrastructure, which is why yesterday the Prime Minister and the Energy Secretary announced an exciting new partnership between GB Energy and the Crown Estate to unleash billions of pounds of investment in clean power.
This partnership will enable two national institutions to work together for the benefit of the British people. As well as building supply chains, GB Energy will develop and own power projects in every part of the United Kingdom—in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It will be capitalised with £8.3 billion over the lifetime of this Parliament, money that can be invested in wind, solar, nuclear, tidal and other technologies, and it will deliver profits to the British people, playing a vital role in delivering the new jobs that we need.
Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)
The Government’s plans to ban new oil and gas licences have been criticised by business leaders, unions and community groups throughout Scotland. As a fellow Scottish Member, will the Minister say whether or not he supports his Government’s plans, which it has been said will put up to 90,000 jobs across Scotland at risk?
Michael Shanks
We made it very clear during the election that the future of the North sea is incredibly important, but that future is a transition away from the oil and gas industries that we see at present. The Conservatives also need to recognise that the North sea is a declining basin. We have lost thousands of jobs there over the past decade, and that will continue in the future unless we accelerate our transition in the North sea to the clean energy jobs of the future. It is not good enough to bury our heads in the sand and pretend that this problem does not exist. We need a plan to give people secure, long-term, sustainable jobs for the future, rather than thinking that we can just carry on with business as usual.
Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)
The Minister has referred continually to the role of GB Energy, but how will it deliver lower gas prices? Only yesterday one of his colleagues, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, admitted that the price of gas was determined on the international market.
Michael Shanks
I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman understands the purpose of GB Energy, but it is not to bring down gas prices; it is to bring down bills. The whole point of GB Energy is to move us away from our over-reliance on gas. If we are not reliant on gas prices, we will remove that risk to bills from the shocks that we receive from the international markets, but we can do that only if we invest in the clean energy of the future.
Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
Does the Minister agree that the energy crisis is a matter not just of supply but of demand, and that the cheapest bill is the one that does not have to be paid because the energy is not being used? Does he intend to announce today ways of tackling the demand side? We could, for example, ensure that all new buildings are built to net zero standards, and announce a timeline for getting to that point as soon as possible. We could also announce a nationwide, street-by-street insulation programme to tackle the need for energy efficiency; that is the cheapest and quickest way to address the energy crisis. If he is not going to make those announcements today, when will they be made?
Michael Shanks
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. She has perhaps been reading our manifesto, because I agree with everything she has just said. That is why we are announcing a warm homes agency and looking at energy efficiency across the public and residential sector, and why we will massively upscale that domestic investment. I will come back to her points in more detail later. It is almost as if she knew what I was going to talk about.
Henry Tufnell (Mid and South Pembrokeshire) (Lab)
An announcement was made recently about collaboration with the Crown Estate, and how it will work with GB Energy. In Pembrokeshire we have a fantastic opportunity in the form of floating offshore wind. The Crown Estate is undertaking the leasing process for the seabed. Can the Minister assure us that there will be binding commitments to there being local content in the supply chain, and to addressing the skills gap in the region?
Michael Shanks
I thank my hon. Friend, who has already become a very strong advocate for his constituents. He cornered me in the Library to talk about these issues, and long may he continue to do so. He raises a really important point. The whole point of our partnership with the Crown Estate is that we will be able to look not just at investment in the clean power that we need, but at the supply chain creating good jobs in industrial communities. Our commitment to the British jobs bonus means that we will invest in those jobs in this country, creating the skills for the future.
Finally on GB Energy, as a Scottish MP it would be wrong of me not to say that I am incredibly proud that Great British Energy will be headquartered in Scotland. It is a signal of our commitment to delivering the good jobs that communities need, and to bringing the expertise and skills of Scotland’s growing renewables sector to the table as we drive forward towards even more ambitious plans across the whole country. In the driving seat of these ambitions is our new mission control centre, led by the former chief executive of the Climate Change Committee, Chris Stark. Mission control is about bringing together the best minds across Whitehall, but also, crucially, outside of Whitehall, so that we can set the direction, monitor progress and remove all the barriers in the way, whether they relate to the planning grid, supply chains or skills, so that the Government can work with one voice to deliver this plan.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
On barriers, one of the key challenges is the capacity of our construction industry. Is my hon. Friend having conversations across Government about how we resolve that issue, so that we can deliver on this crucial agenda of moving towards net zero?
Michael Shanks
My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. This transition has to be hand in hand with the industrial strategy that the Government are driving forward. That is why the Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon West (Sarah Jones) is also a Business and Trade Minister; that will bring together work right across Government on the industrial strategy. We also have to look at the skills for the future, and developing the next generation of apprentices and skilled workers, who will be in jobs that will be with us long into the future.
Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)
My hon. Friend has mentioned Scotland, but I would like to mention Wales again, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Mid and South Pembrokeshire (Henry Tufnell). Monmouthshire has plenty of wind and wave opportunities. We have the tidal River Severn, and we also have small tributaries in the Wye valley, such as the Angidy above Tintern. My constituents are really looking forward to benefiting from the community energy projects mentioned in the Bill. When can our community energy projects start bidding into the process?
Michael Shanks
I thought for a moment that my hon. Friend was going to make a bid for GB Energy to be headquartered in Wales, which is one thing that I cannot commit to. She raises a really important point. One of the missions of GB Energy will be around the idea of community-owned power. We have to bring two things together: we want communities to be in the driving seat of much of this in the future, but also to have some sense of ownership of the assets. We also know that some of the smaller generation projects can be the most successful. If we can bring together the benefits of community ownership with smaller-scale generation projects, that would deal with some of the issues regarding the grid and network, because we would not be trying to bring power to communities from far away. There is real appetite for that, and it is some of the early work that GB Energy will do.
The Government have moved quickly on two aspects, one of which is onshore wind. We swept away some of the significant barriers that have held us back for far too long. Within 72 hours of coming into office, we removed the de facto ban on onshore wind in England that meant that just a single objection to a wind turbine prevented it from being built. Onshore wind is quick and cheap to build, and it becomes one of the cheapest sources of power that we have. Under the ban, in place for nearly a decade under the Conservative party, only two onshore wind turbines were built in the whole of England, and the pipeline of projects shrank by nearly 90%. We are now consulting on bringing large onshore projects back into the nationally significant infrastructure projects regime, and we have established an onshore wind taskforce to tackle the depleted pipeline of projects, to help us on our way to doubling onshore wind by the end of the decade.
We also have to speed up the roll-out of solar power. That means not leaving planning decisions languishing on desks for month after month, but getting on with making decisions. That is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State consented to 1.3 GW of solar, powering the equivalent of 400,000 homes.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
The Minister talks of solar farms. In Huntingdon, the proposed East Park Energy solar farm stretches for six miles, from Great Staughton to across the constituency boundary, and is, at 1,800 acres, larger than Gatwick airport. Local residents have grave concerns about the scale of that development. What commitment will he make to our rural communities that they will have a say over the Labour Government allowing large solar farms to be built in local areas, given the detrimental impact on them?
Michael Shanks
The hon. Gentleman is right to represent his constituents, of course, and we will not in any way remove the ability of communities to be part of the consultation process and the planning system, but the issue is that this has not been happening for so long. We need to move forward with some of this infrastructure. We want to look at the benefit that communities will get from it—a range of options are being looked at—but at some point we need national recognition that some infrastructure is necessary and nationally significant. Some communities will have to host that infrastructure, and there should be benefits for them to doing so; it does not mean that we should stop doing these things. The days of the Government passing the buck to a future generation to fix the issues are gone. We need to tackle the crisis, and that means that we will build projects in communities—with consultation, of course—because nationally significant projects will have to go ahead if we want to reach our targets by 2030.
In one week, more solar capacity was delivered by this Government than through all previous solar projects consented to by the Department and its predecessors combined. We have reconvened the solar taskforce to explore what else Government and industry can do to help us to treble solar power by 2030.
Underpinning a renewables-based system will be a baseload of nuclear power. We want to see Hinkley Point C operational this decade, with extensions to the currently operating fleet, and we are also supporting the development of new sites such as Sizewell C. Meanwhile, Great British Nuclear is continuing to drive forward the competition for small modular reactors, with bids currently being evaluated by the Department.
There has been much debate about the role the North sea will play and what a just transition will look like. The reality, as I mentioned earlier, is that the North sea is a mature basin with declining reserves. Figures from the Office for National Statistics suggest that the number of direct jobs supported by the oil and gas industry has already fallen by more than a third since 2014.
Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)
Regarding the potential closure of the Grangemouth refinery, the Just Transition Commission recently said that the UK Government have taken positive steps in working collaboratively with the Scottish Government. There is no doubt that we are behind schedule because of the previous Government’s inaction. Will my hon. Friend provide an update on when the Grangemouth future industry board leadership forum will next meet?
Michael Shanks
Again, I thank my hon. Friend not just for his intervention, but for all the work he has done before and since his election. He has been a dedicated campaigner on this issue and has raised it a number of times with me and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.
My hon. Friend’s point about collaboration is incredibly important. We have reset our relations with the devolved Administrations across the country. In particular, on Grangemouth, we have been working hard with the Scottish Government to find a solution. That has been a far more helpful set of interventions than we had from the previous Government. For example, on Project Willow, we have committed to joint funding with the Scottish Government to drive forward to find a solution. We are leaving no stone unturned to secure an industrial future for the Grangemouth site, and I know that my hon. Friend will continue to campaign on the issue.
The future of the North sea more generally depends on having a plan for the industries of the future, whether that is carbon capture and storage, hydrogen or, indeed, renewables. The just transition is critical and it is something I take incredibly seriously, so we will work with North sea communities to develop a credible long-term plan. That work will be supported by a British jobs bonus to incentivise developers to build their supply chains here in the UK and to create good jobs in our industrial heartlands and coastal communities. We will make sure that our offshore workers are the people who decarbonise our country and deliver our energy independence, and that there is a strong, resilient workforce in the North sea for decades to come.
Barry Gardiner (Brent West) (Lab)
My hon. Friend, very importantly, mentioned the role that carbon capture, usage and storage has to play in the decarbonisation of our economy. I am sure he will have seen the latest National Audit Office report on CCUS and will therefore be aware that the Department has increased its reliance on CCUS substantially since this was first mooted. The NAO is clear in its report that uncertainty remains about the funding available for future stages of the CCUS project proposals; that the previous Government were behind in agreeing support for track 1; and that future progress on the programme is dependent on reaching financial investment decisions for at least some of the track 1 projects very swiftly. Will he give us an update—if not now, at some point later—on how this essential part of the programme will be handled?
Michael Shanks
My hon. Friend raises a very important point. The Department is reviewing the NAO report at the moment. This area will need investment, but we also need a concerted effort to understand what some of the barriers are. It is very clear that carbon capture and storage will be a critical part of the North sea infrastructure in the future, so we are taking those issues very seriously.
Carla Denyer (Bristol Central) (Green)
I very much welcome much of what the Minister has said in this announcement, including on the need for a just transition for those working in the oil and gas sector. However, before the election, the Government made a commitment to end new oil and gas licences, although they are still planning to allow the new Rosebank oil field to open, despite it being connected to a level of carbon emissions that we simply cannot allow in this country. I have two questions about the future of oil and gas. First, will the Minister confirm how and when the ending of new oil and gas licences will happen? Secondly, will the Government reconsider the opening of the disastrous Rosebank oil and gas field?
Michael Shanks
I was hopeful that that was going to be a very positive question, but then we got to a “however”. I thank the hon. Lady for her support of what I have said so far. North sea licensing is an important issue. We were clear throughout the election that we do not intend to issue any further licences in the North sea. We are looking at how exactly that will come into force, and a lot of detailed work is going on because we want to give assurances to the industry.
On the question of Rosebank and some of those other fields, we have said that we will not bring to an end any of the licences that are currently in place. I cannot speak on some of the particular issues, because there are, of course, cases before the courts, but we will come back to the House in due course to set out the detail. What is important is that we have said that we do not want any new licences in the North sea and we stand by that commitment. We now want to work out a detailed plan, so that that just transition, to which the hon. Lady rightly referred, can come into effect.
I wish to finish on the warm homes plan, which the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) mentioned earlier and is so committed to supporting, and we are grateful to her for that. It will invest £13.2 billion in clean heat and energy efficiency over the lifetime of this Parliament, doubling the previously planned investment to upgrade 5 million homes, with grants and low-interest loans to support investment in insulation, low-carbon heating and other home improvements.
The latest Government figures show that 3 million households in England are in fuel poverty. In the private rented sector, the figure is one in four. Shamefully, the last Government abandoned their commitment to get those homes up to decent standards of energy efficiency, but we will not abandon tenants. We will ensure that homes in the private rented sector meet minimum energy standards by 2030, saving renters hundreds of pounds a year.
Michael Shanks
I will carry on, if that is okay.
We will ensure that we have a regulator that fights for consumers as well. We have seen repeated failures in recent years, including the scandal of the forced installation of prepayment meters, poor customer service, and consumers picking up the cost when companies go to the wall. The Government will overhaul the mandate, powers, remit and redress of Ofgem, and we will reduce the burden of standing charges, which have risen by £150 since the start of 2022. We will hold companies to account for wrongdoing and ensure that there is automatic compensation for those failed by their energy supplier.
Finally, the next 18 months in the run-up to COP30 are critical to ramping up and delivering on our global climate commitments. Britain must and will regain its influence on the international stage, so we will work with international partners to raise ambitions, including by leading a clean power alliance that brings together a coalition of countries to accelerate the clean energy transition.
The Government’s clean energy mission and our wider energy agenda are critical, not just for that international leadership, but as a route to lower bills, energy security and good, long-term jobs. There is no doubt that we are playing catch-up. If we succeed—and success is vital for all of the reasons that I have outlined—the benefits will be substantial and felt by everyone long into the future. We have wasted no time as a Government getting started in pursuing this mission and I look forward to the contributions of hon. Members across the House, so that together we can deliver this critical agenda for the future of our country.
Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and may I say how wonderful it is to see you in the Chair?
I warmly welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, the hon. Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks) to his place on the Government Front Bench. I know that he used to be a schoolteacher, a wonderful profession, and I am sure that his ability to wrangle with unruly children will help him with his work in this place.
I also welcome the continuation of the fine tradition started by my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) of having a Minister from Scotland in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. Scotland has played, and will continue to play, a vital role in our energy security, and I know that the hon. Member will bring his local expertise to the role.
I was surprised to see the title of this debate. Under the Conservative Government, we built more offshore wind than any other country bar China, much of it driven by our contracts for difference scheme, which weaves together the Conservative principles of competition and enterprise. It was under the Conservative Government that we went from having 7% of our electricity coming from renewable energy to almost half today, and it was under the Conservative Government that we kick-started the largest nuclear revival in 70 years, committing to three large-scale nuclear reactors and a whole new fleet of small and advanced modular reactors. That is the record that has led to more than £300 billion being invested in green technology since 2010, creating jobs up and down the country.
The Labour party likes to say that the difference between us is that they are the climate believers and we are the climate deniers, but that is obviously nonsense. It was under the Conservative Government that we became the first country in the G20 to have halved carbon emissions, and we did that while growing the economy. The real difference between us is this: we know that the transition needs to happen, but we recognise that it is now at a stage where we are asking the British public to incur great costs—to change their cars, their homes and many other things. We are way ahead of other countries, and what happens next is not cost free. If it is not managed carefully, if it is driven by ideology rather than the national interest, then it will cost us jobs, hit struggling families and leave us reliant on fuel imports from foreign regimes. This country will succeed in the decades ahead only if we have enough cheap energy to power our nation. It is no use being world-leading at cutting emissions if the cost of our energy goes through the roof and all our businesses leave to set up in countries that still burn coal for 60% of their energy. That would be worse for global emissions and a disaster for the British public.
We will do our bit from the Opposition Benches to hold the Government to account on their plans, but my message to those MPs now sitting on the Government Benches is that it is in their interest to ask these crucial questions too. Throughout the general election campaign, the people now sitting on the Benches behind the Minister told their new constituents that their plans would save them £300 on their energy bills—they said it in hustings, they said it in local media, they said it on their leaflets— but they will have noticed by now that their Ministers are no longer saying that at all.
This is the problem, Madam Deputy Speaker: when you get into government and you speak in the House, you cannot use numbers for which you have no basis. [Interruption.] Labour Members will learn that. But their voters—[Interruption.] They laugh, but their voters will not forget that they made that promise. Their online clips and social media accounts will not go away. They all know that their leadership have sold them down the river on this one. The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State know that those savings cannot be delivered; in fact, their approach to energy will add huge costs to people’s bills.
That is not us being evil Tories. It is also the view of the European lead for Mitsubishi Power, who said that the Labour party’s plans would require a “huge sacrifice” from Brits; it is the view of the GMB trade union, which has said that the Secretary of State’s plans will lead to power cuts and blackouts across the country and come at an enormous cost; and it is the view of the Tony Blair Institute, which says that Labour’s plans would raise bills and harm our energy security. People the Labour party normally listens to, from the right to the left of the party, agree with us on this issue.
I urge the hon. Members sitting behind the Minister to take this issue seriously and examine his plans in detail, because it is their promise, which they all made just a few weeks ago, that is being ditched. Come the next election, the first question their voters will ask is not, “Have you met the 2030 target?”, but, “What did you do to my energy bills?” If the trade unions, the business leaders and the Conservative party are right that their approach would place huge costs on British households, I can tell them that their constituents will check the parliamentary records and see whether they asked any questions, and they will have to explain why they let these measures pass without challenge.
Dame Meg Hillier
I have to congratulate the right hon. Lady on her chutzpah after 14 years of Conservative government. I have examined closely those net zero policies—the stop-start on feed-in tariffs, the failed competitions for carbon capture and storage, and the stalling of new nuclear. She does not have a record that she should be proud to stand on, and I would have hoped that she would graciously accept and back the innovative plans of the Labour Government.
Claire Coutinho
I have enormous respect for the hon. Lady, but I disagree, particularly on nuclear, because every single operational nuclear power plant in this country was started by Conservatives.
I will offer some suggestions for questions that Labour Members might like to ask. They like to say that renewables are cheap, and they are cheap to operate. After all, wind and sunshine are free. However, if we want to know what a type of power will do to our bills, we have to look at the full system costs. If we race ahead with renewables at the same time as making our gas power stations uninvestable, what will be our back-up when the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow, and how much does that cost the system? New technologies such as small modular nuclear reactors, carbon capture, and batteries of long duration storage are all welcome, but they will not be ready by 2030. What will be used, and how much will it cost?
Will the largest nuclear expansion in 70 years, which I set out, be sacrificed to pay for GB Energy? I know that Ministers barely refer to it any more, but nuclear will be critical to our energy supply in the years ahead. Have they made an assessment of how much their plans will increase our reliance on the current dominant provider of pylons, cables, batteries and solar panels, which is China? If not, when will they do so? How much private investment into the energy transition will they lose through their plans to tax the North sea into oblivion and ban new oil and gas licences? It is not a coincidence that many integrated energy companies in this country pursue both oil and gas and renewable projects at the same time; it is because they use the same skills, supply chain and workers. Industry says that more than £400 billion is at risk from these plans. GB Energy, at £8 billion, will not touch the sides of replacing that. How much will be lost, and where will the extra money come from? Will it be from central Government through people’s taxes, or will it be through the bills and standing charges of all our constituents?
The Government keep claiming—I think the Minister did so today—that GB Energy will turn a profit. I believe he said that “every single project” will make a return, but the slice of the pie that they want to invest in is the slice that even businesses do not think they can make money from. That is what de-risking means. Members should ask on what basis the Secretary of State thinks that he can turn a profit for the British taxpayer when highly experienced energy companies believe that they cannot.
If I were to give one piece of advice to the Minister it would be to do what I did when I first started the job. He should not listen to just one side of the climate lobby who pretend that there are no costs involved in this transition, but go to speak to industry, and to oil and gas workers, and listen to how much those families value secure, well-paid jobs on their doorstep. He should not follow the Secretary of State’s path of quoting only from the Climate Change Committee, and never from business or industry. The Minister’s job, first and foremost, is to keep bills down and the lights on. He should not forget those last two priorities, or he will find that those on the Benches behind him will turn very quickly.
Barry Gardiner
The right hon. Lady said that Members should not quote only from sources that they feel are friendly to them, so I will not quote from the International Energy Association, but perhaps she might accept a quote from the World Economic Forum, which stated:
“Renewables are now significantly undercutting fossil fuels as the world’s cheapest source of energy”,
according to its report.
Claire Coutinho
I thank the hon. Gentleman, but as I said, we have to look at the full system cost. He is very experienced in the energy sector, and he knows as well as I do that the flexible capacity that is used to back up an intermittent system is where the true costs lie. It is fair for Opposition Members to ask for an assessment of what those costs will be, and what they will mean for British bill payers.
The other area where the Government must be honest with the public is about what they are going to build. The Secretary of State’s first week in the job saw him approve 4,000 football pitches’ worth of solar farms on farmland in Rutland, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire. Those projects were not sat on my desk, as the Secretary of State has claimed. I had made a decision to reject Sunnica on the basis of a scathing examining authority report, and I changed policy to protect our best agricultural land. These are not projects that were likely to be approved; these are bad decisions. Work was being drawn up to be announced, but the decision had been taken in the case of Sunnica. The Secretary of State will know that from civil servants, who are duty bound to brief him honestly in the Department.
In the case of Mallard Pass, the site has been signed off, 40% of which will be built on our best and most versatile agricultural land, taking no notice of legal planning guidance that says that best agricultural land must be avoided. The Secretary of State and his Ministers will have to justify that, and many more decisions, to his new colleagues, many of whom now represent rural communities and whose constituents will be rightly concerned that they are next.
I wish the new Minister well for his time in the Department. The energy sector is one of the most interesting and important policy briefs affecting this country, and it is in all our interests that he does his job well. However, what the Government have done so far —make claims during the election that they cannot stack up now they are in government—will just not do. They have set out a hard target to decarbonise the grid by 2030, and the Secretary of State stakes his entire political reputation on it, without being honest about the costs. These issues are far too important for Government not to take seriously, and they are far too important for Labour Members to follow the Government blindly without asking questions. They did that during the election with promises to save households £300, and they can no longer stack up those promises just three weeks into Government. I humbly suggest that this is their first lesson of the Parliament: they should not give the Secretary of State a blank cheque again.
Mary Glindon (Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I wish you all the very best in your new role. It is great to be asked to speak first, so thank you—it is a total shock!
It is an honour to speak in this debate as the Member of Parliament for Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend, as we have a thriving offshore sector along the Tyne. To use the words of the Secretary of State, it is time for Britain to build things again, and my constituency is open for business. The UK has a lot to be proud of in its service sector, but it is a catastrophic error to have let manufacturing in this country decline. To cite the title of a report by the Institute for Public Policy Research, manufacturing matters. The conversation around manufacturing and services in this country is often binary—it is one or the other—but the reality for other countries is far from that. Importantly, the IPPR report points out that while we have lost over one third of our manufacturing strength since the 1990s,
“Countries like the US and France, which are similarly services-focussed, have maintained their manufacturing strengths at 1990s levels…Productivity growth in manufacturing was five times higher than in services between 1997 and 2021”.
High productivity means higher wages in good, well-paid jobs—jobs that I want to see in Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend and which match the aspirations of my constituents.
Dame Meg Hillier
Does my hon. Friend agree that these 14 years of Conservative government have been a missed opportunity? We have been shipping in components for wind turbines that could have been manufactured here, for example. We need the industrial revolution that a Labour Government will deliver.
Mary Glindon
Indeed, we certainly need to seize the moment now.
Our determination in this place to raise living standards for working people must be unwavering, and good jobs have their role to play in that. The past 14 years have seen unprecedented levels of wage stagnation. Resolution Foundation data shows that wages returned to pre-financial crisis levels only last year. That decade and a half of lost wage growth has cost the average worker more than £10,500 a year. I thought that there was a one nation tradition among those on the Opposition Benches—an element of the Conservative party that cared about raising living standards for the worst off—but after 14 years the Tories have left us with two nations: one rich, one poor.
As we try to unpick the mess that the Labour Government have inherited, the growth of green industry will be an exciting part of the way forward. I am thrilled that companies seeing the opportunities that Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend has to offer are bringing jobs to the region in the process. The expansion of green hydrogen is just one example of that. During a recent visit, I was amazed at the ambition of GeoPura’s hydrogen project at Siemens Energy in Byker, where it produces hydrogen power units to replace traditional diesel generators. That is an example of the private sector at its best: the sharpest minds coming together to solve some of the biggest problems that we face.
I am proud of the breadth of the energy and offshore sectors in my constituency. That includes the area’s oil and gas industry, which has understandable concerns about its future. We need to think exceptionally carefully about how we shape the sector in the coming years for working people who earn their living from oil and gas.
Mr Holden
The hon. Lady and I have worked together closely on some of these issues. Does she accept, as I do, that the Climate Change Committee says that in 2050, even when we have reached net zero, 25% of our energy will be met by oil and gas? It is so important for our energy security that we produce that oil and gas here in the UK.
Mary Glindon
That is exactly what the companies are telling me and, as a member of the former all-party parliamentary group on oil and gas, I know it has often been said.
The people working in these industries are worried about how their lives will change if they are not able to adapt to new industries. These are important jobs in our communities, where sweeping job losses are still in people’s memories. In Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend, it is not uncommon to speak to people who were affected or know someone who was affected by the de-industrialisation of the 1980s. The closure of the pits, shipyards and factories ruined people’s faith in politics and the economy for a generation.
The offshore energy sector includes independent oil and gas producers, large integrated energy multinationals, renewable energy companies and a supply chain that we need to keep here in the UK. That includes companies in my constituency, such as Baker Hughes and Peterson, which operate right across the UK and, indeed, the globe. These companies have the vision and ambition, which we all share, to deliver a home-grown energy transition and net zero. Almost £200 billion will potentially be spent over the decade, but the companies investing in nascent opportunities such as floating offshore wind and carbon capture and storage will require the cash flow from a stable and predictable oil and gas business to fund these opportunities.
I welcome Labour’s manifesto commitment to manage the North sea in a way that does not jeopardise jobs. However, I would be grateful if the Minister could set out, in practical terms, how he will safeguard important jobs and investment in communities like mine. Britain’s potential to become a clean energy superpower is not only exciting but necessary. As the Government accelerate this journey, I urge Ministers to ensure that no one is left behind.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
It is a genuine pleasure to see you in your new role, Madam Deputy Speaker. I also welcome the new Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, the hon. Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks), to his place. I look forward to a much more constructive way of working compared with what happened under previous Energy Ministers.
The race to net zero is the major economic opportunity of this century. The green economy must sit at the heart of economic growth, and the Government have work to do to rewrite the damaging narrative of the previous Conservative Government that this is about green versus growth, and to remedy their unforgivable failures that delayed, blocked and even reversed urgent action on climate change. Now is the time to move forward.
The global market for net zero technology is estimated to be $650 billion a year by 2030. We must use Britain’s unique geography and abundant natural resources—wind power and the world’s second largest tides—to consolidate our position as a green economic powerhouse. Community benefits, community buy-in and individual economic incentives are critical to making this a reality.
Bath and West Community Energy in my constituency is putting people at the heart of the energy transition and placing the ownership and control of energy in local hands. It raised £11 million from nearly 1,000 members and bondholders, and it has donated £300,000 back to the community for local food production, recycling projects and fuel poverty programmes, yet community energy was not mentioned in the Labour manifesto.
Imagine a future in which people can purchase clean energy directly from a local supply company or co-operative, and in which every pound spent on powering our homes or cars is recycled back into the local community, supporting jobs, funding new facilities and services and contributing to renewable energy infrastructure. That is what community energy is about: ensuring that people everywhere support and benefit from the clean energy transition.
The biggest barrier, especially for smaller projects, is the cost of access to the grid. There are regulatory challenges too, but surely the creation of Great British Energy should include the opportunity to realise the enormous potential of community energy. It is often local council and grassroots projects that show the greatest ambition to get to net zero. Until now, local authorities have been hampered by a lack of resources and a lack of co-ordination between central and local government. Even within central Government the co-ordination of net zero strategies has often been fragmented. We Liberal Democrats therefore call for a net zero delivery authority, both to devolve decision-making powers and resources to local government, and to co-ordinate all net zero strategies and decision making across central Government Departments.
The last energy crisis, which saw household bills in the UK spiral out of control, was exacerbated by the UK’s reliance on fossil fuels. Ironically, the previous Government did very little to accelerate the deployment of renewables. Onshore wind was de facto banned and the targets for the roll-out of solar were regularly missed. Only by fast expanding renewable energy—not just offshore wind—and prioritising a radical home insulation programme can we ensure that families will never again be severely out of pocket.
To fully realise the potential of renewables, the Government must address our outdated national grid. Nearly 100 GW of electricity from offshore wind projects is currently awaiting grid connections. I hear that that is now to be accelerated. That would have been sufficient to power 150 million homes. Some developers have been waiting for up to 13 years.
There is no shortage of capital or will to invest, but delays and rising costs have deterred investors, who see projects in other markets such as mainland Europe as a safer return on investment—I know that the Government are all over this, but I am setting out what the failures of previous Governments were. Significant new infrastructure is required to connect renewable energy from where it is generated to homes and businesses across the country, but the Government must pay close attention to the communities hosting the required infrastructure. I know that is a challenge, but I support the Government in understanding that significant infrastructure cannot be delayed, because we really need to get to net zero.
Mr Holden
I totally agree about the need for new infrastructure. Germany is now pursuing an “underground first” approach to new energy transmission infrastructure, rather than overground pylons. Does the hon. Lady agree with me and other Opposition Members that the UK Government should adopt that approach?
Wera Hobhouse
Indeed. We have had a Westminster Hall debate on that very subject, and I absolutely agree. Saving private companies money is no reason not to do something that is better for communities. Half the time it is all about what is affordable, so I agree that there is a very fine balance to be struck, but where other solutions exist than having big pylons that ruin the landscape, National Grid should look at them.
Sir Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)
The hon. Member claimed that Labour’s manifesto did not mention community energy. In fact, a statement from Community Energy England says:
“Labour’s Local Power Plan would turbocharge community energy and local climate action”.
It is an integral part of the Labour party manifesto.
Wera Hobhouse
I am only mentioning how important community energy is to Liberal Democrats. The Labour manifesto did not seem to have as much emphasis on it, but if we agree on it, hurrah! We all win.
Barry Gardiner
The hon. Lady is being generous in giving way. On the issue of undergrounding power lines, although that may in some cases be necessary for communities, does she not accept, given that it is 10 times the cost, that it is possible to screen the power lines and, in doing so, create biodiversity corridors that can connect biodiversity from one part of the country to another, so that biodiversity can cope with climate change?
Wera Hobhouse
Indeed, there are not easy answers to all these questions. We need to look at the fine balance of cost versus getting community buy-in. There is going to be a transformation of our landscape, and we need to be aware of that. We must also make a good case for why it is urgent that we get to net zero, and in my view that balance in the argument was not struck properly by the previous Government. It is important that communities buy into our big landscape transformation, but it is also important that we do this at an affordable cost for the whole of the UK.
We Liberal Democrats are calling for all new homes to be net zero immediately. It is crazy that we are building homes today that will need upgrading in a few years’ time. We are proposing a 10-year emergency upgrade programme for homes, starting with free insulation and heat pumps for those on low incomes. That will not happen without incentivising private landlords and having tougher energy efficiency targets. The private rental sector has the most energy-inefficient homes. Nearly half of households living in these properties are in fuel poverty, but local authorities have taken limited action to enforce minimum energy efficiency standards.
Whether it is tighter regulation on private landlords or further sanctions to ensure that they comply, the Government must put their mind to the private rental sector. We will ensure that energy efficiency for rentals is not brushed under the carpet. That includes incentives for the private rental sector. From discussions in the previous Parliament, I know that the Labour party is relatively reluctant to give money to private landlords, but without incentivising the private rental sector, I do not think that a home insulation programme will happen, particularly for low-income families. I urge the Government to think about that.
As well as landlords, businesses must be incentivised to invest in the green transition. The U-turning of the Conservative Government sparked immense distrust from industry, with the UK chair of Ford warning that her business needs three things from the Government: ambition, commitment and consistency. That is exactly what they must deliver. Years of stop-start investment have left the energy sector reeling. Businesses and trade organisations have long been calling for a detailed plan of action that offers the clarity and certainty that will make the UK an attractive country to invest in. I hope that this Government can finally deliver the certainty that the country so badly needs.
Climate change is happening, but every cloud has a silver lining. Seizing the economic opportunities of net zero will help us spread wealth and opportunity to every corner of the UK. From insulating homes to providing thousands of new jobs in the energy sector, it is clear that everyone can benefit from a thriving green economy. I look forward to working constructively with the new Government to combat climate change, reduce energy bills and be a leader in the journey to net zero.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Due to the large number of maiden speeches, and the fact that I want to get everybody in, I am now imposing a six-minute time limit—with the exception of maiden speeches. I call Jess Asato.
Jess Asato (Lowestoft) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and congratulations on your elevation to the Chair.
It is such a great honour to be in this place. My thanks for that must, of course, go to the people of Lowestoft, Beccles and the villages, who put me here. They have placed their faith in me to do what is best for them, to be their voice here in Westminster and to champion them nationally. And they have placed their faith in the Labour party to lead a Government worthy of this great country, to do away with the decline of the past 14 years and work to bring about a brighter future for all.
As I begin my role in making that happen, I would like to pay tribute to my predecessor, Peter Aldous, and his contribution to East Anglia’s position as a green energy leader, his defence of our local fishing industry and his campaigning for the WASPI women—Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign. I thank him for his many years of public service and wish him all the best for his future. I also pay tribute to his predecessor, Bob Blizzard, who very sadly passed away in 2022. He served the people of my constituency for more than 20 years, in local government and in Parliament, and his decades-long fight for a third crossing will see its fruition with the opening of the Gull Wing bridge later this summer.
Finally, I must mention Dame Tessa Jowell, my mentor, who was much loved and is much missed. I would not be in this place if she had not encouraged me to follow my passion for change. In her maiden speech, she implored Members to always
“ask themselves whether what they are deciding is what they would want for themselves or for their families.”—[Official Report, 14 May 1992; Vol. 207, c. 791.]
I aim to channel her dedication to public service and, as she called it, the human-sized picture each day that I have the honour of representing the people of Lowestoft in this place.
For me, politics is personal. I grew up near Lowestoft. I was a young carer for my grandmother and managed our precarious life on benefits. As a child, the daily struggle I faced was my normal, but it should not have been, not for any child. That is why I joined the Labour party 27 years ago. I know that when we are bold, we bring real and lasting change, such as the introduction of Sure Start. I know that when we are focused, we can eliminate the barriers to success; we can make people’s aspirations more than a dream; we can pull children out of poverty.
I represent the most eastern constituency in the UK, and for many people there it can at times feel as though they are at the end of the line, not just on the railway map but when it comes to political priorities. If politics is not about making those at the periphery central, it is nothing. We have failed if our focus is only on those who are most visible to this place. My job, and the mission of this Government, is simple: to bring those who have not been served well by politics back into the fold, proving to them that politics can work for them; that it can be a force for good. It is a job that I am relishing, and one that I am deeply humbled to be able to do.
Lowestoft is a special place to represent, with incredibly friendly people and our wide, sandy beaches and beautiful broads, which are a real hidden gem that I recommend colleagues visit. We are home to some great sights: for the thrill-seekers, there is Pleasurewood Hills, arguably the UK’s best theme park; Africa Alive, for those wanting a taste of safari without leaving the country; fascinating maritime and transport museums; the majestic Somerleyton Hall; and, whatever the weather, Beccles lido. Indeed, Members looking to book their next holiday should contact my office.
However, that beautiful scenery and the really close sense of community we find in places such as mine have been let down. Talking to constituents over the past 18 months, I heard the same issues again and again: people are disgusted by sewage in our rivers and the sea. They are concerned about the lack of flood protection and about coastal erosion, not least because of the devastating impact of the 2013 flood in Lowestoft and the precarious nature of homes on Pakefield cliff threatened by the sea. Most worryingly, they are concerned about feeding their children—a quarter of children in Lowestoft are growing up in deprivation, and 18,000 people have had to turn to Lowestoft food bank in the past year.
One of the most pressing issues for many residents is access to NHS dentistry. We are a serious dental desert —a 2022 investigation found that not a single dental practice in Suffolk was taking on new NHS patients. I met one constituent while canvassing who told me that he had grown so fed up with the pain, with no obvious remedy in sight, that he had pulled his tooth out with a pair of pliers in his garden shed. I think we can all agree that that is not a state of affairs we want to carry on with. Labour’s promised increase in emergency dental appointments will be a huge relief for local residents, and incentives for dentists will be crucial to attracting them to work in dental deserts such as mine. Our plans to introduce supervised toothbrushing in schools will also be essential for children’s future oral health.
Making sure that all children are able to seize all of the opportunities in life, challenging childhood inequalities and, importantly, addressing childhood trauma are central to my vision for politics. I am incredibly proud of my record outside of this place, campaigning for women and children alongside life-changing charities such as SafeLives and Barnardo’s, but I knew that, being on the outside, I could only do so much. That is why I am here to stand up for vulnerable people, and to make sure that our coastal towns and rural communities feel the benefits of Labour in power.
That is why policies like GB Energy are so important. They mark a break with the failures of the past. They demonstrate a true ambition and commitment to righting many wrongs. When the question is asked, “How do we make Britain a clean energy superpower?” my answer is: Lowestoft. My answer is: by unlocking our capacity to grow our offshore wind. The partnership announced yesterday between GB Energy and the Crown Estate represents a massive step forward for the country and a huge opportunity for my constituents. From a lack of housing to polluted rivers and seas, and from high energy bills to antisocial behaviour and much more, this Government have set their sights firmly on the issues that matter to people in Lowestoft, Beccles and the villages. I am very glad to support them in that.
Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
It is a delight to welcome you to your new position, Madam Deputy Speaker, which I am sure you will fill with great aplomb, as you have done other positions that I have seen you in over the past few years in this House.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) on her maiden speech. It was very interesting to hear about her background in the charity sector. Her tribute to former Members who were inspirations to her and who have passed away was very moving. I know in what high regard Tessa Jowell was held, particularly by those on the Labour Benches. It was also very nice to hear her tribute to Peter Aldous. He is a calm and quiet man in some ways, but he is also a very kind man who really did stand up for his constituents on many of the important issues that she mentioned. He will be missed by those on the Conservative Benches.
One of the first things that I did when I was a new Member was try to speak to constituency neighbours from other parties. Those conversations can be incredibly helpful and revealing, and can ensure that you work together on local issues that should really transcend party lines. I spoke just yesterday with the hon. Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst), who has taken an area of my former constituency. I hope the hon. Lady does that, and takes advantage of the all-party parliamentary groups. One of my best baptisms was with the hon. Member for Neath and Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), who was superb on the APPG for gambling-related harm. We worked together cross-party with MPs from Northern Ireland, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP, so I urge the hon. Member for Lowestoft to delve into the APPGs. She gave a fantastic maiden speech.
Thank you very much for calling me to speak, Madam Deputy Speaker. I want to touch on a couple of points that have been raised already, and then touch on a few local issues for my constituents, as well as making slight mention of a couple of national issues. The previous Government’s record is clear. We started with 7% of our electricity coming from renewable sources and ended with 50%. That was a good move for the long-term interests of the country. However, as the Committee on Climate Change says, and as I mentioned in an intervention, there will still be a need for oil and gas in the long term in our country. There is a manufacturing base for delivering that, which often works symbiotically with our manufacturing base for new offshore wind. I really hope that the Government think about and recognise that. When it comes to our energy security, I do not want our country at the mercy of foreign powers. I urge them to really think about the impact that not pressing ahead with new oil and gas in the North sea is having on constituencies, particularly in the energy heart of our country, around Aberdeenshire in Scotland. We will require it, so I think that is a mistake. I sort of understand politically why they might have gone for that, but I really urge them to think again in the national interest.
