Westminster Hall

Wednesday 4th September 2024 Westminster Hall

Wednesday 4 September 2024

[Peter Dowd in the Chair]

Preventable Baby Loss

Wednesday 4th September 2024 Westminster Hall

09:30

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered preventable baby deaths.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Dowd. This debate is not the type of debate I look forward to because it is filled with sadness and sorrow. I am delighted to be joined by some of the Ashfield families who have been affected by baby loss in the past couple of years or so. According to the Royal College of Midwives, every day in the UK 1,845 babies are born alive and there are between 302 and 428 miscarriages. We have eight stillbirths per day with 145 babies born prematurely and five neonatal deaths.

When a pregnancy is announced in the family, on most occasions it is a joyous, wondrous time in people’s lives. They are happy. Dads make plans for their son to be a footballer—they have picked the football team already. Mums look at princess dresses, even though the baby is about as big as your thumb. Grandparents squabble over who will have rights to look after the new grandchild. There are all sorts of plans such as what schools they will go to. Especially for first-time mothers it is a strange time—a wondrous, joyful time—and once things settle down would-be parents sometimes get a little bit apprehensive and scared, worried about the baby and whether he is going to be well. Will he be born well? Will he develop properly? It turns from being happy to being concerned, but still happy.

There are quite a few risks, as we know, in pregnancy, during birth and in the postnatal period. Every preventable stillbirth, neonatal death or infant death of a child is a tragedy and we must make all efforts to prevent it happening. The families that I have brought here today believe, along with the hospital, that deaths were preventable. Mistakes were made and things were missed. I hope that today the ministerial team can give the families something so that they can go away and know that they have been listened to.

There are factors apart from mistakes, such as diabetes, obesity, drinking too much, smoking and other factors in pregnancy that can affect how a baby develops and ultimately how healthy it is once it is born. But as I say, in these cases mistakes were made. I have spoken to some of the families, and two families are here today. I will read out their stories—not my words, but their words. I asked them to print out their stories so that I could read them out here in Westminster Hall.

The first one is from Rob and Emma Stretton. They tell the story of Olivia. This is from Rob:

“On the 31st of May 2023, Emma and I attended a routine scan at King’s Mill Hospital, Mansfield. During the scan a few issues arose. The sonographer called for assistance from her senior and her recommendation was made to contact a consultant. His decision was that Emma needed admitting immediately for observation. The time was approximately 14:30. We were taken upstairs to the maternity unit where the situation was explained to a midwife at the nurse’s station. Her reply was we should return later as no beds were available and a phone call should have been made to the ward prior to attending. The consultant suggested for us to return in a couple of hours to which the midwife replied this wouldn’t be feasible due to shift change over. She said between 19:30-20:00 would be better.

After this we left for home and returned to the ward around 19:45. Emma was admitted for monitoring and once she was settled, I returned home. Upon entering the house, I received a phone call from a midwife advising me to return as soon as possible as no foetal heartbeat could be obtained. I went straight back to the ward to be informed our baby…had died. Emma was given medication to induce labour and gave birth to our stillborn daughter three days later at 18:13.”

The next story is from Bianca Chapman. This is Imiza’s story:

“My placenta was completely covering my cervix. I was a high risk pregnancy. I had a bleed in the November and wasn’t given much advice on any risks. In the early hours of 3/12/22 I had a big bleed and went into KMH. The registrar raised concerns but was ignored by the consultant. In the space of just over 24 hours I then had several more bleeds. It wasn’t until my daughter’s heartbeat baseline stopped beating I was considered to be allowed surgery.

The consultant in charge had gone missing, which delayed my daughter coming out. The ward was on code red. It took 45 minutes to find him. I was then operated on to find out my placenta had abrupted inside me. They struggled to get my daughter out so they had to make a further cut in my stomach, which now due to that I will never be able to give birth naturally.

My daughter came out at 11.16 am not breathing. It took 7 minutes to resuscitate her. I had clumps of placenta floating around my stomach and had to be put to sleep to have further surgery. We were led to believe she was fine, but we weren’t able to see her. We were told they was just waiting for her to urinate. She was later transferred to LRI, which was when we were finally told the truth: she had a bleed on her brain due to being left inside me too long with no oxygen. Her nappy was filling with blood.

Within the space of a few hours, we were told she would be highly disabled, to get your family here, who you would like to meet her, as it’s in her best interest we turn her life support machine off. After turning her life support machine off I was then told I was going to be put back on the maternity ward around all mothers and babies…There was no way in this world I wanted to be around alive babies.

Once we had our investigation, we were told a lot of things that could have prevented all of this. We was told if she was taken out around 7 am she would be alive right now. Those vital few hours made all the difference yet we was left to suffer a lifetime of pain through a choice of a fully qualified consultant…We were also told he would of known her life expectancy would be short due to the abruption yet he told us she would be home with us for Christmas and not to worry.

We believed in them to be later proved it was all a lie. All that happened to the consultant responsible for our baby girl’s death was he was audited. We are now both changed forever…I was pushed out in a wheelchair holding a memory box as that’s all my daughter then was, a memory.”

Amelia Bradley wants to tell Theo’s story:

“My pregnancy was the typical normal pregnancy. I attended all antenatal appointments and was deemed as low risk. On the 13th September 2023, I attended King’s Mill Hospital in the evening, despite being a booked homebirth, to get some pain relief. On the first admission to the Sherwood Birthing Unit, I was left waiting for 40 minutes, before being told by a supporting midwife that they were really busy, and someone would see me shortly. 30 minutes later, the same midwife returned to complete my original triage assessment, something that should be undertaken within 15 minutes of arrival.

This midwife apologised for the delays and started my assessment immediately when she came back into the room. She told me that I was l to 2 cm dilated and that my cervix still had some changes to make until I was in active labour. She still deemed me as low risk, gave me a codeine tablet and said that I would still be suitable for a homebirth, as the only pain relief I could get with a water birth would be gas and air.

I got home at around about midnight and got into my birthing pool, before leaving it to use the toilet at around 12:30 on the 14th September. I had 2 contractions on the toilet and felt a pop, which was followed by bleeding. I put on a pad to monitor the bleeding and within 2 to 3 minutes, it was full. Luke rang the Birthing Unit and put the phone on speaker so I could consent to them talking to Luke and my mum because of how much pain I was in, and I couldn’t speak for myself.

They asked if I had lost more than a teaspoon of blood, to which my mum said ‘Yes, it’s like a heavy period, but pure blood.’ The midwife didn’t ask any questions about the pain I was in and didn’t try to gather further information on the amount of blood loss. She told me to come back to the hospital.

We returned to the hospital just before 1 am and on getting to the ward at 01:04, I was put into a triage room. 10 minutes later, a support worker came to take my observations, but ignored my mum when she tried to show her the blood-filled pad, and then failed to alert any of the midwives that I was bleeding.

After being in the room for 37 minutes, while 2 triage midwives, a labour ward co-ordinator and several other staff were sat around their nursing station discussing how many Haribos they’d eaten on the shift, and how other midwives who were on bank shifts were getting paid more…a midwife”

never entered the room. When one did enter, she

“took a look at the pad and her face dropped, noting the seriousness of my condition. She couldn’t find Theo’s heart rate, so went to get support and a Doppler to see if this could pick the heart rate up. She found him to be bradycardic and issued a 2222 emergency. The consultant came and ordered for a category 1 C-section to take place.”

The baby died.

This is the story of Hayley Moore:

“My story…Had previous placenta eruption in 2021, was very lucky—was picked up and I was straight down to theatre for an emergency C-section. This time around I was very anxious about it happening again, was questioning the consultant. He said I was only under him because small baby last time. I wanted a planned C-section, but he kept pushing me to go natural and full term.

I went in on the 17th of February with reduced movements and pains, was hooked up to the monitor, was told I can’t be having contractions so was sent home. On the 19th, went for a scan. I felt it was rushed, still said I don’t feel right. They said baby had grown and looked fine. Felt movement early hours.

The next morning by 10 am on the 20th I was at home in agony, rang the birthing unit, they told me to go down so I did. Got there, was sent into assessment unit. Midwife came, checked for heartbeat…had to wait for scan…then moved down to room 11, where the bereavement midwife came up. The doctor was pushing me to go natural again as I was stable.

The midwife at the time, along with my sister, was pushing for my C-section…in the end, I did get rushed down for a C-section, and again my placenta had erupted. The aftercare I received from midwife Holly…was outstanding.”

That is four stories.

Recently, I visited King’s Mill hospital and the maternity unit, where I managed to walk around with the chief nurse, Mr Phil Bolton. It is a brilliant facility at that hospital. The problem that hospitals have, however, is the headlines in the newspapers, which are always bad. We never see the front page of a local paper saying, “Hospital saves a life”, although that is what they do every single day.

Mistakes have been made, and individuals have made mistakes, but I also have to say that I am incredibly proud of King’s Mill hospital, which is where I was born and where my children were born, and it is probably the place where I will leave this earth, when I eventually go—though I have no plans to do that just yet. It is a brilliant hospital, but mistakes have been made. But King’s Mill hospital acknowledged the mistakes; it put measures in place and learnt from some of the heart- breaking stories we have heard today.

I am not here to talk about King’s Mill hospital; I am here to talk about my constituents, who have suffered the most horrendous grief. Baby loss will always happen—we know that—but those were preventable deaths. We must do all we can in this place to ensure that our national health service has the support it needs to make sure that we reduce baby loss.

We know about the Ockenden report in Nottingham. Some of the news coming out of that is quite shocking. I fear that we sometimes treat the birth of babies like a production line—it is not. It is very personal and emotive. Every single family is completely different; mums and dads are different. If we can learn anything from today’s debate, it is that from the families I have spoken to, baby loss touches every single family in this country. Somebody along the line will know or be related to somebody who has had baby loss, whether that be a miscarriage or during childbirth or post-natal.

I ask the ministerial team to have a look at my constituents here in the room today. I know it is not always possible to empathise, because we have not all been through the same thing, but please reassure them that they have been listened to. I cannot go any higher than this. We have the complaints in and the solicitors involved. As a Member of Parliament, all I can do is listen to my constituents and their stories, bring them to this place, let them see the people running this country, and ensure that their stories are listened to and that the facts I have given today are acted upon.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that if they wish to speak, they should bob—as some of you have done. Thank you for that.

09:46

[Nigel Farage (Clacton) (Reform)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) has raised a subject that is, for many families and communities, a taboo. It is very, very difficult to talk about. When it comes to prevention, he is quite right to pay tribute to the hospitals where every week, thousands of healthy babies are born. Where there have been errors—we have seen it not just in Nottingham; one of the Kent hospitals had a particular problem with this—everything should be done to make sure these deaths are prevented. Whatever we do, however, naturally some stillbirths will still happen.

I have seen the effect of stillbirth in my own family. It is pretty devastating. It does not go away or get forgotten. Are those that go through this, particularly the women, able to talk about it? Can they share their experiences? A problem shared may not be a problem solved, but it might just make life a little bit more bearable—a little bit easier. I must be honest: when my niece had that stillbirth, I did not feel I could face her and talk about it. I felt too awkward. Would I say something that was wrong? Was it best we just did not discuss the subject? A decade on, even though I am close to her, I have never discussed it. I have just felt too awkward to do it. I suspect that is the case with many men, including husbands and partners. It is just something that is not talked about.

I want to pay tribute to councillor Jeff Bray, the former leader of Tendring district council, who has talked about the stillbirth experience as a father. I am also encouraged by Maria Gormley’s charity in Clacton, where women—and men if they want to—can come together regularly and share their experiences. It is not an easy thing to do. I have admitted my own failings, but I suspect I am far from alone in finding this subject incredibly difficult.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield said, anything that can be done to prevent avoidable disasters must be, but I want to put it on the record that naturally, these things will happen—hopefully in very low numbers. There needs to be counselling and support for people who have been through that experience. To be honest, I feel that in most parts of the country, it is very sadly lacking.

09:49

[Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson). As a woman who has lost two very much wanted pregnancies, baby and pregnancy loss is very close to my heart. I also represent an area that, in the past, has seen poor maternity care cause the death of babies. I want to speak about the importance of local support for parents and families, and to give those support organisations a voice here in Parliament. I also want to highlight the absolute necessity of rigorous investigations and true candour when babies die. My constituency hosts two excellent support groups for people affected by pregnancy and baby loss: Matilda’s Mission, set up by Chelsie and Matt after the death of their baby Matilda, and the Tigerlily Trust, set up by Val in memory of her daughter Lily.

Matilda’s Mission and the Tigerlily Trust work with local bereaved families. They provide a whole host of support, including remembrance boxes for bereaved parents to make and collect as many memories as possible in the short time they have with their babies, and to give them resources when they return home. There are sibling memory boxes for bereaved living siblings, sibling play sessions, and support groups, which in particular can combat the loneliness and isolation often felt with this sort of grief. They provide a place where people can come and heal together. There are dad drop-ins, one-to-one catch-ups, grandparent events, older sibling events, whole family events at holidays such as Christmas, and of course events around Mother’s and Father’s day. The two groups also work with hospitals and universities on maternity bereavement care and host Baby Loss Awareness Week events.

I asked Chelsie, Matt and Val what they wanted me to say today, and they told me that funding is an issue. For example, the bereavement suite at the Royal Lancaster infirmary, co-designed with bereaved parents, has been closed for some time due to safety concerns. While the trust continues to work on that, maternity bereavement does not seem high on the agenda when it comes to budgets. As Chelsie said in her beautifully blunt way, “Dead babies and their families matter too.” Funding for support groups is also extremely difficult, with some groups struggling to get support for funds to continue. Support for families is currently a postcode lottery, often involving lengthy referral times for NHS services or support from charities. When families are in the depths of grief, 12 weeks’ wait for a referral is tough going. Families need consistent and timely care.

Matt, Chelsie and Val also wanted me to mention bereaved dads and non-birthing parents. The lack of support again is apparent, and their role can often be seen as merely supportive to the mother or birthing parent, rather than as a grieving parent themselves. Something important to me—this was mentioned by the hon. Member for Ashfield—is tackling the idea that natural childbirth is somehow superior to medically assisted childbirth. At its worst, that belief—and it is no more than a belief—has killed babies.

Finally, I want to mention something that touches all aspects of health and social care, and that I am sure our new Government will take very seriously. When things go wrong, it is the duty of all organisations involved to be fully truthful, transparent and willing to learn. When adverse outcomes are potentially due to failures in care, too often families experience insufficient and prolonged investigations that add to the trauma. We owe it to the babies lost—baby Matilda, baby Lily, baby Theo, baby Olivia, the baby daughter lost to placental abruption and Hayley’s baby—not only to find out what happened to them, but to ensure that we prevent every single future death we possibly can through a rigorous commitment to investigations at pace, a culture of safety, and the best possible patient care.

09:54

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge) and to hear her contribution as well. In particular, I thank the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) for setting the scene, as he often does, with a passion and an understanding of his constituents that we all see, and for describing the examples of his constituents who have suffered in this way. He did it with sensitivity, because it is a very sensitive debate. As a father and a grandfather, my thoughts are with those who have faced and are living through baby loss; there are many who have. I say “living through” because I know that it is not something to get over as such.

I could give many examples, but I will give just one. The hon. Member for Ashfield said that every family has been touched, and he was right. My mother has had a number of miscarriages, as has my sister and Naomi in my office, so the issue of baby loss resonates with us all.

There was a lady I greatly admired. Her name was Agnes Thomas. She is dead and gone, but she was 4-foot-nothing. There wasn’t much of her, but she was definitely a whirlwind. I remember her coming to see me. She took care of her 105-year-old mother—and that is the age her mother was when she passed away. Agnes had a very ill husband, and she had minimal help from anyone. Within a few months of her passing away, her mother and her husband died too. She was the centre of that home and one of the strongest women that I have ever known—apart from my own mother, of course, who at 93 is equally strong. However, underneath all that undeniable strength was also a lady that, in her 80s, came to the office to see whether she could find out where her stillborn son—

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech. It is good to hear the story of Agnes, and I hope that he will agree with me that sympathising with our constituents who have suffered such awful circumstances and telling their stories in Parliament is a good way to ensure that they are heard in the future.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Lady for that. The story of Agnes’s son is this: her stillborn son was born sleeping in the early ’70s and was buried. Agnes came to see me over 50 years later.

[Lee Anderson]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very passionate speech, and I think everybody in Westminster Hall can tell how impassioned he is. He tells a very touching story. Does he agree that it does not matter how long ago baby loss occurred—it will always stay with the family?

[Jim Shannon]

I am sorry for being emotional. I know that I should not be. I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me a chance to recover some of my composure.

Agnes came in tears to ask where the Royal Victoria hospital had buried her son. It meant something to her, even though it was 50 years later—that wee small lady, standing in my office telling me her story, which was breaking her heart 50 years later.

The loss of a baby is life-changing, and my thoughts are with those families who have been mentioned in this debate. There will be others. Other hon. Members will speak, and they will tell the same story with the very same emotion, compassion, understanding and that realness that the hon. Member for Ashfield compounded in such a fantastic way in his introduction.

The fact that baby loss can be preventable makes the outcome that bit more difficult to accept. Sands is a phenomenal charity, and it has given the following statistics. I always give a Northern Ireland perspective simply because I feel it adds to the debate, but it also tells us that the things happening here are no different for us back home. The stillbirth rate declined 17.7% in Northern Ireland between 2010 and 2022. However, comparing the rate over a three-year average shows a smaller reduction of 10.1%. My goodness! Though it is decreasing, it is still there with a vengeance. The neonatal mortality rate has been higher in Northern Ireland than in any other UK nation since 2013. It is equally bad wherever it is, but I am just making the point that Northern Ireland has examples of it that are above the rate anywhere else.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his powerful speech. This is certainly a debate that resonates with me on a very personal level, but I want to make mention of a little boy called Teddy from my constituency of Upper Bann, who died from sudden infant death syndrome. He will be forever seven weeks old. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need better wraparound services, particularly in our hospitals, with rooms made available for families who find themselves in these most tragic circumstances? There should be support, counselling and help right through their grief journey.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my hon. Friend and colleague for that intervention. What she says is absolutely true.

I tend to be emotional at the best of times, but whenever someone loses someone, particularly at that time, it resonates with everyone. It is a time when people want to wrap their arms around them, because it is the right thing to do. At the same time, there has to be someone outside. The hon. Member for Ashfield gave some examples where—with respect—people were just sent home when they needed someone. That is so sad. I feel that there should be a greater role for churches and ministers to help and, as best they can, to give succour and support physically, emotionally and mentally. Those are things that we have probably all tried to do.

Unlike stillbirths and neonatal deaths, the total number of miscarriages and miscarriage rates are not reported in Northern Ireland. That needs to change. It is a matter for us back home and not the Minister’s responsibility, because health is devolved, but I do feel that we need to do better. I still feel that the aims in the mainland should be replicated. I know that the Minister is sitting in for another Minister who cannot be here, but maybe it could be conveyed to the responsible Minister that we should look at an overall strategy for the whole United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Although there is an ambition in England to halve the 2010 rates of stillbirth, neonatal death, pre-term birth, maternal death and brain injury by 2025, there is no equivalent ambition in Northern Ireland. There really needs to be one; that is one thing that I would love to see. Sands states:

“The Northern Ireland Executive must commit to reducing pregnancy loss and baby deaths and eliminating inequalities. Any future targets must have a clear and agreed baseline to measure progress against.”

It is not just about having a goal; it is about having a goal that means something. With respect, we can have words until the cows come home, but they mean nothing unless they turn into action. Sands further states:

“These targets should be the driving force behind a programme of policy activity, with funding and resources to meet them.”

I agree. The ambition of this debate is to highlight the need for funding and resources, highlight the issue, make people aware and give an outlet to those who have suffered so painfully and who will carry that burden with them all their life. That is what I too am advocating, not simply for England but throughout the whole United Kingdom.

We have midwives who regularly find themselves staying after handover, as they are understaffed. We find exhausted junior doctors being left with full maternity wards while their SOs catch up on the never-ending paperwork. We have cleaning staff telling us that they do not have time to do all they need to clear rooms of infections. All those things are a matter of funding, and they are all UK-wide.

In all parts of this great nation, these are matters of life and death. The death of just one little baby that did not need to happen—we all have examples in mind today—is a tragedy. The number of babies who have died needlessly is not just a tragedy, but a catastrophe. We need to change it. With that in mind, I congratulate the hon. Member for Ashfield on giving us all an opportunity to participate in this debate in a small way, but with united force. Politics aside, we are here as MPs on behalf of our constituents, and we will all say the same thing: the loss of a baby is devastating to a family. If we can do something, we must. Let us support staff and, by doing so, support the health of our mothers and their children.

10:04

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Gateshead South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) for securing this important debate and for his moving opening speech. My thanks also go to Bliss for the briefing that it provided.

This is an incredibly important debate for me and, I have no doubt, for all of us here today. As some Members will know, I—like many others here today, sadly—have experienced the devastation of baby loss. Having not spoken about my experience of baby loss until 2016, 11 years after I became an MP, I know how difficult this can be to talk about openly. I want to thank all colleagues for being here, some of whom have personal motivations, as we have heard.

I want to tell you a little bit about my daughter Lucy and about my experience of baby loss. My daughter Lucy was born at 23 and a half weeks, and sadly she was stillborn. Her heart beat throughout my labour until just minutes before she was born. The experience of giving birth to a stillborn child is incredibly traumatic, as we have heard and as I have spoken about previously. It feels weird that the world around you is not responding as it would if you had given birth to a live baby. I felt that I made everyone around me, or anyone I met, feel very uncomfortable: it is one of the last taboos, as the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) spoke about. No one knows what to say to you when you have lost a baby or given birth to a stillborn baby—it is everyone’s worst nightmare—so I did not talk about it, and I certainly did not tell anyone new to my life who had not known me before I lost Lucy. When I became an MP in 2005, it took me until 2016 to actually talk about it in this place, or to anyone from my post-baby-loss life.

What compounded this grief was the fact that Lucy did not receive a birth or death certificate. Even more upsettingly, in my records it was not recorded as a stillbirth; it was recorded as a miscarriage. Because she was just days away from being 24 weeks, she was three or four days short of the required legal age to be eligible for a death certificate. Because of that, she does not officially exist in any official records other than our own family records.

We did name Lucy during a blessing in a private room, which I was moved to after she was born, when I had to give birth in the maternity ward among all the live babies. She was then taken to the chapel of rest and we held a very small funeral service for her, organised by the chaplain at the hospital and the Co-op, which funded everything. I will be forever grateful for that: it meant a lot at the time and still does. The acknowledgment of Lucy’s existence that they provided us with was truly invaluable, particularly when it had been denied to us by the lack of a death or a birth certificate.

After my experience, I knew things had to change, even though I could not talk about it for a long time. Alongside the former Members Will Quince, Antoinette Sandbach and Victoria Prentis—some of us here will remember Victoria, who left the House at the last election—I became one of the founding members of the all-party parliamentary group on baby loss in 2016. I am pleased that the APPG is still going; I hope it gets reformed. It has become a vehicle for making great progress with regard to baby loss, in particular for securing bereavement suites across the country, improved patient pathways and better recording of data, among many more improvements. Still more are needed, sadly.

I then became one of only two MPs on the pregnancy loss review, alongside our former colleague Tim Loughton, following his private Member’s Bill. The review’s work resulted in significant changes—not least the decision, announced just earlier this year, that parents who lose a baby before 24 weeks of pregnancy in England can now receive a certificate in recognition of their loss. I know that this has been a great source of comfort for many who now feel they can finally get a formal recognition and acknowledgment that their baby existed. I am certain that it would have made a huge difference to me and my family.

[Carla Lockhart]

I thank the hon. Member for the moving real-life story that she has told. I commend her and her colleagues for their efforts on baby loss certificates. Does she agree that a greater effort needs to be made in the devolved regions—I am thinking of Northern Ireland—to replicate what is happening here in England with baby loss certificates, such is the importance of the issue for families?