Since 2010, there has been over £300 billion of investment in our energy sector from the private sector. Whatever we do, it will be private sector-led. The relatively small investment figures that the Government have been talking about has been reflected on. I just urge them to ensure that whatever happens is private sector-led, and delivers the really good long-term jobs and growth for the country that we have been talking about and have secured over the last few years.
I want to pick up on a few things that the Government have said. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) mentioned the £300 a year, but the Minister did not cover that. Could he provide clarity on that issue? It is something that constituents up and down the country will think about.
The Minister talked about community-owned energy companies similar to Great British Energy. There have been experiences of that; there was Robin Hood Energy in Nottingham, which ended up costing taxpayers a huge amount of money in the long term. I am interested to know whether the Government are investing in the bits that the private sector will not invest in. How can they guarantee the returns that the Minister is talking about, and how can they guarantee that the policy will not cost taxpayers more in the future? As a former member of the Public Accounts Committee, I do not want to see, when I look into this in a few years’ time, that taxpayers were left on the hook when the private sector would not step in.
On the overall costs of the net zero plans, in the run-up to the general election, the Labour party dropped its commitment to spending £28 billion a year on moving towards the 2030 target. I really could do with clarity from the Government on the figures that they are looking at, given that in the months preceding the general election, shadow Ministers talked about it potentially costing hundreds of billions of pounds to get to that target.
As I mentioned in an intervention on the Liberal Democrat Front Bencher, the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), on energy infrastructure, the impact would be on communities such as Billericay, Bearsted, and Laindon in my constituency, where there would be 160-foot pylons right down the centre of an area of unspoilt countryside. I really would ask the Government to reflect on that, particularly as Germany is moving to an underground-first approach. If the Germans can do it, I do not see why we cannot. It was in the Conservative manifesto.
Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in July 2009, Steve Holliday, the then chief executive of National Grid, said on the record that going underground was a “no-brainer”? It was reported widely in various newspapers, as was his saying that when National Grid is required to go underground, such as when going through an area of outstanding natural beauty, it just does it. This requires Government to be muscular with private organisations, and to insist that they use the technology that they can.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. I remind the hon. Lady that interventions should be brief.
Mr Holden
The hon. Lady makes an incredibly important point. As technology develops, it seems remarkable that we are not looking at going underground as a sensible solution. She is absolutely right that it can and does happen; I think that it is a question of making it happen.
The Government seem willing to ride roughshod over local considerations. I ask them to take a little step back and just try to take communities with them. We got the first, second, third, fourth and fifth-largest offshore wind farms in Europe delivered under the last Conservative Government. Obviously, infrastructure was required for those, but the Government have to take communities with them.
I want to be able to back new renewables. That is a sensible thing to do, particularly in the offshore wind sector. That is why we saw, under the last Government, renewable energy go from 7% to 50%. However, we cannot ride roughshod over local communities. I urge the Minister, as he takes this policy forward, to consider the impact across the country.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call Polly Billington to make her maiden speech.
Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)
Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker, and congratulations on your elevation. It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden) —a constituency much closer to mine than the one that he represented previously.
First, of course, it is right to pay tribute to the fortitude and resilience displayed by my immediate predecessor, Craig Mackinlay, who represented the old seat of South Thanet. He demonstrated extraordinary strength of character when faced with life-changing injuries as a result of sepsis. His return to this House, when Mr Speaker permitted Members to applaud, was unforgettable. I know that he will use his elevation to the other place to promote his various passions, now including better prosthetics for amputees. I wish him and his family well.
Craig was immediately preceded by my good friend Laura Sandys. Although Laura took her seat for the party now sitting on the Opposition Benches, she and I have worked together on a range of issues, not least the importance of tackling climate change and the opportunities that a transition to clean and renewable energy offers in helping us to tackle social and economic injustice. If she were still in the House, she would have a lot to say in this debate. Before her, the South Thanet seat was Labour’s for 13 years. It was held by Dr Stephen Ladyman, a Minister of State in the last Labour Government who was able to effect real change for his constituency and beyond with his work as a Health Minister and also in the Department for Transport, where he secured the transformational high-speed rail service to Thanet. As a result, the three towns that now make up my constituency —Margate, Broadstairs and Ramsgate—became highly accessible to the rest of the country, and that accessibility is both a new thing and a constant characteristic of the story of this beautiful place.
Much is said in Thanet about DFLs—“down from Londons”, of whom I am unashamedly one—as though this were a new phenomenon, but it is a tradition that goes way back. New arrivals, mainly but not solely from the capital, have made their home in Thanet recently, as the pandemic has changed working patterns and the train link has made commuting more possible; but people have been coming down from London to enjoy the sea air, the sandy beaches and the stunning skies of Thanet for more than two centuries. J.M.W Turner started a trend that runs to this day.
Margate can argue that it is, in fact, the first seaside resort. Working-class Londoners took a sea packet down the river and stayed over in Margate, often only for a night, to fit in with the strict holiday limits before the trade unions secured a proper weekend for working people. In that tradition, I will be proud to vote for a better deal for workers when the time comes. Despite this strong working-class tradition, and the fact that Labour held its party conferences in the town after the second world war when Clement Attlee was our Prime Minister, the boundary changes mean that I am the first ever Labour MP for Margate.
From Chas and Dave to “Carry On”, Margate has been home—or escape—for some of England’s best entertainers. John Le Mesurier and Hattie Jacques lived there, and Eric Morecambe held his wedding reception in a pub in the old town. Margate is now the home of the world-famous Turner art gallery, which has driven the growth of a vibrant art scene, supported by Tracey Emin and involving the Margate art school and Open School East. Yet, as in so many places across the country, many people are locked out of access to the arts, either as makers or consumers. That is something that we can and must address as a Government, and as a community in East Thanet. My good friend the artist Bob and Roberta Smith, a resident of Ramsgate, campaigns tirelessly on that, and I welcome the Government’s approach to the school curriculum, which will mean that all children can experience art in all its forms.
Ramsgate is a town steeped in history, with the only royal harbour in the country, gracious houses built for naval officers in the Napoleonic wars, a rare Georgian church with a chapel dedicated to the heroes of the evacuation of Dunkirk, and Ramsgate tunnels, which were a place of refuge for hundreds of people during the second world war. Thanks to the Ramsgate Society and the town’s residents, there are blue plaques where van Gogh painted, where Wilkie Collins wrote and where Coleridge recuperated. It is also where the architect of this place, Augustus Pugin, built his home. This history deserves to be more widely known and celebrated, including the stories of ordinary people. Access to understanding the fullness of our past is crucial to shaping our future.
Ramsgate is also home to a publicly owned port, which hosts a range of companies and services, from the Border Force and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution to the wind farms that generate enough electricity to power more than a quarter of a million homes—wind farms owned by another Government, however, not ours. I look forward to working with my right hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench to ensure that Great British Energy enables not only more energy to be generated, but jobs to be created and supply chains to be developed, in Thanet and in places like it where high-quality jobs are in short supply, and renewable energy sources—commonly known as sunshine and strong winds—are plentiful.
This amazing climate means that Broadstairs is synonymous with holidays for many, but the reality is that its economy, like that of the rest of the constituency, is affected profoundly by the sewage scandal. As one business owner explained to me, “No one wants to paddle through poo.” It is a priority for me and the Government to tackle the sewage scandal, which has not only environmental and health implications, but economic implications for East Thanet.
What Thanet needs more than anything is a year-round economy. That will require something that so many towns need—including that of my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato), as well as Beccles and the villages—and that is a coastal communities strategy that addresses the challenges faced by constituencies such as mine and makes the most of what these amazing places have to offer. For all of the ways in which Thanet is unique, my experience here and elsewhere in the country tells me that, as ever, we have more in common than that which divides us.
Thanet shares challenges with many other coastal communities: poor healthcare, creaking bus services, a housing crisis partly driven by unregulated, short-term holiday lets, shocking crime statistics, blighted high streets and few good job opportunities. It shares opportunities, too: renewable energy, heritage, stunning natural assets and the creativity and determination of the people who live in our coastal communities. Whether born here or drawn here, people value Thanet’s unique character—it is one of our unifying characteristics. Like many before me, I have chosen Thanet and I am honoured that it has chosen me. I felt able to ask the voters of East Thanet to have me as their MP because it is a place where I can walk safely and freely in town hand in hand with my wife. That is a precious and special thing.
Thank you, Thanet, for having me. I may not have the wit of Chas and Dave, the timing of Eric Morecambe or the vision of J. M. W. Turner, but I will serve you as best I can.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call Pippa Heylings to make her maiden speech.
Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and congratulations on your new role. I also congratulate the hon. Member for East Thanet (Ms Billington), with whom I worked before we both came to this Chamber, through UK100 and elsewhere, on local climate action, which I will speak much about today. I also congratulate the Minister and the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero.
It means a great deal to me to make my maiden speech during a debate in which the new Government are setting out green energy policies and plans to get us back on track with our climate pledges here at home, so that we can once again contribute on the international stage towards collective global action. Closer to home, Government research shows that local climate action would achieve net zero for half the cost of the national approach and deliver three times the financial returns, but we need a clear framework between the national and the local and for how councils fit into the national plan for net zero, including community energy initiatives.
Let me say how proud and humbled I am by the faith the residents of beautiful South Cambridgeshire have put in me. They wanted change, and this was a truly historic result. The Liberal Democrats won all three Cambridgeshire seats, turning them from blue to yellow for the first time, forming a golden ring around the constituency of the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner). I congratulate him on his appointment as the Minister for farming. We have a golden ring, or rather a golden doughnut with red jam in the middle, and it is thanks to family, friends and activists, many of them here today, that that happened.
I am a lass from Hull, whose dad was a GP and mum a nurse. From an early age, I accompanied my dad on his home visits to patients, and it was those roots in the NHS that fostered in me a deep sense of community service, as well as an insight into the links between inequality, child poverty and poor health outcomes. That is why I am proud that the Liberal Democrats put the NHS and social care at the forefront of our campaign, after years of Conservative chaos and neglect left the NHS on its knees. I will continue to campaign to get fairer funding for our GPs in Cambridgeshire, because the unfair funding formula in Cambridgeshire is leaving GPs struggling to keep their heads above water.
Inequality was a cruel determinant in the covid pandemic and led to many avoidable deaths. South Cambridgeshire helped avoid more. It was here that the quick deciphering of the covid virus’s genetic code allowed for the vaccines to be developed straightaway. That partly explains why they were available in record time. The researchers then continued to detect the variants as they emerged. It was truly lifesaving. That is part of the reason why semi-rural South Cambridgeshire is fast changing. It is now home to world-leading innovation, with Europe’s largest biomedical centre and the Wellcome Genome Campus, as well as more than 8,000 start-ups and businesses, most of which are small or medium-sized enterprises.
Our world-leading tech and life science sectors are among the biggest contributors to the country’s economy, and I invite the Government to recognise that. They are the goose that lays the golden egg, which is why their future needs to be shaped carefully with and through the local authorities, giving local people a voice and tackling affordable housing, the water supply, transport and grid infrastructure gaps in a way that allows communities, businesses and nature to thrive.
That is why I would like to pay my respects to my predecessor, Anthony Browne, who worked hard to raise those issues. He supported the calls on Government to tackle the water crisis, and I look forward to continuing his work supporting the campaigns for the new cancer and children’s hospitals, too. I also pay tribute to his predecessor, Heidi Allen, who is still remembered fondly by many residents. Sadly, Heidi stood down from politics as a result of the abuse that many MPs—mainly women —face. In her words,
“Of course public scrutiny is to be expected, but lines are all too often regularly crossed and the effect is utterly dehumanising.”
Heidi had become an MP to stand up for the vulnerable and for those who have no voice. Now, more than ever, I want to continue their work by helping to ensure that there is a positive and inclusive vision for all in South Cambridgeshire where no one is left behind. It is distressing that 15% of children in my constituency are living in poverty, with increasing numbers dependent on food banks and free school meals, isolated in villages with no public transport.
This inclusive vision must include our unique and precious chalk streams that connect us—our blue veins; the silvery threads weaving together our villages. We have the Granta that twinkles through Stapleford, Linton and Balsham; the River Shep that starts in Fowlmere nature reserve and flows through Shepreth and Barrington villages; the River Rhee that flows through Haslingfield and Harston; the Mel that rises in Melbourn and flows through Meldreth; and the Fulbourn and Wilbraham chalk streams. Residents are rightly outraged at the dumping of raw sewage in these streams and rivers. I urge the Government to get tougher with the water companies. Together with the Government, I will champion breathing new life into the Chalk Streams (Protections) Bill. I have worked professionally for many years with Governments around the world to integrate climate and nature into growth plans, mediating agreements where benefits can flow to local communities.
What motivates me most is how young people see their future. A recent study on young people found that too many had climate anxiety. Their most used words were fear, anger, frustration and worry. There were two main reasons why they felt this way: first, they did not think that decision makers listened to them; and, secondly, they thought that decision makers did not care or take the right decisions for their future. I have met many young people in South Cambridgeshire who feel this way, and they want action on the twin climate and nature emergencies. I speak to them now: I want what we do in this Chamber to restore your faith and give you agency, so that together we can be the change that we want.
Sir Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)
Madam Deputy Speaker, congratulations on your elevation.
Today, we stand on the brink of a new era for our country, with the recent announcement of an historic partnership between Great British Energy and the Crown Estate that will usher in billions of pounds of investment for clean power. This landmark collaboration will be a defining moment in this new Government’s mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower, highlighted by the introduction of the Great British Energy Bill to this House.
I share the concern of many in this Chamber that, for too long, families and businesses had to endure sky-high energy bills. That was due to mismanagement and exposure to volatile international markets. Great British Energy will be owned by British people and fortified with £8.3 billion of new investment. It is positioned to drive clean energy deployment across the United Kingdom, promoting job creation, energy independence and economic revitalisation. The formation of Great British Energy signifies a definitive break with the past, steering us towards our ambitious goal of clean power by 2030.
The Crown Estate, with its extensive £16 billion portfolio and newly enhanced investment capabilities, will synergise with Great British Energy’s strategic oversight. This will enable up to £60 billion in private investments and ensure that the benefits of our home-grown, secure energy will be felt across our nation, from urban areas to rural communities.
It is essential that we collaborate with the private sector, which will allow us to amplify our renewable energy capacity—to double onshore wind, triple solar power and quadruple offshore wind—by 2030. This broad-based investment in renewable energy represents an investment in our future energy security and independence. This ambitious plan will not only produce cheaper power for our constituents, but ensure that profits are reinvested back into our communities.
The creation of Great British Energy marks a critical step towards generating clean energy, cutting energy bills and delivering good jobs, particularly at a time when our constituents are grappling with the consequences of previous Government failures, which led to an energy insecurity crisis.
I have served on the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee since its formation. I strongly believe that accelerating our investment in energy infrastructure is critical. Initiatives such as the green prosperity plan will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs in clean industries by 2030. This plan is vital to securing British leadership in the global clean energy transition.
I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister is proud that Great British Energy will be headquartered in Scotland, ensuring that every corner of our United Kingdom plays a critical role in this green revolution. Alongside the lifting of the onshore wind ban, approval of significant solar power projects, and the establishment of a mission control headed by Chris Stark, yesterday’s announcements underscore our Government’s commitment to securing Britain’s energy future. Furthermore, the Government’s plan to impose a windfall tax on the record profits of oil and gas companies will serve as a financial leveller. It will redistribute excess profits and ease the public burden.
The transition to renewable energy must be meticulously planned and executed. In this context, the burning of woody biomass for electricity presents substantial risks to our clean energy future. The Government need to reconsider subsidies for large biomass generators—such as Drax and Lynemouth power stations—which under current subsidy arrangements could significantly undermine our carbon reduction goals.
Investigations have revealed that Drax, the UK’s largest emitter of carbon, has been involved in practices that are environmentally unsustainable and counterproductive to our objectives. Extending the subsidies could result in an increase in carbon emissions and burden bill payers with higher costs. The Government must heed the advice of independent bodies, such as the Climate Change Committee and the National Audit Office, by ensuring that any future subsidies are conditional on sustainable practices. That will promote the use of local waste biomass over imported material.
Furthermore, an equitable transmission away from North sea oil and gas remains crucial. Despite 50 years of drilling, those resources are depleting and cannot meet UK demand. Increased domestic oil and gas production would not alleviate high energy bills or enhance energy security, as global market forces determine those prices. By ending new oil and gas licences and speeding up the adoption of renewable energy, we solidify our position as a world leader in climate action—
Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
I add my congratulations to you on your new role, Madam Deputy Speaker.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Preston (Sir Mark Hendrick), and equally, I congratulate all those who have made their maiden speeches in this debate. In particular, I join the hon. Member for East Thanet (Ms Billington) in paying tribute to Craig Mackinlay, who was a superb Member of this House. As he makes his transition from being the bionic MP to being the bionic peer, I think I speak for the whole House in wishing him well.
On today’s subject matter, I want to be clear from the outset that we absolutely have to decarbonise and we absolutely have to defossilise. The challenge laid down to our great innovators and scientific minds is enormous, and those great minds are rising to the challenge, from electricity generation to the fuels of the future. But that is also why I am so frustrated by an approach to cleaner energy and cleaner fuel from Government that always seems to favour the first, but not necessarily the best or most sustainable, solutions for the future.
Let me start with the controversial topic of solar. Since I was first elected in 2019,
the threat of large-scale solar developments has caused significant concern for many of my constituents. Across my constituency and parts of my former constituency now represented by others, field after field and farm after farm have already been blanketed by solar panels, to the detriment of the surrounding community, food security, nature and landscape. Food security is national security, yet before any of us who were elected on 4 July had even sworn in, the new Energy Secretary had signed off 6,000 acres of solar installation, later admitting in his statement a week after that a land use strategy was yet to come. We simply cannot have this language of community consent when the decisions that are taken walk all over the views of the communities so badly affected. Smaller, stand-alone solar is less impactful, quicker and easier to install, does not risk damaging the local infrastructure, and provides an additional, reliable source of income for many struggling farmers.
It is not just the panels that consume vast amounts of our countryside. The infrastructure needed to carry the electricity generated through to the grid swallows up yet more. It is no coincidence that adjacent to the proposed Rosefield site in my constituency a battery storage facility is being put forward. In the ultimate manifestation of the tail wagging the dog, National Grid has come along and proposed another huge land take essentially to rebuild the east Claydon substation next door.
Let that be a warning to any community where solar is coming: it does not end with the panels. Solar has its place, but that is on our rooftops and not our fields. Research by the wonderful charity, Campaign to Protect Rural England, found that there is potential for 117 GW of renewable energy to be generated from rooftops and other existing developed spaces in England. We should be prioritising that, and not losing our agricultural land.
My solution has always been to propose nuclear as the option, and to look at small modular reactors. I have given this statistic in the House before, but I will do so again: we need around 2,000 acres of solar panels to generate enough electricity—on current usage and before everybody has two Teslas on the drive—for 50,000 homes. By contrast, just two football pitches are required for a small modular reactor that will power, again on current usage, 1 million homes. I fail to see how anyone can look at those two competing land uses and choose solar over the small modular reactor. It is simply not a good use of land to turn our farms into solar.
Let me move to another clean energy that I am particularly passionate about, and away from electricity generation to the future of fuel. The United Kingdom is already an international powerhouse in the field of synthetic and sustainable fuel, with companies such as Zero Petroleum innovating right here, and international companies such as P1 Fuels making huge investments in bringing the manufacturing of fossil-free fuel to the United Kingdom. It is a straightforward fact that there are 1.4 billion internal combustion engine vehicles on the road worldwide, and that is before we start counting agricultural and construction vehicles, planes, ships and so on. They are simply not all going to convert to electric, as some argue that they should. Green hydrogen mixed with atmospheric carbon capture makes a wholly man-made liquid hydrocarbon that works in everything we already have. After more than a century’s refinement on those engines, and this clean fuel will just work in them.
Mr Holden
On the point about synthetic fuels, is it also the case that for several types of vehicle, such as incredibly heavy vehicles or those that need to travel incredibly long distances, there is no battery option, and synthetic fuel as an alternative is exactly where we need to go?
Greg Smith
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Certainly for heavier application vehicles, batteries just would not work. I saw a diagram at one of these companies that shows that if we were to try to make a 747 fly on batteries, the batteries would be bigger than the plane. Therefore, that is not a viable option going forward. Synthetic fuels are entirely man-made. There is no need to grow food to burn or recycle old chip fat, or for raw earth mineral mining for batteries; it is just clean synthetics. My ask to the Government, as they look to a clean energy future—that is the right ambition; where we disagree is on how we get there—is that they truly embrace synthetic fuels and make them mainstream. They need to be scaled, and in order to be scaled, manufacturers need confidence that the Government will permit that.
An important point to finish on is that the carbon at tailpipe when these fuels are burned is the same volume that is then recaptured to make the next lot of fuel. They are net zero. It is one volume of carbon in a perpetual circle. I congratulate the Minister on his appointment, and ask him to take the message back to the Department that we need to embrace synthetic fuels as part of the clean energy revolution that he claims at the Dispatch Box to want to see.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call Torcuil Crichton to make his maiden speech.
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
I congratulate you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on your appointment, and it is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) and to hear so many other maiden speeches today. They make faraway places such as East Thanet and Lowestoft, with which in fact my constituency has old herring connections, seem closer to us. It has also been a pleasure to hear so many maiden speeches this week from my 35 fellow new Scottish Labour MPs. I realise that that number somewhat brackets the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks), who blazed a trail for us. I am delighted to see him on the Front Bench, just as I am delighted to see my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West (Martin McCluskey) bar the doors so that everyone has to hear what I am about to inflict upon them.
With your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker, and my translation, I begin: Mar urram dhaibhsan a thànig romham agus iadsan chleachdas i as mo dhèidh, tha mi togail mu ghuth nam chànain fhèin airson Na h-Eileanan an Iar. In honour of those who became before me, and those who will surely use my native language after me, I raise my voice today for the people of the Western Isles.
The commonest question I am asked in this House, apart from how to pronounce the name of my constituency, is how I manage to travel from Westminster to the Western Isles. Of course, the easy answer is by Tardis, but the honest answer is that here we are a mere hop and a skip away from Glasgow, and then I travel by a small jet—on schedule, hopefully—to Stornoway. As I board that small, tubular jet, I feel almost like a character in “Succession”, but I know that there is gold at the end of the flight.
Of course, we are connected; we are not in the middle of nowhere but at the heart of the Atlantic. We have the wealth of wind that will deliver the benefit of jobs, growth and energy security for this country in years to come. Those Atlantic islands and the western seaboard are what will give GB Energy meaning and reality in that transition from east to west, away from the North sea and away from the myth that we will not be there in another two generations. Two generations of my constituents have earned energy security for this country from the North sea, and two generations more will continue as we make that just transition to renewables.
That will be done with the heft of two Governments—the UK Government and the Scottish Government—and will require the muscle, investment and expertise of commercial developers. Vitally, it must involve the consent, involvement and power of communities. Just as the Labour Government of ’97 established, from the pre-devolution Scotland Office, a community land unit enabling communities to have the means and wherewithal to take over their own land, setting in chain the land reform revolution in the highlands and islands, I am encouraged that this Labour Government are open to ideas such as a community energy unit, to enable communities such as mine to take their stake in that wealth of wind, and create a template that can be used across the whole of Britain. These are themes to which I will return, alongside the unfinished business of land reform—I read today that a highland estate is for sale at £12 million, with carbon capture and the Ponzi scheme of peat restoration attached, and I know that that is unfinished business.
Of course, wild weather and radical land politics are not the only things that the Western Isles have to offer the United Kingdom. There are deep connections to the country and to this place itself. The tide of the Thames that rises and falls outside, marked by Mary Branson’s “New Dawn” high up there in St Stephen’s Hall, is the same tide that covers and uncovers “Sheol an Iolaire”, a tidal installation that I installed in Stornoway harbour, along with my good friend Malcolm MacLean, to mark a wartime tragedy and the loss of a ship of that name.
That same tide that sweeps into the Viking bay of Stornoway also laps Tarbert in Harris, Lochmaddy, North Uist, Lochsboisdale and Castlebay in Barra. That Hebridean archipelago of nine—or is it 10— islands guards our western approaches. Were they to be transposed on to a map of mainland Britain, they would run from London to Sheffield in length—with better scenery, of course. That is why I am reluctant to enter the traditional rivalry between maiden speakers of declaring their constituency the most beautiful in the country: when they come, they will see that there is no competition.
I do not intend to give a Cook’s tour of my constituency, but Barra, the jewel of the Hebrides, is where Angus MacNeil, the former MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, resides: fior Ghaidheal—a true Gael—and a generously spirited man, whose chairmanship of many Committees in this House was testimony not just to his political acumen, but to his ability to befriend people across the Chamber. That is one characteristic of my predecessor that I hope to emulate.
I will not take the House around the whole of the Western Isles, because time is short, but there are some other political monuments that deserve mention. I have no fewer than four former Labour MPs in my constituency on whom to lean for advice: Dame Anne McGuire, the queen of Stirling; Ian Davidson, the former Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee, who is still campaigning for Labour; Calum MacDonald, the former Labour MP for the Western Isles and our community wind farm expert; and, foremost among them, Brian Wilson, a former Energy Minister, whose counsel I commend to those on the Front Bench, and who has been a guiding light for me since he hired me at the West Highland Free Press as a journalist many years ago.
In passing, I cannot but pay tribute to those above us. I do not mean the angels; I mean the devils in the Press Gallery, among whom I danced for many years as a journalist for the Daily Record and The Glasgow Herald and as a freelance broadcaster for the BBC. Of course, it is Friday and nearly lunchtime, so they are not there. When I was in the Lobby, it was always nearly Friday, and always nearly lunchtime.
In a double transfer deal, which performed that rare feat of uniting the Westminster Lobby and Downing Street, I am joined on these green Benches by my hon. Friend the new Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh), who was my Lobby roommate upstairs and will now join me here. On the old maps, my constituency might have been marked “Here be dragons.” My hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale slayed one to get here.
I will not detain the House with descriptions of whisky, salmon, scallops that reach Singapore in 24 hours, Harris tweed or beautiful bays, but I remind the Minister that the people of the Western Isles have the tenacity, the wherewithal and the resourcefulness, embodied in the Arnish yard near Stornoway, to act as a stepping stone in the journey to renewables and to clean energy.
It has been a long road from there to here. Many people have helped, and since I have arrived I have had many messages of support, and prayers and passages too. As I come from one of the most religiously observant parts of Britain, that comes as no surprise. One passage, from an old friend, has stayed with me. To save the Hansard reporters, who are probably struggling with the accent, never mind the translation, I will do the task for them. She said: “May your conversation always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to deal with anyone”—biodh ur comhraidh an-comhnaidh grasmhor, air a dheaneamh blasta le salainn.
Seasoned with salt, Madam Deputy Speaker. I like that. I hope that all our exchanges in this House will be gracious and seasoned with the salt air of the Atlantic and our common future, because in this Chamber and in this kingdom, we are all islanders.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call Adrian Ramsay to make his maiden speech.
Adrian Ramsay (Waveney Valley) (Green)
Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker, and congratulations on your new role.
I am honoured to follow the maiden speeches of other Members, including my constituency neighbour the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato), with whom I look forward to working, and the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton), whose speech I enjoyed very much, particularly his closing remarks about delivering our speeches with some salt and showing a gracious approach to engaging with one another in this House. Many hon. Members, particularly new Members, have talked about the opportunity to set a new tone in our politics in this Parliament, one of working constructively and showing a respectful approach to how we work together. I thank the hon. Member for setting that out.
I am grateful for this opportunity to make my maiden speech as a new MP, one of a group of newly elected Green MPs, and as the MP for a brand-new constituency, the beautiful Waveney Valley on the Norfolk-Suffolk border. As it is a new and additional seat, I do not have a direct predecessor to pay tribute to, but I will briefly thank all five of the previous MPs whose seats I have taken part of, for their work in representing the residents whom I now have the honour to represent. I thank Richard Bacon, Dan Poulter, Jo Churchill, Peter Aldous and Thérèse Coffey for their work as MPs.
I am proud to be in this place today to represent Waveney Valley, which has been created as an additional seat in the east of England. As a native East Anglian, it is an honour to be able to represent such a wonderful constituency spanning such beautiful parts of Norfolk and Suffolk. I hope that other hon. Members, who are no doubt equally proud of their constituencies, will indulge me for a few moments as I try to give them a sense to what it means to me. From its vibrant market towns with lots of independent businesses on the high streets to the beautiful natural environment of East Anglia, with the Waveney and several other rivers running through it, Waveney Valley is a fine example of picturesque and historic East Anglia. The ancient market town of Diss is mentioned in the Domesday Book; Bungay has a Norman castle; the towns of Eye and Halesworth date back to Roman times; and Harleston dates back to the medieval period.
Creating a constituency that spans the county border of Norfolk and Suffolk was considered controversial by some, but personally I think it is an exciting opportunity to embrace cross-county working, and much of the constituency reflects a natural community around the Waveney. That said, there is one contentious question that some people put to me: which football team do I support? I am proud to be a lifelong Norwich City fan, but in football as in politics, I am not tribal, and I warmly congratulated Ipswich Town on their recent promotion to the premier league for the first time since 2002. It is a great thing for East Anglia, and I very much look forward to celebrating having two premier league men’s football teams in East Anglia this time next year.
What really makes Waveney Valley special is its people —people who care about their community; who, like me, have a strong sense of local identity; and who demonstrate great ingenuity and care for their communities. I could cite many examples of that ingenuity, whether from farming, the third sector or local businesses, but to give just one example, the indoor marketplace in Diss opened last year in a former department store. It is a community initiative, giving local traders affordable small spaces to sell their crafts and goods in a shared space—a lovely boost for the local economy in a building that would otherwise have sat empty. What a great example of regenerating the high street.
People in Waveney Valley are rightly proud of our market towns and villages, but they also feel let down by the loss of local services and the degradation of our environment in recent years and decades, which has particularly affected our rural communities. As has been noted this week, we have
“the Sahara of dental deserts.”—[Official Report, 23 July 2024; Vol. 752, c. 506.]
One of my constituents told me that they make a four-hour round trip to access a dentist. Over a quarter of the residents I surveyed over the winter said that they are going without dental treatment, and like the hon. Member for Lowestoft—from whom we heard earlier— I have had examples in Suffolk of people telling me they have resorted to pulling out their own teeth. This cannot go on, and I welcome the new Government’s commitment to reform the dental contract, which is the root cause of this issue and of the exodus of dentists from the NHS. I hope to hear a timetable for that plan as soon as possible.
We have also seen a decline in other health services in my rural constituency. People find it hard to get access to a GP appointment in many areas; we have had local hospitals close in market towns; and we also have rural isolation, with so many bus services axed or cut back, particularly in villages.
At the same time, we have the scandal of sewage in our rivers, which the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings) spoke about so eloquently, and which I know so many Members across the House feel extremely strongly about. People are horrified by this threat to people’s health and to wildlife, and they rightly see it as a sign of wider environmental neglect. I very much hope that the restoration of nature and tackling the sewage scandal are made top priorities by this Government. Whether it is on the growing use of food banks, people suffering from flooding or the decline in our services, I want to see real action that genuinely accounts for the needs of our rural communities.
Because of their anger about the loss of local services and the decline in our environment, people in my area were determined to vote for a change at this election. They are used to having Green councillors standing up to represent them, and they voted for an MP to stand up for their area. I will press for the restoration of local services and the defending of the local environment.
It is my intention to serve the people of Waveney Valley by seeking to bring people and places together. I will work across political and constituency lines to get things done, scrutinise and constructively challenge the Government, and work to improve the lives of my constituents. As many other hon. Members have said, we have an opportunity with this new Parliament to put our politics on a more mature and civilised footing and move beyond tribal approaches, and I am confident that that is what the public expect of us. I have had thousands of conversations with local residents over the past few years, and I know that they want an active and visible local MP. I am determined to fulfil that role—to be Waveney Valley’s voice in Westminster and not Westminster’s voice in Waveney Valley.
I would like to set out how I am approaching an issue in East Anglia that has attracted a lot of interest from some right hon. Members and the media. I have been a climate campaigner for 25 years—that has been my primary passion since I was a teenager—and making a difference on climate and the environment has guided everything that I have done in my career, including spending the last decade leading national charities whose purpose is to support the renewable energy sector. I am the first to argue that we need to scale up all types of renewable energy, and there was much in the Minister’s speech to welcome.
If we are to scale up renewable energy at the pace required to tackle the climate emergency, we need to take communities with us and make infrastructure decisions that are right for the long term. What I have called for in relation to the infrastructure proposals that are currently on the table for East Anglia is a proper options assessment of the different ways in which the energy generated by new wind farms in East Anglia is connected to the grid. Today I have heard two hon. Members from two different political parties from mine refer to the fact that there are different ways in which we can connect that renewable energy to the grid. I think that simply calling for an options assessment is a very reasonable approach. I am also calling on the Government and the planning process to account for the points raised by wildlife trusts, local councils and communities about the impacts of the current infrastructure proposals.
The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero has set out that there is a planning process to be followed, which the Government should not prejudge, and the Prime Minister has said that he wants to reset the tone on the political debate—something I very much welcome. In that spirit, I ask that we move beyond some of the comments that have been made in this Chamber on the particular infrastructure proposal that I have referred to; that the Government commit to working with communities to ensure that infrastructure decisions are made in a way that properly accounts for the issues raised by wildlife organisations and local communities, and genuinely look at the options that different Members are highlighting; and that if a version of the current proposal does go ahead, the mitigations proposed by organisations such as Mid Suffolk and Babergh district councils, and the wildlife trusts, are properly taken on board and full compensation is put in place that accounts for the impact on farmers’ livelihoods and on others affected.
On the wider subject of today’s debate, I welcome the creation of Great British Energy and much of what the Minister shared in terms of scaling up renewable energy. I politely point out, though, that to get to net zero we have to move away from fossil fuels as well as increasing renewable energy. To that end, I would ask the Government to place a strong emphasis on energy efficiency measures. The Minister referred to home insulation, but what I have heard so far will only scratch the surface of the home insulation measures needed to keep bills down and homes warm.
I also urge the Government to reconsider the Rosebank oilfield, which will have carbon emissions equivalent to 28 low-income countries, and to ensure that carbon capture and storage projects are never allowed to be an excuse for millions of tonnes of carbon pollution.
I have two other points on climate. First, with significant climate change already happening around us, or already locked in as a result of emissions to date, far more public policy attention needs to be given to how we adapt to a changing climate, as well as to mitigating the worst excesses of climate breakdown. We need to look at those things together, and I look forward to returning to this issue on another date.
Secondly, the decline of climate and nature must be seen as equal and twin problems. I stand ready to work with those from across the House to shift the UK from being one of the world’s most nature-depleted countries to getting on track to meet environmental targets, including on nature recovery.
It is an honour to be here to represent the people of Waveney Valley. I have set out my guiding principles as a Member of this House, which are to stand up for our rural communities, for the restoration of public service and for the most vulnerable in our society, and to press for the urgent action needed on the twin climate and nature emergencies. I will play a constructive role in this House by supporting the Government and working with other parties where I agree with them, and in pressing the Government to be bolder on restoring nature, responding to the climate emergency and rebuilding our public services. And I will always speak up for the people of Waveney Valley.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call Dr Zubir Ahmed to make his maiden speech.
Dr Zubir Ahmed (Glasgow South West) (Lab)
I congratulate you on your election, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I congratulate hon. Members on discharging their responsibilities and delivering their maiden speeches, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton)—I am sure he will correct my pronunciation and give me some honest feedback. I also welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks), to the Front Bench. It is timely that I am making my maiden speech on a day when we are discussing how Scotland might shape the energy needs of these islands for many decades to come.
I thank and pay tribute to my predecessor, Chris Stephens, for his dedicated service to our community over the last nine years. His commitment to social justice and workers’ rights is inspirational and will leave a lasting impact. I am particularly thankful for his advice and counsel during the handover process that is currently taking place.
Glasgow South West is a synthesis of many different communities, each with recurring contributions to the 850-year-old second city of empire. If you will allow me, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will give the House a short synopsis of the place where I live, work and play.
We start in Darnley, Deaconsbank and Pollok, much of it occupying the old Pollok estate, the laird of which —Sir John Stirling-Maxwell—was a Member of this place and founded the National Trust for Scotland in 1931. In more recent times, these areas have demonstrated the transformative possibilities of their co-operative spirit through the Rosehill housing co-operative and the Pollok credit union.
Moving north, the ruins of Crookston castle come into view. Built by the Stewarts of Darnley in the 1400s, it is the only medieval castle standing in Glasgow, and it is possibly where Mary, Queen of Scots, was betrothed to Lord Darnley. It remains an underutilised community asset, but I commend the friends of Crookston castle for their efforts to bring this space back into the service of the people of Glasgow.
A short distance from the castle, the wonderful communities of Mosspark, Dumbreck and Cardonald are nestled around the great expanse of Bellahouston Park, which has played host to numerous music concerts, papal visits and the empire exhibition of 1938.
As we head further north, we come to Ibrox, which is synonymous with Rangers football club. Now, I must stress, Madam Deputy Speaker, that other Glasgow football clubs are available; my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes) and for Glasgow East (John Grady) can take you for a tour around them. Govan is the birthplace of Sir Alex Ferguson, a footballing legend, but also a friend to Members on the Labour Benches; he has often given wise counsel to my party. It is also the location of the Queen Elizabeth university hospital, formerly known as the Southern General, one of Britain’s largest hospitals and the place where I honed my skills in surgery and practice as a transplant surgeon. My research leads me to conclude that I am the first transplant surgeon to be elected to this place.
Govan’s shipyard history is, of course, world famous, and the Fairfield Heritage Trust and Govan Workspace have brought that to life. More importantly, it continues to serve the defence of our realm even in the modern day, and to be part of Glasgow South West’s story; we have BAE Systems and Thales, alongside fintech and medtech companies such as Barclays and Cohesion Medical, as well as award-winning TV and film companies such as Firecrest Films. We can see the kind of high-quality jobs of the future that can be available to local people. These are the kinds of jobs I want to grow as part of this Labour Government.
As we head towards the edge of the constituency, we find the BBC Scotland headquarters. The BBC has an important function in the fabric of our national life, not only in informing, educating and entertaining, but as a beacon of our soft power on the world stage—something I wholeheartedly support. Just as national broadcasting is important, so is the local, and nothing encapsulates that better in Glasgow South West than Sunny Govan radio station. It provides an eclectic mix of music, but also, more importantly, runs sobering stories and is a source of comfort on some of the challenges in our community.
We end our Glasgow South West journey in Pollokshields, an area my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) knows well. It is a true melting pot of cultures and ideas, and the place where my father’s one-month road journey from Pakistan ended in April 1963. He would go on to drive buses in the city, and then black cabs—he is in his 80s and he still does.
In the undergrowth of this rich history and potential, however, there are some worrying signals. There is the weariness of working ever faster and longer just to stay still, the anxiety of wondering how secure that work is, and the trepidation at the end of a day of work that you may not be able to pay for the odd treat that makes life worthwhile, or even the essentials. It is against that backdrop that we on the Labour Benches were sent to this place to make the economy work for working people, and to restore the intergenerational covenant —the promise that the lives of the generations after us will be better in every sense than our own. Politics for me is not, therefore, about the indulgent combative tweet, or even the theatrical amendment. It is the about seeing the world through the long lens. It is about having the stamina for diligent analysis, the patience to articulate policy and then, when in power, the discipline to deliver enduring change. That has always been the Labour way.
Every Member elected to this place recognises electoin for the singular honour that it truly is, but it also takes a village to be elected to this place. That includes, of course, the tireless staff and activists who are in many ways the DNA of our democracy, but there are also, for all of us, those who shaped our life and now shape our politics. When I reflect back, I think of my parents and my extended family, who, from a cradle in a Govanhill tenement, instilled in me the raw ingredients to do my utmost in every walk of life. I think, too, of my teachers and my mentors, who moulded those ingredients into the art and craft of a widely practised surgical career, and of my wife and children, who keep me connected to the earth and in contact with reality, particularly when it is much needed.
Out of all those people, I think of my maternal aunt, Matloob Mohammad, who stands out. She had no children of her own and considered us her children. Like too many in our Labour family, she was taken by glioblastoma—as was my father-in-law, Tony—in 1997. Her patient journey through our NHS inspired me to become a doctor and then a surgeon. She also, in many ways, inspired my political journey. She quite inadvertently introduced me to this place 29 years ago. After queuing outside, we found ourselves in the Strangers’ Gallery watching a combative Leader of the Opposition by the name of Tony Blair taking on the then Prime Minister. If she were here today in that Gallery, she could not fail to notice the changes in the make-up of this Parliament reflected back up at her.
We have our challenges in modern Britain, but it is important to be unashamedly proud of the fact that we are demonstrably the most successfully ethno-religiously diverse legislature in the world. In these volatile times, I believe the world looks to us in this place, the mother of Parliaments, for guidance, and for the solace that democracy can still deliver. I am confident that it will.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call Sarah Bool to make her maiden speech.
Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak. I congratulate you on your election to the Chair, and commend the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Dr Ahmed) for his passionate and touching maiden speech.
South Northamptonshire—one of the few constituencies to have two geographical terms in its name—comprises the majority of the seat held by Dame Andrea Leadsom; parts of the former Daventry constituency, which was held by Chris-Heaton Harris; and parts of Wellingborough constituency, recently held by the hon. Member for Wellingborough and Rushden (Gen Kitchen).
As is tradition, I must start by paying tribute to my immediate predecessor. Dame Andrea Leadsom was a powerhouse, a tour de force, not only in industry, but in Parliament, where she served the people of South Northamptonshire for 14 years. She served as City Minister, Leader of the House, Secretary of State for the Departments for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and, latterly, Minister for public health, start for life and primary care.
As Leader of the House, Dame Andrea spearheaded the creation of the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme, which has helped many Members and staff across the House. She is wonderfully compassionate and has been an incredible mentor to me since my selection to stand. She was a strong advocate on issues to do with early years. In her start-for-life role, she opened family hubs in 75 local authority areas. Her determination to open the first family hub in South Northamptonshire will support so many local families in giving their child the best start in life. I know that she is determined to continue that work in the years to come, and she has my full support in her endeavours.
Although the right hon. Member for Daventry (Stuart Andrew) may have an opportunity to speak to the legacy of Chris Heaton-Harris, I cannot let this opportunity pass without paying tribute to Chris, as he was such a dedicated statesman. He spent 10 years in the European Parliament and 14 years as the Member for Daventry, including as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, a crucial role—all the while still finding the time to be an active qualified football referee, officiating at games at different levels for more than 42 years. Chris supported me during my campaign. I saw the warmth with which he was greeted on the doorstep, and how highly regarded he was by his constituents—a role model to follow.
In their maiden speeches, both former Members paid tribute to their predecessor, the now Lord Boswell of Aynho, who represented South Northamptonshire for 23 years and whom I also had the pleasure of meeting during my campaign. They both noted that he had been described in The Daily Telegraph as a saint. During my hustings, one of my opponents, noting my apparent “road to Damascus” conversion from commercial property lawyer to campaigner against inappropriate development, dubbed me “Saint Sarah on the road to Silverstone”. While I am not expecting a call from the Pope any time soon, as a jibe I quite liked that one!
South Northamptonshire is a constituency with a rich history—from Bozeat to Brackley, both of which were mentioned in the Domesday Book, and from Harpole to Deanshanger, the latter being the location of one of the 703 miracles that Thomas Becket performed, which led to his canonisation. We seem to be truly blessed. We have Lactodorum, or Towcester as it is now known, in the centre of the constituency, and the Saracens Head public house is mentioned in Charles Dickens’ “The Pickwick Papers”. We even have Sulgrave Manor, the ancestral home of the family of George Washington, the first President of the United States of America. Having grown up in Rutland, I have to remember that the River Nene is pronounced “Nen”, not “Neen”—I was frequently quizzed about that on the campaign trail.
In recent weeks, I have suddenly become very popular with many Members, and while I would love to think that it was because of my friendly nature, it turns out that many have realised that I have the world-famous Silverstone in my constituency, and they would love to address their need for speed. I am incredibly proud to represent the home of the Grand Prix, and this year to witness the victory of our British talent Lewis Hamilton. It is safe to say, given that King George VI has been the only reigning monarch to attend a British motor race, that I would love to extend the invitation to His Majesty the King.
I chose this clean energy debate for my maiden speech because it is an important issue that will have a big impact on my constituents. While there is no doubt that we need to look at renewable and diverse energy sources for our future energy security, destroying thousands of acres of prime agricultural land cannot be the solution to this ongoing question. In our area, we have already seen the solar farm application made at Greatworth, and now the Green Hill solar farm, proposed for a location near Grendon and the surrounding villages in my constituency, would take over 2,000 acres of productive farmland and convert it to solar panels and associated battery storage.
The fact that the Government have so quickly—in a matter of days—signed off proposals for over 6,000 acres of solar farms is of great concern to me because of the precedent that it will set. Schemes like this will jeopardise our food security and scar our beautiful countryside, when there are other sensible solutions. We should be looking to industrial rooftops and transport corridors at a minimum. The Minister talks of community benefit, but there is no engagement with the community who have to live alongside and with these panels. It is a case of “marry in haste, repent at leisure”.
Disagreeing with the Government’s approach to this matter leads me to mention one of my key priorities for my time in this place. I firmly believe that in all our debates we can disagree agreeably, and that was a message I advocated during my election campaign. Discussions nowadays are too polarised, too black and white, and far too hostile. We need robust debate and discussion, and we need to take the heat out of difficult issues so that we can reach the best resolution. I want to ensure that we adopt a fair and balanced approach, seeing both sides of the issue but settling on that which resonates most, and that is always my promise.
I also want to be a champion for those with hidden disabilities, such as diabetes. Having myself been given the shock diagnosis of late-onset type 1 diabetes just three years ago, I understand the difficulties of adapting to life with a hidden condition. Technology has enhanced our quality of life, but it is still difficult to access that technology, and I want to help in whatever ways I can and to champion this cause, as Lady May has over the years. One upside is that I will always be carrying some form of sweets for low blood sugar, so Members know where to come if they are in need!
Before I end my speech, I want to take a moment to note my inspiration for entering politics: my father Kenneth, who is now an honorary alderman of Rutland as a result of his 20 years of service and his dedication to helping his community. That dedication extends to my family too, in his marriage to my beautiful mother Maria; they celebrated 51 years together in May. Their love and dedication to each other is a model to follow, and I am privileged to have them as my parents. I also would not be here in this Chamber without the support of my siblings—my sister Lorraine, her husband Richard and their children Joshua, Dominic, Jonty and Olivia, and my brother Matthew and his wife Barbara. I say, “Thank you beyond words.” When my parents first brought me to visit Parliament when I was about 10 years old, I could only have dreamt that one day I would be standing here addressing the House—and, indeed, them in the Gallery. Dreams really can come true.
The honour to stand here today is and always will be mine. I say thank you to the people of South Northamptonshire for placing their trust in me and allowing me to champion their causes. I am here to serve them, regardless of political persuasion.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call Alan Gemmell to make his maiden speech.
Alan Gemmell (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to make my maiden speech in this debate on energy policy—a subject of great importance to my constituents and people across the UK. I congratulate you on your recent election.
I pay tribute to other hon. Members who have taken an early opportunity to give their maiden speeches, including the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool). It is the first time I have followed someone on the road to canonisation—[Laughter.] I would also like to thank my colleagues from Scotland who are speaking today, including my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Dr Ahmed), and to agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) about how good it is to hear so many Scottish voices on this side of the House.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Prime Minister said that this Government will be one of service, and it is an honour to speak in the Chamber as the Member for Central Ayrshire—the place where I was born and raised, and where I live. It is a privilege to be in Parliament and in government, and to be here in the service of the community where I grew up.
I pay tribute to my predecessor, Dr Philippa Whitford, who was a popular and assiduous local MP, whose public service included a much celebrated career as a consultant breast cancer surgeon. I also pay tribute to two previous Labour MPs, Sandra Osborne and Sir Brian Donohoe. Sandra is known as a champion of women’s rights, and a campaigner against poverty and for peace in the middle east. Brian is better known to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, as the chairman of the Members’ pension fund. He uses his voluminous knowledge to good effect but, having spoken to him at some length this weekend, I do not recommend individual consultations at this time.
I also thank my husband. The spouses and families of politicians sacrifice a lot for our careers. Damien has been at my side around the world, and I am grateful to him for his support.
Many hon. Members have spoken of their constituency’s beauty, while inviting other Members to visit. I do not feel the need to make that invitation, as I was happy to see Members from this place, the other place and the Scottish Parliament in Troon last weekend for the final days of the Open. They were there not just for one of the best coastlines in Scotland, great seafood and wonderful pubs and hotels, but to see a world-class golfing competition that sold more than 250,000 tickets and will deliver more than £200 million to the local and Scottish economies.
Central Ayrshire is blessed with great towns and villages, and people who work daily for our communities. Earlier this month, I met the Friends of the Broadway Prestwick, who are working tirelessly to raise millions of pounds to bring a 1930s cinema in the heart of the town back to life. Their passion and commitment is inspiring. I visited the Troon lifeboat station and was told that from 1871 to today, 668 lives have been saved by its brave volunteers.
In Irvine, each year the Marymass festival, also known as Murmuss, sees tens of thousands of people come to enjoy our parade, the crowning of the queen and teams of people trying to climb the greasy pole. If new Members need help in that area, I am happy to invite the winning team of this year’s competition in the autumn. Marymass includes horseracing on Irvine moor, at which my dad has been known to commentate. On the same moor in 1887, Keir Hardie gave his first recorded political speech in which he emphasised the need for working class representation in Parliament.
Much of Central Ayrshire has a connection with Robert Burns, Scotland’s national bard. Burns lived in Irvine for a time and co-founded the Bachelors’ Club in the village of Tarbolton. Lochlea, in Craigie, is one of Scotland’s newest distilleries and is on land that Burns once farmed. It will be for my hon. Friends the Members for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Lillian Jones) and for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Elaine Stewart) to tell more about the man and the myth.
I might remind the House of a prominent American who also made a visit to the constituency. On 3 March 1960, Sergeant Elvis Presley spent a precious two hours in Prestwick airport. I think we can say that the rest was history for that man’s career after some time spent on our precious soil. If hon. Members are looking at me today, they may see a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on here too.
Prestwick is today a centre of the Scottish aerospace sector, with big ambitions. I was delighted to welcome my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business and Trade to meet GE Caledonian during the election campaign to hear about the tens of millions of pounds of investment it has already secured. NATS in Prestwick —helpfully not the Nats from the Opposition Benches, but the UK’s leading provider of air traffic control services—employs 600 highly skilled people at its centre and ensures that the 2.5 million flights to and from the UK each year arrive and depart safely.
Spirit, one of the UK’s largest aerospace manufacturers, announced recently that its Prestwick operations, with over 1,200 people, would be better served by a third-party owner, following an acquisition by Boeing. I have had assurances from the company that Prestwick is an integral part of its Airbus supply chain and will continue to be a key supplier to Airbus under any new owner. Aviation is critical to UK and Scottish GDP, and we should all be proud that it is an industry where the UK leads. I am proud that so much of it is in Central Ayrshire, where there is the potential to do much, much more.
I come from an ordinary working-class family from my constituency. My mum progressed from working in a factory to representing people at mental health tribunals as a lay advocate. My dad lost his job in the ’80s and became a council binman—a job he was proud of. With great teachers and support, I have had incredible opportunities, including a life-changing chance to study piano at the junior school of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music, and latterly being the UK’s trade commissioner in south Asia, working with brilliant British, Indian and Bangladeshi colleagues to bring some tens of thousands of jobs to the UK and billions of pounds of investment. With the Scotch Whisky Association, I helped secure a 50% reduction in tariffs on Scotch in the state of Maharashtra. I was delighted to find out that Ardagh Glass in Irvine makes much of the glass that the Scotch whisky market exports around the world.
But on returning to my community to stand as their MP, I was shocked. Far too many people were struggling, including the woman in Springside who said she turned off her freezer and cried every night from hunger, the man in Girdle Toll who said that he spent much of his life savings on knee surgery rather than waiting in agony, and the family in Troon who have been waiting two decades to access social housing and have given up hope. Grandparents and parents were asking from where their children’s jobs would come.
I blame failed policies and failed politicians for this poverty and lack of opportunity. That is why I was proud to campaign for a Labour Government led by my right hon. and learned Friend the Prime Minister to deliver jobs and bring down bills with GB Energy, increase funding to our NHS and schools, and ensure that the lives of working people across the whole country improve. From sport and culture to trade and enterprise, this Government will turn struggle into hope and hard work into real opportunity.
I have seen the difference that having opportunities makes. I was particularly happy this week to address a group of young people from north Ayrshire who had been inspired by Parliament’s Education Centre and by the chance to stand as an MP in this place—I just hope that not too many of them will do it soon. I thought that representing the UK around the world was the best job I could have had, but representing the families of Central Ayrshire will be the privilege of my life.
Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I welcome you to your position. I congratulate the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Alan Gemmell) on his first contribution to this House; it already sounds as if he has made a huge contribution to the UK around the world, and I am sure his constituents are looking forward to him acting for them.
I will begin by echoing the words of my hon. Friends the Members for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson) and for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool) about the impact on agricultural and rural land of the Government’s plan to cover them with cables, pylons and other energy infrastructure. The sheer concentration of this infrastructure on prime agricultural land in communities such as New Deer, Maud, Turriff and Leylodge in my constituency and the apparent lack of ability for communities to engage in meaningful discussion on this will in no way bring the public along on this crucial national endeavour.
However, I am going to focus on the key issue for my constituents and those across north-east Scotland, and that is the oil and gas sector: the jobs, expertise and investment that we will be putting at risk if the Government rush towards their green energy agenda. No matter how much the Minister may wish otherwise, we cannot and will not have a green energy revolution without the existing oil and gas sector, its skills and, crucially, its funding. The companies that make their money from oil and gas developments now are the key investors in our renewable energy sector and carbon capture projects—that is undeniable. We must make the UK an attractive place to invest in all energies in order to attract and keep multinational companies here, and to keep them investing here in the future. We have to draw only a very short line to realise that if we dismiss, alienate and penalise the traditional oil and gas parts of energy companies, the boards of those same companies will turn their backs on the UK for more sympathetic and attractive investment opportunities elsewhere. We would lose not just the current investment in oil and gas, but the potential for investment in renewable energy.
Does the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero or the Minister expect that we will have stopped using oil and gas by 2030? Of course not, so why are we banning new oil and gas licences and cutting off our own domestic energy supply? Why are the Government happy to see tens of thousands of home-grown jobs put at risk, and why are they happy to increase our reliance on imports of oil and gas produced with a higher carbon footprint from more volatile markets overseas? If there is a reason other than simply to fulfil their narrative of being a “green energy superpower” I am yet to find it.
The UK, thanks largely to Aberdeen and the north-east, has long been an energy superpower—an oil and gas superpower. That status, built over half a century, has led to the energy sector’s skills, expertise, companies and workforce being honed and housed in north-east Scotland—not just the subsurface and technical skills of the likes of geologists and engineers, but, crucially, the experts in supply chains. Those will be vital to the renewable energy projects of the future. Our workers in the oil and gas sector know how to deliver huge, multinational, high-budget projects—exactly the skills that will be needed to deliver the Government’s green energy revolution. Again, the Government risk losing those crucial skills by moving too fast and not planning for a jobs and skills transition alongside the energy transition.
Labour idly calls the investment allowance aspect of the windfall tax a “loophole” and plans to remove it and increase the tax rate to 78%; indeed, it boasts about doing so. Yet there are estimates that the combination of no new licences and changes to the windfall tax will cost £20 billion in tax revenues and risk up to 100,000 direct and indirect jobs. Last year, the leader of the GMB union said that Labour’s plans to end new oil and gas licences are “self-defeating”. I agree.
Mr Holden
Does my hon. Friend agree that while windfall taxes can be levied on oil and gas that is extracted in the UK, we will not get those revenues for decades if we do not have oil and gas exploration in the North sea? We will see windfall taxes going to foreign Governments across the world but none coming here. Does she agree that it makes no sense at all, for jobs in Scotland or for the UK Exchequer, not to have oil and gas exploration in the North sea?
Harriet Cross
I absolutely agree. It is so important for all those reasons—for jobs and future tax revenues—that we retain our domestic supply of oil and gas. Alongside the leader of the GMB calling the Government’s plans “self-defeating”, the former leader of Aberdeen council quit Labour last year, saying its plans were a “brutal attack” on the sector. Again, I agree.
Just as Rome was not built in a day, the experience and expertise of the oil and gas sector—the energy sector—did not develop in a day. However, the vital skills and investment that we will rely on to deliver the transition to cleaner, greener energy will be lost in no time at all if the Government do not listen, appreciate them and act to protect them. The warning signs are there, and we must not ignore them. Without the existing workforce, the energy transition will take longer, be more expensive, and be less efficient—truly an unwanted trilogy for any Government.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call David Baines to make his maiden speech.
David Baines (St Helens North) (Lab)
I am delighted to be able to make my maiden speech as the Member of Parliament for St Helens North during this important debate. Before my election to this place, I was the leader of St Helens borough council and the Liverpool city region lead member for net zero, so this debate is on a subject that I care deeply about, and one that I hope to contribute to in the years ahead. If the House will indulge me briefly, we are at the end of the school year in England, so speaking also as a former teacher, I put on record my thanks and respect for teachers, teaching assistants and all school staff. I know the challenges they have to overcome, how hard they have to work, and the difference they make as a result. I hope that they all have a very well-earned break in the coming weeks and that, if they are not already by a pool, they are very soon.
I congratulate all new Members who have made their first contributions in this place so far. The previous maiden speech was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Alan Gemmell); with his constituency’s connection to Elvis and his own piano lessons, I hope he will be joining the new parliamentary rock band, which I know my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (John Slinger) is keen to get set up. If they need a roadie, I am available. All the maiden speeches so far have set a very high bar, and it is great to be a Member of a Parliament that looks and sounds like the country that we represent. It is diverse, and it is strong as a result. I also thank all parliamentary staff who have worked so hard in recent weeks, helping me and all of us to find our way around.
I pay tribute to my predecessor, Conor McGinn. He served St Helens North and the country with dedication, helping to secure significant funding for our town centres and delivering Helen’s law and equal marriage in Northern Ireland. There are many people on both sides of the House who worked with him and will miss seeing him around the place, and I know they will join me in wishing him, his wife Kate, and their children the very best.
It is the honour of my working life to be elected to serve St Helens North as its Member of Parliament. I grew up in the constituency, in the former mining village of Haydock—a person from Haydock is known locally as a Yicker, and I am fairly certain that I am the first Yicker elected to this place. I grew up there in the 1980s, raised by my mum and dad, who themselves grew up in Blackbrook and Parr. Growing up at that time in St Helens, I could not help but be aware of politics. Decisions taken in this place by the then Conservative Government deeply affected my community and the people in it, and not for the better. I had to wait until I was 17 to experience a Government who demonstrated that they cared about communities like mine and people like me.
My own children are now 11 and seven, and as their dad I am relieved for them that they will grow up under a Labour Government who are passionate about improving life for them and their generation, creating opportunities, and rebuilding Britain brick by brick. I thank the voters of St Helens North for giving me the opportunity to serve, to be part of that change, and hopefully to prove that government and politics can be a force for good. I owe a huge amount of thanks to my family, especially my mum and dad, and above all my wife Helen and my two children. Members in all parts of the House will know that you cannot do this job and do it well without the support of your family, and that is certainly true in my case.
My home of St Helens North is made up of historic, distinctive villages around and including the towns of St Helens and Newton-le-Willows. The industrial revolution and all the advances made by our country in the 1800s and beyond simply would not have happened without the toil and ingenuity of working people in the communities that I am now proud to represent. From the railways to chemicals and canals, from coal to glass and farming, it was the people of my constituency and many other similar areas across the north of England who built and shaped the 20th century.
My constituency and the wider borough of St Helens are now home to thousands of businesses, from multinational brands to innovative and hard-working small and medium-sized companies. We are also home to Parkside in Newton-le-Willows, a former colliery site that—thanks to the hard work of previous MPs, the Labour council, our partner Langtree, and the city region—is now being regenerated and developed into one of the most significant employment and investment sites in the north-west of England, with huge potential for rail freight and advanced manufacturing. We need to make sure that young people have the skills and opportunities to access the jobs that this development and others will create in the years to come. This week’s announcements about Skills England are therefore extremely welcome.
My constituency is also a hotbed of sport. Boxing, darts and numerous amateur clubs thrive in St Helens North. We are home to Haydock Park racecourse, the world’s oldest open rugby club at Liverpool St Helens, which was founded in 1857, fantastic cricket and football clubs, and St Helens rugby league club—three-time rugby league world champions. Although the ground is technically in St Helens South and Whiston, it does live in the hearts and souls of many people in St Helens North, including mine.
We are also home to a magnificent and hard-working charity and voluntary sector. Our churches and community groups work all year round to support the most vulnerable, and this, to me, is what lies at the heart of what I love most about my home and the people I share it with. I had the responsibility of leading the local council through the pandemic, working hand in hand with many fantastic local organisations, as well as public and private sector partners. The kindness and strength that my community showed during those times was overwhelming, as it was, I know, in most of the country. At the start of the pandemic, we set up a campaign called St Helens Together to co-ordinate support, and I am proud to say that that ethos is still with us, as we work to collaborate on tackling the challenges we face. In my role as MP, I am excited to continue supporting that work and the many fantastic people and organisations involved.
Once proudly Lancastrian, and to many of us still exactly that, my constituency, and the wider borough, is now also a leading member of the Liverpool city region, working to deliver the jobs, transport, skills and clean energy that St Helens North and the region needs—which brings me to the subject of this morning’s debate. As I mentioned at the start of my remarks, I was the Liverpool city region lead for net zero before my election to this place, and I had the privilege of being involved in projects such as HyNet, and Mersey Tidal, which has the potential to power 1 million homes and create thousands of high-skilled jobs, and in St Helens we are delivering Glass Futures, which is a world-leading project that will decarbonise the global glass industry—no small boast.
Our metro mayor, Steve Rotheram, and local leaders, including our new St Helens Borough Council leader, Anthony Burns, are ambitious for what we can achieve. Just as we led the world in the first industrial revolution, so we can lead it in the green industrial revolution. The threat of climate change is real, and it is urgent, but the mission to tackle it and the journey to net zero, if done in the right way, can also be an opportunity for new jobs, new investment, new skills and new opportunities for workers and for businesses—growing our local and regional economy and at the same time protecting our energy security in a volatile world. Great British Energy is just one vital and exciting part of Labour’s broader agenda for government, and it is why I was proud to vote for the measures in the King’s Speech.
Since those votes earlier this week, there has rightly been a lot of attention on child poverty, and, as someone who has been concerned about this for almost all my working life, and who has tried to raise the issue for years, I am delighted that it is finally being talked about. The previous Labour Government lifted children out of poverty, and I have no doubt that this Government will too. But, if we are going to lift children and their families out of poverty, it has to be a whole-Government approach. Everything is connected to everything else.
We need the child poverty strategy, and action to follow it urgently, but we also need economic stability and a strong focus on inclusive growth. We need Great British Energy and affordable energy. We need new social and genuinely affordable homes. We need new jobs and the new deal for working people. We need investment in our town centres and high streets, investment in public services and the staff who provide them, and high aspirations for every single child, starting with a properly funded, properly resourced, broad education. Those are the manifesto commitments I supported this week.
It will not surprise anyone to hear that, as a former teacher, I am a firm believer that there is no greater tool for social mobility or personal fulfilment than education, and I am evidence of it. I was a shy and quiet working-class kid at school, and it was not until I went to sixth-form college, and particularly university, that I eventually gained the confidence to believe in myself and stand up in front of others and speak—and I would never have dreamed that I would be doing it here in this place.
I would not be here today if it had not been for that experience of higher education, and I think we should resist at all costs any of the growing arguments that some degrees and time spent learning are worthless, or that too many young people are doing degrees. What I suspect some of those behind such claims mean is, “too many of the wrong people”. Well, if it is good enough for the children of the wealthy, it is good enough for working-class kids like me and those to come.
All children deserve those opportunities, including those with special educational needs. There is a crisis right now in the system, which is leaving too many children and their families waiting far too long for assessment, and then, when they are assessed, they too often do not get the support they need, despite the best efforts of their schools and school staff. Whether they are children in mainstream education with dyslexia or autism, or children in special schools with more complex needs, every child deserves to be able to access a full and vibrant curriculum with adequate support and adjustments to help them achieve their best. The parents of these children are every bit as ambitious for them as any other parent, just as parents of state-school pupils are equally ambitious as those who can afford private schools. All they ask, like any parent or any child, is for a fair chance.
I am encouraged to hear our new Government talking about these issues already, and about the challenges that our schools, pupils and their families face. I intend to do all I can to help deliver the change that they, and we, all need. If young people are to access the jobs of today and tomorrow—in AI and life sciences, clean energy and more—we must be focused on opening every possible door, not closing them.
In conclusion, we have been sent to this place with a mandate to change the country and to change lives for the better. There is a huge amount to do, but Labour’s plans for the country are ambitious and, most importantly, deliverable. For as long as I am in this place, I will do all I can to help give all our children and young people the tools and opportunity to reach their potential, and to ensure that the benefits of the change we will bring are felt by people in St Helens North, as well as the country as a whole.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call Alison Bennett to make her maiden speech.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and congratulations on your appointment to your new role. I congratulate the hon. Member for St Helens North (David Baines) on his maiden speech and election to Parliament. He is right to remind us all about the role of aspiration and all children seeking to do their best. I must pay tribute to my parents: to my father for sparking my interest in politics, and my mother for telling me, when I was 17, “If you don’t try, you’ll never know what you can do.”
It is truly the honour of my life to take my seat in this place. I am the fourth person to serve Mid Sussex since the constituency was created in 1974. I thank my predecessor, now the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies), who has already given her time and support in relation to urgent issues affecting children in both our constituencies. It would be amiss not to acknowledge the noble Lord Soames in another place, who is held in high regard by the good people of Mid Sussex.
Due to the vagaries of boundary changes, I had to go back some 50 years to the maiden speech given by the late Baron Renton to find the original and only maiden speech made by a Member of Parliament for Mid Sussex. On reading that 1974 maiden speech, I briefly considered a simple copy-and-paste job, such is the relevance of his speech echoing through the decades to the moment we find ourselves in today. He raised concerns about the expansion of Gatwick airport, about housing growth without vital infrastructure, and about doctors and teachers not being able to afford a house. All those things are important to people in my constituency, as well as to the Liberal Democrats.
Of special note was Baron Renton’s call for more generous attendance and disability allowances, so that people can be properly cared for by loved ones in their own home. The importance of having a care system that truly works and genuinely supports carers is critical to ensuring that we live in a civilised society, where regardless of someone’s life stage and their physical or mental health, they can live the best life possible and achieve their potential. We must care about care. We must make that a priority of this new Parliament.
In the most recent boundary changes, a significant proportion of Mid Sussex, and the area that is my home, was formally part of the Arundel and South Downs constituency. I thank the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith) for his courteous and prompt handover of casework. I probably owe a bigger debt of gratitude to his predecessor, Lord Herbert of South Downs. The noble Lord might not realise it, but he played a hand in lighting the touchpaper on my political journey that has led me to be here today. During the EU referendum campaign, the noble Lord was chairman of Conservatives for Reform in Europe. He kindly agreed to come to my village one afternoon to join a cross-party stall for remain that I was organising. It might be said that he inspired me. As a Liberal Democrat, I will always advocate closer ties with our European allies and neighbours. We believe that, in a world this unstable and dangerous, we are stronger when we turn to face our closest friends and neighbours. Co-operation, not antagonism, is the best way of tackling the challenges that our planet faces.
What of Mid Sussex? I feel confident in asserting that I and all my predecessors agree that the stunning beauty of our corner of England is spectacular. With the High Weald area of outstanding natural beauty in the north, and the South Downs national park in the south, we are truly blessed. I have felt truly blessed to call Mid Sussex my home for the past 12 years, not only because of its beauty but because of its brilliant people. It is a place where extraordinary things can and do happen because people pull together and step up. If it is not extraordinary enough that Mid Sussex, which had a Conservative majority of 27,000 back in 2012, has just elected a Liberal Democrat, just this week former England player Gareth Barry signed for Hurstpierpoint football club—a village football team—and Nathan Hales is competing in the shooting at the Paris Olympics. We are all rooting for Nathan and the whole of Team GB.
However, it is about more than individual effort; it is about local collective determination. The village of Cuckfield has a proud identity, and it even made a unilateral declaration of independence in 1966 over the venue of the annual Donkey grand national. The Bentswood Hub in Haywards Heath helps people young and old with their mental health, bills and housing. The Burgess Hill Pantry is trying to find a way to break the cycle of food bank dependency. This weekend, local charity Kangaroos is celebrating 30 years of helping children with learning disabilities and their families.
There are also incredible groups working to tackle the climate crisis, which brings me to the subject of today’s debate. Fairer World Lindfield, Hurst Rethink, and Greener Hassocks and Ditchling are tireless advocates and campaigners for the idea of starting something to tackle the climate crisis rather than waiting for the Government to get on board. Greener Hassocks and Ditchling has put solar panels on the roof of Downlands community school in Hassocks. The Bolney wine estate has, in conjunction with the Brighton Energy Cooperative, put a solar array on the roofs of its winery, which now generates over 50% of the energy required to produce half a million bottles of wine.
However, local groups can only do so much; they need the Government to create an environment in which it is easy to make the energy transition. Speeding up grid connections, for example, can currently take up to three years. We need to make better use of space that has no other purpose—industrial rooftops or the sides of railway lines—including for solar arrays. The will is there in Mid Sussex and, I am sure, right across the country. We need to do more and we must make it easy. Our communities, our constituents, our children and as yet unborn generations demand nothing less.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call Kirsteen Sullivan to make her maiden speech.
Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and may I congratulate you on your elevation to the Chair?
I am grateful for this opportunity to make my maiden speech, especially during this debate, given that Scotland is at the heart of the Government’s plans to make the UK a green energy superpower. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett), who gave such a fantastic tribute to her constituency, and indeed all other hon. Members who have spoken with such passion and eloquence during their maiden speeches, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow South West (Dr Ahmed) and for Central Ayrshire (Alan Gemmell), as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton)—I am glad that he is no longer in the Chamber to hear my mispronunciation.
I extend my gratitude to all parliamentary staff and those involved in the induction processes. Their limitless patience and understanding, and the wealth of information that they provided, have made a daunting process much easier to navigate, and they have done it all with welcoming smiles on their faces, so I thank them.
As many mentioned yesterday, this is no ordinary job, and there are no 9 to 5 hours. It would be impossible to do this without the love and support of our families, friends and campaign teams. To my husband and our three children, our parents and friends, including those in our Labour family, I say, “Thank you for your patience, your encouragement and your steadfast faith in me.”
It is an incredible honour and privilege to serve as the first representative of the new constituency of Bathgate and Linlithgow. I must thank my predecessor, Martyn Day, for his service to the former constituency of Linlithgow and East Falkirk. He served as a Member of this place for nine years and, prior to that, as a councillor representing his hometown of Linlithgow for 16 years—a remarkable quarter century of public service, for which I thank him. I must also pay tribute to the former MP Michael Connarty, a friend and colleague who is always on hand with advice and support.
Campaign trails can be tough, with long hours, many miles walked, thousands of doors knocked and mountains of Haribo consumed—other brands are available. One of the greatest pleasures of my campaign was meeting so many people who shared personal and heartwarming accounts of the help they received from the former Father of the House, Tam Dalyell, or who simply knew him as “Tam.” The affection and respect in which he is held to this day is something to which I can only aspire, and I will endeavour to live up to his example of dedicated service to constituents. I cannot confirm or deny whether this will involve being awkward.
I am not a Bathgate bairn. I chose to make Bathgate my home almost 17 years ago, leaving behind Scotland’s greatest city, Glasgow, to lay down roots for my family, and I could not have made a better decision. With the beauty of the Bathgate hills on my doorstep, as well as the Beecraigs and Polkemmet country parks, the Kinneil local nature reserve and the shorelines at Bo’ness and Blackness, I am never far from stunning and tranquil countryside. We must seek to protect and preserve this natural beauty for future generations.
Key to this are our efforts to reach our net-zero targets and combat climate change, which is causing significant damage to our environment, but let us be clear that our natural environment also has a key role to play in achieving our goals, so it is in our interests to do all we can to protect it.
With the passion and commitment shown by the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero and his team, ably represented today by the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks), and the ambitious plans that they have set out, including on support for community energy projects, which I welcome as a Co-operator, I am confident that we will leave a legacy for future generations to enjoy.
Our landscape also tells the story of our industrial and manufacturing heritage. From the shale bings across the constituency, and the former brickworks and foundries, to the former British Leyland site, Plessey Semiconductors —now Whiteside business park—and the Pyramids business park, which once housed Motorola, the people of the Bathgate and Linlithgow constituency have always embraced change and technological advances. The constituency has a highly skilled and flexible workforce, with opportunities attracting workers from across the central belt, including the Glasgow overspill, which is still referred to as such today, despite many living in the area for almost 50 years.
I recall my first visit to Aldo’s chippy in Bathgate, when the lady behind the counter, recognising my accent, asked if I wanted salt and vinegar rather than salt and sauce, which is a topic of heated debate between Glasgow and Edinburgh colleagues—of course, the correct answer is salt and vinegar.
However, the story of the constituency has not always been one of prosperity. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the miners’ strike and the subsequent closure of Polkemmet colliery after the pit pumps were switched off, flooding the galleries. The smouldering slag heap has been removed, and new houses have been built as part of one of the biggest regeneration projects in Europe, but the town of Whitburn and the surrounding communities were devastated, with many families enduring severe hardship.
The mistakes of the past must not be repeated. Lessons must be learned about the impact of such loss on individuals, on families and on entire communities. That is why I support the fight to keep Grangemouth working and to keep the jobs on which many of my constituents rely, particularly in Bo’ness and Linlithgow. I thank my hon. Friends on the Front Bench for their proactive approach to working towards a sustainable future for the site; I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman), who has been steadfast and vocal in his support for the campaign.
While we honour our history and the traditions of the past, we look to the future with hope and ambition. We are situated at the heart of Scotland, with easy access across the central belt via the M8 and M9 and rail routes to our great cities and beyond—with the unfortunate exception of Winchburgh, which still awaits its train station. More people are choosing to live in the constituency, and more companies are choosing to locate there to do business, including in manufacturing, technology, communications, logistics, retail and hospitality.
Tourism also drives our local economy, particularly in the royal burgh of Linlithgow. With the royal palace set aside the loch and the peel, St Michael’s church and its newly refurbished crown of thorns, the Union canal, the historic canal basin it passes through, and other treasures, there are plenty of reasons to linger longer in Linlithgow. In Bo’ness, we have the steam railways museum, the motor museum, the restored Hippodrome theatre and numerous places of interest.
We are also seeing a growth in tourism as a result of the increase in TV and film production in the area. The Blackness Bay distillery, set in the picturesque village of Blackness, is one example: it is benefiting from the increase in visitors to the castle as a result of the success of “Outlander”. I can tell those who have not visited yet that they will receive the warmest of welcomes from Sheena and Colm at the distillery. I also want to mention the major historic house attractions of Kinneil House, Hopetoun House and House of the Binns, the ancestral home of the Dalyell family, as places to visit.
As a Labour and Co-operative Member, I see the opportunities to expand the co-operative economy, putting power directly in the hands of local people for the benefit of local communities. I look forward to working with fellow co-operators to do just that.
Although jobs and opportunities are on our doorstep, too many people still face barriers to employment and many are not earning enough to get by. That creates huge demand on local food banks and other vital support services, including those offered by our local third sector organisations, which do a tremendous and invaluable job. Child poverty is a scandal that blights communities across the country and in my constituency, but it does not exist in a vacuum. Low pay, high rent, high mortgages, exorbitant energy bills and the rising cost of food all contribute to severe financial pressures on families. That is why I welcome the announcement of the child poverty taskforce, which will bring together voices inside Government and those of outside experts to take a holistic and targeted approach to tackling this scourge and ensuring that every child has a chance to achieve their goals, irrespective of their background.
With more people choosing to live in the Bathgate and Linlithgow constituency, we are seeing increased pressure on vital local services, which are significantly underfunded, as well as pressure on GP surgeries and on our local infrastructure. Both the Avon gorge junction and the Burghmuir junction are in serious need of upgrading. With under-investment in bus transport at a Scottish level, our more rural communities, such as Greenrigg, Newton, Philipstoun, Bridgend, Torphichen, Westfield, Blackridge, Seafield and even the town of Blackburn, are struggling to keep connected. It is crucial that investment in vital services and local infrastructure keeps pace with development, and that is something that I will champion in my constituency.
As a young girl growing up in the small village of Lennoxtown at the foot of the Campsie hills, never did I think that I would be standing here in the House of Commons as one of 263 female MPs, the highest ever number of women representatives. That did not just happen; we are here only because of the women who forged the way for us, such as the incomparable Harriet Harman, who I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time at last year’s Edinburgh festival. It is empowering to see so many incredible Labour women take their rightful place on our Front Benches. Their example will let young girls today know that they can be here one day, too.
While the increase in women Members to 40% of this place is hugely welcomed, we still have much work to do to achieve 50:50 representation. As a councillor, I worked to remove barriers to participation, doing my bit to ensure that council chambers started to reflect the communities that we represent. I pledge to continue that work with hon. Members in and across this Chamber.
Finally, I think most people here would agree that our politics has been mired by division and scandal in recent years, and that has undermined public trust in politicians. We have a duty to restore that trust, which is key to our democracy. In Scotland, there has been far too much finger pointing, with representatives retreating to their respective trenches and endless constitutional debates that ultimately deliver nothing for the people of Scotland. I welcome the new approach of working with the devolved Governments, and the response from the Scottish Government on issues such as the tobacco and vapes Bill and, hopefully, a UK-wide deposit return scheme. This relationship reset will be further strengthened by the new council of nations and regions, which will facilitate a return to constructive engagement and co-operation in the interests of the people we are all here to serve.
For my part, I will work with hon. Members in this place and with elected representatives in all chambers to deliver for the people of Bathgate and Linlithgow. My constituents have bestowed their faith on me, and for that I thank them. It is a responsibility that I will carry every single day, and I pledge to be the champion and advocate they need and deserve.
Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)
It is my pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bathgate and Linlithgow (Kirsteen Sullivan). I congratulate her on her eloquent and passionate speech, and particularly on her call for gender balance. I am sorry to tell her, though, that her use of the native tongue appears to have brought the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) back to the Chamber. Whether that is to congratulate her or correct her, I am not quite sure.
Moving swiftly on, the area that I am privileged to represent has been at the heart of the UK’s energy production for 50 years and more, and it is now poised to be at the forefront of a renewable energy revolution. Frankly, we could and should be much further along the road to energy transition, but we are where we are. The Government have said that they want us to become a clean energy superpower, but I regret that they have scaled back on their original ambitions to invest £28 billion in order to realise that goal. Nevertheless, I hope that they will chart a pragmatic and constructive way forward.
The journey to net zero is well under way in Scotland, with estimates suggesting that the renewables sector already supports around 42,000 jobs. The UK, though, is behind schedule when it comes to investing in the infrastructure, including the grid infrastructure, that those projects will require. The unrealistic pricing of contracts for difference has held back the development of offshore wind. The new Government need to address that issue with the same urgency with which they are moving on other matters.
The north-east of Scotland has been the European capital of oil and gas for many decades. Now we have the opportunity to be the net zero capital. We have enormous potential to capitalise on offshore wind generation and the development of green hydrogen. These are time-limited opportunities, especially as we have ambitions to develop lucrative supply chains, as well as technologies and manufacturing that have significant export potential. In the longer term, that would be the prize for our economic future.
I want to impress on Ministers today the case for bringing the HQ of GB Energy to the north-east of Scotland. Just look at a map: the bulk of offshore renewables production will be within a 100-mile radius of Aberdeen. The ports that will be essential to servicing the sector, most notably Peterhead and Fraserburgh in my constituency, are on the east coast, close to the Moray Firth. There are also important potential roles for smaller ports. We already have a workforce with relevant skills and unrivalled experience. We also have the most to lose; according to research published last year by Robert Gordon University, around one in five jobs across north-east Scotland is in the oil and gas sector. I do not want to see a repeat of what the Thatcher Government did in mining and steelmaking communities across Scotland and elsewhere. Perhaps as much as 80% of skills in oil and gas are crossover skills. We must support that crossover.
Successive UK Governments have used the North sea as a cash cow. Some £10.6 billion flowed into the Treasury coffers in 2022-23, but there has not been a great deal to show for it in Aberdeen city or Aberdeenshire, in terms of infrastructure or investment in that crucial transition. I hope that can change going forward.
As we debate the need to address climate change, improve energy security and deliver a fairer deal for consumers, it is important to acknowledge the reality: we will continue to need oil and gas for some time to come. Many of us are still using gas to heat our home. Fuel poverty is very real. High standing charges and a cold climate is a brutal combination that pushes thousands upon thousands of households into energy poverty. Most of us still use cars that run on petrol or diesel. In areas like mine, where distances are greater, public transport is more limited. Colder winter temperatures mean electric vehicles work less well and the use of traditional vehicles is accentuated. Our reliance on fossil fuels is falling, but it is not about to disappear. Oil and gas will continue to be part of our energy mix for some time, which is why it is important that ongoing production is in line with climate compatibility criteria, and is managed in a way that does not lead to a premature winding down of production in the North sea. However, the current fiscal regime for North sea production has created a very real and present risk. It has the potential to cost thousands of jobs and saddle the Treasury with cumulative decommisioning costs.
I ask Ministers to look at the impact that the energy profits levy has had on jobs and productivity, consider the role of the energy security investment mechanism, and acknowledge the importance of investment allowances. Why? Because the fiscal regime in the North sea is holding back investment in energy transition. We need to recognise that North sea operators are, in many cases, those who are making the biggest investment in renewables. If the Government really want to unlock the potential of the renewable energy sector, they need to work with those who can invest on the scale required and over the necessary timeframes, and who already have an experienced, expert workforce at their disposal. I would welcome the Minister’s comments, in his summing up, on the Government’s plans for a fairer fiscal environment across the energy sector.
I will make one final point, on carbon capture and storage. We need to press on with projects such as the Acorn project at St Fergus precisely because they are cutting edge and have tremendous potential to create new technology, knowledge and expertise. We have a globally competitive subsea supply chain in the north-east of Scotland. We excel in developing solutions to technical challenges. We see challenges as opportunities, and we seek to be leaders in innovative new technologies. There is the potential to deliver fair energy prices for consumers, improve energy security and help us to meet our international climate obligations. The north-east of Scotland and communities in my constituency in particular will be at the centre of the changes ahead. I urge Ministers to make good on their promises, and deliver a managed and just transition for those workers and communities on the frontline.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call Douglas McAllister to make his maiden speech.
Douglas McAllister (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to make my maiden speech to the House in this debate on making Britain a clean energy superpower. I congratulate you on your elevation.
It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan), who always speaks with great eloquence and passion. It is also a privilege to speak in a debate led by the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks). I offer him my warmest congratulations as he takes up his position, and I wish him well, as I am sure we all do.
I recognise the great honour that has been bestowed on all of us to be in this House, and I am so proud and fortunate to represent my constituency of West Dunbartonshire. It contains three very distinct communities, the Vale of Leven and the towns of Dumbarton and Clydebank, the latter of which is my home town. I have lived in Clydebank with my family all my life, and I pledge to work tirelessly in this place for all my fellow residents.
My constituency can best be described as stretching from the banks of the River Clyde to the shores of Loch Lomond, from industrial Clydeside to the gateway to the highlands. I therefore can boast of the unrivalled natural beauty of Loch Lomond and Dumbarton castle, one of Scotland’s royal castles. The town of Dumbarton is the ancient capital of Strathclyde, granted royal borough status by Alexander II in 1222, and it was home to Denny’s shipyard, which built the Cutty Sark. The Vale of Leven is renowned for its Turkey red dyed and printed cottons, exported across the globe. Singer’s factory in my home town, where my late father worked, made the famous sewing machines, and there was a time last century when virtually every home in the land possessed a Singer sewing machine.
Clydebank is synonymous with John Brown’s shipyard, where the Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mary, the QEII and the Royal Yacht Britannia were built—a history we are rightly proud of. However, in doing that, we gained an unwanted legacy as the European hotspot for asbestos-related industrial illness and death. It is on that cause, among countless others, that I wish to pay tribute to my predecessor, Martin Docherty-Hughes. Martin was a powerful advocate in this place in the pursuit of truth and justice for the victims of asbestos-related industrial death and for their families in the fight for fair compensation. I know how closely he worked with the Clydebank Asbestos Group, and it is now incumbent on me to pick up the baton. Martin Docherty-Hughes conducted himself with great dignity before and after the general election, and I wish to thank him for his nine years of service and the generosity and courtesy he extended to me throughout. I wish him the very best in his future endeavours.
The great honour of representing West Dunbartonshire is emphasised yet further when I reflect on my other predecessors who served with great distinction in this House, including Gemma Doyle and my great friend Tony Worthington, who represented the former constituency of Clydebank and Milngavie. It is truly humbling to follow them and, of course, the Lord Speaker, Lord McFall of Alcluith, who is also renowned for his chairmanship of the Treasury Committee in this place.
Many of the great industries of the Clyde are sadly gone, consigned to history, and while as a Bankie I am rightly proud of our history, it is to our future that I look. I was elected by my constituents to deliver change, and I am determined to do that and to play my part in ensuring that all communities across West Dunbartonshire can look forward to a dynamic and prosperous future. The work of the regeneration of Clydeside and the town centres of Clydebank, Dumbarton and the Vale of Leven will be my priority. The Government have the ambition to grow the economy, make work pay, and create jobs and new employment opportunities for our young people, and I have great confidence in the abilities of the youth of West Dunbartonshire to match those ambitions. Providing them with the same life opportunities as children in any other constituency across this great nation of ours will be my driving mission.
I pledged during the election campaign to fight to ensure that everyone in my constituency has access to that very basic of rights: a safe, warm and affordable home. My local authority of West Dunbartonshire declared a housing emergency in May, amid unprecedented pressures on the ability to meet the needs of those in social housing or seeking a council property. I welcome my Government’s ambition to unlock the barriers to building more homes, but it is essential that they are affordable so as to tackle that injustice and insecurity. That is why we campaigned for a publicly owned GB Energy company headquartered in Scotland. It is therefore particularly satisfying to make my maiden speech during this debate. GB Energy will cut bills in West Dunbartonshire, deliver energy security and put Scotland at the forefront of the clean energy revolution. It will be publicly owned and will utilise our extraordinary natural resources.
That brings me back to the natural resources of the River Clyde. The yards may have gone, but the future is with clean energy. On the site of the former John Brown’s shipyard, to which I referred earlier, is now the West Dunbartonshire energy centre, a groundbreaking project featuring Scotland’s largest water source heat pump installation, which takes water from the River Clyde and uses it to generate heat. This publicly owned district heating system is truly groundbreaking, helping West Dunbartonshire to transition towards a net zero future. Crucially, it also allows us to address the fuel poverty of my fellow residents. I will be delighted to welcome the Minister to visit the centre in the very near future.
In taking my place in this House, I stepped away from 25 years of appearing daily in courts throughout Scotland. As a solicitor, I represented some of the most vulnerable members of our society. As I step away from the profession to take my seat in this House, I do so with a heavy heart. I leave behind a demoralised profession ignored by successive Governments, who failed to recognise that a properly funded legal aid scheme is the bedrock of a fair society. My experience is with the Scottish courts, but I understand that south of the border the system is in similar peril. I am sure the House will recognise that upholding, respecting and promoting the rule of law requires us to ensure access to justice, fair representation and a widening of the scope of legal aid eligibility, and also to recognise that the courts are as vital a public asset and as much of a foundation stone of society as schools, social services and hospitals.
I also leave 21 years of unbroken service to local government as a councillor at West Dunbartonshire. Local government is on its knees, starved of vital funding, the last of the low-hanging fruit long since picked. Frontline services are under serious threat, and I wish for this House to recognise those across all political parties and in all public offices at local government level, and all the highly dedicated staff who share the same desire as we all do across this House to advance the wellbeing of our local communities. They deserve greater support from us.
My constituency is supported in this endeavour by a wealth of local charities and community organisations. As provost of West Dunbartonshire, I gained unique insight into this vital support chain, which includes groups such as Mentor Scotland that provide mental health support, as well as the Men’s Shed, local not-for-profit trusts such as Flourishing Faifley, Bags full of Love, Duntocher village hall, Antonine Sports and the Skylark IX Recovery Trust. These and the countless faith groups across my constituency providing food banks and shelter truly are the best of our society.
I cannot finish my maiden speech without recognising the NHS and all its staff. The NHS is in my DNA. My mother was a nurse and a midwife. In particular, I wish to thank the staff at the Beatson hospital in Glasgow. The NHS saved my life back in 2007 when I battled leukaemia. I appreciate that I am fortunate to be in this House, and I will not waste this opportunity to help save our NHS and to ensure that this Government improve our national health service—a service for all, providing care on the basis of need, regardless of ability to pay.
This son of a factory worker and NHS nurse, husband to Alison, father to Tom and Peter, gives this House a solemn undertaking that no matter how long or short my time in this place may be, my defining mission will be to fight for a fairer society for my constituents of West Dunbartonshire and be relentless in my duty to serve their interests.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. I will start the Front-Bench wind-ups at 2.10 pm. I call James MacCleary to make his maiden speech.
James MacCleary (Lewes) (LD)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I thank the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Douglas McAllister) for his excellent speech. He is clearly very knowledgeable about his area and I think he will be a hugely positive addition to this House.
It is a huge privilege for me to represent the Lewes constituency. It is my home and it is where I am raising, with my partner, our young family. I want to start there, with my family—my partner, Donna, and our two young children, Amelia and Elliott. I want to thank them for their support. In fact, Elliott asked me to bring you guys a message today: he says that if anyone is in the market for trading any Pokémon cards, he is open to a discussion. It has been a really long road, but they have been there every single step of the way and I genuinely could not have done this without their help.
I also want to thank the voters in my community for putting their trust in me. That includes those who lent me their support tactically in this election. I will always campaign for electoral reform so that everybody’s vote really counts.
I pay tribute to my predecessor, Maria Caulfield, who was the MP for Lewes for nine years. Lewes is a very old constituency that can be traced back hundreds of years, and Maria was the first woman to represent the seat. She served in the last Government as a Health Minister and Women’s Minister. Among other achievements, she was instrumental in introducing baby loss certificates for parents who have suffered the death of a baby—an important and welcome initiative. We certainly had our differences, but they were political rather than personal, and I sincerely wish Maria and her husband, Steve, all the very best for the future.
Let me tell the House a little bit about my constituency. I will start in our historic county town. Every year, on 5 November, the town of Lewes hosts one of the largest and most anarchic bonfire celebrations. It is an annual manifestation of the town’s fiercely independent spirit. The streets are packed with tens of thousands of visitors to see the magnificent effigies that are paraded through the town to the various fire sites. Often, they include prominent political figures, so please remember—I say this in particular to the new Government Front Benchers —that if you are sent an image or a video of an effigy of yourself being blown up in Lewes in November, it really is a great honour. Members will just have to trust me on that.
Down the road on the coast are Newhaven and Seaford, the latter being the largest town in my constituency. It is in desperate need of a new health centre, and I will continue to press for the redevelopment of the existing town centre site. It is also a former Cinque port, with a magnificent sweeping beach that retains the most complete example of a Martello tower on the south coast. Built in the early 19th century to defend the country against a Napoleonic invasion that never came, it is now home to the town’s fantastic museum, which I really recommend that Members visit if they are ever there. The town has been represented in its time as a separate borough by not one but two former Prime Ministers, George Canning and William Pitt the Younger.
Seaford ceased to be a port when the River Ouse changed course after a violent storm broke through at Newhaven. Ever since then, Newhaven has been an important port town with a proud industrial heritage and varied history. It also happens to be where I live. Every day, visitors come through Newhaven to use the excellent ferry link to Dieppe and to visit our historic Palmerston fort—or, at least, they will when it completes its £5 million renovation. It is a town experiencing a renaissance after years of neglect, and it will see a new health hub in the town centre and investment in our outdoor spaces and our fishing industry. It is also a town with some pretty unique claims to fame. Newhaven is the last known whereabouts of Lord Lucan, has a plaque dedicated to Ho Chi Minh, who is said to have worked on the ferry, and has a bench dedicated to the American rapper Eazy-E, for reasons unknown.
At the eastern end of the constituency are Polegate, Willingdon and Stone Cross. Known for their historic windmills, these communities have been at the sharp end of house building, without the necessary infrastructure to support it. I will work with the NHS and local councils to secure the funding needed for the promised new health hub in Willingdon and improvement to health facilities in Polegate. I will also be keeping a very close eye on the Government’s proposals for planning.
Running through the middle of the constituency is the South Downs national park. The town of Lewes is in fact the largest town in a national park anywhere in the country. We are also home to the Seven Sisters country park, with its famous cliffs. We have award-winning vineyards and breweries, and a thriving arts and cultural scene that boasts the world-famous Glyndebourne opera house and the Charleston festival. We are lucky to have some picture-perfect villages with their own uniqueness, among them Ditchling, with its art and craft museum showcasing the work that made the village a creative hub in the 20th century, and Plumpton with its racecourse. There is also the giant white outline of the Long Man, who stands guard over Wilmington.
Some of our villages also have unique features. Alfriston is home to the Clergy House—the first property acquired by the National Trust, for £10 in 1896—while Jevington claims to be the birthplace of banoffee pie. We have two beautiful rivers, the Cuckmere and the Ouse, which flow into Seaford bay. Sadly, they have been used by Southern Water as a dumping ground for sewage, and have had sewage discharges in recent weeks. I look forward to seeing the proposals brought forward by this Government to take on sewage dumping.
Moving on to today’s debate, it is encouraging to hear support from many Members for ramping up renewable energy. Our constituents, the business community and the UK’s international allies are carefully watching this new Government and Parliament to see if we are serious about once again making the UK a leader in the transition to a clean, safe and inclusive low-carbon economy. I hope we will work together in a constructive spirit to show that we are indeed serious and that fine words will be matched by bold action.
Locally, we have seen the benefits of community energy and heat networks. We must ensure that communities that are taking on renewable energy facilities, such as for solar power, can directly benefit. That should include community ownership of smaller-scale schemes. It is not just about energy generation; it is about transmission. Other hon. Members have mentioned delays in renewable energy schemes getting off the ground because of connectivity issues to the grid.
I congratulate the new Minister on his appointment, and I would be delighted to welcome him to my constituency at some stage to discuss the important role that community energy and microgeneration can play in our future energy mix, and introduce him to some of the people working hard on the ground in my community to make it happen.
On a larger scale, we have the major offshore wind array, which is serviced from Newhaven port. The Rampion wind array generates enough energy to power 350,000 homes and was signed off by the then Secretary of State for Energy, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey). Many hon. Members are parents like me. We all need to be able to look our children in the eye and say that we did everything we could to secure their future and that of all future generations.
Doing the best for our children—for all children—is one of my personal political priorities, particularly through the early years. We need to start treating childcare less as a cost to the taxpayer and more as an investment in the future of our country. In a previous job, I worked in deprived communities across the country to support improving literacy for young children. The transformative effect of supportive learning in the first five years of a child’s life is immense. I am pleased to hear the Government talking more about free and subsidised childcare, but that must be matched with a real commitment to funding nurseries and other early years settings properly. Thousands of nurseries have closed down in recent years, and we have to think about supporting early years providers as well as parents.
I am proud to represent my constituency, humbled to sit in this House and determined to make the most of every day that I have to be the best possible MP for the people of Lewes. The last Liberal Democrat to hold the title was the formidable Norman Baker, and I too intend to work hard for every corner of the constituency. In the five years since the last election the country has been through a lot. The highest public offices have, at times, been degraded, and trust in politics remains low. We have an opportunity and a responsibility to get our politics and our country on to a better, fairer, greener and more prosperous path. I look forward to working constructively with the Government and other Opposition parties to help deliver just that.
Olivia Blake (Sheffield Hallam) (Lab)
Not a day goes by when the consequences of our inaction are not hideously illustrated. The wildfires in Canada today should shock us all into action, with 25,000 people having been displaced from their homes. The previous Government continually poured fuel on the fires of the climate crisis, entrenching our reliance on volatile international markets, but this Government have plans to totally turn the corner.
Our journey to becoming a clean energy superpower is not only an environmental imperative but a chance for economic growth and to address the cost of living crisis while making Britain energy-independent. That is why I welcome the Government’s plan to launch Great British Energy, a publicly owned company funded by making big oil and gas pay their fair share from the incredible windfalls they have been receiving. This initiative demonstrates a strong commitment to cutting carbon emissions and embracing renewables. It is a crucial step to lowering our bills through a zero-carbon electricity system.
It is so important that we ensure that this step is co-ordinated, working with new initiatives such as Skills England to ensure that across the board we are increasing training opportunities, especially in key areas such as maritime apprenticeships, which will help with our offshore wind efforts. It is also incredibly important that we unlock the potential of community energy, which has a vast untapped potential for smaller scale renewable schemes that could be owned and operated by local communities, building that resilience into our communities directly. Realising that potential would bring clean, affordable and secure energy to local people.
I very much look forward to working with the Front-Bench team on these issues, and supporting the Bill as it makes its passage through this House. I congratulate the Minister on his appointment.
Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)
I welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, and congratulate Members from across the House on their wonderful maiden speeches. I had 20 minutes of praise for them, highlighting every aspect of their wonderful speeches, but unfortunately time is limited, so I shall have to give a quick analysis of praise for them all. I am secretly delighted that I do not have to try out my Scottish Gaelic—[Interruption.] I know, it is sad but true; that might be for the next debate.
It was wonderful and heart-warming to hear from hon. Members across the House, from East Thanet to every part of Scotland, including the highlands and Glasgow South West, and from South Northamptonshire, and with all Members caring about their local communities and representing all the people who matter and who elected them. That is what matters in this place. I feel that now I am an expert in all things Scotland—never have I been so afraid to talk about and name everything than when I had to do a Burns night toast. I hope that someday I can visit all those wonderful constituencies. It made me realise that Scotland is a very inclusive, diverse and wonderful place, and I would like to sample the whisky and the hospitality from Loch Lomond to the highlands. I praise all hon. Members here today. I am someone whose contributions often make people think, “Gosh, that’s an unusual Beaconsfield accent”, so I am always delighted to hear sparkling speeches from voices less grating than my own—it is nails on a chalkboard, and you adjust over time—celebrating the diversity in the Chamber.
During today’s debate we heard some superb maiden speeches from Labour Members, and so many of them! Even I was confused about who are the new Labour MPs—that is how many of them there are, so congratulations. I welcome the Minister to his position. He will definitely be going far, and my claim to fame will be that I got to debate with him first here in the House. He is also a Scottish MP, and I welcome him and congratulate him on his ministerial position.
I am also pleased to be shadowing a department led by a fellow London School of Economics alumnus, but disappointed that the Secretary of State is not here to respond to or open the debate. I know in what high regard he is held by the Labour movement. His high ideals and socialist principles are in the very best intellectual traditions of his party, but he is now in government, and I fear that the changes he wants to bring about will make working people poorer and put our energy and food security in the hands of Russia and China.
In just three weeks, as my hon. Friends the Members for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) and for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden) pointed out, the Secretary of State has ignored local communities; he has ignored planning professionals; he has ignored sound decision making; and he has ignored basic economics. He seems to be in a race to deliver higher bills and higher taxes for working people, and a poorer, less safe Britain.
Joy Morrissey
I will give way in a moment, but I must make a little progress first, because I have only five minutes if I am to allow time for the Minister.
We on the Conservative Benches will keep calling these plans out for what they are: a dangerous experiment that will damage the British countryside, wreck the livelihoods of hard-working British people and drive up energy bills. Let us examine the progress of this experiment so far. During the election campaign, the Secretary of State got Labour candidates to claim that GB Energy would save £300 on energy bills, but that does not seem to be something that the Government are going to stand behind now. I would ask why that is, and what plans there are for the future in this regard.
The Government have formed an energy company that will not generate a single watt of energy, and will not bring down a single energy bill. They have taken £8 billion of taxpayers’ money, and put a shiny brand on it called GB Energy. GB Energy is simply the Government subsidising high-risk projects for the private sector on one hand, while decimating our oil and gas industry with the other. They have set up a new company and claim that it will make profits in five years, with nothing but 14 pages of a hot-air founding statement—with no business plan, no financial forecast, and nothing else.
Wera Hobhouse
Is the shadow Minister not aware it is exactly that negative narrative from her party that has held us back on the path to net zero?
Joy Morrissey
I know that the hon. Member is a strong advocate for her local community, and that is an important cross-party awareness; but we are in this position now, and I say to the Government, “You won, and we are here to hold you to account on your new endeavours. We wish you all the best, but it is our job to hold you to account.”
If GB Energy were a private company, no investor would touch it with a bargepole, yet the Government get to play with the money of hard-working British taxpayers while simultaneously hitting them with higher taxes and higher bills in return for that privilege. The Secretary of State doubtless thinks that he is courageously saving the planet, but he is not quite courageous enough to go to Aberdeen, or to be here today, or to speak to those in the North sea who will lose their jobs.
This is now serious. It is serious because the Government are writing cheques that the British people cannot afford and Ministers will never have to pay; it is serious because they are betraying the trust of local communities; it serious because they are putting at risk our energy and food security at a time when both have never been more vital; and it is serious because those who will suffer for their net zero purity are working people. These are not plans for a clean energy superpower. They are plans for a weaker, poorer Britain.
Michael Shanks
With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will respond to what has been a very wide-ranging and—until that last speech—a mostly positive debate. I thank all those who have contributed and have brought us their ideas and their huge experience, not just in relation to the green energy transition but in relation to everything from the care system and child poverty to vital matters of public discourse such as what we should put on our chips. That was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bathgate and Linlithgow (Kirsteen Sullivan), and, for the record, what she said was absolutely right.
I want to say something about the maiden speeches that we have heard today, because it has been genuinely incredible to sit on the Front Bench and listen to them all. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) said a moment ago that they had given her quite a lot to reflect on. I have 20-odd pages of notes here on those wonderful maiden speeches, but I have only 10 minutes in which to sum up. It was not so long ago that I gave my own maiden speech—less than a year ago, in fact—and the same trepidation that I had when I stood up then is with me now. I have to say, on reflection, that I am glad I was the only person giving a maiden speech, after a by-election, because this field of maiden speeches was just a little too good: they were fantastic. The House often comes in for criticism for no longer being the place where we take the moral course or talk about the high values of public service, but in every single one of those maiden speeches, from every part of the House, we heard the real dedication of Members to their communities and the passion with which they want to fight for those communities. I think that this Parliament, the Parliament of 2024, will do a huge amount to change people’s lives.
I will turn now to the substance of the debate, but I will come back to some of the maiden speeches if I have time. In her opening remarks, the shadow Secretary of State said that the Conservative party can be proud of its climate record, and in so many ways, if we were to go back years, she would probably be right. But the rhetoric that we are now hearing from this Conservative party is a million miles from that David Cameron conservativism that said we should take the environment seriously. Language in this matter is important. It matters that we talk truthfully when we speak about the opportunities and risks. It matters, too, that we do not conflate issues when there are no grounds for doing so.
I wish to pick out just a few things from the debate today. The shadow Secretary of State and a number of Members raised the issue of bills. Having sat and listened to those contributions, I do wonder where some Members have been for the past few years. There can scarcely be a Member in this House who does not know of the thousands of people up and down this country struggling in fuel poverty, and the millions who are still facing higher bills.
The reason that we are on this journey is not because of some sort of ideological commitment to net zero, but because we know that it is the only way to deliver the energy security that we need to reduce our dependence on volatile gas prices and to deliver the cheaper energy that we know will bring down bills. The commitment that we made throughout the election has not changed in the slightest. We will bring down people’s bills in the long term to avoid those shocks that have cost people so much in their household bills.
In what I thought was a great speech, the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) pointed out that this cannot be about growth versus green, which is really important. The two go hand in hand. It is a key part of both our economic strategy and our environmental strategy that we move forward. She also made the point about co-ordinating across Government, which is also important. It is why the Prime Minister himself is chairing these mission boards, so that we can bring together all Departments of State and internal and external voices to drive forward the change that is needed across Government.
On the oil and gas transition, the hon. Members for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) and for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan), who are perhaps not surprisingly on the same side in criticising this Government, made a number of points about the North Sea, which are important and which I take on board very seriously. None the less, the suggestion that the North sea is going to close overnight is nonsense and it has to stop being peddled by Members across the House, because it creates unnecessary uncertainty. There will be decades of work in the oil and gas industry in the North sea, whether or not we issue new licences. And, as has been mentioned, the skills, the experience and the infrastructure that is vital for a net zero transition are important. That is why we need to start the just transition now. It is why we should have started it years ago, frankly. We cannot simply bury our heads in the sand and hope that the economic reality of the future will be the same as the past. The North sea is declining as an oil and gas basin. We need to tackle what the future of that looks like now.
On the issue of scaremongering, the various contributions that have touched on solar could mark a really worrying change in the discourse that we are going to have in this House if we carry on the way that we are. The genuine questions about planning are important, and it is right that Members of Parliament are robust—indeed I would be myself as a constituency MP—in the defence of their constituents on these issues. None the less, there is such a thing as nationally important infrastructure, which is important for the whole country. Saying that there is going to be food insecurity because of these solar projects is incredibly dangerous language from the Opposition.
Indeed, the National Farmers Union, responding to some of that scaremongering, said that solar farms do not in any way present a risk to the UK’s food security. Solar farms make up less than 1% of the land use in this country. Even if we reach the target that we want to get to, they will still make up a tiny amount of our land use, and they are an important part of our energy infrastructure.
Greg Smith
I accept that the figure at the moment is 1%, but the volume of solar applications coming forward literally every week in my constituency alone means that the cumulative impact will be a hit to food security. I gently ask the Minister to look at the projected numbers for the future, not what we already have.
Michael Shanks
I will make some progress, because I have only four minutes. If I have time, I will come back to the hon. Lady.
The hon. Gentleman has repeated the point about food insecurity, despite me just saying what the National Farmers Union—which I think is an expert on this topic—has said about it. He has also made a point about the amount of infrastructure in one given area, which is why it is really important that we co-ordinate that infrastructure much better than we do at the moment. That is why the spatial energy plan is so important; the previous Government commenced that work, and we will continue it, because we need a holistic view of all this energy infrastructure so that individual communities do not become saturated with one particular type of infrastructure.
However, I say gently to all hon. Members that at some point we have to accept that some of that infrastructure is nationally important and will have to be sited somewhere. Even if we have offshore cables, that infrastructure, by its very nature, has to come onshore at some point. There will have to be a recognition of the need for infrastructure in communities, but I take the point about the importance of it being well planned.
Michael Shanks
I will first give way briefly to the hon. Member for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer).
Carla Denyer
The hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) raised a concern about solar threatening our ability to grow our own food in this country. I respectfully suggest that he checks out the recent research by Exeter University, which shows that we could increase the amount of renewable energy we generate in this country 13 times over using, I believe, less than 3% of the UK’s land, and none of the highest-grade agricultural land—
Michael Shanks
That is a helpful contribution, and I thank the hon. Lady for it. Even if we reached our solar target by 2030, it is a very small amount of land that would be used for what is an important part of our energy infrastructure.
A number of other points were made in this debate that underline how complex some of these decisions are going to be, but also the huge opportunities we have. A number of Members spoke about the industrial opportunity that will come from this green transition, and a number offered up examples from their own constituencies relating to the role of skills, which is going to be so important. The sense that this is the mission that we need to be on together as a country is also important, because it will take all of us—with all of our expertise, and the challenge that comes from the Opposition—to make the right decisions so that we can have a long-term plan that delivers the net zero future that we need.
Before summing up, I will return to some of the maiden speeches. In particular, taking advantage of being at the Dispatch Box, I want to highlight my colleagues from Scotland who have been returned to this Parliament, who made some fantastic speeches. It was brilliant to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) speak in Gaelic during his contribution, which was fantastic. I am disappointed that more of our Lobby colleagues were not in the Chamber to hear him do that, but I am sure they will catch up. The point he made about the importance of involving communities in this future was also made by a number of hon. Members. That needs to take two parts: it needs to be consent and consultation, but it also needs to be a recognition of what the rewards for those communities should be. There are a number of options, because not all communities are aligned on what they think that reward should look like, but it is going to be a critical part going forward.
There were a number of quotes that I will look up in Hansard. My hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar talked about being seasoned with salt, which was wonderful. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Dr Ahmed) spoke about seeing the world through the long lens: having the discipline to look at some of these difficult, challenging public priorities and recognising that some of the benefits of what we are doing now will not be seen in the next five or 10 years, but it is none the less important to start the work, is something that we in this place can all bear in mind.
To conclude, since the summer recess is fast approaching, I could not help but notice that as a result of all the maiden speeches, we have produced something of our own staycation guide as we have gone around the House. Very quickly, I will just mention my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato), the lido and the safari; the Turner art gallery in East Thanet; Barra, the jewel of the Hebrides with its whisky and salmon in Na h-Eileanan an Iar; the Norman castle in Waveney Valley; Bellahouston park in Glasgow South West, which I know well; one of Becket’s miracles—fantastic; I am going to see the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool) about that, and also because I now know that she is the one in the Chamber with sweeties, which is very helpful—and the Open championship in Central Ayrshire. My hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Alan Gemmell) has the privilege of representing the constituency that I was born in, and he made a wonderful speech today. I will also mention Aldo’s chippy in Bathgate, Dumbarton castle in West Dunbartonshire, and the delight of being burnt as an effigy in Lewes. I thank the hon. Member for Lewes (James MacCleary) for concluding the debate.
With the 15 seconds that I have left, I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have participated in the debate. I hope that this is the first of many for them, and that there continues to be a genuine exchange of ideas across the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the matter of making Britain a clean energy superpower.
Pharmacy Provision: Hampton
(1 day, 17 hours ago)
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Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
May I start by congratulating you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on your election? It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair. I also congratulate the Minister on his appointment. We have worked closely together in recent years in the all-party parliamentary group on kinship care, so I have no doubt that he will do an excellent job. I suspect that young Lyle is very proud of his granddad right now.
I am delighted to have secured this Adjournment debate. You might be surprised to learn, Madam Deputy Speaker, that this is the first I have managed to secure since my election in 2019, so I want to use this exciting opportunity to bring to the Minister’s attention the impact of pharmacy closures on the local community in the Hampton area of my constituency, as well as the immense financial challenges facing community pharmacy right across England. I will also raise concerns about the impenetrable bureaucratic processes, which need overhauling, in new pharmacy licence applications and pharmacy closures.
Let me set the scene. Last autumn, two Boots pharmacies in the Hampton area were closed. One of those pharmacies was in the Hampton North ward, one of three wards of relative deprivation in the London borough of Richmond upon Thames. The west of the ward is within the 20% most deprived areas of the country; it is densely populated with a significant amount of social housing. As a result of that closure in Tangley Park, the entire ward is now without a community pharmacy.
Hampton North is poorly served by public transport: there is no station, and the two bus routes serving the area are notoriously unreliable. The nearest pharmacy is now a mile away on foot, a distance that is difficult to cover for the elderly and those with mobility issues. It is certainly more than a 20-minute walk away, which is the measure that previous Ministers liked to use to highlight pharmacy accessibility. Predictably, those closures have put a lot of pressure on the nearest remaining pharmacies, which face queues and stock issues. Again, that is not exactly convenient or practical for elderly and vulnerable patients.
At this point, I pay tribute to Mike Derry and Healthwatch Richmond for their brilliant work championing local patients and giving them a voice. Healthwatch undertook a survey of some 700 residents in the Hampton area at the start of the year to demonstrate the impact of the closures. One person said:
“I have gone without medication as I can’t stand very long. There are queues—I have waited over half an hour.”
Healthwatch England highlighted the plight of 87-year-old Gill. She used to just about be able to get across the road from her house to the Tangley Park pharmacy. Now the nearest pharmacy is over a mile away, and Gill, who does not drive, cannot access that service because of the distance that she would have to walk to get there. She even paid the nearest pharmacy to deliver her medicines to her home each month, but in the eight months since she purchased the delivery service, it has shown up only twice. Her carer has to travel to collect the medication in person for her.
Hampton is not unusual in losing pharmacy provision. I am sure that the Minister is aware of the crisis facing the community pharmacy sector. Data from the Community Chemists’ Association shows that there has been a net loss of over 1,200 pharmacies—1402 closures and only 179 openings—since 2015. More than a third of those losses have been in the most deprived areas of the country. The National Pharmacy Association reports that the number of pharmacies that have closed so far this calendar year—the equivalent of 10 pharmacies a week—is nearly 50% higher compared with the same point in 2023. As well as independent pharmacies, big chains such as Lloyds Pharmacy and Boots have significantly accelerated closure numbers over the past 18 months. A big driver of these closures is a significant real-terms reduction in funding for pharmacy; that funding has dropped by around 30% since 2015.
James MacCleary (Lewes) (LD)
Is my hon. Friend aware of the issue of overwhelmed surgeries referring increasing numbers of patients to local pharmacists? I have seen it in my Lewes constituency. Does she agree that this will only contribute further to closures?
Munira Wilson
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and I congratulate him on his excellent maiden speech. I completely agree with him. We want doctors to use community pharmacy more to alleviate the pressure on other parts of the health service, but frankly, if the pharmacies are not there, the remaining ones will be overwhelmed. I talked to local GPs in the Hampton area following these closures, and they were desperate to see more provision. They thought about trying to set up their own community pharmacy provision, but they just could not make the numbers add up because of the funding shortfall.
The Company Chemists’ Association estimates an average funding shortfall of £67,000 per pharmacy. That is based on an analysis of data published by the Department of Health and Social Care in a written parliamentary answer at the beginning of last year. Many pharmacists are left out of pocket, as they are reimbursed less for a number of medications than the price they pay, and there are stories of some using credit cards and overdrafts to purchase medication.
These funding pressures are coupled with major workforce challenges. When I met Boots following the news that it is closing two branches in Hampton, it cited a lack of pharmacists as a major reason for closing some 300 pharmacies across the UK, although commercial pressures were clearly the main driver. Layered on top of these issues are regular medicine supply shortages, which add more work and create more stress for already overstretched pharmacists. Community Pharmacy England reported last year that 92% of pharmacies were having to manage supply issues daily.
It is a perfect storm for community pharmacy at a time when we need preventive healthcare and self-care more than ever. The potential of community pharmacies to improve patient health and reduce the pressure on NHS hospitals and GPs is immense, yet they are closing in their hundreds every year. We should be relying on pharmacies even more to keep the nation healthy. The previous Conservative Government’s announcement of the Pharmacy First initiative was very welcome in its ambition, but if pharmacies are not even funded for the basics right now, with big gaps in provision opening up all over the country, it is hard to see how Pharmacy First’s ambitions will be achieved.
The Liberal Democrats would like to see the Government building on the Pharmacy First principle and giving pharmacists more prescribing rights and public health responsibilities. As in so many areas of public health, the “invest to save” argument is compelling, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments on what the new Labour Government will do on funding to enable community pharmacy to not just survive, but thrive and grow as an essential part of our primary care infrastructure.
Having addressed the causes of these closures, I will spend some time exploring the processes involved in local communities being informed of pharmacy closures, and their input, or lack thereof, in them, as well as discussing the complete lack of transparency or accountability in relation to applications for new pharmacy licences. For starters, only those organisations designated as “interested parties” in the regulations are informed of new applications, and only their feedback has to be taken into account. Anyone else who is interested, such as me as a local MP, needs to make a freedom of information request, unless someone in the local health community passes on the information. My views, and the views of other people in the community, can be ignored.
To describe the bureaucratic process that sits around new applications as byzantine would be generous. I hope the Minister, Madam Deputy Speaker and other hon. Members will bear with me while I try to explain what happened in Hampton. We are part of the South West London Integrated Care Board, but NHS England has delegated the pharmacy market entry function for the whole of London to the North East London ICB, which is on completely the opposite side of the city. Officials have no local knowledge of our area, no understanding of local transport links and no relationships with the local health system.
Let me start with the closures. The Minister will be aware of the statutory three-month notice period for pharmacy closures; last August, Boots would have had to give NHS England three months’ notice of its intentions in Hampton. That information was not passed by NHSE to the Richmond health and wellbeing board. I find that utterly staggering. The first that local councillors, the local health community in the area and I as the MP knew about the planned closures was when Boots placed signs in its windows to inform customers, and concerned constituents started to contact me about the likely impact of the closures.
At the end of August 2023, while this was going on and we were all in the dark, the local health and wellbeing board published a pharmaceutical needs assessment, but it was inaccurate and failed to identify an imminent future gap in need in the Hampton North area because it had not been notified of the closures. The Tangley Park Boots subsequently closed in late October. The Priory Road Boots, which was directly opposite a busy GP surgery, closed in early November.
In November, an application was received for a new independent pharmacy licence on the Tangley Park Boots site. Once again, the local health and wellbeing board was not notified of the application—this time, for two whole months. During this period of complete silence, the health and wellbeing board issued a supplementary statement to the local pharmaceutical needs assessment, which identified the gap in Hampton. However, because the application for a new pharmacy was made in November, and it referred to the original needs assessment that was made before the supplementary statement was published, it was rejected, even though the application itself identified the gap, which was officially made clear in the supplementary statement subsequently published in December. Not only that, but it took the North East London ICB a full eight months to issue the rejection; tht happened earlier this month, even though the decision used evidence received in December to justify the rejection.