[Mrs Hodgson]

I absolutely agree. I only realised that the certificates were just for England when we were pulling together my remarks for today. That is remiss; I encourage the devolved nations to follow the example of England and bring the certificates in, because they really make a massive difference to parents suffering early baby loss.

Despite these improvements, we still have a long way to go to provide the care and respect that all families need during such a difficult time, as well as to ensure that we take steps to reduce stillbirth rates. As expressed by Bliss, an organisation that campaigns for change for babies born premature or sick, there has been a concerning increase in the neonatal mortality rate and the pre-term birth rate. It points to a high variation in care as a factor that can be addressed to reduce that worrying increase.

As the MP for Washington and Gateshead South in the north-east, I know just how damaging the impact of inequality can be as we experience the acute end of regional inequality, which can manifest itself through less investment and less access to the resources we need. In relation to baby loss, inequality prevails and, as Bliss highlights, the number of babies lost to mothers from the most deprived areas has increased at a rate twice that of babies lost to mothers living in the least deprived areas.

It would be remiss of me not to mention that neonatal mortality rates are much higher for babies from an ethnic minority. Babies of black ethnicity are twice as likely to be stillborn as babies of white ethnicity. It is a failure of our healthcare system that babies of black and Asian ethnicity continue to have much higher rates of neonatal mortality. Disgracefully, that disparity is also seen in maternal healthcare. Maternal mortality for black women is currently almost four times higher than for white women. As some Members may have heard, the tennis star Serena Williams has spoken in great detail about her awful experience in that regard. I encourage Members to read her article in Elle magazine, which is still available online. Even as a very wealthy and globally recognised figure, Serena’s voice was dismissed during pregnancy and childbirth.

We must ensure that there is the right training and support for healthcare professionals to ensure that all those terrible disparities are addressed. The cases that we have heard today are so traumatic. Crucially, we must centre the voices of patients—usually mothers, but sometimes their partners as well—and listen to what they are saying about their own bodies and experiences. As we have seen with the high level of disparity in neonatal healthcare outcomes, we will fail to achieve change if we are not listening to those at the heart of this crisis.

If we are to effect change, we must also increase our midwifery workforce, as well as increasing the capacity in our NHS to allow the necessary training to be delivered. I am pleased that Labour is taking strong action to get our NHS back on its feet. In our manifesto, we committed to training thousands more midwives as part of the NHS workforce plan. It is also significant that Labour has said that we will ensure that trusts failing on maternity care are robustly supported into rapid improvement, and we will set an explicit target to close the black and Asian maternal mortality gap.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Member agree that two points that have emerged from this important debate are that greater resources are required to deal with the problem, and that a greater understanding is needed of the individualistic nature of the problem? No two mothers or families will react to baby loss in exactly the same way, as she and other hon. Members have so passionately outlined. Those are two of the most important issues arising from the debate, and hopefully we can learn from them.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I absolutely agree. The hon. Member makes a very valuable point: resources matter, but it is also about how they are implemented. Human interaction and professional training is so important.

I am hopeful for the future and proud of the change that has been made so far. Looking at all colleagues in the Chamber today, I know that together we are a powerful voice that can make such a difference to families during that terrible time and can help to improve outcomes for others, so that fewer people experience this most dreadful loss in future.

10:15

[Andy MacNae (Rossendale and Darwen) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) for securing this important debate, and the families for being in the Public Gallery and sharing their experiences. I speak as the father of a daughter called Mallorie, who we lost at five days, so I share their experiences.

We have heard some stark statistics, and I will seek to summarise the national picture and some of the measures that we might be able to take. We have heard about the number of losses, and that every loss is a personal tragedy. We have also heard that every loss is not inevitable. Up to one in five stillbirths and neonatal deaths are preventable. In 2015, the then Government announced an ambition to halve the rate of stillbirths and neonatal deaths by 2025 but, sadly, progress on delivering on that ambition has stalled. Without renewed action we are going to fall well short.

To dig a bit deeper, as my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson) highlighted, there are still further causes for concern. According to the 2022 perinatal mortality report, black babies are more than twice as likely to be stillborn as white babies, and black and Asian babies are more than 50% more likely to die shortly after birth compared with white babies. Research by baby loss charity Sands has explored the reasons for that inequality, and as a result is calling for specific actions to deliver positive, joined-up, empathetic maternity and neonatal care, through its End Inequality In Baby Loss campaign. I urge our new Government to support those actions.

Baby loss charities are highlighting wider areas where improvements could help to prevent baby loss, including greater consistency in ensuring that maternity services meet nationally agreed standards and guidelines. In effect, we know what needs to be done but we need to implement it, particularly in respect of the NHS saving babies’ lives care bundle. Linked to that is the need for maternity units to be properly staffed, as we have heard so many times today. The Sands and Tommy’s joint policy unit estimates that nearly a third of neonatal intensive care unit shifts are not properly staffed. In addition, 63% of midwives have felt unwell in the last 12 months due to stress. Overall, in 2022-23 nearly half of maternity services were rated as “inadequate” or “requires improvement” by the Care Quality Commission.

We know that the NHS as a whole has been left broken by 14 years of neglect, and now we must look to our new Government to ensure a safe maternity care system in which national guidelines are consistently followed. But sadly, even with the best care and support, many families will still suffer the pain of baby loss. Effective bereavement support can be crucial in helping families to come to terms with their loss. Again, I speak from personal experience in that regard.

Despite wonderful work done by charities—I want to mention the Friends of Serenity in my area of Rossendale and Darwen in Burnley—and by NHS trusts, far too many bereaved parents cannot access the compassionate care that they need. That can hugely impact their wellbeing in the short term and for the rest of their lives. Of course, this has related social and economic costs. As with so many aspects of primary care, effective early support reduces demand in the longer term. The issues and solutions are well understood.

Healthcare professionals across the UK do not have sufficient access to bereavement care training, which means they are not adequately supported to gain the skills and confidence they need to provide excellent care for families when a baby dies—or, indeed, to look after their own wellbeing. The national bereavement care pathway provides nine standards of care across five different experiences of pregnancy and baby loss to ensure equality of bereavement care no matter where a parent lives in the UK. In England, all 128 NHS trusts have now signed up to the NBCP standards. I hope the new Government will consider making the pathway mandatory and providing the funding to help trusts to implement the standards.

I will finish off with a reminder that Baby Loss Awareness Week is coming up in October, culminating in the global wave of light on 15 October. I hope that fellow Members can support the events in their constituencies.

10:20

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield Hallam) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I thank the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) for securing this important debate. My thoughts are with all the families whose experiences he shared today and with all those present who have shared their personal experiences.

This is an issue that is deeply personal to me, and I have spoken about it many times in the last five years. I am sad to say that I have not yet had my rainbow baby, but that does not stop the questions every single month for probably the last year, asking whether I am pregnant. I encourage colleagues not to ask women, because not only is it very rude but it can cause a lot of heartache for those who are struggling to conceive.

I have had the honour of working with dedicated campaigners, including Myleene Klass, and we were privileged to welcome the then Minister responsible for women’s health to Tommy’s at Birmingham Women’s hospital. It was great to get them there. I extend that same invitation to the new Government’s health team to see the research that has been done there; to see an alternative model of care, which would see the end of the three-miscarriage rule and has since been piloted in response to the review; and to meet the families who Tommy’s has helped to have their rainbow children. It was incredibly rewarding to hear their stories about how small changes in care can really make that difference and allow people to have the families they so desperately need, while remembering the children they were unable to hold in good health. It has been brilliant to work with Tommy’s and Sands for several years, pushing for meaningful and long-overdue changes.

It is estimated that 50% of people will be affected by baby loss during their lifetime, either personally or through someone they know. Miscarriage is common but that does not make it any less heartbreaking, and often that leads women—as well as men who have gone through it—to face grief in isolation. We have been trying hard to break the taboo, increase support from employers and establish bereavement leave and better mental health support, because in many cases there is none. Most importantly, we have been trying to improve the pathway of care by pushing for more early intervention for women who may be at higher risk—such as myself as I had undiagnosed diabetes—and for funding for research to make sure we are doing all we can to improve the life chances of people going through pregnancy.

In the UK, 13 babies tragically die before, during or shortly after birth every single day. National reports indicate that up to one in five of those stillbirths and neonatal deaths could be prevented if guidelines were simply consistently followed. That is not good enough, and those deaths are not mere statistics but heartbreaking losses that call for our immediate attention and action.

I want to highlight the progress being made in addressing the challenges in miscarriage in response to the independent pregnancy review, because it is important that we show that more can be done. We have touched on the three-miscarriage rule; it is important that we make sure that ending that is rolled out successfully. We are waiting for the results of the pilot, but I hope the Government will take seriously that change in the model of care, which is backed up by research.

By all accounts, the number three was picked out of mid-air, and there is no reason why someone should have to wait to have three miscarriages before they get basic tests for diabetes or for other reasons to understand why they may have miscarried. It is cruel—we would not expect anyone to have three heart attacks before doing a basic test—and it lays bare the sexism in our medical system that we would allow people to go through that so many times and face so much loss and trauma before giving them the answers they need to perhaps go on to have successful pregnancies.

The review provided 73 recommendations across various areas, including the graded model of care, which would be the alternative to the three-miscarriage rule and would give people the support they need after one miscarriage. It is currently being trialled at Birmingham.

Another vital recommendation is 24/7 access to miscarriage care. At the moment, people may or may not have access to an early pregnancy unit, depending on where they live in the country. They may not have any access to information about what to do if they are suffering a miscarriage, which leads to people turning up to A&E or staying at home and losing a child unnecessarily. This critical measure would ensure that nobody has to navigate that painful experience alone, and I would love to work with the Government further on how we can develop it in an affordable and successful way to reach all communities, whether rural or inner-city.

Data collection is an important area that I feel has been left out of the conversation somewhat. It is vital that we understand the issue. There has been a push for the systematic recording of all miscarriages in order to understand their true scale. The numbers we quote today are unknowns, really, because we have not been recording them systematically.

I had an experience when being called for my flu jab. I was a bit bemused and asked why I had been called for one. They said, “Oh, it’s because you’re pregnant.” They looked down and saw that I was not pregnant and said, “Oh wait, you’re not.” That was a very difficult thing for me to go through. They did give me the flu jab, which is quite funny I suppose, but it was really hard for me to go to that appointment and hear that.

Many of my constituents have been asked whether it is their first child or how their other children are doing, because the notes are not there. The way that miscarriage and baby loss is flagged on medical records is not sufficient to stop those awkward and very upsetting experiences for women who have been through baby loss. We want to get national statistics because we want to understand the true picture. That will allow us to set targets and measure the impact of the interventions that we so desperately need to introduce.

Although the previous Government’s commitment to 20 short-term actions, including on some of the issues I have highlighted, is a positive step, it is deeply concerning that families are still having to face the trauma of multiple miscarriages before receiving investigative tests and mental health support, which is not fully understood either. People who have suffered loss are more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and suicide. These are very material issues for families who have experienced one miscarriage, never mind the trauma of three. I hope the Government can look into the issue in more detail.

We have heard about issues of inequality. Black babies are more than twice as likely to be stillborn, and black and Asian babies are more than 50% more likely to die shortly after birth than white babies. High rates of child fatality and miscarriage are also reported in the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. This disparity is unacceptable. I urge the Government to renew and extend the national maternity safety ambitions and to set clear targets to reduce these inequalities. I welcomed the reviews of these two areas that were brought forward by the last Government, but I hope we can learn the lessons soon and get action for those mothers. Every baby deserves an equal chance of survival; their background should not matter.

We must also focus on improving prenatal care. This is an area that people are again not given enough information on. Early and regular antenatal care is critical, but if we can provide advice, guidance and support for women who have disabilities and illnesses, we can help them have safer pregnancies. As we have heard today, the basic care is still not there for many people, and it is essential for us to focus on that gap.

As I said, we need to ensure that every expectant mother has access to timely, high-quality care regardless of their background. Alongside that, addressing health inequalities is crucial; sadly, babies born into poverty are more likely to die by their first birthday than those born into wealthier families. That disparity is a stark reminder of the broader social determinants of health that contribute to infant mortality. We must tackle these inequalities head-on by improving access to healthcare, education and support for families—particularly those from disadvantaged communities.

Preventable baby deaths are a tragedy that we have the power to address and prevent. Although we have made important strides, more work is desperately needed. I urge the Government to commit wholeheartedly to giving every baby the chance to thrive and ensuring that every family receives the support they need throughout pregnancy and, unfortunately, throughout baby loss.

10:30

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Dowd. I start by thanking the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) for securing this important debate. Sadly, we have revisited this issue a number of times, even in the short period since I was elected in 2021.

Members’ speeches today have been excellent, and I will touch on them briefly. I thank the hon. Member for Ashfield for telling the stories of his constituents who have come along today, and I thank them for sharing their stories, which were very moving. It is tragic that they have been through such experiences.

The hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) addressed the fact that the subject is taboo and that we need to get over that if we are to support families properly. The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge), who I welcome to this place, stressed the importance of providing support for bereaved families and of the groups in her constituency that do that. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) told us the moving story of his constituent Agnes, who felt her loss for the rest of her life.

The hon. Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson) has been a pioneering campaigner on this issue. In particular, she has campaigned successfully on the issue of the birth and death certificate for a lost baby, and I am sure everybody is grateful to her for that. The importance of making memories for bereaved families is so important. The hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae) pointed out the important statistics we need to consider and the importance of effective bereavement support. The hon. Member for Sheffield Hallam (Olivia Blake), who has also been an effective and tireless campaigner on the issue of miscarriage, made an excellent speech.

I became co-chair of the APPG on baby loss shortly after I was elected, because of the scandal at Shrewsbury and Telford hospital NHS trust and the Ockenden report, which was issued shortly afterwards. There have been similar incidents at Morecambe Bay and East Kent, and we suspect there is a similar issue emerging at Nottingham, with the review by Donna Ockenden currently under way. The fact that scandals have emerged across the country means that there are endemic failings that we need to address, rather than blaming individual trusts.

The reports on Morecambe Bay and East Kent were by Dr Bill Kirkup, while the Ockenden report was for Shrewsbury and Telford. They raised very similar issues, albeit in quite a different style. The first issue was the importance of safe staffing in ensuring that babies do not die unnecessarily on maternity wards. Sands and Tommy’s have also led a campaign on that, which the APPG supported. The former Government responded quite well in trying to improve midwife numbers and ensure that maternity units are safe places to be. Shrewsbury and Telford hospital NHS trust has achieved its targets on safe staffing. We need to keep the focus on that area, because safe staffing obviously needs to be maintained; it is not a one-off thing that we can do and then hope for the best for the future.

Other issues that came up include learning from mistakes, listening to mothers and their families, and doing a proper review when something goes wrong, as it inevitably occasionally will, to make sure that lessons are learned. It feels like that has not happened across the NHS as a whole. In every review, we have heard about a lack of openness and transparency with the families and about blame being passed on to mothers who have lost their babies. We have heard about a toxic environment in some hospital trusts and about a willingness to cover up what has gone wrong rather than be candid and learn from mistakes. Those issues have been highlighted time and again, and it is important that the three reports—we are expecting a fourth—do not just gather dust on a shelf somewhere. Action must be taken to ensure that those mistakes do not keep happening.

The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale raised the fact that there is an obsession with natural birth, and I feel that very strongly. After having an emergency C-section, I was asked by a midwife whether I felt like a failure for having been through that emergency medical procedure. The answer was, “No, not until you suggested that maybe I ought to,” but hon. Members can probably imagine the shame, guilt and depression that followed. We must get away from this obsession with natural childbirth. It is the best option for mothers with low-risk pregnancies, but it is not great for anybody who has a medical issue. We must not let ideology lead the evidence and science.

I am conscious of time, so I will not take too long. Shrewsbury and Telford hospital NHS trust has made great inroads in implementing the immediate and central actions that Donna Ockenden recommended, but I would welcome an update from the Minister on progress on the national actions. If the disparity for ethnic minority women—whether they are black, Asian or from another ethnic minority—was happening in an individual trust, we would be up in arms and would get in a professional to investigate what was going wrong. We must not lose sight of that disparity and inequality. We must deal with the terrible outcomes for some of these women, as well as with the wider situation in the NHS.

Independent whistleblowing is particularly important. In Shrewsbury and Telford hospital NHS trust, the freedom to speak up guardians report into hospital management, and people frequently report that they do not feel safe whistleblowing. I urge the Government to look at safe whistleblowing and to create an independent office of the whistleblower to ensure that when people raise medical concerns about safety, they are listened to, are not closed down and do not fear losing their jobs.

These scandals do not apply to a single hospital trust; there is huge variety in the quality of care across the country. I urge the Government to look at maternity care across the country and to ensure that getting safe care is not a postcode lottery but is consistent and fair for all women.

10:37

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) on securing the debate; the stories he read were very emotive.

Many people witnessing birth for the first time describe the experience as the miracle of birth. It is indeed the most wonderous occasion. I have been honoured to be present at the birth of many hundreds of babies in my work as an NHS doctor. Unfortunately, birth is an unpredictable process, and the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) is right that we should focus not on natural birth but on the outcome of a healthy mother and child.

Birth does not always go smoothly. Generally, and increasingly as I became a more senior doctor, I attended only the very high-risk deliveries—those when things go wrong. In a job focused on saving lives, the opportunity to do so at birth is perhaps the most rewarding, but sadly, despite the best efforts of the whole team—midwives, obstetricians, paediatricians and allied professionals—some babies die, and that leaves a hole in the families that, as others have said, does not go away.

I spoke in the baby loss debate in 2022 as the responsible Minister, and I am reminded today of the words of Hayley Storrs, which were read by the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon):

“What people fail to understand when someone loses a child, it is that you have lost a lifetime. First days at school, first steps, graduations, what their favourite story would have been, birthdays, Christmases.”—[Official Report, 25 October 2022; Vol. 721, c. 65WH.]

That very moving account has stuck with me. It reminds us that this pain endures, so we must do all we can to prevent it.

I pay tribute to my NHS colleagues who strive every single day to ensure that pregnancy and birth lead to the happy, healthy outcome that we all want. Politicians and the Government must do all we can to support that. We must hold the NHS to account when it fails to uphold the very highest standards.

I also pay tribute to the many great charities, such as Sands, Tommy’s and Bliss, which have been mentioned by others, that do such great work in this area. I was proud to run the London marathon with a constituent earlier this year to raise money for Bliss, and I am grateful for the support it provided to him.

We must focus relentlessly and systematically—starting at pre-conception, as the hon. Member for Sheffield Hallam (Olivia Blake) said—on every single factor that can cause or increase the risk of baby death. That includes reducing teenage pregnancy, smoking and obesity; ensuring that there is chronic illness optimisation, so that if someone has diabetes, it is optimally managed before they conceive; making medication changes if needed, so that someone is not taking teratogenic drugs at the onset of pregnancy; and ensuring that women are aware that folic acid should be taken before and during the early parts of pregnancy. Before the general election, the Government consulted on the fortification of flour with folic acid to reduce the number of babies who suffer from a shortage of folic acid during pregnancy. Can the Minister confirm whether this Government will go ahead with the proposed legislation to fortify bread products?

Additionally, the Chancellor has said that she will stop all non-essential communications. Many of the messages we are talking about are public health messages that need public communication strategies. Can the Minister confirm that this essential form of communication is not affected by the Chancellor’s restrictions on communication costs?

NHS England introduced the saving babies’ lives care bundle, which currently focuses on six areas: smoking; the assessment of foetal growth during pregnancy; awareness among parents and families that a reduction in foetal movements can be a significant warning sign; expertise training for cardiotocography monitoring during labour and pregnancy; the reduction of premature birth; and the management of diabetes to ensure that people have optimal control. The NHS had a plan to update the bundle to introduce maternal early-warning schools and tracking tools. Can the Minister confirm whether it is on track to deliver that? Can she also confirm that the saving babies’ lives care bundle will be updated this year and at regular intervals, as evidence improves on how we can best reduce the number of baby deaths?

Two years ago, as Minister, I delivered a statement to the House on behalf of the Government regarding the outcome of Bill Kirkup’s independent review of maternity services in East Kent. His report was very sobering. Those tragic events revealed failings—failings seen previously elsewhere, which should and must not be repeated. In response to the review, the Government set up a group chaired by Maria Caulfield, then the Minister for Women’s Health, to oversee the work being done to improve maternity services nationwide, including by implementing the recommendations in Dr Kirkup’s report. Can the Minister confirm that the group’s work will continue under the new Government? If so, can she confirm who will lead it?

Can the Minister confirm that she will support the work of the healthcare safety investigations branch, which investigates all cases of stillbirth and life-changing injury, to see what lessons can be learned and how care can be improved?

Other have talked about the Sands and Tommy’s “Saving Babies’ Lives” report, and particularly about workforce issues. The previous Government invested heavily in increasing workforce numbers, building five new medical schools. That takes time, but it will ultimately increase the number of obstetricians and paediatricians. The number of midwives also increased. There were 23,361 full-time equivalent midwives in NHS trusts and other core organisations in 2023, which is an increase of 19% since 2010. Births fell in England and Wales during a similar period. In the spring Budget, the Government committed £35 million to improving babies’ care, £9 million of which was related to preventing brain injury. The remainder related mostly to funding 160 additional posts in midwifery and neonatal care. Can the Minister confirm that that investment will proceed in order to support the care of pregnant women and babies?

In summary, it is almost 10 years since the Government launched the maternity safety ambition. While that goal has not yet been achieved, from 2010 to 2022, the stillbirth rate fell by a fifth, the rate of maternal mortality fell by a fifth, and the rates of neonatal mortality for those babies born after 24 weeks fell by 36%. Those statistics are a good achievement, representing many hundreds of families who will now enjoy watching with love as their children grow, thrive and develop. We must build on that now to ensure that many more families—all families—have the same opportunity.

10:44

[The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd, and to speak for the Government in this important and moving debate. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) for raising this important issue. As my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson) said, it is the last taboo, and the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) articulated well the difficulties that many people have in knowing what to say.

The debate gives me the opportunity to put on the record my deepest sympathies to the bereaved families: thank you for making the decision to come here today. Others might be listening in on the Parliament channel. The decision to attend is brave, and I commend the hon. Member for Ashfield for giving voice to the moving and harrowing stories of Emma and Rob, Bianca Chapman, Amelia Bradley and Hayley Moore, about their babies, Olivia, Imiza and Theo.

We know that preventable baby loss remains a serious issue every time such debates come before the House. Today, we have heard how many people have taken part in previous debates; I have listened in before. What little consolation they must be for parents and wider families who have lost a loved one, but I am always inspired. I hope that the families present today recognise that every Member of Parliament is also a human being, with their own experience and that of their families. The issue touches every family; as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, it stays with families for decades. Sharing such experiences is brave of hon. Members, but they have given voice to how important the issue is.

Every baby’s death is tragic, but all the more devastating when parents are told that it could have been prevented. As we have heard, report after report has told us that this remains a serious issue in our health service, and that is backed up by the data. Two years ago, the Office for National Statistics found that almost 2,300 stillbirths were recorded in England and almost 1,700 neonatal deaths, a rate of 2.9 per 1,000 live births.

In 2022, I welcomed the Ockenden review, as many did, but it made for harrowing reading. The Government’s position is that any preventable death is unacceptable. We are committed to ensuring that all baby deaths that can be prevented will be prevented. Donna Ockenden’s review shone a light on maternity staff too exhausted to do their jobs. It showed patterns of poor care, a lack of adequate training for staff, and failure in governance and leadership that led to widespread avoidable harm and death, and to shocking inequalities in maternity provision. Dr Bill Kirkup’s review of East Kent identified similar themes, but also showed that leadership and culture changes were needed. That is why this Government stood on a manifesto commitment to train thousands more midwives and to set an explicit target to close the black and Asian maternal mortality gap.

There are a number of initiatives, some of which we have heard about today, and I will run through some of them. If I do not address some concerns expressed by hon. Members in my update, we will get be in touch with people, including the official Opposition—I commend the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) on her experience in this area as a clinician as well as a spokesperson.