Madam Deputy Speaker, if you and other hon. Members are still managing to follow this sorry story, I hope you will agree that this decision is utterly perverse. It is also utterly unreasonable that timely applications to open pharmacies in response to multiple closures should be inherently prevented in this way. The delays in sharing information with the local health and wellbeing board and the delays in decision making are unforgivable. During the lengthy delay, the local authority received a planning application to change the Tangley Park pharmacy site into a fast food outlet. Thankfully, that was rejected earlier this month after representations from the public health team and councillors, but I am sure the public health Minister will agree that it would be unfortunate, to put it mildly, if a pharmacy were replaced with a fast food outlet.
One local official told me yesterday that the systems architecture is too complicated, and that there is a need for clearer responsibilities and accountability. Amen to that, I say. Healthwatch Richmond has demanded answers from the North East London ICB, but it has received a frankly woeful response that does not address the substantive question of why the application was so badly handled. The response passes the buck and blames regulations. To be clear, Healthwatch and I are not qualified to comment on the merits of an application; what we are doing is challenging the unfathomable process.
I say to the Minister that the huge funding challenges facing community pharmacy are pressing. I appreciate that they may be extremely difficult for him to address, given that the Chancellor has an iron fist as far as any additional public spending is concerned, but the Minister must wage a campaign to improve the funding situation. It makes financial sense. We will not grow the economy without improving the nation’s health. In that campaign, he will have cross-party support from Members on the Opposition Benches.
Revisiting the regulations and how NHS England is implementing them will cost next to nothing. There should be proper consultation with and involvement from the local community on closure notices, and changes in the process for new licences could ensure that we can quickly plug pharmacy gaps when they open up in areas such as Hampton. Crucially, those powers need to be delegated to the local ICB, with full involvement from the local health and wellbeing board. They know their communities and their geography best—trust them.
Finally, if the Minister could step in on the specific issues in my constituency—the application that has been rejected and is going NHS Resolution on appeal—simply to ensure a common-sense approach, the residents of Hampton North and I would be very grateful. We desperately need a new pharmacy for our community. I look forward to his response.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Andrew Gwynne)
May I start by welcoming you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker? I congratulate you on your election earlier this week. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) on securing a debate that is absolutely crucial, not just given the specifics of the case in her constituency, but for the precedent that it sets as we plan community pharmacy provision across England. I assure her that although Lyle missed out on his week in London for Whitsun half-term, because somebody called a general election, he is on his way to London as I speak, with Allison, so that we can do London as tourists this weekend.
I am responding on behalf of the Minister for Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberafan Maesteg (Stephen Kinnock), who leads in this area. I start by paying tribute to pharmacists. It is a credit to them that surveys show that nine in 10 people who visit pharmacies feel positive about their experience. Colleagues appreciate how accessible pharmacies in towns and villages across our country are, but for too long, Governments have failed to recognise their essential role in safeguarding the nation’s health, not least in my constituency of Gorton and Denton. This Government know that people who work in pharmacies are highly trained specialists, and we are committed to helping pharmacists and pharmacy technicians reach their full potential.
Pharmacies already provide vital advice on prescriptions, over-the-counter medicines and minor ailments, but they do not just dispense medicines and proffer advice, important though that is; they must do much more than that. Many already offer blood-pressure checks, flu and covid-19 vaccinations, contraception consultations and treatment for the seven conditions covered by the Pharmacy First service. I supported Pharmacy First when I was in opposition, as I think the hon. Lady did, and my party pledged to build on the programme by making prescribing an integral part of the services delivered by community pharmacies. For that reason, in the next two years, we will ensure that every newly qualified pharmacist has a prescribing qualification, while we train up the existing workforce.
This year, NHS England is working closely with all integrated care boards on pilots to test how prescribing can work in community pharmacy, because like the hon. Lady, we want pharmacies delivering services that help patients to access advice, prevention and treatment more easily; services that ease the pressure on general practice and in other areas in the NHS; and services that unlock the knowledge and expertise that our pharmacists have to offer. This Government take the view that pharmacies can and should play an even greater role in providing healthcare on the high street. That is why we stood on a manifesto that promised to shift resources to primary care and to community services over time. Community pharmacies will play an important part in moving our health service from hospital to community, from analogue to digital, and from sickness to prevention. But we have only been in office for three weeks; this cannot happen overnight, and colleagues have been absolutely right to raise concerns with Ministers about the closure of pharmacies.
As we speak, well over 10,000 pharmacies in England are dispensing medicines, offering advice and delivering care, and despite closures, access to pharmacies remains good across most of the country. Four out of five people live within a 20-minute walk of their local pharmacy, but as we have heard in this really important debate, that is not the case everywhere in the country. I know, having listened to the hon. Lady, that in Twickenham it is higher than four in five, but in other parts of the country it is below one in two. In the most deprived parts of England there are almost twice as many pharmacies—a good thing—than in the least deprived, but we need better access across the country. To take the example of my own constituency, where access to pharmacies is fairly good, almost the entire population is within a 20-minute walk from a pharmacy. However, in certain rural areas, and in a growing number of urban areas because of the closure programme, that is not the case. In those rural areas, there are dispensing doctors who can supply medicines to patients, and patients across the country can access around 400 distance-selling pharmacies that deliver medicines to patients’ homes free of charge. It is true that experiences vary depending on where people live, but I am aware of the specific problem in Hampton following the closure of the two Boots pharmacies that she described.
Munira Wilson
On the point about the 20-minute walk and the four in five statistic, does the Minister recognise that a 20-minute walk for me or him is actually much longer for an elderly person or somebody with multiple health conditions or mobility issues? We have to work out what measure we are using. Yes, the Twickenham constituency may have many pharmacies, but we must look at that highly localised level. That is why we need the local authority and local health boards to be involved, because actually in Hampton, as a community, the transport links are terrible.
Andrew Gwynne
I completely understand the case the hon. Lady is making. I ask her please to understand that she is pushing on a bit of an open door. It is a completely different subject, but I have had exactly the same arguments about bank closures in my constituency. I am told that as long as the nearest bank branch is half an hour away by public transport, that is acceptable. Unfortunately, computer says no when it is two buses that do not meet up in between. I agree with her that there are complexities around drawing up arbitrary limits, but generally access to pharmacies is good. We need to maximise the use of the pharmacy network so that we get more pharmacists coming in.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
I welcome the Government’s support for strengthening the pharmacy sector. The Minister talks about the workforce. Residents in my constituency have raised concerns about the pressure on pharmacists to take on more and more services that might traditionally have been provided by primary care. What assurances can he give me that he will make sure that the workforce plan for pharmacists is robust enough to cope with the extra demand?
Andrew Gwynne
We are very committed, as I hope the hon. Lady knows, to the workforce plan being as robust as it can be, so we do not just get the pharmacists of the future but the doctors, nurses, healthcare workers and so on too. On the journey to a national health service that is much more community focused and much more aligned to prevention rather than to curing sickness—we want to prevent people from becoming ill in the first place—we must ensure that at its heart is how we can deliver medicines and treatments closer to where people live. Having well-trained capabilities in the pharmacy sector to do that is very much a priority for this Government.
Returning to the issue of the two Boots closures in Hampton, the Minister for Care is aware of the closures. He asked me to communicate to the hon. Lady the fact that he will keep a very close eye on what is happening on the ground in her area.
On the hon. Lady’s specific point about bureaucracy, I assure her that the regulatory framework is always under review, and as a new Government we are keen to make improvements wherever we can. I am sure that my officials will have heard the case that she has made.
After the hon. Lady kindly reached out to me prior to the debate, I instructed officials to ask her ICB to consider her concerns again. I hear that she has had a reply that was not particularly helpful. Again, I hope that her ICB is watching this debate, and listening to her case and to me as the Minister saying from the Dispatch Box that we take these issues seriously. Good access to pharmacy services is important to her constituents and to the constituents of Members right across the House. We need to make sure that the network is protected and enhanced.
On funding, NHS England has commissioned an economic analysis of the cost of providing pharmaceutical services. That work is happening right now with the pharmacy sector and we look forward to seeing the outcome. Previous Governments dithered and delayed on finding a sustainable and long-term solution. The consultation around this year’s funding and contractual arrangements with Community Pharmacy England did not make it over the line before the election was called, so we as Ministers are looking at that as a matter of urgency.
All that we are speaking of today is against the backdrop of the most challenging circumstances since the second world war. That is why the Chancellor is carrying out an urgent assessment of our spending inheritance and will be presenting the results to Parliament before the summer recess, so that the findings can inform every spending decision we make.
In the meantime, I am afraid that I cannot update the House on this year’s arrangements. I understand that that will be frustrating to the hon. Lady, but the Prime Minister has asked me and every Minister of this Government to be honest and open about the state of the nation’s finances. I intend to keep that promise, but I look forward to working with pharmacy stakeholders to discuss not just how we solve these problems, but how we seize the opportunities for transformation in the sector, and how we deliver health and social care in the community, closer to where people need it, providing the new, innovative treatments from pharmacies where that is appropriate. This Government will always put patients before politics.
In the spirit of the friendship that we have developed over the years, particularly over the kinship issue, I look forward to working with the hon. Lady on this and other health-related issues, and on making our country a better, fairer and more equal place for her constituents and mine, with better access to health services, including community pharmacy. I hope to work with her in the years to come, and let us hope that we can improve the pharmacy services for Hampton and other parts of England.
Question put and agreed to.
Written Statements
Digital Trade Agreement: WTO Joint Initiative on Electronic Commerce
(1 day, 17 hours ago)
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The Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Jonathan Reynolds)
The Government are ready to lead on the global stage and use every lever at our disposal to tear down unnecessary barriers and give British businesses the access to international markets to achieve economic growth. We are committed to establishing a global trading system fit for the modern era and underpinned by digital technologies to ensure trade is as seamless and efficient as possible.
Today, I am delighted to announce the UK has joined the first global digital trade agreement: the joint initiative on electronic commerce, negotiated with 90 other countries at the World Trade Organisation.
The economy-wide agreement, covering trade in goods, services and information, is set to deliver new growth opportunities for the UK, with global digital trade already worth £4 trillion and growing strongly. The JI will deliver new growth opportunities for the UK economy and our businesses, workers and consumers, and recognises the importance of supporting developing and least-developed countries to deliver growth and prosperity for all.
Global trade is becoming increasingly digital, and harnessing its potential is central to growing a strong and resilient economy in the UK. The UK is at the forefront of digital trade and has a comparative advantage in digitally-delivered services such as finance, professional business services, creative industries, engineering and much more. UK trade is driven by digitally-enabled businesses, with exports of digitally-delivered services amounting to £252 billion in 2021, or 77% of total UK services exports.
However, until now there has been no common set of global digital trade rules. The G7 digital trade principles brokered under the UK G7 presidency in 2021 set out shared commitments of G7 countries, but there was no rulebook covering binding commitments for the world. This has led to fragmented approaches to digital trade regulation, resulting in increased barriers for businesses, workers and consumers.
As a comprehensive, economy-wide agreement, the JI will boost global trade in goods, services and information and unlock a wide range of benefits for UK businesses, workers and consumers. Global adoption of digital customs systems, processes and documents, even with partial uptake, could represent a boost to UK GDP. Improvement in trade facilitation can increase the probability of a small business starting to export by up to 3% and increase the value of small business exports. Protection for workers and consumers online will increase their trust and confidence in digital trade.
Key benefits of this agreement include:
Cheaper, faster and more secure trade for businesses trading goods and services around the world through digitalising interoperable customs systems, processes and documents. This will in many cases end the need to print off forms and hand them over at customs, a slow, expensive and old-fashioned way of working.
Recognition of electronic contracts, invoices, signatures and authentication, and facilitation of secure, trustworthy electronic payments.
Permanent ban on customs duties on digital content among JI participants to provide the certainty businesses need to trade openly in the new global digital economy and avoid the price increases the introduction of such tariffs would cause.
Protection of personal data of workers and consumers in line with the UK’s high data protection standards.
Protection of consumers buying goods and services online from online fraudsters, misleading claims about products and deception.
Facilitating competition in the telecoms sector through financial independence of telecoms regulators and improved access to telecoms infrastructure.
I expect the process to incorporate the JI into the WTO legal framework to commence shortly. Once incorporated, the JI will be laid before Parliament, in line with usual practice, for domestic ratification.
The Government are committed to rebuilding and strengthening global partnerships and standing up for the rules-based international order. This agreement is an important step in modernising the global trade rule book and furthering co-operation in the WTO.
[HCWS23]
Higher Education Regulation
(1 day, 17 hours ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Bridget Phillipson)
The Government are committed to ensuring this country develops the skills we need to deliver sustained economic growth and improved prosperity and living standards for working people. Our world-leading higher education sector is a key engine at the heart of these growth plans and today I am announcing some of the first steps we are taking to ensure a stable future for higher education, with strong regulation that means students can thrive.
First, today will see the publication of the report for the independent review of the Office for Students, “Fit for the Future: Higher Education Regulation towards 2035”, which will be made available on gov.uk.
The review found that the case for bold regulation of higher education is clear but that the OfS should more sharply focus on key priorities, which include monitoring financial sustainability, ensuring quality, protecting public money and regulating in the interests of students.
I would like to thank the lead reviewer, Sir David Behan, for conducting a rigorous and thoughtful review, and all those in the higher education sector who supported and contributed to the review process.
The Government accept the core analysis of the review and, as set out in our manifesto, we recognise that strong regulation is a crucial element of a stable, world-leading higher education sector that delivers for students and the economy.
I will deposit a copy of the report in the Libraries of both Houses.
Following the resignation of Lord Wharton as chair of the OfS earlier this month, I also wish to announce that Sir David has been appointed as interim chair of the OfS. His role will primarily be to work with the current executive to implement the recommendations of the independent review. The process to appoint a permanent chair has started and will conclude next year.
Lastly, I have written to colleagues separately about my decision to stop further commencement of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, in order to consider options, including its repeal. I am aware of concerns that the Act would be burdensome on providers and on the OfS, and I will confirm my long-term plans as soon as possible. To enable students to thrive in higher education, I welcome the OfS’s plans to introduce strengthened protections for students facing harassment and sexual misconduct, including relating to the use of non-disclosure agreements in such cases by universities and colleges.
[HCWS26]
Sizewell A Nuclear Site: Direction to Nuclear Decommissioning Authority
(1 day, 17 hours ago)
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The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Ed Miliband)
I am today laying a new designation direction to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority in respect of the Sizewell A nuclear site, which amends the existing direction. The direction has been given in accordance with sections 3 and 5 of the Energy Act 2004, with the consent of Nuclear Restoration Services Ltd, which controls the site.
This direction will end the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s responsibilities under the Energy Act 2004 for specific land and buildings on the Sizewell A nuclear site, so that the land can be sold to EDF and become part of the Sizewell B nuclear site. This will facilitate the development of new nuclear at the Sizewell C nuclear site.
[HCWS25]
Care Quality Commission
(1 day, 17 hours ago)
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The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Wes Streeting)
Today I wish to update the House on the publication of the interim findings of the review into the operational effectiveness of the Care Quality Commission that is being conducted by Dr Penny Dash. I have asked Dr Dash to publish these interim findings, as I wish to share with the House and the public the serious failings they expose.
Getting regulation right is critical to ensuring that health and social care is not only safe but also high quality. If the way we regulate is not fit for purpose, it means that people are not properly supported in their choices about health and care, and there is a lost opportunity to deliver improvements. Dr Dash’s interim findings demonstrate that the CQC, as the regulator of health and social care in England, is exactly that: not fit for purpose.
Dr Dash’s report has given people across the health and social care system, including from within the CQC, the opportunity to speak up about what I believe are systemic and cultural problems. I commend the report for creating an environment in which people have been able to speak up; to fix the NHS we must create a culture that values and listens to the voices of those who can see where the problems are.
Dr Dash has heard major concerns from significant groups of stakeholders. There are failings in the way that the CQC assesses organisations relating to the single assessment framework, which means that we cannot be confident that inspections are looking at all the things the public should rightly expect. There are also concerns about how ratings, which both the public and service providers depend on, are calculated. These failings are compounded by a further finding that the CQC does not have appropriate sector-level expertise throughout the organisation. Dr Dash is clear that all of these concerns mean that the CQC has lost credibility.
As recommended by Dr Dash, the Department of Health and Social Care will work with the board of the CQC to address the issues raised. The board will have my full support in ensuring the right leadership is in place to drive through the changes that are needed.
While this is an interim report, I would like to highlight four immediate steps that I will be taking with the CQC.
First, the CQC have asked Professor Sir Mike Richards to review the single assessment framework. This is an important step in addressing the concerns Dr Dash raises about how the safety and quality of hospitals is assessed. Sir Mike is an eminent and highly regarded clinician who was the CQC’s first chief inspector of hospitals. The fact that the CQC has asked someone with Sir Mike’s significant experience to give detailed and thorough consideration to improving the framework shows that the CQC is now taking seriously the concerns raised in the report and is acting swiftly to address them.
Second, I have asked the CQC to urgently improve the transparency of its ratings. This will include being clearer about what evidence has been considered in reaching the ratings, as well as setting out clearly the dates of the inspections that a rating is based on. This is to address the report’s finding about the historical practice of combining inspections over several years to produce a rating. This is important so that members of the public can have confidence that they know what a rating actually means. The action I am taking is a first step to bring in greater transparency, but more work will be required as the CQC looks in more detail at its assessment framework.
Third, the Department of Health and Social Care will increase the level of oversight of the CQC, including the frequency and seniority of that oversight. Over the summer, I will be looking at what is needed to ensure that the recommendations in the interim review are acted upon. This arrangement will continue once the final report is published. Ultimately, the Department’s objective must be to ensure that improvements in the delivery of CQC’s core functions are achieved for service users and service providers across health and social care. I have requested firm assurance from the chair that effective and credible appointments are made for a permanent chief executive and chief inspectorate of healthcare.
Fourth, the CQC sits within a complex landscape of bodies with responsibility for safety. Pending completion of her final report in autumn 2024, I am asking Dr Dash to undertake further work and make recommendations on how we can maximise the effectiveness of key bodies, individually and collectively, within that landscape. Terms of reference will be determined in due course.
Only by ensuring that we have a health and social care system that works as a whole will we be able to restore the public’s confidence in the safety and quality of care and, most importantly, put the voice and experience of patients and service users back at the heart of our regulation and oversight of the whole health and social care system.
The interim findings of the review have been published on gov.uk. I will provide a further update to the House once Dr Dash’s final report has been published.
[HCWS27]
AI Opportunities Action Plan
(1 day, 17 hours ago)
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The Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Peter Kyle)
Artificial intelligence has enormous potential to drive economic growth, through productivity improvements and technological innovation, and to stimulate more effective public service design and delivery. These are opportunities the United Kingdom cannot afford to miss and that is why AI, alongside other technologies, will support the delivery of our five national missions. Through targeted action this Government will support the growth of the AI sector, enable the safe adoption of AI across the economy and lead the way in deploying it responsibly in our public services to make them better.
Today, I am setting out our plans to create an ambitious AI opportunities action plan, and our next steps on the regulation of frontier AI systems.
I have appointed tech entrepreneur and chair of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency, Matt Clifford CBE, to develop the AI opportunities action plan. It will set out how Government can support the growth of the AI sector and compete on the global stage, while also including actions designed to boost the responsible adoption of AI across all parts of the economy. This plan will identify ways to accelerate the use of AI to improve people’s lives by making services better and developing new products.
The action plan will also address key AI enablers such as the UK’s compute and broader infrastructure requirements; how this infrastructure is made available to industry as well as researchers; and how to develop, attract and retain top AI talent. To develop the action plan, Matt Clifford will engage with academic, industry and civil society experts.
Matt Clifford will deliver a set of recommendations to me by September. To support implementation of the action plan, an AI opportunities unit will be established within the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
Delivering the plan will play a vital role in driving up productivity and kick-starting economic growth. Estimates from the IMF show that while the exact economic impact hinges on the wider development and adoption of AI, and realisation could be gradual, the UK could ultimately see productivity gains of up to 1.5% annually.
While AI has the potential to boost our productivity, unlock new sources of growth, and improve the quality and efficiency of our public services, we know that advanced capabilities also present risks. In the King’s Speech on 17 July, the Government set out our intention to legislate in line with our manifesto commitment to place requirements on those working to develop the most powerful artificial intelligence models.
This legislation will place the AI safety institute on a statutory footing, providing it with a permanent remit to enhance the safety of AI over the longer term.
Our proposals will be highly targeted and will support growth and innovation by ending regulatory uncertainty for AI developers, strengthening public trust, and boosting business confidence. They will avoid creating new rules for those using AI and will instead apply to the small number of developers of the most powerful AI models with a focus on the AI systems of tomorrow and not today.
We will shortly launch a consultation on these legislative proposals, to harness the insights and expertise of the AI industry, academia and civil society.
[HCWS24]
House of Lords
Oaths and Affirmations
Support for Infants and Parents etc (Information) Bill [HL]
(1 day, 17 hours ago)
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Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a guarantor of FHN Holding, the not-for-profit owner of The Family Hubs Network Ltd.
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults Bill [HL]
Education for 11 to 16 Year-olds (Committee Report)
(1 day, 17 hours ago)
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Lord Johnson of Marylebone
That this House takes note of the Report from the Education for 11 to 16-year olds Committee Requires improvement: urgent change for 11–16 education (Session 2023–24, HL Paper 17).
Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to introduce this debate on the report from the Education for 11-16 Year Olds Committee. At the outset, I declare my interests as on the register and say what a pleasure it has been chairing the committee. I particularly thank the members of the committee for their hard work and commitment, in particular my good noble friend Lord Baker, who proposed the inquiry and was such a formidable force in all its evidence sessions. I do not think I will ever forget his cross-examination of former Minister Nick Gibb, for example. I also recognise the staff who worked so hard on behalf of the committee under the direction of our clerk, Eleanor Clements, and I want to mention the others who supported our work, including operations officers Mark Gladwell and Maherban Lidher, policy analysts Babak Sharples and David Stoker and media officer Alec Brand, all ably supported by our special adviser Tom Richmond.
This inquiry was established in response to a growing sense that the present 11 to 16 system of education in England has been moving in the wrong direction. We were not the first to have this concern. Many predecessor bodies and reports have come to the same conclusion, including the Times Education Commission, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, the Heads’ Conference and others. All have called for radical reform within this phase of education in order to ensure that future skills demands can be met.
In examining the 11 to 16 system, the committee assessed a number of proposals for significant change as well as potential measures that could be delivered in the shorter term. We took evidence from school leaders and academics as well as from representatives of exam boards, teaching unions and subject associations, and we held round-table sessions with teachers and pupils. Much of the evidence we heard reaffirmed the conclusions and recommendations from the other bodies I mentioned, which have considered this subject in great detail over recent years.
The witnesses we spoke to over the course of our cross-party, year-long inquiry described how education in this phase prioritised a restricted programme of academic learning delivered through a narrow set of subjects and teaching styles. This is primarily the result of reforms introduced since 2010 that have unabashedly emphasised knowledge acquisition and academic rigour. We heard consistently that this approach does not equip young people with the knowledge, skills and behaviours that they need to progress to the next phase of their education and to flourish in the future. The committee urged the Government, and now urges the new Government, to change course.
I turn first to the curriculum. The 11 to 16 curriculum in its current shape has been forged by the focus, as I said, on knowledge-rich approaches. We heard that it places too great an emphasis on teaching and learning individual facts, on memorisation and on regurgitation, rather than on developing pupils’ understanding and deep feel for the underpinning concepts. This is particularly true for key stage 4. Following reforms in 2015, which increased the size of GCSE curricula, we heard from many of our witnesses that there is now “complete content overload”. Several of the pupils and teachers we spoke to described teachers as being unable to take questions during a lesson because there is so much material for them to get through prior to exam season. Our report called for the overall content load, particularly of GCSEs, to be significantly reduced.
We received the Government’s response to our report in February and it was disappointing, to say the least. There has of course been a change of government since, as I mentioned, and I hope that we will see greater appetite from the new team to drive forward the change needed. Responding to our recommendations, the previous Government stated that they did not consider GCSE subject content
“to be excessive or in need of fundamental review”.
They argued that the academic standards expected under the current arrangements were “in line with” those of
“countries with high-performing education systems”.
Supporting all pupils to achieve the highest standards they can is a crucial aim and England’s improved positions in the latest PISA rankings is to be welcomed, yet our young people must also be offered the chance to experience more practical, applied forms of learning. Witnesses argued that the current overcrowded curriculum provides few opportunities for this. Our talent pipeline also depends on secondary pupils being supported and inspired to pursue the full range of options in the next phase of their education, including technical qualifications and apprenticeships. Enabling our young people to begin to explore creative and technical learning in this phase is therefore vital. Yet we heard that there has been a dramatic decline in the number of pupils taking design and technology at GCSE, the main technical qualification at key stage 4.
Last week the Government launched a review of both the curriculum and assessment. This is much needed, and I particularly welcome the Government’s ambition to ensure that
“every young person gets the opportunity to develop creative, digital, and speaking and listening skills”.
As the Government note, these are “particularly prized by employers”.
On accountability, I hope that the upcoming review will take note of the committee’s finding that the current system is overfocused on academic pathways. A key driver of this, of course, is the English baccalaureate, or EBacc. The EBacc comprises a set of traditionally academic GCSE subjects defined by the Department for Education. It is not in itself, however, a qualification for pupils; rather, it is a performance measure through which schools are held to account. The Government have set an ambition that 90% of 14 to 16 year-olds in state-funded schools should be studying the EBacc subjects by 2025. We heard compelling evidence that this has led to a deprioritisation of creative, artistic and technical subjects, particularly when school budgets are stretched, as they are. According to GCSE entry data, take-up of music has fallen by 35% and of drama by 40% since the introduction of the EBacc in 2010.
The EBacc’s composition is based on the facilitating subjects—a now-retracted classification formerly put forward by the Russell group. It is therefore geared to the requirements of high-tariff university entrance. Yet around three in five 18 year-olds in the United Kingdom do not go to university. One head teacher described the narrow diet of academic study promoted by the EBacc as “a deadly experience” for those who would be better suited to a different combination of subjects. The committee therefore urged the Government to abandon the EBacc immediately. We argued that the remaining 11 to 16 school performance measures should then be reviewed. They must give schools more flexibility to offer the qualifications that would best serve their pupils, including creative, technical and vocational subjects, and not give undue emphasis to the university route. Responding to the report, the Government simply told us:
“We have no plans to abandon or amend the EBacc or our ambition for high levels of take-up”.
The Labour Party has, however, previously suggested that the key stage 4 school performance metrics should be adapted to recognise
“the value of creativity in young people’s education”
and to promote the take-up of creative and vocational subjects. I would be grateful if the Minister could expand on this proposal and set out how these changes might be implemented.
Finally, I turn to assessment. We heard that many pupils in this phase undergo more than 30 hours of assessment during GCSE exam season. This follows a shift away from the use of coursework or other forms of non-exam assessment in recent years. Our report determined that there is a need for some kind of formal assessment at 16, given the number of pupils who change institutions when they progress to the next phase of their education. We also noted credible concerns that non-exam assessment can lead to less reliable grades. The committee concluded, however, that the current emphasis on end-of-course exam-based testing places a “disproportionate” burden on pupils.
Intense exam pressure is also experienced by teachers and schools, since GCSE results underpin the majority of school performance measures for the 11 to 16 phase. We therefore supported proposals from the Times Education Commission and others to move towards a slimmed-down form of assessment at 16, with externally validated testing used across a smaller set of subjects.
On assessment reform, the previous Government restated their position that linear exam-based testing is
“the best and fairest way to ensure children learn and retain knowledge”.
The new Government have committed to
“consider the right balance of assessment methods whilst protecting the important role of examinations”
as part of their expert-led review. Could the Minister confirm that this review will take account of the many recent reports that have called for a less onerous model of assessment at 16? Given that all young people in England must now remain in education or training until the age of the 18, the case for change seems clear.
To conclude, the committee received overwhelming evidence that the current 11 to 16 system is failing to provide a genuinely broad and balanced education and to adequately prepare the next generation. I strongly encourage the new Government to carefully consider our recommendations and take swift action to bring about the changes needed. I beg to move.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, I am extremely pleased to participate in this debate and, in particular, to follow the noble Lord, Lord Johnson—about whom I will say more later. I regret that the date of this debate has meant that some committee members are unable to be here. I present in particular the apologies of my noble friend Lord Watson, who is unable to be present today due to a long-standing family commitment. Before coming to the details, let me say that it was a genuine pleasure to engage in the work of this committee, which was so ably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Johnson of Marylebone. He encouraged all members to work together and adopt a collegiate approach to addressing the urgent issue of 11 to 16 education, and I believe that we all complied.
When we concluded that “urgent change” was needed, I do not think any of us were imagining that there would be a general election on 4 July this year. We have now both the response from the previous Government, which I also found disappointing, and the prospect of significant change from a new Government. There is a great deal in the report which should commend itself to those now in office. I am hopeful that the curriculum and assessment review announced by Bridget Phillipson will take account of the work we did, on which there was such an impressive measure of cross-party agreement and support.
Many headline aspirations of the Government’s review would be met by the recommendations—and there are many—in this report, none more so than the need for a broader curriculum. As the chair has already said, we heard from many witnesses, in person and in writing, that the constraints on the curriculum are such that many areas are squeezed or excluded from the experience of many young people; music, art, dance and drama, as well as PE, and technical and vocational subjects, are all suffering in this regard.
Earlier this week, I was pleased to attend the launch of the State of the Arts report. One of its chapters charts the decline of arts education in schools in England. One statistic is that, at GCSE,
“entries in arts subjects has declined by 47%”.
We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, about the individual subjects, but across the piece it has declined by 47% since 2010. This is not, I believe, where we would all agree that we should be. One of the speakers at the launch was the mother of the remarkable Kanneh-Mason children. Their talent and enthusiasm for music was nurtured and developed in a state school in Nottingham. Dr Kanneh expressed regret that future cohorts of children at that school would no longer enjoy such provision, due to budget cuts arising from both curriculum constraints and, of course, insufficient funding. Such cuts have been faced in all too many schools.
Curriculum breadth is important but so too is the vision and mission that all children and young people will leave school ready for life—of which work is a part—with the skills, attributes, behaviours and knowledge to thrive as emerging adults. There was much discussion in the committee of digital skills, which are clearly now essential, but also of team working, problem solving, and critical and creative thinking. These are all important and prized by employers—not to mention oracy, about which I received an interesting and useful briefing from an aptly named organisation, Voice 21.
I turn to a particular constraint on the curriculum, about which noble Lords have already heard: the so-called EBacc. The report rightly called for this to be abandoned; it should be. I recently read a book by Sam Freedman, a former advisor to Michael Gove. Noble Lords may know that, in my previous job at the National Union of Teachers, I rarely agreed with that particular former Secretary of State or his advisers, but I have learned something really important from Sam Freedman’s book, which I hope will increase the likelihood of the end of the EBacc. Mr Freedman, in writing about the comms grid, which he calls “the beast”, said:
“As an adviser in the Department for Education I had to feed the beast. Every September a ‘Back to School’ week appeared on the Grid, which meant three or four big policy announcements were required. In 2010 we hadn’t yet finished developing our policy plans so had to scrabble around for ideas. Over the past several months we had been considering an idea to reward pupils who did a particular mix of more traditional subjects at GCSE. But no proper work had been done by the department and we had not talked to any headteachers about it yet. However, the minister, Michael Gove, was due to go on the BBC’s Andrew Marr programme that Sunday and he needed something to say, so we decided it was the best idea we had. At the time the department was leaking a lot so the announcement was worked up by a tiny team of ministers, advisers and one or two trusted officials. There was no consultation and it was done in two days. That Sunday, Gove announced a new ‘English Baccalaureate’ to Marr (He called it that because it sounded European and The Guardian would like it.) In the years since the announcement, that policy has had an enormous impact on schools.”
Mr Freedman goes on to say that he did not think it was wholly bad but observes that it has had a distinctly deleterious effect on arts subjects.
Let me move on to the fact that the EBacc subjects appear in buckets—a rather inelegant way to express subject groupings. This clearly makes some combinations completely impossible. These buckets, and the overburdensome content of the subject syllabus at GCSE, put me in mind of the WB Yeats quote:
“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire”.
I venture to suggest that not many of WB Yeats’s metaphorical fires are currently lit—or indeed that much fun is being had, as the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, often reminded the committee. Surely that should be the experience of education that we want for young people. Going forward, we will achieve this only if the curriculum and assessment review is bold and radical. We need to turn our attention—as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said in this Chamber only last week—to the model of curriculum that we want. This is not a time for tinkering with buckets.
I add, as I am sure my noble friend Lord Watson would have done if he had been here, that as Ofqual recognises that GCSE results are accurate only to within one grade, serious questions should be asked about their value. Assessment needs to be considered in the round. There are many more options than the near-total reliance on terminal exams. Presentational skills in writing and speaking can play a key role going forward in how we capture the learning and strengths of all our young people. There is ample experience in the education sector, including in universities, as well as in schools offering other types of qualifications such as the EPQ, of alternatives. We also need to consider the hitherto malign influence of Ofsted, and look to better and more professionally appropriate ways to evaluate the work of schools. The Beyond Ofsted inquiry, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, has much to offer on this.
I repeat that it was a pleasure to be a member of this committee. I am particularly pleased to have worked alongside the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, who now regards me, he said last week, as a “good egg”, and I certainly returned the compliment. I commend this report to the Government and urge boldness. However, in thinking about change, even urgent change, we need to have regard to the investment required in teachers’ necessary professional development, the resources needed, and the need to ensure that the curriculum and assessment will be appropriate for all our young people. Our new Government have talked about a curriculum that reflects the issues and diversity in society, ensuring that all young people feel represented, are able to access it and can be successful. Surely that is the appropriate aspiration for our education system.
Lord Aberdare (CB)
My Lords, another Friday, another education debate. The more the merrier, in my view, although perhaps not always on Fridays. As a perennial tail-ender, coming so early in the batting order is a rather new experience for me, but one that I welcome.
It was a great privilege to serve on this committee last year under the excellent chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Johnson of Marylebone, and a great pleasure to work with colleagues who were both committed and knowledgeable. We were supported by a splendid staff team, led by our clerk, Eleanor Clements. We had less than a year for the task, so our remit, focusing on education for 11 to 16 year-olds, was designed to fit within this timescale. This was challenging, since policy for 11 to 16 year-olds cannot ignore what happens before the age of 11, nor indeed what happens post 16.
As your Lordships have heard, we focused on three principal areas: curriculum, assessment, and school accountability. However, this meant giving limited attention to other issues, such as teacher recruitment, training and retention; careers education; and the needs of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities—important as all these are and worthy of further consideration by this House.
Our report made some 20 recommendations, and the response of the previous Government roundly rejected 12, very partially accepted five, and somewhat grudgingly accepted three. So I welcome the fact that we are having this debate with a new Government in place. The Labour manifesto and last week’s King’s Speech indicate a much more encouraging response to our ideas. Indeed, the launch last week of the curriculum and assessment review marks a welcome step towards implementing some of our recommendations.
I was struck by the degree of consensus in the evidence given to the committee by teachers, school leaders, pupils and education experts about the challenges facing 11 to 16 education. Some aspects are indeed admirable, as evidenced by the UK’s performance in reading and maths in the PISA rankings. The system works well for students with strong academic leanings who can cope with studying for more than the minimum number of GCSEs and who are good at exams and keen to go to university. However, even for these students, the curriculum is not well balanced, placing too much emphasis on knowledge learning at the expense of acquiring essential skills such as listening, oracy—something that, regrettably, was not available at my school, as noble Lords may be discovering to their dismay—problem-solving, creativity and teamwork, let alone more practical skills such as digital literacy, financial literacy and language learning.
Even more concerning is the ever-growing gap between state and private schools in providing creative and cultural education, including in music, art, theatre, dance and, particular, design and technology, resulting largely from the omission of these subjects from the EBacc performance measure. So I hope that the Minister, whom I welcome to her post, will have something to say about restoring arts and creative subjects to their proper place in all schools.
For the 60%-plus of students who do not aspire to university but are more concerned about acquiring the knowledge and skills to enable them to discover and develop the talents and attributes that will enable them to fulfil their potential in the world of work, the picture is less rosy. For the 30% or so who fail to attain level 4 passes in GCSE English and maths—the so-called forgotten third—the prospects are even worse, as they find themselves branded failures. Even in their own eyes, they may see themselves as failures, and they are condemned to a sometimes recurring round of resits in order to make any further progress.
There are other ways of achieving functional proficiency in English and maths than through GCSEs, and I hope the Minister will assure us that this is one of our recommendations that the Government will pursue. I am encouraged by this statement in the manifesto that
“Labour will support children to study a creative or vocational subject until they are 16”.
I look forward to hearing from the Minister how all pupils will be enabled to study at least one technical or vocational subject.
Assessment for 11 to 16 year-olds rests mainly on GCSEs. These are claimed to have the advantage of being fair, since all children take the same exams at the same time and are marked in the same way by external assessors. The flaw in this idea is that not all children are the same. We received a mass of evidence that GCSEs are too content-heavy, too demanding—with up to 30 exams in a concentrated period—too stressful and too rigid. Teachers told us of having to “teach to the test” and being unable to explore issues that had sparked pupils’ interest and desire to learn more about them because of the need to get through the GCSE curriculum. Students told us of throwing away their textbooks after completing their GCSEs, because they knew they would never again need the information contained in them.
Schools may be good at preparing pupils for university, but they are much less good at preparing them for life or for work. Regular promises over many years to improve parity of esteem between academic and technical education have never succeeded. Yet the university technical colleges pioneered by the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking—I am sure he will tell us more about them in a moment—have shown clearly how such a balance can be successfully achieved. We visited a very impressive UTC in east London. Not all schools can be UTCs, so the idea of a UTC sleeve, enabling existing secondary schools to extend their offerings to include technical learning, is hugely attractive, and I hope the Government will commit to piloting it with a wider rollout in mind. Other schools, mainly in the private sector, such as Bedales and Latymer Upper, have decided to abandon GCSEs altogether except for English and maths, and to develop their own curriculum offers and assessment methodologies. There is something to learn from that.
Skills-based and technical subjects are often seen as harder to assess than academic subjects. Our report emphasises the need for appropriate forms of non-exam assessment to meet this need. There are many options, including performance-based assessment in music or sport, for example. Other options include presentations, coursework, project outcomes—as part of the higher project qualification, for example—on-screen assessment, and the universal framework for assessing essential life skills, which was developed by the Skills Builder Partnership and is already used in almost 600 schools and colleges. All these forms of assessment are much closer to what students are likely to encounter in their working lives than our exams.
I will move on and not talk about accountability, because that was covered extremely well by the noble Lord, Lord Johnson. I very much look forward to the Minister’s response to this debate and trust that it will confirm the Government’s intention to act on rather more of the committee’s recommendations than their predecessor planned to do. Reforming the education system for 11 to 16 year-olds along the lines we advocate, although urgent, is no small task, so an evolutionary approach over a period possibly as long as 10 years will be needed, with an emphasis on getting students, teachers and parents on side.
The Government should set out a clear vision of how they seek to transform education, and a road map for getting there over the coming years. Perhaps they might launch a national campaign to raise the profile and status of education and teaching as a central element of their drive for growth, and again—as the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, might have said if she were here—to make education fun and exciting again.
There are many other issues relating to education for 11 to 16 year-olds, and of course to education and skills before and after that age bracket. I wish the Government well in pursuing the change that is so urgently needed and hope there will be many opportunities for this House to provide comment and scrutiny along the way.
The Lord Bishop of Chichester
My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, who have participated in the excellent report chaired by the group led by the noble Lord, Lord Johnson.
I welcome the priority that has been given to the review of the curriculum for 11 to 19 year-olds at an early stage of the Government coming into office. In particular, I welcome the report of the review group and how it will “refresh” the curriculum,
“build on the hard work of teachers and staff”,
and seek “evolution and not revolution”.
These are important indications that education will not be driven by ideology that leads to it becoming a political football, as sometimes has happened in the past.
In particular, the promise that the review will not
“place undue burdens on education staff”
will need to be delivered ostentatiously, particularly if the Government wish to improve the recruitment and retention of top-quality teachers. To that end, I greatly welcome also the acknowledgement of
“the innovation and professionalism of teachers”.
The working principles for the review group speak of consultation with education professionals, other experts and stakeholders. This does not at present include direct reference to the churches, but perhaps that is because this relationship is simply taken for granted. The tone of the statement on the review certainly chimes with the “whole child” approach of the Church of England’s vision set out in its 2016 vision for education, which outlines wisdom, knowledge and skills as the framework for nurturing capacity for decision-making, ethical considerations and social and environmental responsibility. We would certainly welcome the opportunity to be represented as part of the review group.
The diocese of Chichester that I serve is not unusual in running 155 schools, of which eight are secondary, delivering education to 37,000 pupils. This is a serious responsibility and it provides us with a significant window on the concerns and challenges of every community that our schools serve. It also indicates the wider context in which our schools operate. Thousands of volunteers across the country give their time to work with head teachers and teachers to try to distil the best possible balance between curriculum requirements and time spent on other demands that are non-essential academically but essential for the flourishing of certain subjects and activities, such as music, sport, drama and after-school clubs. Sustaining this, together with recruitment for the demanding contribution of volunteers in good governance, is a constant challenge and it will be very good to hear encouragement of this contribution.
I also note that the terms of reference for the review group speak of
“a curriculum that reflects the issues and diversities of our society”.
Here again, I ask the Minister what attention is to be paid to religious literacy as an important strand of education for understanding the complexity of national and global society. The Statutory Inspection of Anglican and Methodist Schools, or SIAMS, framework promotes religious education as a means to develop “courageous advocacy”, asking how a school’s theologically rooted Christian vision creates an active culture of justice and responsibility.
In a recent article on religious literacy, Professor Jim Walters at the LSE observed that
“learning about religion has become fused with agendas to foster inclusion … This makes it uncomfortable to touch on a tradition’s shadow side or the destructive ways religion is used”.
Walters goes on to assess how education might deepen and widen the outreach of students as a way of preparing them for adult decision-making. He contrasts economic, social and eco systems that are at risk of collapse with a religious imagination that is more than a creed or a set of dogmas. We might legitimately see the absence of any such orientation as one reason for the well-documented decline in happiness and positivity among students today. So I urge that the review group take seriously the important contribution of religious education to addressing issues of diversity and encouraging a critical and imaginative exploration that can expand our vision of a flourishing and coherent future.
Alongside this, I welcome the importance that the report gives to music, art, sport and drama. Investment in this area of education as integral to the curriculum is essential and has been lacking. This makes financial sense as we review the importance of the creative industries for our economy and as a significant source of soft power internationally.
On music as an integrative aspect of a curriculum, the Church of England is very aware in its work, particularly in the diocese of Coventry through its Inspire Education Trust, of how music in schools in areas of acute deprivation, incorporated as a necessary part of the curriculum, has lifted self-esteem and led people into exploration of performance and experience of live music, bringing groups to London to expand that. This is entirely positive.
In the diocese of Chichester, we have also benefited from partnership between church state schools and the independent sector, where music and the arts have been so well funded. At their best, these partnerships have ensured learning opportunities for both sides. The considerable investment in music and the arts from the independent sector has resulted in a notable range of successful actors from that background. One of our leading independent schools, Brighton College, intentionally uses the arts to break down stereotypes of gender and sexual orientation. For example, a key rugby player can also be the lead in a dance troupe. As we face an unprecedented surge in male violence against women, these performative processes of education that tackle emotional insecurities and unexamined prejudice should find an important place in any school curriculum.
I welcome the reference to a curriculum that prepares all children and young people for life as well as for work. It is essential that the formative development in the primary school years is also referenced in the curriculum that builds on that foundation. The resourcing of that early stage will legitimately demand attention and adequate resourcing. For example, the effects of digitalisation and the implementation of technology for the rolling out of the curriculum are heavily dependent on local budget availability, and many children miss out. It is also true that keeping people safe online is now a key priority for the governance of schools, and that includes basic searching for knowledge. I hope this will feature in the review ahead.
Finally, the curriculum review must also recognise that a “whole child” approach confronts us with a significant barrier to the effectiveness of any curriculum: namely, child poverty. The schools I serve identify the two-child cap as a significant contributor to this priority. I hope that its damage to education will contribute to its abolition.
I welcome the attention that His Majesty’s Government intend to bring to the review of the existing national curriculum and statutory assessment system. I hope that the churches will be invited to participate fully in the work of the review group.
Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)
My Lords, first, I draw attention to my declaration of interests; in particular, as chair of Voice 21, because it is specifically mentioned in this report. I am very pleased to be able to contribute to this debate. I was not a member of the committee, but I followed casually what it was doing and looked forward to its recommendations. I congratulate the committee on a very good document, which will be very helpful moving forward—and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, for the way in which he introduced it today.
This debate is bound to be about criticising what goes on in schools; it is the nature of the report and the recommendations. I want to place on record that lots of good things go on in our schools at the moment and, although even in our present system there are attainment gaps to be closed, we must always make sure not to de-energise schools even further by making it sound as though nothing good goes on. They achieve against significant obstacles.
However, the report goes beyond that: it is not about merely looking at what happens at the moment. It asks the fundamental question: are we aiming for the right thing? When we achieve what we have set out to achieve, will it be right and fit for purpose? The evidence that the committee has brought to us makes us conclude that the answer to that is no. It is stark in its emphasis on what the curriculum is trying to do: it is a knowledge-rich curriculum with very narrow pedagogy and only an end-of-course written assessment. I went through a phase of thinking that that was something targeted at some children but it was not a vision for the whole school system—but when you look at the ambition that 90% of children should do those subjects and be assessed in that way, it really hits you that that is the vision for the whole system, and that cannot be right. You can think of so many people who have contributed so much to society, whose contribution will not have been prepared for adequately in those subjects, with that assessment.
If you think about what we aspire for in our economy, where the jobs come from and what sort of adults—the rounded individuals—we want our children to be, that approach does not prepare them for employment, fulfilment or civic life. You can see the consequences of that, as has already been mentioned, in the reduction in emphasis on the other subjects. Music is 35% down, drama is 40% down, expressive arts is 49% down, while design and technology is down by 70% and is now taken by just 12% of pupils. When that happens, you do not get the next generation of teachers coming through either; we have seen that in modern foreign languages. So it is not just about the gap at the moment—we are sowing the seeds for the gaps for the next generation as well.
All that means that the case for change is exceptionally strong. That is not the vision we want: it is not fit for purpose, and it does not meet the aspirations that we have for our nation or our children. So I very much welcome what the report says about the subjects that are ignored—particularly oracy, given my connection with Voice 21. That is described in the report as
“the ability to articulate ideas, develop understanding and engage with others through spoken language”.
Why would we not want all our children to be able to learn to do that? Why would that not be part of our aspiration? Why would not that be something that we treasure and do all that we can to make happen?
Noble Lords have already spoken about the need for more creative and artistic subjects and for technical and vocational education—and that is right. There is an important point to be made here. When you go round schools, it is not that you do not see any arts, music, drama, engineering or technical work. It is not that you do not hear children speaking very effectively or articulately—it is that the system does not recognise it, and makes it difficult for that to happen. Yes, we have good musicians, but we do not have enough. Yes, we have people who do drama, but there are not enough teachers and facilities around for them all to do it. For too long, the Government have been allowed to say, “Ah, yes, but there is time outside the English baccalaureate for schools to do all those things that are important as well”. The whole system does not recognise those things, and everybody here knows that that accountability system is very good at driving behaviour. If you look at the subjects and skills that have been squeezed out, it is evidence of the power of the accountability structure.
It is interesting that in a report on the curriculum for 14 to 16 year-olds, as much attention has had to be paid to the accountability structure as to the curriculum itself. The curriculum is what we teach and how we teach, while the accountability structure is something completely different. But the strength of the accountability structure is so great that the committee has had to examine that as well. I am a believer in the accountability system. I believe in testing and reporting the tests, and I believe in inspection and accountability, and I have done ever since I was a teacher and the noble Lord, Lord Baker, introduced it into schools at that time. But, to be honest, it has now become our master rather than our servant, and that is a real problem.
We talk about having an aligned system. Of course, the accountability system has to align with the curriculum; we have to test what we teach, and we have to hold people accountable for what we ask them to do. But really that is now so strong that that alignment is a straitjacket. When you ask people why they are not going beyond the English baccalaureate, or why they are not doing more technical subjects, the answer is always the same—because of the accountability system. When the accountability system rules everything else that goes on, there are questions to be asked, which is why I welcome the changes to the accountability system that the committee has recommended. I think that around half of its recommendations do that.
This is the second Friday when we have had an education debate, and on both days the words “revolution” and “evolution” have been used. We have all said the same thing: it must not be revolutionary, it must be evolutionary—and I would say that as well. But I worry that actually we are using that as an excuse not to make the changes that we do not want to make. That is a real risk. I do not want to use the term “revolutionary”, but my criticism of this report is that it is not bold enough; it is restricted too much by what we have now. Really, being evolutionary rather than revolutionary should not restrict our vision—it should indicate caution in our actions. I think that we are allowing the dichotomy between revolution and evolution to put a straitjacket around our aspirations rather than using it as a guide in the implementation. I would have liked the committee—and after a general election is perhaps a good time—to go beyond that. Even if we implement all these committee recommendations, I still do not think that it is the answer to the question of what we aspire to for our children.
I will mention some things that I would have liked to see in the report—and I would very much welcome it if the new Government said that they would take these things forward. First, on assessment, there is nothing brilliant about end-of-term written exams. They are not the gold standard—there are other ways of allowing children to show what they have achieved, with pride and with an objective to do even better. Ofsted is not the only way in which to hold schools to account. The Government could do no better than to implement the report Beyond Ofsted by the inquiry chaired by my noble friend Lord Knight, which suggests an exceptionally strong, robust and fair way in which to hold schools to account.
The third area where I would have liked to see the committee’s report being bolder was to have the starting point have a wider appreciation of what we want for our children and young adults in this stage of their lives. What do we want for their well-being? What do we want for their character? How do we want to help shape their contribution to civic life? What do we want their dreams to be about? How do we equip them to make good partnerships and be friends, colleagues, comrades and work associates with the people they live alongside? How do we help them to be strong individuals and part of strong families and communities and a strong nation? There is no way that the English baccalaureate delivers that—but there is a danger that, while we may implement the recommendations from this report as a first step, the real task of a curriculum and a school system for 11 to 16 year-olds has to be bigger and bolder. Now with a new Government is exactly the time to take on that task.
Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)
It is always a pleasure to follow my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. She is one of the three former Education Secretaries—the other being the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett—who still talk about education, and brings to the House her wisdom and experience.
This is a fascinating debate. When my noble friend Lord Johnson presented his report in December 2023, it was dismissed out of hand by the previous Government. We were told that our recommendations to change the curriculum were absurd because the curriculum, which was EBacc and progress 8, was the best that had been invented by mankind, and as for the assessment system of GCSEs, it was the best examination system in the world, and the person who invented it was brilliant. I invented it, and I now want to scrap it.
The GCSE exam dominates the whole educational world. I spoke to a young student last week who has just done her GCSEs. I asked, “How many exams did you take?” She said, “I took 27 exams—nine in five days”. That is absolutely absurd. The GCSE dominates the whole education system, and I hope that it will be a victim of the review that the Government set up. It was needed in 1980 because 80% of children left school at 16. Now only 5% leave at 16, and the qualification that is important is what you get at 18.
I welcome what the Government said in their manifesto and the action that they have already taken. The Secretary of State got off the mark very quickly. She said in the Commons only two days ago that she was going to stop the defunding of BTECs. It is a very technical matter, but it is important that BTECs and T-levels run together. I thank her for that. She also said that she would set up a skills fund. I very much welcome that; it will replace a body that we—the Conservatives—abolished in 2017: the Commission for Employment and Skills, which identified the skills that the country needed and identified where there were gaps. Since that time, there has been a sort of mist, miasma and fog over skills; then suddenly, out of the blue, we discovered that we were short of abattoir workers, heavy duty drivers, construction workers and data analysts. The Government have already appointed an interim head of the skills fund, Mr Pennycook, whom I hope to meet.
The other fundamental thing that the Government have done is to set up a review of the curriculum and assessment from 14 to 18 under Professor Becky Francis, who is a very distinguished person and well-known figure in education. That review will be very important. Its object is to re-establish the broad curriculum, which I tried to introduce in the 1980s. It has been whittled away. As a result of the EBacc, design technology—the only practical study—has been reduced by 80%; that is incredible. The cultural subjects—I think the Minister is responsible for culture, or has some interest in culture—have dropped by 50%, including drama, dance, music, art and the performing arts. That industry is burgeoning: the entertainment industry in Britain this year is likely to earn as much as banking. There is huge demand. Eight of the colleges that I promote produce students for the entertainment industry.
One thing that we made a great fuss of in this report was the importance of data skills. In this day and age, students at 18 must all have data skills, not just to be able to use a computer for Instagram and social media but to use all the riches of a computer. In the schools I have been promoting for the past 15 years—university technical colleges—all the students have a computer and are, obviously, well versed in how to use them. What I have found, however, is that everything is happening so rapidly in this area that you have to realise that data skills change almost every other year. Cybersecurity is one example. Several of the colleges that I promote teach cybersecurity with GCHQ. GCHQ has come out of its closet to say that it will support these schools. That is not done in normal state schools.
These schools also teach virtual reality—helmets on heads—and gaming and all that sort of thing. We are the centre of the gaming industry. Again, this is not in normal schools today. The only exam is a GCSE in computer science. My grandson has recently taken it—he did very well—but all they do is learn coding. You no longer need to learn coding, because artificial intelligence codes quicker and is more accurate. The only GSCE that we have in computing, which is taken by only 13% of the children, teaches something that they will no longer need. This shows how important this review will be.
To stay on skills for a moment, it is really very important to change the whole mentality and approach. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester said that the approach of the Church of England was “Wisdom, knowledge and skills”. I benefited from that, as I went to a Church of England primary school when we were evacuated to Southport. It really was the basis of my education. It is important to have that mixture. In the university technical colleges that I have been promoting for the past 15 years, we try to have that. First, they are for 14 to 18 year-olds. Fourteen is very important as a transfer age in education; the rest of the world tends to transfer at 14. Europe is moving from lower secondary to upper secondary at 14 and America changes at 14. We are the only country that is stuck with 11 and 16. We have 11 because it was once the school leaving age and 16 because that was also once the school leaving age. The school leaving age should no longer be the determination. The private sector in Britian, as noble Lords know, changes at nine and 13 or 14, as the rest of the world does. This is something that I hope the review committee will look at very carefully indeed.
You cannot just turn on technical and cultural education with one switch. It is much more complicated than that. The real success of our schools is that we get local companies—whether the school is in Newcastle, Plymouth, Birmingham or Norfolk—to determine what should be taught in the curriculum, because that is what affects the local community. In Birmingham it is cars, but we have also now discovered that jewellery is a very important industry in Birmingham. This September, we will have jewellery courses, on manufacture and training, in the Aston UTC. One has to develop these sorts of local things. Technical education does not work without the active support of local companies. By “active”, I mean that they sit on the board, help to determine the curriculum, bring in projects for students to work on in teams, and get involved in the schools, just as the local university does. That is the sort of education that we should have in this century.
I am very hopeful that we have now got to the stage where change will happen. It really must. If the Government are to get a 1% improvement in the country’s economic performance, we will have to produce more skilled people in our country. Otherwise, the alternative is to import more from overseas. The Government are quite right to promote wind farms, both offshore and onshore, but the Minister will discover that at least 25% or 30% of the people managing the large offshore one at Grimsby come from overseas. There is a huge task to be done in training people in all these skills.
I very much hope that we are at the dawn of a very different and new age. I hope that it will be done with cross-party support. I hope to persuade my party to support what the Government are doing. It might be quite a difficult task from time to time, but I will do my best.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Johnson of Marylebone, on his able introduction to this important debate. I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, on her ministerial appointment within the DCMS. The arts, for one, deserve that representation in this House, and I am very glad to see that. I hope that she will argue the particular case of the arts, which are in such severe financial difficulty. I was sorry that, unlike for science and technology, in whose interests the Government have hit the ground running, there was no slot for the arts and creative industries in the King’s Speech debate in this House. I therefore gently ask the Minister to look at the speeches and questions, particularly on Friday, when we got no reply at all. I do say these things gently, because many of us are very much heartened by the quite dramatic change in language that has taken place, particularly around arts education.
These things are important within the context of this debate, because education in schools does not occur in a vacuum. The report quite rightly focuses on the educational system, but education is influenced by social change, directly through a Government’s educational policy and by a Government’s industrial strategy, which feeds back into school education. The perceptions of parents and children will be affected by how worthwhile they believe studying any subject is—in the case of the arts, whether the arts and creative industries have a solid future in this country. After so much decline in creative subjects’ take-up at GCSE and A-level, which the report points up, these perceptions will now need a lot of turnaround. At present, there is every sign that the Government will agree with the report’s belief that there should be
“greater emphasis on technical, digital and creative areas of study”,
but parents and children will need to be convinced, having for so long been told the opposite, that the creative subjects are worthy of study and the arts and creative industries will be as much at the heart of this country’s future development as science and technology.
Some of us have been making repeated observations about the decline in the take-up of arts subjects for some time. The trend is graphically illustrated by both this report and the new The State of the Arts report, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Blower. It was produced by Campaign for the Arts and the University of Warwick and had a well-attended launch in this House on Monday. It has a brilliant cover designed by Bob and Roberta Smith, the beneficiary of a more enlightened time in arts education. I hope the Minister will look carefully at that report as well.
The committee’s report rightly recommends moving away from a focus on a knowledge-rich approach towards a broader approach that includes skills and other non-academic subjects. On Wednesday, we had an Oral Question on the relationship between mental health and poor school attendance. I wonder how much of a circular argument that is and whether a different approach to education will also have an effect in this regard—an approach that does not rely so much on the sometimes deadening experience of “rote learning and ‘cramming’”, as the report puts it. Learning should be a joyful and fun experience. This is all about teaching to the individual child, not teaching to the test.
This is not to say that knowledge within certain contexts is a bad thing, but those contexts ought to be as meaningful as possible to the student. My daughter, who is now at drama school, is very much a case in point. She has no problem memorising pages and pages of a script for a play in which she is performing, but found it difficult at school to marshal facts and regurgitate the often already clichéd arguments that need to be put down in an essay in a specified time, which is great—well, perhaps great—if you want to be an academic, but she wants to be an actor. Those kinds of creative skills—in drama, music and the visual arts—are not taught enough in state schools and are certainly at present less available to underprivileged pupils.
One thing that is particularly good about this report is that it has cast its net wide; it has gathered evidence from many educational corners, including initiatives in independent schools, as the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, said. I suspect the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, had a hand in that. One such initiative is Rethinking Assessment, which works between the independent and state sectors and from which the committee took evidence. The report recommends:
“In the shorter term, improvements could be made by increasing the use of coursework or other forms of non-exam assessment, including project-based qualifications”.
It is clear that such assessments go hand in hand with a move away from a knowledge-rich approach.
Reinstating and reinvigorating creative subjects will not in practice be just about removing the EBacc—one of the recommendations of the report—or about perception. It will also be about money. One of the things that at present distinguishes the arts offer in many independent schools is a willingness to spend money on performing arts facilities, art studios and musical instruments. In my view, music should be brought back into our state schools. While culture is increasingly consumed digitally, these kinds of production facilities still remain hugely important for schools, alongside digital media.
While Becky Francis carries out her review, we seem to be in that period of re-entry to the atmosphere called “blackout”, when there is radio silence. There are strong hints, and I hope the Minister will give us as much detail as she can. I hope Becky Francis takes on board the recommendations of this excellent report and what we say in this debate as well.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
My Lords, I was delighted to be a member of the Education for 11-16 Year Olds Committee and am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this debate. I too thank my noble friend Lord Johnson for his excellent chairmanship and the committee staff for their hard work in supporting us.
We say at the start of our report:
“The 11-16 phase of education is a crucial stage in a young person’s life”.
It is essential that it effectively equips them with the skills, knowledge and behaviours they need to progress and make the most of the opportunities that lie before them. Today’s 11 year-olds will leave school in the 2030s and join a labour market that is likely to be transformed from the one we have today, to one with major opportunities and major challenges. As our economy and society develop, it is only right that the education system adapts and changes to reflect our new realities. However, doing that is no easy feat.
Trying to second-guess with any certainty what job opportunities might be available to young people in the coming decades when we are seeing such technological and societal changes now is extremely challenging. But, as we set out in the report, even if we cannot predict future employment requirements, we can say with perhaps more certainty that, in addition to all pupils needing a strong grounding in literacy and numeracy—a non-negotiable in a high-performing education system—the development and nurturing of “human skills” during a young person’s secondary education is likely to be increasingly important for their future success, as technology in particular reshapes employment.
In evidence, we heard that the skills imperative 2035 programme undertaken by the National Foundation for Educational Research identified six essential employment skills that are predicted to be the most utilised in the labour market in 2035: communication; collaboration; problem solving; organising, planning and prioritising work; creative thinking; and information literacy. This view—the need to develop a range of skills during the 11 to 16 phase of education alongside acquiring knowledge—was a clear theme throughout our evidence sessions. Equally clear was the view that they are currently being squeezed out by the demands and structure of the curriculum.
Nevertheless, while we look to the future, it is only fair that we recognise that education reforms introduced by previous Conservative Governments have successfully improved standards and were designed to address the concern at the time that the previous qualifications did not adequately prepare young people for the demands of the workplace or higher study. They have had success. But, with the last full-scale review of the curriculum being over a decade ago, it is timely to consider what and whether changes are now needed.
The evidence we heard suggested that what and how pupils learn in the 11 to 16 phase needs to be reconsidered. Access to the internet, the advent of AI and the possibilities these hold for access to information and learning must lead us to examine whether such a strong, continued focus on a knowledge-rich curriculum which necessitates narrow teaching methods at the expense of pupils having the opportunity to develop broader skills—
“collaboration, creative thinking, critical thinking and communication”,
as one of our witnesses described them—continues to be the right approach.
Data from the survey platform Teacher Tapp found that 76% of teachers felt there was too much content to cover in their GCSE classes and that 57% were unable or only just about able to complete teaching their course prior to exam season. At our session with young people—which, as we have heard, impacted quite a lot of us—several participants talked about their teachers being unable to take questions during lessons because there was too much material to get through, which the pupils felt stifled their ability to really engage with their learning and the deeper understanding they were trying to develop.
So in recognising the need to continue to improve outcomes for young people, the committee, as we have heard, made a series of recommendations in relation to the 11 to 16 curriculum in our report aimed at rebalancing it. In particular, we recommended that the Government look at reducing the overall content load of the 11 to 16 curriculum, specifically on GCSE subject curricula, to allow pupils greater opportunities to develop and apply the essential skills they need to thrive in the future, and to give teachers greater flexibility to foster curiosity and deeper understanding of learning in the classroom.
Indeed, as we say in the report:
“A revised curriculum should enable schools to offer a more varied range of learning experiences, with the aim of promoting the development of a broader set of knowledge, skills and behaviours”.
Mindful of the disruption that wholesale change can cause—a concern raised by a number of those who gave evidence to the committee—we proposed that the Government should undertake a review to establish how this can be achieved and publish its findings. As we set out clearly in the report, supporting pupils to achieve a basic standard of literacy and numeracy must remain a core purpose of the 11 to 16 system.
We therefore also recommended that high-quality level-2 literacy and numeracy qualifications focus on the application of essential skills and that genuinely different and distinct qualifications from the discipline-based English and maths GCSEs qualifications be developed. Again, we proposed that the Government consult on whether the existing English and maths functional skills qualifications could fulfil that purpose or whether the development of new qualifications was needed.
In light of the recommendations, I—like all noble Lords, I think, who have spoken so far and who I suspect will speak in the debate—welcome the curriculum and assessment review announced last week by the Government and the opportunity it offers for an informed evidence-based debate on what a curriculum that delivers a high standard of education and equips young people with the skills and breadth of knowledge they need to flourish might look like over the coming decades. I hope this will be a genuinely open exercise based, as we say, on evidence and not preconceived ideas, one that recognises the achievements that have been made in our education system over the last decade and builds on them but which also unashamedly looks to the future to ensure that our education system continues to give young people the best start in life.
I hope that the Minister in her closing remarks will be able to provide more details about the review. Building on the comments of my noble friend Lord Baker, it will be critical that cross-party support comes behind a review in order that any recommendations are effectively implemented. Again, I would be very interested to hear whether the Minister could say anything about how there will be a real attempt to build consensus around this. It is such an important issue and will have such an impact on the young people of tomorrow.
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow that excellent speech from the noble Baroness. I should, however, start by reminding your Lordships of my education interests in the register, particularly as chair of the boards of the E-ACT multi-academy trust, STEM Learning and CENTURY Tech. I also sit on Pearson’s qualifications committee.
I pay tribute to the committee’s chair, the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, for the way in which he has introduced the debate and the inclusive way in which he facilitated things and helped us to come up with a strong report. I also thank fellow committee members, our staff and our advisers, and I am grateful to my friends Michael Shaw, Rosie Clayton, Liz Robinson and many others in helping me to think about these issues in preparation for today.
When we started as a committee, we explicitly agreed that, because of where we were in the political cycle, this was going to be more about influencing manifestos than the then Government. The inadequate government response and the new Government’s curriculum review reinforce that view.
The symptoms of problems in our schools are the current crises in pupil attendance and teacher retention. Those in our schools are voting with their feet. We need learning opportunities that better engage students and prepare them for the future. We need teachers who feel more motivated and empowered, improved protection of students' and staff's mental health and well-being, and assessment models that do not destine some learners to fail.
Currently, everything in our schools is aligned around a narrow aim. When the then Schools Minister Nick Gibb gave evidence, he revealed his thinking. It was all about aligning schooling to the needs of Russell group universities. After his 13 years in office, initial teacher training, the early careers framework, Oak National Academy, the curriculum, inspection, accountability and regulation are all aligned around that aim. Yet less than 40% go straight from school to university at 18. This narrow focus is failing at least a third of our children, and disproportionately the disadvantaged. It is failing the economy and is stuck in the past. That is why I very much welcome the Government’s curriculum and assessment review led by Becky Francis.
Broadening and rethinking curriculum and assessment gives us a chance to let all learners show what they can achieve at a more rigorous, deeper level in much more complex, real-world situations. The rise of AI means an education that leaves young people simply repeating facts and will not be good enough; the AI will always outcompete humans on that basis.
We should be raising, instead of lowering, our collective expectations of what learners can show us. Creating the space for that will mean more agency for teachers and students, more learning experiences that stick in the long-term memory and a more future-proof education.
It should also create more opportunities for joy. Of course, not every learner will be delighted by every lesson, but instead of seeing rigour and joy as opposites in education, why should our goal not be to create, in words coined by my friend Jenny Anderson, “joyful rigour”? If we succeed, it will not just be the students who benefit. Teachers deserve greater agency and joy in what they do. We can create a system that reminds them, parents and whole communities that, fundamentally, education is beautiful.
The curriculum review’s remit is a reflection of the committee’s report, but your Lordships also asked us to have a particular focus on young people’s readiness for a digital and green future. The Labour Party’s National Policy Forum agreed last year that
“A Labour government will integrate learning about climate change and sustainability throughout the curriculum in schools and on vocational courses, and provide training and support for teachers”.
Can I ask the Minister whether this will be delivered through the curriculum review? I remind your Lordships in this context of my failed Private Member’s Bill a couple of years ago that sought an additional aim of the national curriculum to instil,
“an ethos and ability to care for oneself, others and the natural environment, for present and future generations”.
Beyond that important issue, the core problem for the review to grapple with is how prescriptive to be. What is required learning as opposed to the required outcomes? Here, the big constraint is time. How are we going to retain academic rigour and add sports, the arts, learning that is vocational, more relevant, more practical and more project-based?
We heard from witnesses that the current curriculum has too much detail. I was told by a former official that in 2010, when he was in the room, the new Ministers Gove and Gibb reviewed the curriculum, saying that it was cluttered with too much detail and without enough room for the big ideas. It is easier to add to a curriculum than to take away, and I guess part of the reason for the review is once more to strip out detail and focus on big ideas once more.
However, I also think that aspects are outdated. The required reading for English in secondary is backward-looking and not inclusive of our diverse British population. Conrad Wolfram is one of the world’s biggest employers of advanced mathematicians and argues that maths as a subject in schools is weighed down with too much hand calculation that is now exclusively done better by machines. Instead, I hope that the review talks to more than just maths academics and gets the views of users of maths like engineers and physicists. I hope that we have data handling and manipulation across the humanities and sciences as part of numeracy to 18.
Stripping out content will still not be enough, however. We are still asking too much of the timetable if we add all that our report calls for, so we need to evolve a bigger change.
I applaud the Secretary of State’s desire to reset the relationship with the profession. We must allow teachers more flexibility on content and subjects. By all means specify big ideas, but lean on pedagogy for relevance and real-life problem-solving. That, in turn, requires reviewing and reinvesting in pre-service and in-service training, which is also good for retention.
We can also deploy technology better to support pedagogy—the ugly phrase PedTech. To do that, school leaders need good advice, and I would advocate repurposing Oak to be a new light-touch Becta. With less specificity in the curriculum, we should then align assessment, inspection outcomes and accountability to ensure an inclusive system that delivers for all children.
I, like the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, am grateful to the Skills Builder Partnership for sharing the universal framework developed by Sir John Holman of basic, essential and technical skills. I commend it to your Lordships. Everything is underpinned by the basics of literacy, numeracy, digital and oracy. These should be studied all through and assessed across the curriculum, possibly with an approach more akin to competency-based music grading exams than to general exams at 16.
The basics are then built on by essential skills, sometimes called life skills, those highly transferrable skills that everyone needs to succeed in almost any job in life. The eight skills they specify are speaking, listening, problem solving, creativity, aiming high, staying positive, teamwork and leadership. I suggest that these should largely be assessed through extended project-type qualifications and the nature of question items in traditional assessments that would be continued for technical skills and knowledge.
We should also think about modern foreign languages, music and sport being core to key stage 1, where the cognitive and physical development of young children would be enhanced by these subjects in particular. This would create a significant CPD requirement for primary teachers, but that should not lessen our ambition.
However we arrive at the right place in the curriculum, through prescription or through trust, we must shift the accountability away from the EBacc and Progress 8. I look forward to understanding better the Government’s thinking on school report cards as how we do that.
I am grateful to my noble friends for referencing my work on school inspections. I add only that we should quickly look to adjust the Ofsted inspection framework to focus on these basic and essential skills, plus more on personal development and leadership and governance, and less on the minutiae of the curriculum.
Finally, I want to say a little on the distorting effect of university admissions requirements on schools’ efforts to be inclusive. In an informal session, Sam Friedman reminded the committee of the dependencies in the system that all culminate in the desire for aspirant parents to get their children into a good university. There is nothing wrong with that, but it leads to a focus on A-levels above all other qualifications. Surely universities can do better in assessing the potential of students than paper and pen tests in hot sports halls every summer.
If we are to move to graded exams in literacy and numeracy when ready, extended project qualifications that play to the passions of pupils, and other exams more akin to GCSEs in a mix, we can move to a more portfolio approach, creating a passport for university admission and for work that includes learner profiles and micro-credentials.
There is a new Government, I hope resulting in less assessment at 16 but more assessment of the basics, more labour market relevance through essential skills and a system that is much more inclusive and relevant to every child, and both more rigorous and more joyful for both teachers and learners. I commend the report to the House.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Knight, who not only was an excellent Schools Minister but has also continued his passion in the education field for the benefit and the betterment of us all. I declare my interests as an adviser to BPP University, and I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Johnson and all members of the committee on an excellent report.
It is neither my role nor my function to sum up the debate at this point, but if I were to do so, I would do it in two words: I agree. All speakers have got behind the ideas, issues and recommendations so well explored and set out in the committee’s report. I think we will get the best results for our 11 to 16 education system—as with every element of our society—if we fully deploy those golden threads of inclusion and innovation, if we see and conceive of education as experiential rather than transactional, and if we have far more application and perhaps far less abstraction.
To the inclusion point, what is the experience for disabled learners aged 11 to 16? I fully endorse all the comments around the need to review and reform—and potentially close down—GCSEs. But as they are the only currency we have at the moment, I ask the Minister: what is the current disability education attainment gap at GCSE and what is the Government’s approach to closing it? Similarly, what is the Government’s view on current provision of SENCOs and support for those with special educational needs and disabilities, and what are their plans to improve that so every learner has the support they need to succeed?
In 2022 I published a report on the disabled students’ allowance. It is for learners beyond the age of 16, but there are a number of relevant points for the 11 to 16 experience, not least the sense of having a passport of needs and provisions that disabled learners require. Would it not make sense to have that passport from the first moment a disabled learner steps into the classroom? That would run through wherever their education journey goes, from further education to higher education and indeed into the workplace. I would welcome the Minister’s thoughts on that point.
On the impact of technologies, as rightly mentioned by so many other noble Lords, it is clear that the education system has a critical role to play, but it should not be doing anything that technology already does better. AI has burst on to the scene for many people and does facts in fractions of a second. We need to consider not only what skills young people need to have to benefit from all these new technologies—not least artificial intelligence—but what impact artificial intelligence will have on skills themselves. Threading technology through every element of the curriculum will give students, teachers and everybody involved in the education experience the best opportunities to succeed.
I appreciate that it is early days with the curriculum review, but is there a sense that principles will be set at the outset to consider human-led technologies? How will we thread the golden threads of talent, technology, inclusion and innovation through every aspect of the curriculum, not in verticals, in certain subjects or in silos?
In computer science, noble Lords may be delighted to know that young people still consider floppy disks and their role in the development of information technology. Can we have a complete change to a largely abstracted curriculum, to a computer science that is applied and ruthlessly up to date? This would enable young people to have the skills they need, rather than—as my noble friend Lord Baker rightly said—overly learning coding. It is good to have an understanding of coding and to be able to code, but only to an extent. It is how the skills go broader than that, to enable our young people to have the comfort and the confidence to work with these new technologies in every element of their education.
While being focused on the importance of these technologies and specific skills for the workplace, I believe it is critical that we do not just push the “relevant education” argument and all the attendant shortcomings. As noble Lords have rightly said, it is much more about character education, resilience, growth mindset and mental well-being. These should all be threaded through every element of our education system. Will the review consider all these factors and more? As well as specific skills that are obviously required, I believe that what will enable our young people is more the sense of the real Promethean flames of curiosity and creativity being allowed to run through all their educational experience, rather than just the transaction of facts. As philosophers have said right from the beginning of time, education should be the sense of the flowering of possibility and potential.
I was in the first cohort of students to do the GCSE; I can thank Ken for that—my noble friend Lord Baker. It was a change and, as has rightly been identified, one that was required at that time. However, now it is time to change and move beyond that, to inclusion and innovation, the experiential rather than the transactional, and application rather than abstraction. Curiosity, creativity, critical thinking, communication, data and digital literacy, and social media literacy are critically important. For me, what will be as good a measure of success as any is that every young person will be able to cry out collectively and connectively, with clarity and confidence. It is our data, our decisions, our human-led talent and technologies, for all our futures.
Lord Mair (CB)
My Lords, it is a privilege to have been a member of the Select Committee undertaking this inquiry, under the expert chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Johnson. I will confine my remarks to technical and vocational matters, speaking as an engineer, having been in full-time practice for almost 30 years, and latterly as a professor of engineering at Cambridge University.
As well as having a general interest in the importance of education and equipping children with the skills they will need for life, my particular interest in the work of our Select Committee related to the education of potential future engineers and technicians. Our committee’s remit was to
“consider education for 11 to 16 year olds with reference to the skills necessary for the digital and green economy”.
The success of the digital and green economy in the UK will undoubtedly depend on many more of our young people pursuing technical careers. There is already an acute national shortage of engineers and technicians.
At the outset of our inquiry, our committee recognised the importance of the following two questions. First, how does curriculum reform ensure that all abilities are catered for? Secondly, is there a risk of pitching curriculum content too high or too narrowly? In the context of both questions it is very important to recognise the need for flexibility. There is a wide spectrum of technical education required to equip the country with the future engineers and technicians that we need. Education and skills for 11 to 16 year-olds must address the differing requirements for the next stage of their training, whether it be via higher education, further education college, university technical college or direct employment.
Higher education clearly has a key role in producing engineers. Our universities will need to continue to attract girls and boys into engineering, and there is the question of what skills are needed for 16 year-olds likely to apply at the age of 17 or 18 to university engineering courses. Those interested in digital technologies will need to go on to higher-level maths— A-levels or the international baccalaureate—together with advanced computer science, to equip them for AI, quantum computing and data analysis.
As for technologies for the green economy, at the heart of the new Government’s agenda is making Britain a clean energy superpower, with zero-carbon electricity, by 2030. The Government’s clean power mission plans major investments in wind and solar power, carbon capture and storage, hydrogen and marine energy, decarbonising the electricity system and long-term energy storage. Nuclear power will also be part of the energy mix. All of this will involve new and challenging technologies, needing many more university graduate engineers than we currently have. For those academically suited, it is important that the curriculum for 11 to 16 year-olds includes the right material to equip them for the next stage—typically A-levels—as preparation for entry to university courses.
However, it is most important to recognise that around 60% of our young children will not go to university. It seemed to our committee that the existing curriculum and the school performance metric, the EBacc, has been designed as if all children will go to university. Of equal importance to the university route are the routes through further education and apprenticeships, whether trained via FE colleges, UTCs and degree-apprentice courses, or direct employment. For these routes, in contrast to the entry requirements for university engineering courses, numeracy, rather than more conventional maths, and familiarity with computer technology, are of most importance. FE colleges and UTCs provide excellent computer programming and data analysis training. I witnessed this when a number of our committee visited the very impressive London Design & Engineering UTC, in east London. I am a huge supporter of UTCs, of which there are now 44 across England—the UTC being the innovative brainchild of the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking. He was an active and influential member of our Select Committee, and it is excellent to see him participating in this debate.
Numerous industries, including the many connected with the green economy, will require a range of other practical skills, many of which are uniquely provided by UTCs and FE colleges. It is the lack of technical and vocational opportunities during the 11 to 16 phase that particularly concerned our committee. Without exposure to these opportunities at an early stage, the door to a technical career is already closed in the minds of many young people. Closing the door to technical careers at such a critical stage is very damaging to the future prosperity of our country.
It is highly significant that, in Germany, 20% of 25 year-olds have a higher technical qualification, whereas in the UK the present figure is only 4%. That is because, in Germany, there is a much wider range of opportunities in technical education for young people, and this starts at an early stage. There is much more flexibility in the German educational system; the more academic pupils go on to university, while others go to FE colleges, and others become apprentices. There is a wide spectrum, highly regarded by schools and parents alike, with opportunities for all.