The NHS put in place a three-year plan to deliver the reviews’ recommendations to make maternity and neonatal care safer, more tailored to every new mother’s needs, and more equitable. That includes the Saving Babies Lives care bundle, which is being rolled out to every trust. That provides maternity units with guidance and interventions to reduce stillbirths, neonatal brain injury, neonatal death and pre-term birth. That will need to be updated regularly, but I will confirm the details to the hon. Lady.

The plan also includes initiatives to reduce inequalities. As we have heard, a serious cause for concern is the higher rate of stillbirths, neonatal deaths and pre-term births among babies from the black and Asian ethnic groups. Babies of black ethnicity are about twice as likely to be stillborn as babies of white ethnicity. That is unacceptable in modern Britain. We will not rest until outcomes are equally good for everyone in this country.

We also know that women living in deprived areas, not least my own constituency, are more likely to suffer adverse outcomes. In 2022, the stillbirth rate per 1,000 births in the 10% most deprived areas in England was 5.0, or 389; in the 10% least deprived areas in England, the stillbirth rate was 3.7 or 155. All local maternity and neonatal systems have equity and equality action plans in place to tackle such inequalities. NHS England is investing £10 million every year to target the 10 most deprived areas of England.

Wider work is also important. NHS Resolution’s maternity incentive scheme is improving maternity safety by rewarding NHS trusts that demonstrate that they are taking concrete steps to improve the quality of care for women, families and newborns. The National Institute for Health and Care Research has commissioned studies into how we can prevent pre-term births and improve care for mothers and babies. This year it launched a £50 million funding call, challenging researchers and policymakers to come up with new ways of tackling maternity inequalities and poor pregnancy outcomes.

There are ongoing initiatives to ensure that lessons are learned from every individual tragic event and to prevent similar events from happening in the future. All hospitals already carry out internal perinatal mortality reviews, which create reports that aim to provide answers for bereaved parents about why their baby died. They also help hospitals to improve care and ensure they try to learn something from every tragedy, wherever it happens.

The maternity and newborn safety investigations programme conducts independent investigations of early neonatal deaths, intrapartum stillbirths and severe brain injury in babies following labour. All trusts are required to tell the programme about these incidents. It will then carry out an independent investigation and make safety recommendations to improve maternity services. Coroners are also required to investigate deaths that are violent, unnatural or of unknown cause, although their remit excludes stillbirths; but that should leave no stone unturned when it comes to uncovering the cause of death, including an inquest where appropriate. Additionally, as of June 2024, I am assured that all NHS trusts have signed up to the national bereavement care pathway, which many hon. Members have raised today.

The existing measures, taken together, are helping to achieve improvements; we have already heard about some of the positives. Since 2010, the neonatal mortality rate has decreased by 25% for babies with at least 24 weeks’ completed gestation, the stillbirth rate in England has decreased by 23%, and the overall rate of brain injuries occurring during or soon after birth fell by 2%. But we know, and have heard so movingly today, that more must be done.

People rightly expect assurances that lessons will be learned and that things that went wrong are not repeated. As hon. Members have pointed out, the sad truth is that we are likely to be debating these issues in the future, when the CQC releases its next report on maternity inspections and when Donna Ockenden completes her investigation into Nottingham. I expect to be speaking with hon. Members again about this issue, and my noble Friend Baroness Merron, Minister for Patient Safety, Women’s Health and Mental Health, will be following that very closely.

Many of the issues identified locally are being repeated across the country, so I am clear that national leadership is needed. The Government will be honest about the challenges facing the health service and are serious about tackling them. I will listen to women and their families and do everything I can as a Minister to help deliver safer and fairer maternity and neonatal services for women and their babies. I really commend hon. Members who have shared their experiences today— particularly new Members; I do not think I would have been able to do that as a new Member of Parliament. My hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Gateshead South spoke very honestly about how long it took for her to do that. That was valuable.

It may not be for me to say as Government Minister, but I commend the work that my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Gateshead South and other colleagues across parties have done in the APPG on baby loss. They have raised these issues and worked with Government Ministers, which is really important as parliamentarians. I hope that is reassuring to families here today. That work will hopefully be continued by parliamentarians across the House. Perhaps that will be an outcome of the issue being raised today, so early in this Parliament.

We need to listen to these women and their babies. We need to make sure that we have the midwives and other staff necessary to keep women and their babies safe. Before I finish, I should say that if I have missed anything, hon. Members should please get in touch. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Hallam (Olivia Blake) that we welcome the Tommy’s miscarriage pilot, and my ministerial colleague will be looking closely at those recommendations.

As a new Government, we want to end sticking-plaster politics; that means real and lasting change in the health service. That will take time, but we will build a better future for women in this country. That includes by making sure that all baby deaths that can be prevented will be prevented.

10:54

[Lee Anderson]

First, I want to thank everybody for coming to this debate. It has certainly been an education for me—the number of Members who have all been touched by baby loss and turned up for this Westminster Hall debate is incredible.

During this debate, I have been educated about C-sections. When I went to my local hospital to talk about births and the number of C-sections as opposed to natural births, I asked the question: why are people having all these C-sections and why not just—and I apologise for this—make them have a natural birth? But actually, during this debate, I have come to understand why there are different outcomes for different people, and that sometimes a C-section is more appropriate for the woman. I know that it creates problems as well with the scarring and wounds and that sort of stuff, but I thank Members for educating me on that.

One of the most moving stories came from my good friend, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). As he said, this never leaves a family, no matter if it is 50 years on. These parents and family members will probably celebrate birthdays—first birthdays, second birthdays, the child’s fifth, their 10th, when they would have started school, their 18th and their 21st. They will go through all that because they will be around other children and young people who were born around the same time, and they will be thinking, “That could be my child in that class”, “That could be my child in that football team”, “That could be my child playing in that netball team”, and, “That could be my child going to prom in a Cadillac.” I thank the hon. Member for Strangford for that. He always speaks with great passion.

I thank all Members for all speaking with great passion and great dignity. It has been a wonderful debate—very sad, but a wonderful debate nevertheless. I thank the ministerial team and the shadow Minister, but most of all I want to thank those in the Public Gallery. They have been extremely brave. The families from Ashfield, the councillor and the lady from Sands have been incredible.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered preventable baby deaths.

Space Sector: Government Support

Wednesday 4th September 2024 Westminster Hall

10:58

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

I will call Mr Alistair Carmichael to move the motion and I will then call the Minister to respond. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government support for the space sector.

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Dowd. I welcome the Minister to his place and to his new role, and I wish him every success in it. When we talk about the UK space sector, it is worth reflecting that, when the Minister and I first arrived here as fresh-faced and enthusiastic newbies in 2001—

[The Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms (Chris Bryant)]

You might have been!

[Mr Carmichael]

I don’t think I ever was, actually.

Back in 2001, there was no such thing; the sector has emerged at a quite remarkable pace and has its roots in the early days of the coalition Government. Competitions were set up looking for opportunities to develop infrastructure in a UK space sector. That has led to a UK-wide space strategy, with interests in the north of Scotland, Cornwall, the Western Isles and other parts of the country. It is worth reflecting that the legacy of that competitive start-up has been a sense of competition between the different players in the sector. Now, as we approach maturity—we are perhaps months from the first vertical launch in the United Kingdom—a different picture is emerging. The success of any one of the different parts of the UK space industry can be only good for all parts.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on introducing this debate. I wholeheartedly agree with the point that he made and I will explain why. The space technology exploitation programme was introduced in Northern Ireland in 2023 through a pilot scheme

“to enhance UK space capability by developing new technologies…to overcome technology challenges and unlock new potential market opportunities.”

That pilot scheme concluded last year. Does he agree that additional funding is necessary for all the devolved nations, including his own and mine, to support them in contributing towards the roll-out of a potential national STEP programme that can help everybody in this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?

[Mr Carmichael]

The hon. Gentleman anticipates the tack I will take. Of course, we are talking about support from the UK Government for our space sector, but the success story that we have seen thus far has been achieved with remarkably little public money. The support required goes beyond the financial, often to the political and the regulatory. Yes, he is almost certainly correct in saying that some money will be necessary, but there has to be more to ask for than simply financial support.

The space sector is widely recognised as an industry with both economic and strategic importance for the UK. I want to focus mainly on the vertical launch industry, but that is just one part of the sector and it is an industry in which the UK has a genuine advantage. There are currently only two licensed vertical space ports in western Europe: our neighbours in Norway have Andøya and we have SaxaVord spaceport in Shetland. With three ready launch pads in SaxaVord to Norway’s two, for the foreseeable future the United Kingdom, through Shetland, will contain 60% of western Europe’s vertical launch capacity. That is a significant opportunity for our economy and country as a whole, but it is an opportunity on which we must capitalise in the immediate term. With the nation’s finances being as they are, it is worth reflecting—as I have just said to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—that we have got this far without excessive financial support from the Government, but what there has been is exceptionally welcome. SaxaVord spaceport is privately held, but recently secured a £10-million convertible loan from the Government, allowing the potential of a Government minority stake in the future. That Government investment was designed to attract interest and further investment from the private sector, and in that respect it has been successful. It has been taken as a vote of confidence for those involved.

SaxaVord is working closely with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and the UK Space Agency, and I am told it is in daily dialogue with the Civil Aviation Authority as the industry regulator. We are looking forward to seeing the Secretary of State for Scotland visiting the site in the not-too-distant future. Parenthetically, at this stage, I hope we might see better co-operation between the Scottish Government and the UK Government as we go ahead. There was, at least in the early days, a bit of a sour feeling as a consequence of people in Shetland feeling that other projects were being given a more favourable ride by the Scottish Government. The expression put to me was, “The thumb was being put on the scales to their favour.” However, I think we have passed that point and, again in the spirit of a positive and forward-looking joint strategy, we need to put those differences behind us, although we do not forget them.

There is no shortage of potential clients for SaxaVord; the demand for a UK site of this sort is clear, but the infrastructure needs to be completed in order to maximise the opportunity. I hope that the Minister will be alive to the potential cost-benefit of getting this one across the line. More Government engagement and assistance is welcome in order to speed up the process and ensure that SaxaVord continues to lead the way in Europe, in what is a highly competitive and fast-moving global industry.

[Graham Leadbitter (Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey) (SNP)]

My constituency has close links to Shetland when it comes to space, with the SaxaVord spaceport company headquartered in Grantown-on-Spey. I also have Orbex, with 130-plus employees in Forres, which is manufacturing rockets and will soon conduct launches in Sutherland. We know that for those companies, developing launch and manufacturing capability there is a significant capital expenditure in research and development. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is vital that private investment is underpinned by easily accessible and, importantly, repayable state support, which needs to be reasonably substantial to get the venture to the point of commercial viability?

[Mr Carmichael]

In essence, yes, I do, and I acknowledge what the hon. Gentleman says about the siting of SaxaVord in Grantown-on-Spey. I pay tribute to Frank Strang, who has driven the project from day one. It has not always been straightforward—progress is never linear—but I am fairly confident that without somebody like Frank Strang driving it, we would not have got to this point. Having developed SaxaVord to where it is today, the team are now more or less at the point of readiness in terms of the site itself. All that is needed is a ready launch client that has passed the necessary tests and acquired its own launch licence. It would be remiss if I did not mention the state of play regarding the tests and potential launches. SaxaVord has hosted several successful engine tests over the last few years, including by HyImpulse, Latitude and Rocket Factory Augsburg. I witnessed one of the HyImpulse tests that did not work; it did not work in a way that nothing ignited.

More recently we saw a more spectacular test difficulty. I think the term that RFA used in relation to the nine-engine test on site was an apparent “anomaly”. There was thereafter a fairly widely circulated video, circulated not least by RFA, which makes the fair and necessary point that this is the purpose of having a test. We do not expect every test to be successful, but from the point of view of RFA, and of SaxaVord as the host location, it is significant that they faced that difficulty and that everything—all the procedures and safeguards in place—worked. As a consequence, there was no injury to human life. There was a spectacular flare for a few seconds, it has to be said, but the testbed itself remains viable and has not been taken out of commission despite that event.