In this country in recent years there has been a substantial decline in the number of pupils taking technically-related qualifications at key stage 4. Entries for GCSE design and technology have fallen by more than 70% since 2010, and in 2023 the subject was taken by only 12% of all pupils. Take-up of GCSE engineering has also fallen dramatically. The evidence our committee received indicated that the 11 to 16 curriculum is overly focused on academic learning, with technical and vocational education insufficiently valued. This is a serious imbalance, particularly for those pupils not suited to university.
To rectify this imbalance, Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, proposes to introduce a Greater Manchester baccalaureate—the MBacc—which would focus on technical careers and sit alongside the academically-orientated EBacc. The evidence he gave to our committee was compelling. The subjects included in the MBacc would be designed to steer young people on the technical route, preparing them for jobs in the key sectors of the Greater Manchester economy: manufacturing, construction and health.
Our report recommended that the Government should engage closely with this MBacc proposal—a key stage 4 subject combination focused on technical careers—as an alternative to the EBacc. In their somewhat lukewarm response, the previous Government partially accepted this recommendation, while saying that schools are already able to make decisions about the technical qualifications they offer their pupils. However, the reality is that subjects falling outside the EBacc—most notably the all-important creative, technical and vocational subjects—have seen a dramatic decline in take-up. This is largely because schools have had to adjust their timetables to focus on a limited set of traditionally academic subjects associated with the EBacc performance metric. There is an overburdened curriculum and little scope to engage with topics beyond it.
In summary, we are in the midst of a digital revolution and dramatic technological changes as this country aims to become a green energy, zero-carbon superpower. It is therefore crucial that we attract more engineers and technicians. Vocational and technical options must be more readily available to all those pupils likely to go to an FE college, or a UTC, or directly into employment. There is a danger of attempting to generalise the national curriculum, and of pitching its content too high and too narrowly. There should be options for different choices available to pupils pursuing different post-16 routes. Curriculum reform and school performance measures should reflect this. The key requirements are a broader curriculum and, above all, as so well put by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, flexibility.
Many noble Lords have referred in this debate to the important recent announcement by the new Government of a curriculum and assessment review. The terms of reference include the statement that
“the review will seek to deliver … A broader curriculum, so that children and young people do not miss out on subjects such as music, art, sport and drama, as well as vocational subjects”.
The review will also seek to deliver a curriculum that
“includes embedding digital, oracy and life skills”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/7/24; col. 15WS.]
These are all excellent objectives consistent with our report’s recommendations. I hope the Minister can confirm that this review will fully take our recommendations into account.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, for moving this important debate, and the many noble Lords on the committee who are here in the Chamber to contribute and add value.
According to recent research, more than half of Britons say that the skills taught to them as children in the classroom have not helped them in later life. This indicates that there is a fundamental issue with the curriculum. Indeed, the committee concluded that the current curriculum gives
“little scope to engage with topics beyond the curriculum or apply learning to real-world issues”.
It was therefore encouraging to read that the new Government want a broader curriculum
“that ensures children and young people leave compulsory education ready for life and ready for work, building the knowledge, skills and attributes young people need to thrive”,
so that
“every young person leaves school or college with the best life chances”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/7/24; cols. 15-16WS.]
If that is the aim, which it absolutely should be, I flag to the Minister that the top three life skills that students wish they had but did not learn at school are: how to go about getting a mortgage, how to buy a house, and how to set up a private pension as well as the value of doing that.
This confirms what we heard from several noble Lords in the King’s Speech debate last week: that relevant financial education is an absolute must-have in the curriculum. Those three life skills are easy to teach, and there should be loud alarm bells going off that children are not being taught such essential tools already. Notwithstanding the fact that this is actually being requested by young people, by setting up a private pension at an early age to supplement a state one in later life, the cost saving to the Exchequer would run into multiple billions of pounds. Financial anxiety is also a common cause of poor mental health, so by reducing that risk you again achieve multiple billions of pounds-worth of cost savings to the NHS.
Oracy was flagged in the committee’s report. I bring to the Minister’s attention a real-life example. I recently visited an academy in Hackney that is a shining example of what is possible with the right leadership team and strategy in place. It is achieving 65% Russell group university acceptance and 15% Oxbridge acceptance, and one of the key focuses for its improvement is oracy. You experience that when you meet and speak with the students, many of whom find it difficult to maintain constant eye contact during a conversation. When you look at the wider pool of schools nationally, only 23% of secondary school teachers are confident in their understanding of the statutory spoken language requirements outlined in the national curriculum. Oracy is a critical life skill, and it should be put on an equal footing with numeracy and literacy throughout the whole school lifespan.
The report touches briefly on the subject of physical education. In summary, it says that students are not doing enough of it. We know from other surveys that only 47% of children and young people meet the Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines of taking part in sport and physical activity for an average of 60 minutes or more every day. Sport and physical activity can change children’s lives. It improves cognitive abilities, and it boosts concentration and improves classroom conduct and behaviour, not to mention physical and mental health. We need it now more than ever.
I would like to focus briefly on two areas not mentioned in the report: food education and smartphones. One only has to look at the Times newspaper from yesterday, which asked, “How healthy are your kid’s snacks?” Noble Lords would be shocked at the very low nutritional content in some of our children’s favourite foods. Food education should be an important part of the curriculum. As I have mentioned before, “Healthy body, healthy mind” and “You are what you eat” are fundamental principles to the well-being of everyone, not just schoolchildren.
One of the most serious issues we have in schools currently is the use of smartphones. Some 25% of children and young people are, in effect, addicted to their smartphones. How can it be possible for any child to concentrate in class when they have their smartphone pinging away right next to them?
I would be grateful if the Minister could let us know how the Government plan to include relevant financial education in the curriculum, when we will be at a point when our schoolchildren will have the one hour of physical exercise that they need every day to be fit and healthy, whether the Government will use the new breakfast clubs as an opportunity to teach children more about food education, and who will ensure that the breakfasts provided are not ultra-processed foods high in calories and sugar. Most importantly, when will the Government act on the recommendations in the report from the Education Committee in the other place urging for a statutory ban on smartphones in all schools?
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, having overcome my disappointment at not being quite quick enough to get on to the committee, this is one of those reports where, when I heard that a debate was taking place on it, I suspected that the answers would be exactly as they have been. Anybody who has been following the education debate will not be surprised by any of the answers we hear.
We started this debate with a description from the noble Baroness, Lady Blower—it is a pity she is not back in her place—of how the tone on education set by the previous Government was like the cock-up school of history writ large: “Got to say something. Got to say the right thing at the right time. Let’s go with that. We’ll go back to good standards and good academic levels. This is what we were taught at grammar school”. That, I am afraid, is the impression I had of the previous Government’s education policy from start to finish.
This has led to other things happening. For instance, if you put an emphasis on academic achievement, anybody who is not academic or does not conform to this will be squeezed. As night follows day, it is there. Also, it is slightly looking back to “the sort of thing we did in my day” and to “We all know that what we did was right, because we did it”. It is only when we get taken out of that space that we realise that the world moves on or that there would have been a better solution even for us. That is one of the things I have come across in listening to this debate and to the experience that has gone through.
One of the main things I would say about this issue is that the damage to it is not just the overloaded system, with the huge amounts of technical detail in the current GCSEs. To digress for a minute, those were roughly the arguments when the old O-level was gotten rid of. People were teaching to memory and rote learning, and there were lots of facts and details. We got rid of them to replace them with a shiny new GCSE that would have more emphasis on learning and concepts. Well, it has changed, has it not?
We must ensure that people are not merely regurgitating something that fits a very narrow band. I regret not having seen the Gibb-Baker confrontation. It is sounds like it would have put “Ali v Frazier 1” to shame. If we are going to step away from that, we must be aware of a couple of things. One is that education must keep everybody interested for longer. Having diverse subjects means that a person can have a degree of success, whether in sport, the arts or technical detail. Everything backs this up: if somebody enjoys their sport they are more likely to do well at other subjects, and the same for somebody who is good at art or the technical detail.
If you keep it narrow and focused, you guarantee failure. If you guarantee failure and it becomes a bad experience, that person will disengage. If you are lucky, that disengagement will be disappearing into the middle of the class and doing nothing. If you are unlucky, that person will be out of the school system completely—physically as well. This has been a contributory factor to the fall-off from our school rolls. There is no two ways about it. I do feel rather sorry for the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, who has to come next. I hope that the Government, when they answer, will tell us how they will ensure that people have a degree of success within the school.
There is an unwritten rule that whenever I speak on education, I must declare my interests in special educational needs and assistive technology. I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, got there first today. However, if we are dealing with technology and using it as the useful tool that it can be, I hope that the Government can give us some hint that they are open to using this correctly. We have just heard that the technical processes of mathematics and English can be done by a computer. Voice-to-text and text-to-voice technology is built into every system from Windows 10 upwards, Apple and all the others. It is there: you press a button, talk to your computer and it word-processes for you. I am still waiting for the people who can tell me why this is less efficient than tapping a keyboard. You can quite easily mark how well somebody does that compared with tapping a keyboard or writing with a pen. The same is true of mathematics and many other concepts. You still have to know what you are telling the machine to do, but then it will come back to you and tell you what you have done.
Doing that will open up these subjects and their basic requirements for large groups of people. If we remain obsessed with written English tests they will continue to be a barrier for many people. I suggest that anybody who wants to fall asleep rapidly looks at the work I did on the apprenticeship system all those years ago. If you put those barriers in place that do not allow people to enter by saying that they have to take these tests in certain ways, you waste time and potential, and build in that failure.
If the new Government are to deal with this, please can they ensure that they embrace it and bring people together? They have the capacity now. You do not have to do anything special; you have to say that the system will do it. You may have to tell teachers that they will have to operate differently and give them some more training. I hate to say that to teachers, who have such an overloaded timetable at the moment, but it is required. Better training in these areas, or at least an awareness, is required in order to do this, but it can be done, and once it has been done the load on the teacher should be lowered.
When the Government respond, can they let us know exactly what they are aiming to do and what the central drive is? If they get that right, everything else will be that little bit easier, but one of the things they must do is ensure that they open up the base of operation. Technical schools and technical education are one way forward, but all the things that they hope to do will allow more people into the system to have a stake in it. At the moment, we exclude those at the edges—cutting them off and making it more difficult. We should not be doing that. We should ensure that the education system says that there is a place for everybody.
The back-up for this, as everybody has said, is that many of the new skills that we have are better acquired through others areas of examination or study. It is not just the key elements. The creative industries, as anybody who pays attention to the DCMS brief will know, have been saying for ages, “No, we don’t need to retrain another English graduate in the creative industries. We need people with level 4 or level 5 technical qualifications”. Allow this key area—one which allows people to go on to their next stage of training or university—to be broader, and allow people into different areas of training. If you do that, you will remove some of the problems which we have at the moment, where people take qualifications that they probably do not want and will not use, and which they take longer to achieve and with more debt. This will be a big cultural shift, so if the Government do not start it now, they will be in real trouble, but how they do it will be very important.
I hope that this report goes down as being a death knell on a wrong turn in education. I hope that the Government will confirm that they are looking forward, to ensure that the general thrust of this report becomes a key part of this bit of education. Also, it would not be beyond my wish list to hear what the Government will do on the other bits to allow that to happen. I understand why the report can cover only a few years in the timescale that we had, but we need to remember that we have stages before and after and think about how this key bit goes in. The analysis from the noble Lord, Lord Baker, of why we have exams at 16, was right on this occasion. When the two of us agree, I always worry that somebody will say that we are wrong, but I think that he is right. However, if can make building up to those exams at 16 more flexible and inclusive, we will take a big step towards ensuring that the rest of the education system works a little bit better.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lord Johnson of Marylebone and all members of the committee for their comprehensive and wide-ranging report and recommendations. I also send my warmest congratulations to the noble Baroness opposite on her appointment to DCMS, which is very much deserved.
I sense that I have a slightly lonely job in my remarks, but I felt as I listened to your Lordships’ speeches that perhaps it was a job that needed to be done. As your Lordships pointed out, the previous Government’s response to the report, which was published in February, set out some significant reservations about its recommendations. I will summarise in different words what lies beneath those reservations. It is fair to challenge the committee to answer why England’s children are moving up the international rankings if there are so many problems in our education system and, most importantly, how the proposed changes would impact on our international performance.
However, in an effort for conciliation, I will start by touching on some of the areas where the previous Government agreed with the committee. The first relates to the emphasis that the report placed on opportunities for disadvantaged pupils and those with special educational needs and disabilities. The previous Government have a proud record in this area, with the introduction of the pupil premium, the national tutoring programme and, at the heart of it all, a commitment to offer all pupils a broad and balanced curriculum. I stress that because I have an uneasy feeling from listening to the speeches in your Lordships’ House today that we are at risk of having preconceptions about which children follow an academic path and which do not, and of losing as our north star an emphasis on social mobility. I worry that, by assuming some children will follow an academic path, those who do not will be those on free school meals and those with special educational needs. I know that is not where your Lordships want to end up.
The previous Government also agreed absolutely with the importance of creative subjects and sport in the curriculum and made a major commitment to deliver those through the sports premium and, more recently, the music education plan. We absolutely share the committee’s concerns about access to modern foreign languages in the curriculum, but, as the House knows, this has been a particularly challenging area for teacher recruitment.
In relation to the current curriculum, of course, where the new curriculum has not worked quite as intended, it makes sense to review it. We hear anecdotal evidence about the breadth of the curriculum in the sciences and the House will be aware that, in the case of computer science, the previous Government drafted a new curriculum, which was being consulted on and was published in May of this year.
I will focus on a couple of areas where the previous Government did not agree. We disagree that the EBacc has resulted in a narrowing of the curriculum. The noble Baroness, Lady Blower, who is no longer in her place, described the EBacc as having a big impact—perhaps not in an altogether complimentary way—but I will stress some incredibly important positive shifts. In 2010-11, only about 61.5% of pupils were entered for the EBacc science pillar, so they were doing double or triple science. Today, that figure is almost 95%. That is an economy-changing shift and something we should be very proud of; it opens doors for every single child, not just the children who we have decided are academic. I make it a rule never to disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, but I just pose the question: who could argue that a default curriculum should not include maths, English, sciences, geography, history and a modern foreign language? Every child should have access to that. So we talk about this narrow curriculum at our peril.
In relation to the amount of assessment at the end of key stage 4, the previous Government’s response to the committee’s report acknowledged that there was a case to review the burden of assessment and a case for streamlining. Of course, if one can get the same level of reliability from a smaller set of questions, nobody would disagree with that as a good evolution. But I think it is worth reporting the finding from the Ofqual report that there is little evidence that coursework has any differential impact on outcomes for either disadvantaged students or those with special educational needs.
In this shift to focus more on skills, I remind your Lordships to look at what has happened in Scotland. To quote a different Keir, Keir Bloomer, one of the architects of the Curriculum for Excellence reform, which has seen such a sharp drop in the international rankings of Scottish pupils in the recent PISA results:
“The problem is we did not make sufficiently clear that skills are the accumulation of knowledge. Without knowledge there can be no skills”.
Knowledge—or “facts”, in the words of my noble friend Lord Holmes—is what you think with, and you cannot outsource your thinking successfully.
Many of your Lordships will be familiar with Daisy Christodoulou’s book, Seven Myths about Education. In it, she very clearly makes the point, also made by my noble friend Lady Evans of Bowes Park and other noble Lords, that no one can argue that the skills of critical thinking, problem solving, communication, collaboration, creativity or innovation are not vital for all pupils to thrive. This is not a new thing: they have always been needed. It is how we give children those skills that matters, and it has to be done with a strong knowledge base. The risk is that, by reducing the amount of knowledge in the curriculum, pupils are less able to develop these skills. What Archimedes knew about bath-water and Euclid knew about maths have stood the test of time. As my noble friend Lord Baker said in different words, nothing dulls as quickly as the cutting edge; think how programming and coding skills are being made redundant in a world of AI.
We also need to be rigorous—I look now at the Minister—in understanding whether there are other reasons why children are struggling. The issues that the report raises are not universal across all children from disadvantaged backgrounds or with special educational needs and disabilities. Many are thriving and many are achieving exceptional results, so I really urge the new Government to look at areas where those children are thriving and succeeding and to see what can be learned from that.
Finally, I turn to the new Government’s curriculum review, which talks about addressing
“the ceilings to achievement … built into Key Stages 4 and 5”.
I would be grateful if the Minister could elaborate on what is meant by this. If she cannot today, perhaps she would be very kind and write to me afterwards. The committee’s report was clear that norm-referenced assessment does not limit the number of pupils who can be awarded each grade, so I just wonder what ceilings the Government are referring to. In relation to the focus on breadth—particularly the arts, sports and vocational subjects, which we welcome—we know that the strongest schools and trusts are already offering this. They are using their funding in the most efficient way to offer maximum opportunities to their pupils. I wonder how the Government plan to build on this. Could the Minister summarise what she sees as the barriers to expanding the curriculum in this way?
The committee’s report will certainly give the new Government some really useful insights, perspectives and ideas, which I know will be invaluable for the new curriculum review. That review will be important for the life chances of future pupils and the strength of our economy. I urge the new Government to focus not just on calls for change where the system is working less well but also on where pupils are really thriving most, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds and with SEND, and to work out how to scale that great practice. I genuinely fear that there is a real risk that we return to a world where it is precisely those children whose futures are limited by well-intentioned changes that do not deliver, falling prey to what one Secretary of State and, indeed, US President, described as
“the soft bigotry of low expectations”.
Any changes need to avoid this. They need to avoid the mistakes that have damaged education systems from Scotland to Finland and beyond and protect the achievements of the last 14 years.
My final question to the Minister and my noble friend Lord Johnson of Marylebone is: please can they show me a country whose international educational rankings have improved by introducing a greater emphasis on skills and a reduced focus on assessment at the expense of knowledge? Then, perhaps, I will change my mind.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Johnson of Marylebone, for opening this debate so well, and the Education for 11-16 Year Olds Committee for its thoughtful and detailed inquiry and report under his chairmanship. I am hugely sorry for the fact that I seem to have lost my voice since I got up this morning. Please bear with me.
I am grateful for the excellent contributions today from the committee’s members and others across your Lordships’ House on the important areas covered by the report on the education received by 11 to 16 year-olds in schools in England. It is a particular pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, whose personal commitment to improve education in England and social mobility was clear throughout her time as Minister. My noble friend Lady Smith was hugely sorry not to be able to attend today. It has been an excellent debate and I have enjoyed hearing noble Lords’ contributions. As the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, noted, there is relevance to my DCMS role throughout today’s debate and the report.
The report notes that the committee
“focused on whether the current education system effectively equips young people with the knowledge, skills and behaviours they need to progress to the next phase of their education, and to flourish in the future”.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, asked what the central drive of the Government’s mission was. High and rising school standards are at the heart of this Government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity for every child, no matter their background. We want an education system in which all children and young people can achieve and thrive in education, throughout work and life.
High and rising standards are the foundation of opportunity for all—the bedrock of great life chances. Our children deserve nothing less. As my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education said in the other place on Wednesday:
“I want standards to be the story for every child in the country, not just in some of our schools but in all our schools. I want high and rising standards for each and every child”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/7/24; col. 698.]
Before I turn to the report and noble Lords’ contributions to the debate, I want to acknowledge an important wider factor for many children and young people. The right reverend Prelate drew attention to the impact of poverty on attainment, and we know that disadvantaged pupils are more likely to fall behind and face barriers that hold them back from the opportunities and life chances they deserve. Following the pandemic, we have seen disadvantaged children fall further behind their peers, with the disadvantage gap for 16 year-olds at the highest level since 2011. Rightly, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, points to looking at where these children are succeeding and what we can do to ensure that this is duplicated across the system. Removing barriers to opportunity and raising school standards are at the heart of our mission to transform life chances for the millions of children and young people in this country. In line with this, the Government have moved quickly to reset the relationship with our school workforce and to appoint Sir Kevan Collins, who has a deep understanding of and expertise in education effectiveness, and a wealth of experience, to advise them on driving high standards for all.
I turn to the committee’s report looking at the education system for 11 to 16 year-olds. The committee found various areas in need of action and made recommendations across the curriculum, assessment and performance measures. As noble Lords have noted, last Friday we launched an independent expert-led curriculum and assessment review, chaired by Professor Becky Francis CBE, an expert in education policy. The review will consider the national curriculum and statutory assessment system from five to 19, and pathways for learners in 16-19 education to drive high and rising standards for every young person. Many of its aims, terms of reference and working principles are very relevant to the committee’s recommendations and the matters raised by noble Lords in the debate. I am grateful for the broad welcome of the review from many of today’s speakers.
The review will contribute to the Government’s mission to break down the barriers to opportunity for every child and young person at every stage, and kickstart economic growth. We know the hard work that teachers have done to develop knowledge-rich syllabuses. The review will build on this to deliver the Government’s ambition for every child and young person to study a curriculum that is rich and broad, inclusive and innovative. It will support the professionalism of our teachers and school staff to adapt how they teach the curriculum to their pupils’ lives and life experiences.
In response to—and apologies if I misunderstood, but probably not in line with—the comments of the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, we want the review to be evidence-based, and the evidence supports the importance of knowledge in helping children learn. But that should not be, and does not need to be, at the expense of developing skills or making sure that young people can thrive, whatever their aptitude or ambitions. I welcome the point made the noble Baroness, Lady Evans of Bowes Park, about the possibility of cross-party consensus on future changes as a result of the review. This was echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Baker. It is clear that children and young people would benefit from consensus, and I hope that this proves possible.
The review will develop a cutting-edge curriculum, equipping children and young people with the essential knowledge and skills that will enable them to adapt and thrive in the world and workplaces of the future. This will include an excellent foundation in reading, writing and maths, and embedding life skills such as communication into all our children’s learning. I assure the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, that financial education will be included in the review, as will food as part of the design and technology curriculum.
Digital skills are essential for future work, life and prosperity. We are committed to ensuring that every child can benefit from a high-quality digital education. The review will therefore consider how to embed digital literacy and skills throughout children’s learning. As the noble Lord, Lord Baker, said, the skills required change rapidly in the current world.
The noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and my noble friend Lady Blower focused particularly on arts. The review will ensure that this new curriculum provides breadth of opportunity for every child and young person, with access to subjects such as music, the arts, drama and sport, and that it reflects the issues and diversity of our society, so that all children and young people are represented.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, noted the significance of getting vocational learning right for those three in 10 children who do not go to university, and the review will cover this. It will also seek to ensure that the assessment system captures the strengths of every child and young person and the breadth of curriculum, with the right balance of assessment methods, while maintaining the important role of examinations.
My noble friend Lord Knight raised a specific point about education on climate change. Quite clearly, climate education is very important for helping young people prepare for the world they will grow up and work in. I have no doubt that the curriculum and assessment review will want to consider how best to support these. It will also look at the “golden threads” the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, referred to.
My noble friend Lady Morris spoke of the value of but also the barriers created by the current accountability system; this will be covered by the review. The review will look closely at the barriers which hold back children and young people, particularly those from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, including whether they have a special educational need or disability, or are otherwise vulnerable.
The key principles of the review are that it will be rigorously evidence-based and evidence-driven, and that it
“will be undertaken in close consultation with education professionals and other experts; parents; children and young people; and stakeholders such as employers, colleges, universities and trade unions”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/7/24; col. 16WS.]
There will be extensive engagement with the sector throughout the entire review process, which will start in September with a call for evidence, taking written evidence from key stakeholders, and undertaking a national roadshow. Given the breadth of expertise in your Lordships’ House, I know the review will welcome input from Peers, and my noble friend Lady Smith is keen to meet noble Lords from across the House.
However, we recognise the pressure that schools and colleges are already under, and the further strain that wholesale reform can bring, so the review will seek evolution, not revolution. It will be alive to the trade-offs required to deliver high and rising standards alongside greater breadth; in particular, any recommendations that would or could increase workload.
Professor Francis will be supported by an expert group of individuals with experience from across the education system. The review will publish an interim report in the new year, setting out its interim findings and confirming the key areas for further work. The final review with recommendations will be published in autumn 2025. Clearly, there will be some alignment with the committee’s report and ambitions, but we will need to wait for the findings and recommendations of the independent review before taking on any particular recommendations that have been made. I assure your Lordships that our ambitions are not simply on pause while the review is under way. There is much this Government will be getting on with in the meantime.
We will start working towards our manifesto commitment to support more children to study a creative or vocational subject to 16 and ensure that accountability measures reflect this. Too many children, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds, leave primary school with unresolved speech, language and communication needs that have a lasting impact on their life chances. We will provide more targeted support for development of early language in early years settings and primary schools to change this, because the ability to speak confidently and fluently is important for every young person throughout their time at school and as they approach adulthood.
As the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and other noble Lords said, cultural development should be an essential part of every child’s education, to develop their creativity and find their voice. The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, noted the growing divide between private school students and state-funded school pupils in creative arts. To extend music opportunities, we will launch a national music education network to help parents, teachers and children to find courses and classes.
Our children’s well-being Bill will require all state-funded schools, including academies, to teach the new curriculum on which the review will advise, so that all children receive the same core education and opportunity to achieve and thrive. This measure’s core purpose is one of equality—ensuring greater consistency between academies and maintained schools, giving parents certainty over the core of their children’s education. It will be commenced after revised or new programmes of study are introduced.
I can assure noble Lords that the review will deliver a core curriculum that is designed to empower—not restrict—all schools, including academies. It will provide a strong foundation that will foster the innovative practice that thrives in the best academies and other schools. We want a national curriculum that all schools want to follow, and all parents will want their children to study, because it provides a richness and breadth that works for everyone: the starting point for an excellent education taught by motivated, empowered professionals.
With a reformed curriculum, we will need the accountability arrangements to reflect the broad and deep learning we want to see in schools. We are committed to improving the inspections system, reforming accountability and raising school standards. We will replace the single headline grade with a new report card system, telling parents clearly how schools are performing, and bring multi-academy trusts into the inspection system, because every part of our school system that can drive improvement should be considered to ensure it is doing so, in the best interests of all our children.
We want every child in England to be taught by excellent qualified teachers. We will raise the professional status of teaching by ensuring that all new teachers hold or are working towards qualified status. Our challenge through the opportunity mission is to break the link between young people’s backgrounds and their future success. We will prioritise creating opportunities for every child and young person in their community, including at school, with expert teachers and targeted interventions to help all our children thrive. This will be enabled by the Government’s pledge to recruit 6,500 additional expert teachers, because we know that it is the quality of teaching that makes the biggest difference to children’s outcomes at school. We will bring these teachers into the classrooms of our schools and FE colleges by the end of the Parliament, to fill critical gaps in our workforce and support our drive to raise standards.
The noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, spoke about skills, technical education and digital. I know he has a long history of supporting and promoting the opportunities provided by technical education. He has continued to be a great influence in the education sector—although I am too old to have done GCSEs—including by developing and supporting the university technical colleges programme across the country. This point was highlighted also by the noble Lord, Lord Mair, in his speech. I am aware that the noble Lord, Lord Baker, submitted a proposal to the department under the previous Government to include the technical curriculum of UTCs in mainstream secondary schools. The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, also eloquently raised this issue. The recently launched curriculum assessment review will include reviewing technical skills in our secondary schools and will allow us to consider this proposal as part of our overall approach.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, and the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, raised special educational needs and disabilities. The Government are clear that the education and care system does not currently meet the needs of all children, particularly those with special educational needs and disabilities. The department has already restructured to ensure that improving inclusion in mainstream schools is at the heart of our plans to improve opportunities for those children with SEND. I will ask my noble friend Lady Smith to write to both noble Lords with respect to the questions they raised on technology.
In response to the question from the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, about smartphones, schools can, as many do already, ban smartphones during the school day. We fully support their right to do so. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, rightly said that education should keep more pupils interested longer, and my noble friend Lord Knight said that education should include joy, and that is a matter that previous debates in this House have also noted.
I could not agree more with the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, that we should not have predetermined routes for any child. Every child should believe that success belongs to them, that they can achieve their potential and get the knowledge, skills and experience they need to do so. This Government have committed to transforming our education system so that all young people get the opportunities they deserve. We have made a good start and I know noble Lords will quite rightly continue to shine a light on this important area as we continue to build a Britain where background is no barrier to opportunity. I assure my noble friend Lady Morris that we will not have a straitjacket around our aspirations.
The continued interest in the committee’s report is a testament to its quality and the considered way in which it has approached this vital yet complex part of the education landscape. As I hope I have demonstrated, the principles of what the Government are aiming to achieve across these policy areas reflect the areas of the committee’s conclusions and recommendations. I am confident that, when your Lordships’ House considers government policy in the future, noble Lords will see that the ambitions of the committee have been addressed with the great respect that they deserve.
In closing, I repeat my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Johnson of Marylebone, for securing this debate, to his committee for its excellent work and report, and to all noble Lords for their contributions today. I will ensure that these are shared with the review and that the Minister writes to noble Lords whose specific points I have not been able to respond to today.
Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted our report has been the source of so much agreement and near-consensus this morning. As the noble Lord, Lord Addington, observed, this was not a big surprise, given the weight of evidence that we had in front of us. It has been a very rich debate and I want to briefly point to a couple of highlights.
One of the main ones for me was the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, I believe, recalling the delightful and revealing origins of the English baccalaureate with that funny story from Sam Freedman’s book. There were also the reflections of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, on the evolution/ revolution trade off and her gentle admonishment that, while there was much that was good in the report, it was not nearly bold enough. That felt like a school report and we are happy to have had it.
Many noble Lords and noble friends made excellent points about the importance of getting this right to drive growth and productivity in the years ahead. Finally, I much enjoyed the call from the noble Lord, Lord Knight, for a more joyful 11 to 16 phase. That has to be a really important ambition for the new Government.
In response to the former Minister, my noble friend Lady Barran, and her lonely defence of the status quo, I would simply say that resting the Government’s case for the defence, a case for inaction, on some limited progress in the Pisa rankings over recent years just will not cut it. Pisa is a very partial measure of the success of an education system. When you look at England’s absolute scores in recent years in key subjects, they have been going backwards—albeit, I admit, by less than the scores of some other countries, hence the rise in our relative performance. It is also worth pointing out that there is nothing in our committee’s recommendations that would reduce the emphasis on English and maths.
Finally, I thank the Minister and congratulate her on taking her new role in DCMS and on her thoughtful and engaging responses to the committee’s report. It is very encouraging to hear that the Minister feels that it will be relevant to the new review just announced by the government. I am sure everybody on the committee welcomes, as they have today, the announcement of that review and will be working hard to support it on a cross-party basis.
Supply and Appropriation (Main Estimates) Bill
Community Sentences (Justice and Home Affairs Committee Report)
(1 day, 17 hours ago)
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Baroness Hamwee
That this House takes note of the Report from the Justice and Home Affairs Committee Cutting crime: better community sentences (1st Report, Session 2023–24, HL Paper 27).
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, I need to declare an interest. I am a trustee of the charity Safer London, whose focus is on keeping young people out of offending. We are in a rather different context from late June, when a debate was scheduled on a report by the House’s Select Committee that I chaired until earlier this year. I am particularly pleased that the new Minister for Prisons, Parole and Probation—I hope I have that in the right order—is able to respond. On my behalf and, if I may, on behalf of the committee from which I have become time expired, I welcome him very warmly and with high expectations. So, no pressure, but he is now an old hand in this Chamber—after three days.
It is fair to say that the committee felt that it and the previous Justice Secretary were on the same wavelength. The then Government’s response to our report was published in February. It was careful and encouraging, but I hope the Minister will not feel constrained by it. We are, of course, interested in updates, new directions and the “how” as well as the “what”.
The committee’s starting point was, as the title indicates, cutting crime, particularly reoffending, and making better use of sentences served in the community. We looked at the benefits of community sentences to society—for instance, value for money, the intergenerational impact of imprisonment, and as a humane and practical response for the individual offender. The use of community sentences had dropped considerably, though there were and, no doubt, still are varying interpretations of the data.
During our work, prisons reached operational capacity. Then the Government announced proposals for revised early release, and we are all aware of the new Government’s plans. The issue is not just a matter of theoretical capacity and physical conditions, but scope for rehabilitative work. The committee well understood that the aims of sentencing include punishment. Under the 2020 Act, there are also the reduction of crime, the reform and rehabilitation of offenders, public protection and reparation.
There are positive reasons for the use of community sentences. One is that the offender can retain contact with his—most often it is a male, and I will refer to offenders as such—support networks, and his home and job, in both cases, if he has one. Imprisonment often means these are lost. The Minister may say something about employment and the importance of the stability of a home and a job, and, conversely, the much increased risks of reoffending without those stable bases. A previous Chief Inspector of Probation commented on HMPPS paying for accommodation for people coming out of prison. He said:
“What you need is to pay for the accommodation before they have had to go to prison in the first place”.
The issue of accommodation will only escalate. This is one of a number of areas that cry out for cross-departmental working.
Community sentences can and should be tailored to the individual, but that does not mean that they should not be robust and demanding. My noble friend Lord Beith, who was on the committee, commented that it is much easier to sit on your bunk all day—but actually, I think many of us would find that pretty demanding. One of the routes to a personalised sentence is through problem-solving courts and intensive-supervision courts, which work holistically. The Government’s response was a little cautious. The committee of course recognised that you cannot just randomly introduce new schemes, and we understand the value of pilots. Our recommendation was that there should be proper monitoring and evaluation of the pilots—because there are quite a lot—and that pilots should not be launched without a plan for evaluation. But we wanted to see best practice shared and scaled up: single pilots will not get us far nationally. Can the Minister update us on progress?
We were interested in incentivising offenders by deferring sentencing—positive behaviour before passing sentence means a less severe sentence—and a single judge following the progress of an offender, with regular reporting back to the judge during the sentence. I suppose that the courts backlog, alongside bulging prisons, means that this is a rather long-term aspiration. Integrated community sentence orders are being tried in Ireland, with incentives for engagement in rehabilitation and meaningful activities.
I certainly did not have the impression that every offender is resistant to orders incorporating treatment requirements, but I did get the impression that they are often not supported to be more than passive recipients of what is done to them. Treatment requirements to address drug and alcohol abuse and mental ill health need the offender’s consent. There seems to be a lack of understanding of this, and the processes do not help.
I was surprised that pre-sentence reports are not more widely used. This is partly a matter of capacity and of saving court time, and because the short-format reports are insufficiently detailed and there are varied views of their purpose, and some misconceptions—of course, these are all connected. One ex-offender saw PSRs as probation’s advice to the court on the sentence and was emphatic that the court did what probation told it. PSRs can give offenders the opportunity to consent to treatment and give sentencers confidence to impose treatment requirements. The MoJ was encouraging about increasing the number of PSRs. Again, can the Minister update us on the feasibility of adopting the new model?
The Probation Service is central, but it is an unattractive profession with unmanageable caseloads—I hesitated before writing that, but it was the evidence we received. We were well aware of the impact, still felt, of the reorganisation of a decade or so ago, and, if we were not, many witnesses would have made sure that we were. But we were clear that there should be no large-scale restructuring in the next few years. The reunification of 2021 must be allowed to settle down.
We got the logic of recruitment in waves so that experienced staff were in post to support the next intake. But the best may be the enemy of the good. Is the MoJ confident that there are so many potential recruits out there? The Secretary of State mentioned the recruitment drive. The current chief inspector applies the term “not sustainable” to the current position and suggested that capacity should be freed up by probation officers no longer being required to monitor people released after short sentences. If that is not directly relevant to community sentences, it is on the same page, and the Minister may wish to comment.
The previous chief inspector talked of the role having evolved to focus more on supervision and administration: more “assess, protect and change”—its current tag line—than “advise, assist and befriend” offenders, which is the statutory duty under the 1907 Act. The relationship between an offender and his probation officer is crucial. The ex-offenders—I stress “ex”—we met were impressive not only in demonstrating their successes but in explaining obstacles along the way. So were the treatment providers—the relationship with them is also central.
Smaller providers feel squeezed out by big national organisations and excluded by the complex commissioning process. This must be very recognisable to anyone who has dealt with contract bids by voluntary organisations and procurement by local authorities, so I hope that the Government’s promise to simplify the process at local government level will not stop there. There is a lot of enthusiasm, energy and expertise in the third sector, but providers feel unappreciated, given the obstacles in the way of applying it. The Government recognise this, but I did not take from our work that the benefits of changes had filtered down to service level. The Government referred to the dedicated grants probation portal to support the smaller bodies. How is that going?
Both the Probation Service and the courts need to be aware of what services, including treatments, are available—crucially, available in the local area—and make the most of them. Referrals must contain sufficient information and risk assessments, and commissioned partners must be able to feed back information. Data sharing is less than optimal, and there are still misapprehensions about restrictions: “We can’t—GDPR”. Smooth commissioning, allowing flexibility so that partners can innovate, would be of wide benefit, including to the taxpayer.
The stereotype of unpaid work by offenders is unfortunate. Both the public and offenders should see the work as having an intrinsic value. There are good models of support for offenders. I will not let this moment go by without plaudits for so much of what goes on in women’s services, and a plea for funding—I describe it as investment—for its expansion.
Youth services have much more bandwidth than adult services, though I am of course aware of the recent report about Feltham. Staff remain in post for long periods, caseloads are manageable and there is scope for thoughtful actions such as addressing communication needs—reading and writing. We heard persuasive views about the cliff edge at 18 and suggestions of extending “youth” to 21 or higher. This is not a new point, as understanding of a young person’s development is increasing. I would be anxious, though, that standards in youth justice services might drop if there was a handover of young adults without more.
I end with a particular, and perhaps more recent, concern. In the light of the size of the prison population, the demands of post-release supervision must not mean that we lose sight of the lowest level offenders.
I hope that the committee’s report and its work will be useful to the Government. When we spoke earlier this week, the Minister said he thought that, at so many points, trust was the issue. I absolutely agree. I welcome his commitment and what I would describe as hard-headed practicality. It is a very positive mix. I beg to move.
Baroness Prashar (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for introducing this debate and for her very skilful chairing of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee. Her thoughtful and probing approach was a real asset to the committee. My thanks also go to the clerks, researchers and special advisers for the excellent support that they provided. It was also a pleasure to work with the other members of the committee.
I also take this opportunity to extend a very warm welcome to the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, and congratulate him on his elevation and appointment as Minister with responsibility for prisons, parole and probation. As a former chairman of the Parole Board, I am delighted that he is undertaking this task. I cannot think of a better person to help us develop a more effective strategy for prisons and shape a more responsible debate about crime and prisons. The point about trust is well noted.
We had a response to the report by the previous Government. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, it was encouraging, but I hope that the new Government will approach this issue with vigour and determined commitment.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has covered the findings of our report very comprehensively and admirably. I will focus on just two issues I feel quite strongly about. The first is public opinion on matters of crime, prison and justice. We did not cover this in the report, but we must recognise that we need to shape public opinion to get a better debate on these issues. The second is the Probation Service and a need for better, improved rehabilitation provisions in the community. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, mentioned the expertise we have in the third sector.
The first thing, which should be said quite emphatically, is that non-custodial sentences are not a soft option. To create support for non-custodial sentences, we need to change public perception and the public narrative. We need to ensure that people understand what prisons are for. We need to do much more to enhance public confidence in the criminal justice system and sentencing. An evidence-based change in approach to communication is much needed.
The lack of confidence is exacerbated by the reinforcement of unhelpful beliefs in how we talk about crime and justice: we prioritise punishment and prisons, and leave other necessary measures, such as non-custodial sentences, out of the narrative. We have a duty to ensure that the question of public discourse about crime and punishment is taken very seriously. Offenders, once they have served their sentences, have to be integrated into the community. Rehabilitation is a necessary part of public protection, so those who commit less serious offences can be treated in the community. We know that prison, on the contrary, is a training ground for turning less serious offenders into hardened criminals.