That was a test, but that is why we have tests: to find out what can go wrong. All the procedures and the necessary infrastructure substance that was put in place worked. That is something that, rather than diminishing confidence in the future of SaxaVord, should actually increase it. RFA is the most advanced of the clients working at SaxaVord, but it is not the only one. I understand that what happened was fully expected at some stage and prepared for. The schedule to which RFA was working has naturally had to be revised, but it expects to resume testing in Shetland soon.

At the point at which I anticipated securing this debate, I hoped that we would be looking at a launch early next month. We are probably a little bit further away than that. One expression I keep hearing from people in the sector is “space is hard”, even though there is a strong feeling that the final pieces are almost in place for launches soon to begin in earnest. That is why the UK Government must play their role and be a still more active supporter of the sector as we come into this critical period.

I give credit to the previous Government, for all their flaws. They identified the opportunities and engaged with stakeholders regularly. There is plenty of scope for improvement in both the UK’s big-picture space strategy and the granular element of helping to bring SaxaVord to its full potential in the months and years to come. On the big-picture level, can the Minister share his plans to improve the national strategy and its implementation? He will doubtless be aware of the tempered criticisms from the National Audit Office in July of the previous approach to the space sector:

“The government did well to draw its many different interests and activities in this very diverse sector into a single vision in its 2021 national Strategy, which set high ambitions…However, it did not produce the implementation plan that it had originally planned to, and three years later DSIT and UKSA are still in the early stages of identifying and developing the plans and capabilities needed to deliver the Strategy’s ambitions.”

It continued:

“If UKSA is able to address these issues and DSIT provides the required clarity on the aims and outcomes of the Strategy, then they will be much better placed to secure value for money from the government’s multi-billion pound investments in the sector and achieve the government’s ambitions for the UK in space.”

Focusing on the UK vertical launch sector and SaxaVord itself, will the Minister reaffirm the Government’s commitment to supporting the Shetland launch site as further tests and launches go on? With the advantage the UK holds, there is a clear opportunity to make progress and capitalise on that. The only risk is that we may spread ourselves too thinly. I would appreciate whatever engagement the Minister and officials can make in partnership with the Scottish Government so that we are all singing from the same hymn sheet. It is in all our interests to ensure that this gets off the ground—pun intended—so that we can start to witness and leverage the benefits to the national economy.

We have made remarkable progress in a short period of time and in an area that is of enormous strategic significance to the United Kingdom as a whole. It is embraced by the people of my constituency. It has been made possible because we have held thus far the strong political consensus between Government and Opposition and between Governments. Can the Minister confirm, as part of the new Government, that that consensus remains and that that is the way in which we will continue to develop support for the UK space sector as we go ahead?

11:12

[The Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism (Chris Bryant)]

It is a great delight to see you in your seat, Mr Dowd, not least because, as I have commented before, you are one of the snappiest dressers in Parliament and London fashion week is fast approaching. That is not part of my space portfolio, but it is part of my culture portfolio. I very much hope we will see you on the catwalk.

What goes around comes around. It is a funny old world, isn’t it? I think the last debate I addressed in Westminster Hall from this side of the Chamber was also led by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael). It was about the global abolition of the death penalty. We completely agreed with one another on 28 October 2009 and, funnily enough, we completely agree with one another today.

I am slightly nervous about the right hon. Member saying that we should sing from the same hymn sheet, only because I am an Anglican—not a particularly good one—and I have a particular loathing of paraphrases sung to dirges, so I am not sure we can sing exactly from the same hymn sheet, but he makes an extremely good point. The Government are very keen to work with the Scottish Government, with local authorities and obviously the commercial players in the field to make sure that we gain all the possible benefits from space to the UK economy and to the way we run our society, our business and our Government.

It is a particular delight also to see the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), because I know he has been interested in the subject and led the last debate on it in Westminster Hall. I know that a series of Members are interested in the matter, and I hope to ensure that by the end of this Parliament even more Members are cognisant of the issues and able to drive the agenda forward with the Government. There are many things that we need to change in this country, but we are absolutely committed—as committed as the previous Government—to ensuring that we harness and garner the benefits and opportunities of space.

I do not think of space as the final frontier; I think of it as the biggest opportunity in my portfolio when it comes to economic growth and our economic advantage in relation to other countries. There are other aspects, some of which the right hon. Member referred to, and I will of course come on to the specifics of Shetland—though my family is rather more Stornoway.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

There is of course room for more than one space launch site in the UK, and we wish SaxaVord well in its future endeavours. The Minister has talked about the economic benefits to the country, but for Sutherland a space launch represents a social benefit to young people and jobs for the future in a fragile and remote part of the UK. My request is simply this: Ministers have a good relationship with the company Orbex, referred to by the hon. Member for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey (Graham Leadbitter), and I would be grateful if that relationship could be built on.

[Chris Bryant]

I have every intention of building on all these relationships as fast as I possibly can. There are others—indeed, I am going to see Airbus in the next couple of weeks. Hundreds of companies in the UK are engaged in the various aspects of the value chain that lead to sending something up into space, keeping something up in space or taking something down from space, or that use the data that comes from space, or that provide the software, the mission control or whatever. There is a wide range of companies, and I want to engage with as many of them as fast as I can. Obviously, the two that we have referred to are already high on that list, and I would like to make a visit to Shetland soon if possible.

I know Grantown-on-Spey very well because I spent a lot of my childhood in Aviemore. I had a very constructive conversation with Mr Strang last week, and we are keen to work with his organisation. I suspect I will be visiting Grantown, as well as Shetland, in the not-too-distant future. Incidentally, there are some issues in relation to telecoms on mountains in Scotland that I would also like to address.

As has been said, space is a strategic priority for this Government, as it was for the previous one. It is also a competitive advantage for the UK. The point has been made about vertical take-off; we have more than half the capacity across Europe. The right hon. Member referred to Norway as a neighbour. It does not feel so much like a neighbour in the south Wales valleys, but I understand his point. None the less, because of our geography, our time zones and so on, the UK has a unique opportunity to steal a march on the rest of Europe, and we are determined do so if we possibly can.

The right hon. Member also made a point about skills and young people coming into the industry. We have spent quite a lot of time and DSIT money trying to ensure that we have the skills in the UK. We are well served, and we need to ensure that there is an ongoing build-up of people available to work in the industry, that they are able to get the training and support they need, and that people from a variety of backgrounds can conceive of a future career in those industries, even if it is not necessarily on their doorstep. We intend to work on that.

Of course, this is a commercial domain in large measure, but it is not necessarily a cheap or easy one. As has been said, space is hard; long-term investment is obviously far more important than short-term gain. We want to ensure that all commercial operators working in the field have an opportunity to seize investment opportunities, and we are aware that there will have to be Government involvement in that process.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I thought I might have stimulated the hon. Member.

[Mark Garnier]

Before I start, I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Everything the Minister has said so far is music to my ears. I hope to carry on as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for space, as I was in the last Parliament. One criticism that the all-party group had of the Government then was although the space strategy was a very good manifesto, it did not stack up to being a strategy. Everything the Minister has talked about in relation to the commercialisation of space is really important, but the strategy needs detail. He will not be able to answer this question immediately, but could he consider, as he gets more involved in his portfolio, looking into more details on the strategy in order to make it more than just a manifesto, so that businesses can really get their teeth into the industry?

[Chris Bryant]

That is a very fair point. All the new Ministers arriving in DSIT have been very keen to provide as much strategic clarity as possible about our direction of travel. Perhaps one could say that the advantage of having a decent majority in Parliament is that one can lay out a strategy for a period of time, rather than just running to catch up with one’s tail. Likewise, I take the point made by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland that it is that clarity of strategic objectives that shows, “Yes, this is what we are doing; that is not our priority.” That makes it much easier for inward investment into the UK to make secure investments for the long term.

Some of the things that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has said about business taxation are important as well. The aim is to create an environment in which people can invest securely, knowing where they are going, that the Government will have their back and that the strategy will not change every six months. I note the points made by the National Audit Office. I think the previous Government were very much trying to point in this direction, but perhaps they did not quite land it; maybe there was an anomaly at some point in the process of developing the long-term strategy.

Some hon. Members might not initially think of space as significant to the daily lives of their constituents, but I think it is worth pointing out something that is part of our lives: sat-nav. We all used to have rows in the car, trying to work out where we were going. Sat-nav now does the work for us—although I note that none of the sat-nav operators seems to understand how to say the name of my street in Wales or, frankly, any of the roads or towns in Wales—but this is not just about sat-nav for personal life; it is also about Earth observation, which makes it much easier to predict weather patterns. I had an interesting conversation the other day with a wine operator from the south-east, who was saying that that is really important for them to work out when they should harvest to ensure that there is the right amount of sugar in the grapes and so on. Similarly, data coming from satellites will enable the Government and many operators to provide services more effectively, efficiently and cheaply, and in a way that is more intuitive for ordinary consumers.

In all those fields, space is a really important part of how Government do their business, and how we better facilitate a strong economy and better society. Of course, it is not just the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology that has a very significant interest in space. I pay tribute to the Ministry of Defence, which has been a major player in the field; obviously, it is a NATO operational domain, apart from anything else. The MOD is investing £6.5 billion over a decade, including £5 billion for satellite communications through Skynet and £1.5 billion through the defence space portfolio. Many other Departments—the Department for Business and Trade, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the Department for Transport, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and so on—are also engaged in this work.

Skills were mentioned earlier. The UK Space Agency has been funding £19.6 million since 2022 in this skills field, because if people want to invest, they are going to do so on the basis that we have a skilled workforce in the UK that is available not just today but in five, 10, 15 and 20 years’ time.

I will say a few things about the launch sector, which is obviously of primary interest to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. Roughly 200 companies are engaged in the launch sector in the UK. As I said, some are involved in rockets; we have also referred to subsystems, spaceports, mission control, apps and all the technology that goes into making all of this possible. Roughly 1,500 people in the UK are involved, and they are fairly well paid, so that is a significant part of our economy with significant opportunity for growth. It brought in something like £336 million last year and had a GVA of £153 million. Over the past six years, the Government have invested something like £91 million in our launch capabilities—the right hon. Gentleman referred to the £10 million loan to SaxaVord.

We are ongoing in our commitment, and that commitment has not been shaken by any anomalies that might have been seen on launch. I did feel a bit worried that my first engagement with space was something going not entirely to plan, but I do not think that there is a causal relationship between that and my arriving in post.

In relation to Shetland, the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we need to work with the devolved Administration. I am very keen to have conversations with our colleagues in Scotland, my counterparts in Scotland, and of course with the Scotland Office. We need to work as a united Government to achieve what we want in the field.

As I say, I have spoken to Frank Strang and I am very keen, at the earliest opportunity, to visit both Grantown-on-Spey and Shetland. I cannot say when the next attempted launch may be, but Members are absolutely right: it is not a failure to have an event that does not go entirely to plan, when all of the contingency plans do click in correctly and properly so that there is no harm or danger to life. We see it as a blip, not as a final problem, and it does not undermine our long-term commitment.

There are a couple of points to be made about value for money, which goes to the point about clarity of strategy. We are going to have a very tough spending review—I think everybody might have sussed that by now; the messaging has been strong enough on the subject—and that will undoubtedly be true in this field too. We need to be absolutely clear about what we are seeking to achieve, and about what the whole consortium of businesses and players in the space field want to achieve, so that we get really good value for money for the UK economy. It would be a terrible dereliction of a significant economic and strategic opportunity for the UK if we were somehow or other to abandon this field or diminish our commitment.

I hope that I have reassured the right hon. Member—just as I reassured him on 28 October 2009, when we were both in favour of the abolition of the death penalty everywhere in the world—that the UK Government are not stinting in our commitment to space and to the strategic and economic opportunities that it affords us.

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

Thank you. On the subject of space, Minister, can I say that your tie is stellar?

Question put and agreed to.

11:28

Sitting suspended.

Sheep Farming

Wednesday 4th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Dr Rupa Huq in the Chair]

10:54

[Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the future of sheep farming.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. The future of our sheep farming sector is vital to my constituency and my constituents in Northumberland, which is, after all, famous for having more sheep than people. I was privileged in the run-up to and during the recent general election to meet local farmers in my constituency at events that play an important role for our rural communities, such as the Northumberland county show, and to discuss the future of their industry. Since the election, I have been delighted to attend the Allendale agricultural show and the Slaley show as the sitting MP.

This is a debate about not just sheep farming, but our upland farms, the communities that have grown up around them, and the land that has been tended by those communities for centuries. Farmers I have spoken to expressed their concerns about how a hierarchy of land use is being pushed in some quarters—a hierarchy that does not place enough importance on the public good of using land for food production. I have been told of farmers being bought up by companies that are simply chasing subsidies, which has led to perfectly farmable land being taken away to allow opportunistic companies to line their pockets and launder their reputations.

Farmers I have spoken to acknowledge that change is needed with regard to biodiversity, but that change should not be about absolutes. Rewilding can go hand in hand with active farming, and it does not have to take out large swathes of land from food production. The way in which much of the land is managed is a centuries-old process. Unsurprisingly, as England’s largest constituency, the land on which sheep graze in Hexham encompasses a diverse landscape, from our borders with County Durham and Cumbria, into Newcastle, all the way up to the Scottish border, and across sites such as Hadrian’s Wall, the site of the much-missed Sycamore Gap tree.

Before I go on, I want to specifically thank the farmers across my constituency who have engaged with me. When I was first selected as Labour’s candidate for the constituency at a meeting at Hexham farmers’ mart on an October evening in 2023, I knew that it would not be easy to win the trust of the farming community, but it was fundamental to winning the seat and being the best constituency MP possible. The farming communities in my part of the country told me that they felt let down and taken for granted by the last Government. As I will cover later, they told me of the previous Government’s betrayal and how they have been left to face the result of extremely damaging trade deals.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the House and, as the MP for England’s second-largest constituency, I praise him for making a great speech on an important topic. He mentioned upland farmers. Sheep farming is huge in the uplands that we both share and love, and 41% of upland farmers are tenants. In the Rock review that happened during the last Parliament, Baroness Rock proposed a tenant farmer commissioner to ensure fairness for tenants in this time of flux and change. Would he agree that the new Government should adopt that measure, and do so very quickly, to protect our tenants against the poor and dangerous decisions that some landlords make?

[Joe Morris]

I will come on to tenant farmers later, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will like some of what he hears.

The election of the Labour Government is an opportunity to reset the relationship between sheep farmers, the wider farming community and the Government. The farmers I have spoken to are aware that this is our chance to have an honest and productive relationship built on trust, with the long-term viability of the agricultural industry and communities in this country at its heart. I thank members of my local farming community, particularly Robert Phillipson and Nick Howard, both sheep farmers in the Allen Valleys, who have been straightforward and patient and have taken time to aid me in representing them and their colleagues as best I can.

For many of those communities, engaging with the Labour party was new and challenging—perhaps not something that came naturally. It was also difficult for many of my local party members to believe that we would be brave enough to walk down those paths into farming communities to try to win votes. I thank the Northumberland National Farmers Union and Catherine Bowman, who have been great at facilitating that dialogue, which I am determined to continue every single day. I know that we will not always agree, and that many of the conversations will be difficult and robust, but we all know how vital sheep farming is for our constituents. In this relationship, trust is earned, not given.

As we discuss the future of sheep farming, it is important to talk about the next and emerging generation of sheep farmers. They will be the custodians of our beautiful countryside and ensure that the industry can face the challenges of sheep farming as a priority. Recently, I visited West Wharmley farm just outside of Hexham town, where I was hosted by James Johnson and joined by other livestock farmers. James’s family are fifth-generation tenants and, as such, have an impressive understanding of their industry and the land they farm.

James’s brother, Stuart, took the family down the path of a more conscious relationship with how they manage their soil, and began to use regenerative methods of agriculture to be a more resilient business economically and environmentally. The methods that Stuart is undertaking have allowed him to slash his use of pesticides and fertiliser, have reduced their livestock vet and med, and have improved the biodiversity, which led to Stuart being named soil farmer of the year 2023.

The Government have a role to play in supporting families such as the Johnsons as they venture into new ways of managing their land and livestock. They also have a role to play in promoting and demonstrating these methods to the wider livestock farming industry, and in supporting their implementation. The Government could be an active participant in this conversation, helping more livestock farmers to explore how such practices could allow them to become more resilient as businesses and environmentally.

Many of my constituents are tenant farmers. It is incredibly important that the Government listen to their concerns and look at the Rock review carefully to identify what is implementable. I am aware of the strained circumstances we find ourselves in and that not everything can be done straightaway, but tenant farmers have suffered a great deal from spiking energy bills and food costs, and often a simple inability to make farm financing work. Whether I was in West Woodburn, Slaley or Allendale, that came through in almost every conversation I had.

[Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)]

In my constituency and Wales as a whole, we cannot underestimate the value that sheep farmers bring to our local economy and the importance of our local livestock marts, where farmers of all generations gather each week not only to sell their fabulous livestock, but to socialise and access services, which can really help their mental health. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must look again at the UK-Australia and UK-New Zealand free trade agreements? We have a really big issue with New Zealand lamb. In my local butcher this weekend, I could buy a leg of good Welsh lamb for £46.14, but I could buy a leg of New Zealand lamb in the supermarket for £20. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must see some action to ensure our farmers in Monmouthshire and across Wales are protected against the flood of imports from overseas?

[Joe Morris]

As I was discussing with my hon. Friend before the debate, I spent two years working for the UK steel sector, which also faces dramatic challenges from goods produced at far lower costs flooding into our markets and damaging production. Those issues that affect steel also affect farming, and it is incumbent upon us to look at the trade deals we sign and how they impact us. Later in my speech, I will urge the Government to look at how trade deals are negotiated and how we can shed more light on the process, and I am sure that many others will join me in that. I think all of us share the disappointment of the former Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when he assessed the Australia deal as a failure for UK farmers.

During my visit to West Wharmley farm, I was told about the struggles that farmers have faced this year, with high rainfall affecting sheep farmers. This year’s lambing season was particularly traumatic, and farmers told me about the high losses due to persistent rain and cold conditions. The impact on farmers has been immense, with high rainfall continuing to impact harvesting and the sowing of next year’s crops. That has had an impact on the overall ability of farmers to operate as a business, particularly their ability to get silage and hay.

As I said, the deals that were signed with Australia and New Zealand let down rural communities, which were shut out of the process. The Government claimed to be on their side but in my view, the Government gaslit and ultimately damaged many of those farmers in some of the communications around the deals. As we discuss trade deals, I hope that we consider how to maintain the ability to feed ourselves as a nation. Prioritising food security does not mean signing any trade deal. For my constituents, when those trade deals are signed, food security is not the only thing on the chopping block—it is their economic security as well.

[Ann Davies (Caerfyrddin) (PC)]

I am a tenant farmer, so I am very aware of the issues that the hon. Member is bringing to the table, and I am delighted to support him. I agree with the hon. Member for Monmouthshire (Catherine Fookes) that we are fortunate to have many excellent sheep farmers throughout Wales.

I will bring up two issues. The last Government, as we know, failed to pass much-needed legislation on sheep worrying. It is unclear what plans the new Labour Government have for tackling the problem. Does the hon. Member agree that it is important that the new UK Government commit to introduce legislation to tackle sheep worrying, which causes so much financial and mental hardship for farming families?

I also note that sheep farming in upland Wales has faced an unsustainable 33% decrease in income over the past year. We need to do everything we can, including tackling sheep worrying, so that our farms are as viable as they can be.

[Joe Morris]

The hon. Member makes a valid point, which takes me back to a conversation about rural crime that I had near Byrness in my constituency. A local farmer told me that when criminals came out, she had to wait 45 to 50 minutes for the police to arrive. I hope that the Government will look carefully at sheep worrying as part of a broader rural crime strategy and I look forward to the Minister’s answer on that.

On trade deals, we must look at the lack of basic oversight and scrutiny in our trade negotiation processes. I know that is not the Minister’s responsibility, but I hope that he will energetically lobby his colleagues at the Department for Business and Trade to make sure that decisions are made with the security of our farmers in mind.

I spoke to farmers who were consistently worried about rising input costs, with the rise in the cost of energy and the rate of inflation biting away at their takings. More than most, farmers have been hit by the chaos inflicted on the country by the mini-Budget and the previous 14 years. They saw their income drop because of the playing field being rigged in favour of producers from other countries who did not have to meet the same welfare and production standards. They also saw big business whittling away at small farmers and able to continually—

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Joe Morris]

I will finish my sentence and then give way. Farmers saw larger businesses able to continually dictate terms to tenant farmers when it came to selling their produce.

[Mr Carmichael]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as an owner and operator of farmland on Islay. On the imbalance between the small operators—as people are predominantly in the sheep sector—and the bigger players, one thing that the public sector could do to add a bit of value would be to support the reconstruction of a network of local abattoirs. That is a genuine opportunity to put in place meaningful and direct support for the small farmers and small units that he is talking about.

[Joe Morris]

Many farmers who are small operators have expressed their frustration to me about people assuming that the majority of farmers are incredibly wealthy and can shoulder the burdens. I am reminded of the current Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), saying to the National Farmers Union conference that a lot of farmers did not do it for the money—forgive me if that is not a direct quote. It was brought up at an NFU roundtable during the election campaign and was a source of genuine anger.

I will say a bit more about my constituency in Northumberland. We are proud to be the home—I apologise to Scottish colleagues—of one of the oldest tartans in the world: Northumberland tartan, which is woven, of course, from Northumbrian wool. I raise that not simply out of pride for my constituency, but because we are talking about food production as well as a potential staple of clothing production. I was told by my staff that, despite my football leanings, it was Northumberland tartan that inspired Newcastle United’s home kit. I should put on the record that my football allegiances lie with Sunderland, but I have yet to find a tartan that inspired their kit. Ultimately, I encourage everyone to support local producers and to show pride in their community by purchasing home-produced clothing where possible, rather than chucking their money away on fast fashion from the likes of Temu, Boohoo or ASOS.

Ultimately, my county did not just mine coal but wove gold. As one of the farmers said to me, if we took the farms out of the Hexham constituency, it would be a disaster for our area. It would not only chip away at the foundation of our economy, but destroy the quintessential nature of much of Northumberland. As we consider the future of sheep farming, and of upland farming in general across the country, I urge the Minister to embrace that new relationship; to embrace the fact that many colleagues on the Government side have been returned by constituencies with huge agricultural footprints; and to engender a relationship with those communities based on mutual respect. I consider myself an environmentalist —it was the climate movement that drew me into politics—but I do not see any tension between ensuring our planet can survive, making improvements in biodiversity and securing futures for generations to come, and securing a future for our farming communities and a nation that is able to feed itself.

I hope that the Minister will comment on his plans to work with the Department for Business and Trade on the reform of the Groceries Code Adjudicator to reassure my farmers that this Government stand on the side of producers as well as consumers, and that he will comment on what I hope will be a respectful and open dialogue, particularly regarding upland farmers who feel that the system of Byzantine regulations created by the previous Government regarding post-Brexit subsidy arrangements is weighted against them. One farmer I recently met said that the Government had managed to create a lot of jobs in navigating those arrangements rather than getting the money where it needs to be.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to make a speech, so that we have an idea of how to divide up the time. I call Jim Shannon.

14:47

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is not often I get called first after the introductory speech—so thank you, Dr Huq. It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship. I commend the hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) on setting the scene so very well. I was at the Adjournment debate with him last night and now we are in Westminster Hall together—we are on a roll, and I wish him well.

As Members who have known me for a longer time will be aware, and perhaps those who are new, I represent a fairly rural constituency where farming is a massive contributor to our local economy. I live in a farm down the Ards peninsula at Greyabbey, and I have been steeped in agricultural activities all my life, so I understand the pressures and challenges faced by the farming industry and our local farmers. It is a pleasure to be here to speak on this issue and to give the Northern Ireland perspective. I am so pleased to see the Minister in his place—well done. I look forward to him responding to our questions as much as he can, although I am ever mindful that farming is a devolved matter; a theme of my speech will be how we can do it together across this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

I declare an interest as a member of the Ulster Farmers’ Union. I was also at one time, in a very small way, a hobby farmer of sheep. I enjoyed it, but the workload became so great with other activities that it was impossible to look after the sheep, so I sold them to my neighbour up the road. I have fond memories of lambing times and helping all those ewes to lamb.