There is also a responsibility for the media to be accurate in reporting and not perpetuate misunderstandings of the law and sentencing. Maybe we should consider whether we need guidelines for the media on the way these things are reported. The Sentencing Council has a role too. It should be supported to expand its communication across both traditional and social media. How to engage the public should be an integral part of the discourse about non-custodial sentences and needs attention. In other words, there is a need for a very proactive role in communicating this. Is this something the Government intend to pay greater attention to?
Moving on to our report, the evidence we gathered shows that offending and reoffending can be reduced through rigorous non-custodial sentences. With the right investment, appropriate provision in the community and support for the Probation Service, non-custodial sentences can be very effective. They reduce reoffending and, in the long run, pressures on prisons. We found that there was a drop in the use of community sentences—their use has more than halved in recent years. Along with changing public perceptions, what is needed is an increase in the provision of effective rehabilitative services in the community, particularly for the treatment of addictions and mental ill-health, with services tailored to the needs of individuals.
In our report, we give examples of good practice drawn from support for women and young offenders. We believe that this can be replicated. Targeted investment in treatment places is required. Those which work best are the ones provided locally and where all the agencies concerned actually co-operate. We also need incentives to encourage low-level repeat offenders to engage with rehabilitation.
The Probation Service should be encouraged to place trust in the expert and experienced third sector. That needs quite a bit of attention. The forthcoming commissioning process is an opportunity. Maybe the focus should be on increasing the numbers, longer contracts, partnership working and adequate funding. Will the Government use the upcoming wave of commissioning as an opportunity to apply the lessons of the past two years? Are there plans to use the commissioning process to make the changes recommended in this report?
As we heard, the Probation Service has been subjected to enormous changes. It has been pulled and pushed in different directions, which has led to an identity crisis: pushed into being a law enforcement agency, with a greater emphasis on public protection and less on rehabilitation of offenders. Inevitably, this has led to less concentration on less serious offenders. Faced with massive changes and unrealistic expectations, along with unimaginable case loads, this affected its performance and its ability to focus on less serious offenders and produce timely pre-sentence reports. We need a well-supported, well-trained and adequately resourced Probation Service that is not subjected to constant change and contradictory expectations. The current changes announced on early release will put further pressure on the Probation Service. What steps are being taken to mitigate the impact on it?
It is extremely encouraging that we now have a Minister who is well versed on prison reform. I look forward to his response to our recommendations and, going forward, to a more enlightened debate on penal policy.
The Lord Bishop of Newcastle
My Lords, I am glad to take part in this debate and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for enabling the report on community sentencing to be discussed in this House. It is an honour to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, and I commend her point about changing the public narrative.
I also welcome the Minister to his new role and commend his excellent maiden speech, delivered on Wednesday, for which I was pleased to be present, and the wisdom and expertise that he brings to his new role. I wish him very well indeed. I also commend him on the way he dealt with repeating a Statement from the other place and taking questions before he had delivered that maiden speech. If I may use a word borrowed from my primary field of expertise, this was a baptism-by-fire experience.
Throughout my ministry in episcopal orders, I have gained insights into the value of community-based initiatives supporting the criminal justice system. First-hand insights from supporting indigenous family and kinship initiatives among Māori and Pacific island communities in New Zealand, where those communities are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system, and from listening to the distress of young men brought into the youth custody estate in Wetherby young offender institution—often from far-away locations—give support to many of the conclusions of the report before us.
I welcome the Government’s commitment to a sentencing review, creating a framework that is consistent and clear to the public. This was a point that the Minister made in his remarks on Wednesday. At the heart of the report before us, as other noble Lords have mentioned, there is a clear message: the need for more community sentencing. As the report outlines, growing evidence points towards community sentences being far more effective in reducing reoffending than short custodial sentences. Many of those in the criminal justice system suffer from addiction and mental health issues. These are health issues that require treatment—treatment that does not come in the form of a locked cell. The tailored sentences that community sentencing provides enable offenders to attend necessary treatment and rehabilitative programmes while remaining in their existing support networks, which can be a vital part of their rehabilitation.
I believe that those who commit an offence must take responsibility and face just consequences for their actions. The theme of justice is central to a number of faith traditions, particularly the Judaeo-Christian tradition. With this perspective in mind, justice is not simply about punishment; it also transforms and restores. This view of justice is reflected in community sentencing. It ensures that justice is served while providing offenders with restoration through rehabilitative services.
I want to focus on the vital support that local organisations provide. The report emphasises the value in partnering with the third sector and how community sentences are
“more effective when the Probation Service is a fully engaged member of local partnerships”.
My experience of witnessing the work of charities in Newcastle only confirms this. The Oswin Project offers people with criminal records in the north-east of England second chances through mentoring, training and employment. Its initiatives include Café 16, located in Newcastle Cathedral and staffed by a team of prison leavers who are led, trained and mentored by the project. The café sells excellent baked goods supplied by the charity’s bakery in HMP Northumberland, further providing prisoners with new skills that they can use following their release. Across the country, hundreds of incredible organisations such as these understand local needs and opportunities and are working to break the cycle of reoffending. I therefore encourage greater devolution in probation services and more local commissioning of rehabilitative services.
The faith-based sector also does invaluable work in supporting offenders to transform their lives. Junction 42 works across the north-east of England to empower individuals to take control of their lives and become active contributors to their communities. When I spoke with the director of Junction 42 ahead of this debate, she shared the need for charities working in this sphere to receive longer-term and consistent funding from the Government. This echoes the evidence shared in the report, as longer-term funding allows charities to plan ahead and results in a lower staff turnover, providing offenders with greater stability and consistent relationships. What plans do the Government have to increase the length of contracts with third sector partners, particularly smaller charities? I note that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, referred to this area of concern in her opening remarks.
“It is cheaper and safer to reduce crime or to reform criminals than to build gaols”.
Those were the words spoken by a Minister of Justice in New Zealand in the 1880s when introducing legislation establishing probation—nearly 30 years before probation services were introduced in this country. More than 130 years later, his words still ring true. I understand the immediate issue of overcrowding in the system that needs urgent action, but I am concerned that there should not be too great a focus on building more prisons rather than making long-term reforms to the system.
My friend, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester, expresses her regret that she could not be here today to participate in this debate. She recently travelled to the Netherlands to learn about the prison system there. In due course, she hopes to share her reflections from that trip with the House.
There is much opportunity to learn from overseas, but the Minister has rightly said that we need to get our own house in order in a way that will work effectively for our context. Much can be learned from examples of best practice already being implemented in our own system. I highlight the specialised women’s services providing tailored, wraparound support that have proven to be effective in reducing reoffending. What assessment has been made of the success of this holistic approach? Do the Government plan to extend this model to all probation services?
If we do not think long term about the rehabilitation of those in the criminal justice system, and increasing the use of community sentencing, we will continue to have this same debate in the years to come. Our criminal justice system needs bold reform; we need not solely to punish but to provide offenders with support to turn their lives around. I am sure that the Minister will agree that our system needs such reforms and that he understands the bold action that it requires. I offer him and his colleagues all my support in this mission.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, on her contribution today but, much more particularly, on her excellent chairmanship of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee’s work on community sentences.
Our report came out in the context of the criminal justice system being regarded, according to the press, as a catastrophic public safety failure—so it was certainly relevant to have it. It has been found that 52.7% of hyper-prolific offenders, with at least 45 previous convictions, are given community sentences. The great majority of those offenders are of course not redeemable. Community sentences are therefore not suitable for them—something needs to be done about that—but for offenders who are neither prolific nor violent, intensive community-based sentences, including both punishment and treatment programmes, can be highly effective.
The Government need to make it clear in legislation that community-based sentences rather than short-term prison sentences should be the preferred option for these non-violent and non-prolific offenders. Very important is that, when sentencing offenders to community-based sentences, judges and magistrates must be required to set out the conditions of the sentence and why these are being imposed, with a very clear purpose of reducing reoffending in future.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, mentioned, our report makes it clear that crime can be reduced, and the lives of offenders turned around, through rigorous community sentences. This is not a likely outcome of short-term prison sentences, as we know. Yet community sentences currently fail to achieve their full potential: they are not sufficiently rigorous in either their treatment or punishment components, so work needs to be done on all that. Also, the use of community sentences has more than halved over recent years. As a result, we have untapped potential in our criminal justice system. To reduce reoffending, we need to keep offenders out of prison and apply rigorous community sentences to far more offenders.
The adult offender service can learn, as the right reverend Prelate said, from both the women’s service and the youth offending service, both of which adopt effective supervision of offenders in the community. Increased investment in treatment for offenders serving community sentences is urgently required, as the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, also said. In particular, the need for mental health and drug and alcohol treatments far exceeds the imposition of these treatments, and the availability of such treatments needs to be expanded substantially and urgently. Some 91,000 people on probation at any point in time have mental health issues, yet only 1,302 of them started mental health treatments as part of a community sentence in 2022.
Increasing the use of community orders can be expected to lead to a decline in reoffending, which would result in long-term savings. Of course rigorous community sentences are costly but, in the long run, they really are cost effective. The Government would do well to reverse the decline in their use under the previous Administration. However, the first step will need to be an increase in the availability and quality of mental health and addiction treatments.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, both the prisons crisis and, more happily, the very wide welcome that has been given to our new Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, in the media and during the debates on Wednesday, provide a perfect backdrop for this debate on the report from our Justice and Home Affairs Committee, then chaired by my noble friend Lady Hamwee. The Minister’s background as a former chair of the Prison Reform Trust and in his family business, which practices what he preaches, gives a great deal of heart to those hoping for deep reform of the criminal justice system.
The Lord Chancellor, in her recent announcement on prison capacity, said:
“Longer term, we will also look at driving down reoffending, because the entrenched cycle of reoffending creates more victims and more crime, and it has big impacts on our ability to have the capacity that we need in our prison estate”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/7/24; col. 180.]
She made no mention of how to reduce the use of prison, such as community sentences, but my right honourable colleague Alistair Carmichael did, saying:
“The answer surely has to be more than just building more prison capacity. The problem is not that our prison estate is too small; it is that we send too many people to prison, and that the time they spend there does nothing to tackle the problems of drug and alcohol dependency, poor literacy and numeracy skills, and poor mental health, which led to their incarceration. Can we hope to hear in the very near future the Government’s comprehensive plan to tackle the issue of the time that people spend in prison?”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/7/24; col. 180.]
So it was heartening to hear the Minister in an interview with Channel 4 refer to the Dutch experience, saying:
“They have shut half their prisons. Not because people are less naughty in Holland. It is because they have got a different way of sentencing, which is community sentencing, so people can stay at home, keep their jobs, keep their homes, keep reading their kids bedtime stories and it means they are far less likely to commit crime again”.
That completely gels with the report, which emphasises that too many low-level and non-violent offences are dealt with through short sentences, but that these can be counterproductive and more likely to compound the issues that lead to crime in the first place. If someone needs support to move away from non-violent crime, they will have better access to the services that can help them if they are being supervised in the community.
The report’s very first sentences are:
“Crime can be reduced through rigorous sentences served in the community. With the right investment, intensive community sentences can succeed where short prison sentences fail”.
“Rigorous” and “intensive” are key adjectives. The report points out that community sentences are
“demanding on the offender and help them stop committing crime, thereby protecting the public. Breach mechanisms mean that offenders are being held to account”.
It also points out that community orders can save the public purse money, not only through reducing the use of expensive custody—since even the most intensive types of community orders cost less than prison—but through a reduction in reoffending.
But courts are not utilising community sentences as widely as they might. Over 151,000 community sentences were issued in 2012, but the number steadily declined over the following decade to just 69,000 in 2022—a reduction of over half. So the committee understandably reports that there is untapped potential for keeping offenders out of prison and supporting them to avoid reoffending, but the scope for effective results needs to be better understood.
One barrier to overcome is the all-too-widespread perception, reinforced and hyped by much of the media, that community sentences are a cop-out for offenders. The Justice Committee in the other place, under the excellent chairmanship of Sir Bob Neill, said in its report on public opinion and understanding of sentencing:
“Low levels of understanding of sentencing have an effect on the quality of public debate on sentencing, which in turn can have an influence on sentencing policy … There needs to be a step-change in the Ministry of Justice, the Attorney General’s Office and the Sentencing Council’s efforts on public legal education”.
Is there more that the Minister believes can be done in this regard? Will the Government be robust when predictable quarters of the press accuse them of being “soft on crime” and point out that in fact changing behaviour is jolly hard work?
Another barrier to greater use of community sentences is the sorry state of the Probation Service a decade after Chris Grayling launched his ideological and disastrous “transforming rehabilitation” so-called reforms, which actually involved fragmentation and part-privatisation. The role of the Probation Service is key, as the report highlights. Lack of sentencer confidence in probation’s ability to effectively deliver community sentencing must have been shaped in part by the chaos and constant policy churn in the Probation Service, which has suffered a disastrous impact on its staff retention.
The Lord Chancellor made a welcome commitment to recruit 1,000 more trainee probation officers by March 2025 but, as she has acknowledged, this is not new investment but a “redeployment of resources”. This is not particularly encouraging. The committee stresses the need for manageable case loads, as probation officers are often managing more than 70 cases. As my noble friend pointed out, the Chief Inspector of Probation in England and Wales, Martin Jones, was reported on Monday as saying that the current model for the Probation Service was not sustainable; unfortunately, one of his suggestions was to reduce the demand on probation officers to monitor people released from prison. Will the Minister respond to those concerns about the non-sustainability of the Probation Service?
Some commentators believe that the issue goes beyond money and that the Probation Service needs a strategic focus, with national leadership and accountability coupled with localised service delivery. There are suggestions around for reorganisation. The committee’s report suggests:
“When services are provided locally, various agencies can cooperate effectively. The co-location and co-commissioning of services are the gold standard”.
Do the Government have any thoughts on the Howard League’s suggestion—I am pleased that its president, the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, will speak in the gap—of delivering probation work through local community justice partnerships, each with a board including representatives from the police, local authorities, local voluntary groups and members of the community, sentencers, health boards and regional prison management?
The committee’s report stresses that pre-sentence reports produced by the probation service are an essential part of the sentencing process. However, the probation service has been under great stress and has not always been able to produce these reports. Do the Government have any new thinking on how to encourage the greater production and scope of pre-sentence reports?
As others have said, our committee’s report points out that:
“The need for mental health, and alcohol and drug treatment far exceeds the current rate of imposition of Community Sentence Treatment Requirements, which itself exceeds the availability of treatment”.
How will the Government ensure better provision of treatment facilities?
The report wants incentives to be created to encourage low-level, repeat offenders to engage with rehabilitation, and says that
“The approach which underpins Ireland’s ‘integrated’ Community Service Order is a helpful model”.
Do the Government see scope in looking to what Ireland is doing?
The report comments favourably on the effectiveness of “wraparound rehabilitative support” offered to female offenders and some young people, wanting it to be a model for probation services generally. Do the Government agree with those suggestions? Does the Minister have any thoughts on how to avoid the cliff edge at 18, which the report stresses?
Finally, the committee’s report stresses the importance of the availability of housing, saying:
“Being homeless makes it difficult”—
if not impossible—
“to comply with the requirements of a community order”.
I am glad that the new Government are giving long-overdue prominence to the supply of housing, but is the connection to offending being given specific attention?
We clearly have great hopes of the new Government bringing a new approach to criminal justice. We wait with eagerness to hear the detail of the Government’s commitment.
Lord Macdonald of River Glaven (CB)
My Lords, I hope your Lordships will bear with me as I speak during the gap. I am aware that such contributions are meant to be kept short, so I will speak relatively briefly. I do not need to mention my interest, because it has already been referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford.
I congratulate the committee on its report, which is absolutely excellent: it is rigorous and well-argued, and a very good piece of work. For my part, I agree with its conclusions and recommendations. I thought the Ministry of Justice’s response was careful and constructive, and also a very good piece of work. That said, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that the Government ought now to treat this as a springboard, rather than the final word, and to build on that response, because there is progress that can be made.
I will make a couple of points. I was delighted when, on Wednesday—I cannot remember whether it was during questions on the Lord Chancellor’s Statement or during the King’s Speech debate—the Minister went out of his way to remark upon the great attachment to public service of those working within the probation service. I was delighted, because my experience running the CPS taught me that there is nothing more destructive to the morale of a workforce than to be constantly criticised and abused—in the press and, sometimes, even by members of the Government, as I am afraid we have seen in the past. This drains enthusiasm and demotivates; it sucks the lifeblood out of a workforce.
I was interested to hear what the Minister had to say in his remarkable maiden speech about his own business and the way he treats his employees. I hope the Government will take a similar approach. Of course, when things go wrong, they have to be investigated and put right, but it seems that we hear only when things wrong; we do not hear about the countless occasions when the men and women working in our public services get things right.
There are other pressures; it is not simply media and political pressure. As others have made clear, the probation service is badly understaffed and underfunded. There are too many relatively junior probation officers taking on cases which should be reserved for more senior, experienced people, who do not exist in the service. This will take a long time to put right. Recruiting 1,000 new probation officers is better than nothing, but they will be trainee probation officers, at the bottom. Programmes to try to tempt back into service more senior figures who have left in recent years will also be important.
If it will become the aim of this Government, as I very much hope it will, to try to reduce our prison population, the obvious place for them to start will be at the lower end, with those serving shorter sentences who have the highest reoffending rates—over 50% for adults released from serving sentences of 12 months or under. However, if these individuals are released without some form of supervision, the policy will soon discredit itself, and the Government could even be forced into a U-turn. An absolute corollary of reducing the prison population is to boost probation and rehabilitation services. The former cannot happen successfully without the latter.
We are told that there is not enough money, and that may be the case, but we could save some money from the £600,000 it takes to build each new prison cell, put less people in prison, and spend some of that money perhaps on intensive treatment, probation officers and other rehabilitation services. We have the balance of expenditure wrong.
I was very interested in the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, during the King’s Speech debate on Wednesday. He is a distinguished former leader of the Liberal Democrats, and I think we can all agree—I am sure Liberal Democrats would—that he is a wise old bird. He made the point that it is important in this debate to keep lines of communication open with the top of the Government.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
Could I ask that the noble Lord makes his comments short, and brings them to a conclusion, please?
Lord Macdonald of River Glaven (CB)
I will come to a conclusion now.
I was simply going to say that I think that is absolutely right. I knew the new Prime Minister for 25 years at the Bar, first as a practitioner and thereafter when he succeeded me as Director of Public Prosecutions. I think his instincts would tend towards supporting generally the conclusions of this report. If that is right, those inclinations, combined with the Minister’s well-known desire to boost rehabilitation, could lead, at last, to some real reform in this area.
Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I am another interloper, I am afraid.
Sometimes the planets do align. This is a very welcome report on community sentences, and a Minister who believes that too many people are imprisoned. In my experience of over 30 years in policing, the biggest problem with low-level crime recidivism is the disruptive nature of short-term prison sentences, particularly to employment, housing and family ties, to the extent that it can lead such prisoners becoming institutionalised and unable to survive outside prison. I worked at Holloway, in north London, as a police constable. I distinctly remember an older woman who, having left the local women’s prison, made her way to the nearest store and blatantly committed shoplifting, hoping to be swiftly returned to the security of the prison. The local magistrate granted her wish. Short sentences can encourage recidivism, and community sentences can encourage reform.
As my friends, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—who so expertly chaired the committee and whose report we are debating today—and the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, have said, community sentences can be tailor-made, enabling those subject to them to maintain the links that are so important in preventing reoffending. I am sure the Minister will agree that, if at all possible, any sentence should have the aim of preventing reoffending through rehabilitation, rather than by incarceration.
Committees always have to be disciplined in their focus to make their inquiries manageable, and this committee understandably decided to concentrate on community orders specifically, rather than other forms of community sentence, such as restorative justice sentences. It is on this subject that I wish to speak briefly.
Later in my police career, I worked with Professor Larry Sherman, now the Metropolitan Police’s chief scientific officer, on a Home Office trial of restorative justice, including those involved in serious offences that led to custodial sentences. The greatest positive impact was on victims of crime voluntarily coming face to face with their assailant, where the offender became a real person, not some monster in the victim’s imagination. In a legal system where the defendant can refuse to participate in the process, and where people in wigs and gowns talk to each other about something that is going to be done to them without their direct involvement, for the offender too, engagement with the restorative justice process can make them realise that the victim is not just another faceless target but someone with friends and family, and feelings. It makes their offending real.
Restorative justice is most impactful when it is not followed by the brutalising effects of a prison sentence. When restorative justice leads to genuine remorse and empathy and a tough but positive community sentence, it keeps everything in the real world that the offender inhabits, something that can turn offenders’ lives around and make the victim’s experience less traumatic. I could not let this opportunity pass to attempt to ensure that restorative justice is on the Minister’s agenda.
Lord Sandhurst (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted to respond to this debate from this side of the House. I was and indeed remain a very happy member of the committee. I am also the executive chair of the committee of the Society of Conservative Lawyers.
As others have noted, if it is properly managed through rigorous sentences served in the community, crime can be reduced. With proper investment, intensive community sentences can more often succeed where short custodial sentences too often fail. Only this week, the Secretary of State for Justice observed that
“too often our prisons create better criminals, not better citizens”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/7/24; col. 835.]
Nearly 80% of offending is reoffending.
These important points were acknowledged by the previous Government at the end of February this year in their response to the committee’s report. The previous Administration was working to improve the quality of community sentence delivery, from the earliest stages of advice to the court through to the delivery of requirements and supervision. They were seeking to ensure the delivery of robust community sentences and had recognised that there was more work to be done. So too, the previous Government acknowledged the persuasive evidence that community sentences can be more effective than custodial sentences in reducing reoffending and rehabilitating offenders.
I shall now highlight the committee’s more significant proposals, together with the synchronicity of the previous Government’s responses. I note the approving remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, in that respect.
Custody, while sometimes necessary, is expensive and fuels reoffending, as others have said today. Community orders are a sound alternative in many cases—not all, of course, but many. Mechanisms to deal with breaches mean that offenders are now being held to account. We know too that over 50% of people sentenced to custody for up to 12 months go on to reoffend within a year. However, for those on community orders, the figures are different: the reoffending rate is 36%. Where there has been a suspended sentence order coupled with requirements, the reoffending rate is lower still: only 24%. That is significant; it is a pointer to the way forward.
The last Government acknowledged the persuasive evidence that community sentences are, in certain circumstances, more effective than short custodial sentences in reducing re-offending. Policy should therefore build on what the last Government started. We should now have more sentences that do not result in immediate short-term prison terms. But identifying the right candidates for non-custodial sentences is crucial. The public must be won over and must have confidence in what is being done. So, what steps will government take to work with the Sentencing Council and the Probation Service to identify criteria to help guide the judges to move in the direction of fewer short-term prison sentences?
Since 2020, under the last Government, over 4,000 trainee probation officers have been recruited. The judicial forum now meets quarterly at a senior level to share information about new projects and to get feedback on probation performance. The last Government deserve credit. The Sentencing Bill of 2023 would have imposed a duty on courts to suspend short sentences of 12 months or less. That Bill was lost with the Dissolution. Like community orders, suspended sentences are available for courts as a robust community-based sentencing disposal and an alternative to immediate custody. So, as there is no mention in the gracious Speech of the Sentencing Bill, which was lost, do the Government intend to revive it? If not, why not?
The committee was clear that government should invest in the services that underpin community orders, and there should be an emphasis on intensive treatment whose effectiveness is established. The previous Government had already invested over £500 million in the treatment and recovery provisions in the first three years of the drugs strategy plan. The committee concluded that a greater proportion of people on probation should be serving sentences with “one or more” treatment requirements. This policy has already been pushed forward, and more orders of this kind are being made, with drug rehabilitation, alcohol treatment or mental health treatment requirements being attached. We have made a start, and it must be carried through, as other noble Lords have said. Will there be further investment in community sentence treatment requirements, which the committee believed should be a priority and key to reducing re-offenders, putting offenders on a path away from crime and protecting the public?
Pilot schemes to incentivise offenders, such as that for deferred sentencing, can encourage offenders to engage in probation and to change their behaviour. The pilot schemes for these and for intensive-supervision courts, started by the last Government, should be pursued and developed where they show promise. Monitoring will be important.
Young offenders bring a subset of problems of their own. As we have heard, there is a cliff edge when they move from the youth justice services to the adult Probation Service. It is not straightforward. They are young adults—often young males, who do not reach psychological maturity until around 25. The last Government acknowledged this and had it very much in mind. Age-appropriate solutions must be implemented to smooth the transition. So, what proposals do the Government have to address the transition of young offenders to adult probation services at 18?
Local entities are key to securing meaningful unpaid work placements and to fostering public support for community sentences. That means that we have to ensure that smaller organisations are enabled and helped to bid for contracts and offered administrative support. To date, the Probation Service has not always made the most of partnerships with local organisations outside the formal commissioning process. Government can spur this on and encourage. There has been a start; the Probation Service must do more in this respect.
The provisions which I have outlined, taken as a whole, are crucial to the management and disposal of lower-level offenders. Supervision of lower-level offenders is essential to the mission of the Probation Service. If people are properly managed, we all benefit.
To conclude, the unification of the Probation Service has been successful. There have been praiseworthy increases in recruitment. Progress has been made in absorbing the new recruits. Now is the time, as others have said, to educate the public that locking up relatively—I emphasise “relatively”—low-level offenders is often not the answer. The previous Government recognised this in their helpful response given in February of this year. They were moving energetically to implement change and to drive the Probation Service and the judiciary forward in this respect. It is vital that our new Government do not give up on this. I have every hope that this new Minister will give serious weight to our report. If not, we are watching.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab)
My Lords, it is a privilege to close this debate in my new role as Minister for Prisons, Parole and Probation, with responsibility for reducing reoffending. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for her opening remarks and for securing this important debate following publication last year of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee’s report on community sentencing.
It was clear to me upon first entering your Lordships’ House that this is a human library of knowledge, experience and expertise. I assure noble Lords of the value I place on getting community sentences right, from the point of advice to court and throughout a sentence, so that they are effective in keeping the public safe and cutting reoffending.
This debate is an opportunity to start a conversation about this Government’s vision and priorities for the future of community sentencing. It also provides an avenue to recognise the work going on across the Probation Service and other public, charitable and private organisations to deliver better community sentences. On this subject, I acknowledge the fantastic work that probation staff, as well as those from other organisations, do on a daily basis, despite the pressures caused by the prison crisis that this Government have inherited. I will set this out first before turning to the additional points raised in the Justice and Home Affairs Committee report.
The Labour Party manifesto promised to take back our streets. That is why those who risk the public’s safety must be confronted by law and order. Central to this is our ambition for a criminal justice system that not only makes sure that justice is upheld by punishing offenders but provides genuine rehabilitation, leading people away from crime.
For many offenders, although not all, community orders are a more appropriate option than custody. For example, they are more appropriate for individuals struggling with a range of complex needs, such as substance misuse or mental health issues, which have led them into a cycle of offending, or for a young first-time offender who is likely to become a career criminal if their life is disrupted by a custodial sentence. If left untreated, the circumstances that led to a person’s initial offence will only push them towards a life of crime. As a result, too often we see needless preventable reoffending. Robust community sentences are an alternative option that protects the public, reduces reoffending, cuts crime and is rooted in evidence. These sentences offer a different narrative—one that emphasises rehabilitation and reparation, without sacrificing public safety. This is done through a combination of tailored monitoring and support that targets offenders’ often complex issues.
The Probation Service has a crucial and often overlooked role in delivering these sentences by protecting the public while supporting offenders to turn their lives around. A more joined-up approach to reducing reoffending is required if we are to maximise the potential of community supervision. We can see this in action in Greater Manchester, where probation is linked up with housing and health services to ensure that offenders leaving custody receive the support they need. That is why this Government will conduct a review of probation governance, following the evidence of what works to cut reoffending.
I would like to talk about some specific elements of community sentencing which I think hold real value and promise. It is vital that we make good use of technology where we can in the delivery of community sentences. Electronic monitoring is a useful tool that allows us to monitor compliance with behaviour and location requirements in the community. There are three types of electronic monitoring devices available: radio frequency devices for curfews; global positioning system—GPS—devices for curfews, exclusion zones, attendance at appointments and constant whereabouts monitoring; and alcohol monitoring devices, which can be used to monitor partial or total bans on alcohol consumption. Data from alcohol monitoring for community sentences shows that devices did not register a tamper or an alcohol alert for over 97% of the days worn. This provides offenders with a real chance to rewrite their behaviour and change the narrative of their life. I have volunteered to be fitted with an alcohol tag and look forward to gaining first-hand insight into the experience of those who are electronically monitored.
It is important that while on a community sentence offenders take responsibility for their actions and actively contribute to repairing the harm caused. Community payback, while punishing people, offers them a real opportunity to give back to their communities. It is vital that this work addresses local need and benefits communities so they can see the reparations being made. It can also support measures to reduce reoffending by providing opportunities to gain vocational or skills-based on-the-job training to assist offenders in finding employment.
I am interested in finding ways better to deliver community orders and address the drivers of offending behaviour. The intensive supervision courts pilot is testing an innovative approach to community sentence management. Pilots have been rolled out in four locations: in Liverpool, Teesside and Bristol in the Crown Court, and in Birmingham in the magistrates’ court. These orders are delivered jointly between probation and the courts to offer comprehensive and rehabilitative support to offenders as an alternative to short custodial sentences. Wraparound support can be hugely beneficial, particularly for vulnerable cohorts of offenders. I note the committee’s interest in these pilots and believe that much of their work aligns with the conclusions made in the report. We are conducting an evaluation of the effectiveness of the pilot to consider its role in the criminal justice system, and I look forward to visiting one of the sites, in Birmingham, in the coming weeks.
Although this report and debate are focused on community orders, I want also to touch on the subject of prison leavers, as it is one in which I have long been invested. Effective resettlement of those who leave prison is a core part of our efforts to reduce reoffending, as it aims to ensure that the elements which are proven to reduce reoffending are in place when an offender leaves prison. This includes making sure that someone has a home, family links where appropriate, access to healthcare, a job or further education and/or access to benefits.
As noble Lords will know, employment opportunities for offenders is a subject in which I have long taken a significant and active interest. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, and I very much agree with her, we know that finding employment in the year after release makes offenders less likely to reoffend by up to nine percentage points. The employment rate for prison leavers six months after release has more than doubled across the past three performance years from 14% in 2020-21 to 31% in 2023-24, with growing support from the business community. Yet there is more to do to ensure that this trend continues, especially with high vacancy rates in many sectors. I am particularly interested in how we can increase paid employment and training opportunities for those on community sentences as well as prison leavers.
I will now turn to some of the specifics of the committee’s report and respond to some questions raised in today’s debate. The committee has clearly set out the complexities of the system, but also the potential of those we are trying to help to turn their lives around. This report is well timed for me coming into this role and is much appreciated. This may sound unusual, but to me this is perfect bedtime reading.
Given that this is a new Government, I will not speak to the specifics of how the previous Government responded to the committee’s report. It is important that we take the time to get these decisions right, improve our criminal justice system and ensure that community sentences are robust in delivering their objectives. I instead want to use this opportunity to demonstrate this Government’s vision for community justice, and I will touch on a few areas the committee highlighted, which I think are fundamental in the successful delivery of community sentences.
Before continuing, I will take the time to thank front-line staff, who warrant immeasurable credit for their commitment and professionalism, without whom our vision for the system will not be realised. Our brilliant staff at the Probation Service, as the noble Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, mentioned, are committed to delivering the punishments set by the courts, keeping the public safe from harm, and giving offenders the chance to turn away from their lives of crime. They work every day with some of the most complex people in our country, inside one of its most complex systems.
This Government will strengthen probation by building a supported, skilled and resilient workforce that is able to deliver high-quality supervision that is focused on the areas of highest risk and delivered within manageable case loads. I have found over the years that building the most effective workforce and achieving an outcome to its fullest potential means ensuring that the people on the front line are happy, motivated and respected. In my role as Minister, I intend to embed this culture.
Probation practitioners, supervisors and managers keep the public safe. I am here to support those professionals in their endeavour to protect, rehabilitate and build trusting relationships with those they supervise. That is why I am determined to increase recruitment to mitigate case-load stress. We have committed to recruiting more than 1,000 trainee probation officers by March 2025. I can feed back to the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, that my visit last week to meet front-line probation staff was absolutely inspiring, and although they are up against a huge amount of work with the current releases and those coming soon, they were determined to make this a success. I have every faith in their ability.
I agree with the noble Baronesses, Lady Prashar and Lady Meacher, on the importance of increased provision of treatment for addiction and mental health. It is vital that sentencers can appropriately tailor community sentences to address individuals’ needs, which may be driving their offending behaviour, as well as to protect the public. I agree with the emphasis the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, placed on the provision and availability of community sentence treatment requirements for substance misuse and mental health needs. I am committed to working with health partners to maximise the availability and impact of this, although, as per the questions from noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, and the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, I am not able to commit to increasing funding at this time. Mutual aid groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous also have an important role to play in supporting long-term recovery.
The committee helpfully highlighted the specific needs of women and the vital role that women’s community services play. Effective community-based sentencing can mean that women are less likely to lose accommodation and employment, enabling them to receive targeted support, reducing the likelihood of reoffending, and limiting disruption to their families and children. Going forward, we must be led by evidence and learn more about the potential for residential alternatives to custody, such as at Hope Street and Willowdene, where wraparound care and effective rehabilitation is provided for women with multiple complex needs.
A process evaluation interim report will be published later this year and a full process evaluation report will follow in summer 2025. As mentioned earlier, the intensive supervision courts are a promising pilot of how this wraparound support can help with certain cohorts of offenders. I was pleased to hear the question from the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, about provision for young adults in probation. The Transitions to Adulthood Hub in Newham, delivered in partnership with the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, demonstrates the value that this type of approach can have for young adults. The evaluations being conducted for these approaches will help to evidence the effectiveness of wraparound support to address criminogenic need.
I note the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, on restorative justice. This is something that is offered at the hub to encourage young adults to gain an insight into the consequences of their actions and the impact on victims. I will be considering its role in the future of the criminal justice system.
Of course, the most effective community sentences are those that are tailored to the individual. Sentences should address the underlying causes of offending, while ensuring that the individual is not set up to fail, with requirements they cannot realistically comply with. The work of probation in court is therefore crucial in properly assessing rehabilitative needs and risk, as well as providing an independent recommendation on appropriate sentencing options.
For a service under such significant pressure, there are no quick wins for improving delivery, as I am sure the committee is well aware. However, evidence shows that in cases where a pre-sentence report has been completed, offenders are more likely to successfully complete their sentence. I am supportive of the department’s efforts in increasing the volume and quality of PSRs. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, approves of this and agrees that we need to encourage the building of relationships between probation officers and offenders, and between government and the third sector.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Prashar and Lady Ludford, emphasised that it is vital that the Probation Service commands the trust of victims, the public and sentencers. The word “trust” was used a lot today, and to me this is a very important trait we need to continue with. I am committed to restoring and maintaining the confidence of the judiciary in probation’s delivery of tailored community sentences. Through the judicial engagement charter, the department works closely with the judiciary to ensure that sentencers have up-to-date information on available interventions and evidence of effective practice.
The department also seeks to increase transparency by bringing together senior representatives from across the judiciary in quarterly meetings, chaired by the Chief Probation Officer, Kim Thornden-Edwards, to share information about new projects and get feedback on probation’s performance.
Regarding the question from the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, on sentencing and short custodial sentences, I can inform the committee that we will be launching a review of sentencing. While the terms of reference are not yet defined, this will look to ensure that the sentencing framework is consistent and clear to the public. More details of this review will be announced in due course.
I support the committee’s overall assessment that local and partnership working is important to delivering good community sentences. I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle for her comments on the importance of partnering with third sector and local organisations. It is vital that the Probation Service works as a team with partners across the criminal justice system and beyond who have the knowledge and specialist expertise to help turn people’s lives around. I want to thank the many partner organisations that work closely with probation, including police forces, local authorities, health providers, the third sector and others, which all play a key part in driving down offending and supporting offenders’ rehabilitation. We will ensure that this valuable engagement continues.
I am also grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle for sharing her reflections on her experiences in New Zealand, and I note these with interest. A central feature of New Zealand’s approach is its focus on joined-up and partnership working, which we know helps to support meaningful change. International comparisons provide us with valuable insight, and I am keen that we consider this evidence and lessons learned from examples of good practice across prison and probation systems globally. I intend to visit international justice systems, but I will make sure that my tag has been removed before I get on the plane.
Like the committee, I believe in the value of technology in improving the public services we deliver. New and efficient software is integral to the task of increasing productivity. I am encouraged by the rollout of the new HMPPS assess risks and needs instrument—known as ARNS—a replacement for the core risk assessment tool used day in, day out by probation staff. The introduction of this technology will free up administrative time for sentence management to allow valuable face-to-face meetings with supervised individuals and improve our digital capability so that information on offenders’ risk will be better shared across prisons and probation.
I fully agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, on the importance of securing public confidence in community sentences. The Sentencing Council is independent of Parliament and the Government, but I note with interest the noble Baroness’s thoughts on its role in public perception.
This Government are committed to doing all we can to make non-custodial sentences fit for purpose. Our vision of successful community justice is to deliver suitable punishment, public protection and vital rehabilitation in order to reduce reoffending. To realise this, we will build a system based on a clear understanding of what the problems are and evidence of what works, to ensure that community sentences are delivered effectively.
Let me repeat my gratitude: for the opportunity to respond to this important debate; to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for securing it; and to all those who contributed. I thank again those noble Lords who are members of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee for the work that has gone into this report. I also thank the committee’s officials, who have, I know, worked collaboratively with the department throughout the duration of the review.
I close by emphasising my appreciation of and admiration for the committee. With a strong Probation Service, we can break the cycle of offending, make our streets safer and restore public confidence in community sentences. This is the right approach for our justice system. I look forward to the continued dialogue on this matter.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, I do not want to detain the House unduly so I will not go through every point that has been made and every speaker by name.
Public perception is hugely important, as is supporting public servants. We have heard some interesting perspectives, including from the two speakers in the gap; I am glad that they made it at the last minute. The word “intensive” has been used quite a lot; it is very appropriate to so much of what we have been talking about.
This has been an afternoon well spent. Today’s debate was arranged at the last minute. I mention this because those who follow our proceedings should not think that a shortish speakers’ list indicates anything other than that Parliament was to have been in recess by now. So many colleagues were committed elsewhere. The current chair of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, my noble friend Lord Foster of Bath, is particularly sorry not to have been here. So, my thanks go to the speakers—including, of course, the Minister. I wonder: does he know whether there is a chocolate tag—I could do with one of those—not just for what noble Lords have said so very thoughtfully but for actually being here and making points that I was not able to cover because I had to cover the report? It is rather frustrating not to be able to go off on a riff of your own in this sort of debate.
I really appreciate the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, being here because I am sure that he has plenty to do. His listening to this is well taken.
My thanks go to the committee and our hard-working staff: the clerks, David Shiels and Sabrina Asghar; the policy analyst, Achille Versaevel; the press and media officer, Aneela Mahmood; Amanda McGrath, our amazingly efficient committee operations officer; and Gemma Birkett, the specialist adviser. I thank our hosts at Westminster Magistrates’ Court for our visit, as well as the MoJ officials throughout my chairmanship of the committee; we really appreciated their engagement.
My particular thanks go to our many witnesses—those who put in written material and those who came and gave compelling and vivid evidence. I am happy to badge that as evidence in the context of the evaluation of measures.