Sheep farming is a significant part of the UK agricultural sector, shaping both landscapes and rural economies in the four regions of the United Kingdom. There are some 31.8 million sheep in the UK, down from a recent peak of 34.8 million in 2017. This debate is so important, because there has been a decrease in many such sectors.

Sheep are predominantly, but not exclusively, found in the north and west of the United Kingdom. I will share some figures to give a Northern Ireland perspective. The value of output from sheep decreased by 0.5% to £109 million in 2023. The total number of sheep slaughtered increased by 4% in 2023, whereas the average carcase weight decreased by 2% to 22 kg. I have to say that I owe all these stats to the Ulster Farmers’ Union; I thank it for making them available. The volume of sheepmeat produced increased some 2% in 2023, and the 2023 sheep census showed that there were approximately 2 million sheep in Northern Ireland, including almost 1 million breeding ewes. Thirty-eight per cent of farmers in Northern Ireland—quite a large number—have sheep, and the value of the sheep industry output in 2022 was £106 million, so sheep farming plays a critical part in the farming community in which I live and in the Ards peninsula.

Strangford has numerous sheep farmers who farm sheep for meat and wool. Wool has not been getting much of a price over the last few years, but it is all part of farmers’ revenue, albeit a small one, in rural villages like Carrowdore, Ballywalter, Greyabbey—where I live—Kircubbin and Portaferry, across the whole peninsula, across Ards and indeed further out to Comber and Ballygowan in the new constituency, which takes in more of South Down, down as far as the Quoile bridge in Downpatrick. There are numerous sheep farmers there too; countless farmers contribute to the local agricultural economy.

Farming is a huge aspect of the local economy of Strangford. Our sheep and lamb farmers provide high-quality meat to subsidiaries for retail purposes. Numerous local farm shops, such as McKee’s in Newtownards and Harrisons in Greyabbey, provide a farm-to-fork service, showcasing the locality and local restaurants. Doing farm to fork means that the shops get all the revenue from the breeding of the lambs, their sale and ultimately the eating. For McKee’s and Harrisons, it is quite productive.

The United Kingdom imports sheep products under new free trade agreements signed since we exited the EU. The hon. Member for Monmouthshire (Catherine Fookes) spoke about the price of legs of lamb from here and from New Zealand. Agreements include tariff concessions for a range of products, such as lamb meat.

The previous Government set out their priorities for England in the 2023 environmental improvement plan, including the need for more environmentally friendly farming to meet further targets. Although I appreciate that farming is devolved, I believe the UK Government and the Minister here have a responsibility to ensure the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a collective has a joint policy on promoting sheep farming and protecting our family industries through future trade deals. The hon. Member for Hexham referred to trade deals, as did the hon. Members for Monmouthshire and for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron). They have an effect on farming back home and on farmers in my constituency.

There are environmental factors that will ultimately impact the future of farming. Steps must be taken to protect our sheep numbers through adequate funding. We often come here to ask for funding, but the fact is that sheep farming is such an integral part of my constituency and, indeed, of Northern Ireland. It makes a £106 million contribution to the economy, which is quite significant and cannot be ignored. We sometimes overlook the number of jobs involved and the families that live on those incomes.

When the hon. Members for North Antrim (Jim Allister) and for South Antrim (Robin Swann) speak, they will give their perspectives. There will be three contributions from Northern Ireland, and we will all say the same thing about the importance of sheep farming. The point is that we are here to represent our constituents.

The Ulster Farmers’ Union has called for a sheep scheme in Northern Ireland to improve the welfare of sheep and increase the sustainability of sheep businesses. With the Northern Ireland sheep industry taskforce, it will continue to lobby for a sheep scheme. I therefore urge the Government to engage with officials back home from the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, including Minister Andrew Muir, to ensure the long-term sustainability of the Northern Ireland sheep industry. If the Minister is not able to tell us today what discussions he has had with Minister Muir, perhaps he can come back to us. I understand the Minister has met him, on probably more than one occasion, so I would be interested to hear what discussions have been had and what that means.

Our farming sector is such an important aspect of our economic success. In this case we are talking about lamb and sheep, but it is also about dairy, beef, poultry and cereals; they are all part of the massive jigsaw that contributes to the economy. What we are debating today is an integral part, and we must do more to promote and expand it. I look forward to seeing the plans of the Minister and our Labour Government, and I have hope that the devolved institutions can play a significant role in our agricultural success.

The Minister told me that he had been in Northern Ireland in my constituency—I was unable to be there at the time. He was there before he was elected as Minister, and I told him, “Minister, last time you were here, you were asking questions; the next time you come back, you’ll have to answer them.” Today, Minister, questions have to be answered.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

If Members could keep to within seven and a half minutes each, everyone will get in.

14:56

[David Smith (North Northumberland) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to make a contribution. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) for securing the debate and for his knowledgeable, thoughtful and heartfelt speech. There have been some great contributions from other hon. Members. I note that we have heard from the Members representing the largest constituency in England, the second largest—and now the third largest.

As in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham, farming plays a vital role in the community life, the economy, and the past and the future of North Northumberland. The very landscape that we view as quintessentially British has been shaped by farming—especially sheep farming—so it is integral to our vision for Northumberland, North Northumberland and the country as a whole.

We have around 2,000 farm holdings across Northumberland, and we are a proud and productive farming county with great produce and excellent conditions for growing and rearing. I recently met a farmer in my constituency from the Coquet valley, who farms both sheep and cattle, and he said that if he could choose to farm anywhere in the world at the moment, it would be in Northumberland—I could not agree more. Indeed, more broadly, the world record for wheat production by yield is currently held by a farm near Bamburgh in my constituency. The area has great conditions.

The suitability for farming in North Northumberland is true of sheep farming in particular. The climate and topography lend themselves well to sheep farming, especially hill farming, which we have heard about already. DEFRA estimates that there are approximately 457,000 sheep and lambs being raised in my constituency of North Northumberland. That is 3% of the national total.

We have touched on trade. The UK is the world’s sixth largest lamb producer, and third largest exporter. Brexit and some recent trade deals by the last Government have brought new challenges, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouthshire (Catherine Fookes), but the export of sheep and lambs must be part of the sector’s future. This world-class produce—by quantity and quality—is immense in North Northumberland and around the country.

We have also said that food security is national security. In the world in which we live, the United Kingdom must be as self-sufficient as possible when it comes to the staples of life, so we must produce as much of our food chain in Britain as possible. That would be good not just for our food security and health, but for our efforts to tackle climate change. In fact, sheep farming in particular has a strong cyclical benefit with regard to recycling carbon emissions.

The question is: how do we ensure that farming, and sheep farming in particular, flourishes into the future? I will suggest a few points that I have heard when speaking to farmers, especially tenant farmers in the Cheviot hills, the Coquet valley and all around North Northumberland. I do not claim to be an expert on the subject in any way, but I have tried to listen to my constituents and to present their points here.

The first point is that we need to encourage younger people—the farmers of the future—into sheep farming. That came across loud and clear from the farmers I have spoken to in my constituency. A common theme is the fear that the intergenerational link is being lost, and it is harder than ever to see where the next generation of farmers, especially sheep farmers, is coming from. There are many reasons for that, including the difficulty of the work for relatively modest financial gain, as we have discussed; the growing distance for many in our society from the land and knowledge of the land; and the lack of broad agricultural education, whether that be in mainstream education or even in some sector-specific agricultural colleges. Finally, many young farmers face difficulties in securing a tenancy—access to land is a real issue. What more can we and the Government do within our education system to give young people a taste of the land and farming and to draw them into that connection with the land?

Secondly, sheep farming is a good entry point into the broader world of farming, given its relatively low initial capital costs, but access to land and the affordability of tenancies is a key barrier. Will the Government to consider how the sustainable farming incentive can be used to sustain farming itself? Is there a way in which the SFI or other Government funding could be used as long-term loan finance, for example, to enable more entry-level farmers to get into sheep farming with a portion of the risk shared? Could landowners be given tax incentives to incentivise them to let land at more affordable rates? We need to think about how we can increase access to land in what we might call starter farms.

My third and penultimate point is that we need to make rapid progress on the overall funding subsidy settlement for British farming. I am regularly told by constituents that the uncertainty around the successor to the common agricultural policy and the basic payment scheme in the next few years—up to 2027 and beyond—is making it difficult for many of our farmers to plan in the medium to long term, and that is particularly true for sheep farming. For the Government to bring clarity to the future of farming, subsidy is key. Notwithstanding the strained state of public finances, overall I urge the Government to commit to at least the current £2.4 billion of funding for farming for the duration of the Parliament.

Fourthly and finally, it is so important to get the calibration in the SFI correct when it comes to the balancing of environmental subsidy and subsidy for food production. I am told that currently the scheme seems to make it much more financially attractive for farmers to take good-quality land out of production—for instance, to rewild or plant forestry, or to prioritise soil and nutrient management. Those are worthy and important aims that I support; however, we need to ensure that we choose the correct land for those purposes so that we can maintain adequate food production. A land use framework cannot come soon enough. I truly believe that there are Venn diagrams where all these worthy enterprises can come together; it is not necessarily a zero-sum gain.

However we proceed on all these issues, I am sure that all Members present agree that sheep farming makes a rich and important contribution to British farming and society, and we must do all we can to secure a flourishing future for it.

15:03

[Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)]

I thank the hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) for bringing forward this important debate. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has already indicated the Northern Irish interest in this subject and the fact that, as a rough calculation, 20% of the contributors are from Northern Ireland. We value the input of our agricultural and farming sector not just in Northern Ireland but across the United Kingdom.

Before moving on to the substantive subject of the debate, I will pick up on a topic referenced by the hon. Member for North Northumberland (David Smith): the next generation of farmers. As a past president of the Young Farmers’ Club of Ulster, I know that ensuring opportunities has been a challenge in the farming sector across all parts of the United Kingdom, and even further afield. We must ensure that the next generation of farmers has the opportunity not just to take over ownership of a farm or follow on a family tradition, but to enter into a profitable, future-proofed industry where they are supported by the Government here and back home in Northern Ireland.

As the hon. Member for Strangford pointed out, agriculture is a devolved issue. I know that our Government back home have looked at a number of new entrant schemes relating to the various supports that are out there. Unlike England, Wales and most of Scotland, we do not have the challenge with tenancies, but we do with the passing of land from one generation to the next, and inheritance tax and all those other additional problems, so there are commonalities and solutions that the Government can bring as well.

The hon. Member for Strangford obviously got the same briefing on numbers for our sheep industry as I did from the Ulster Farmers’ Union. There are just short of 1 million breeding ewes and more than 2 million sheep, so we actually have more sheep than people in Northern Ireland; that has been a proven statistic in this debate. There are 9,669 sheep farmers currently registered and, as has already been referenced, the industry makes a £109 million contribution to our economy.

What is glaring and needs highlighting in this place, given that we have established the importance and the contribution of our sheep sector back home, is that the future agricultural policy of our Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs does not mention sheep at all. It is important that the message that we realise that comes from today’s debate, and that that message gets to our Minister back home as well.

A sheep taskforce was established back in 2022, representing members from the Ulster Farmers’ Union, Ulster Wool, the National Sheep Association, the Northern Ireland Agricultural Producers Association, the Livestock and Meat Commission and the Northern Ireland Meat Exporters’ Association. They took it upon themselves to establish a taskforce with a number of key aims and targets, because at that point we were once again without an Executive and an agriculture Minister to support our farmers and our industries.

The sheep taskforce has produced a robust, evidence-based report that highlights the stimulus programmes and opportunities for the vision and the future of the sheep sector. That is the task they have taken on, and they have set themselves a strategic vision for the Northern Ireland sheep industry of being

“a resilient, vibrant and sustainable industry that uses leading edge technologies to deliver safe high-quality meat and wool through increased productivity while adding value by increasing carbon sequestration, reducing greenhouse gas intensity, and enhancing landscape biodiversity while maintaining the mosaic landscape of our hills and uplands and securing social cohesion.”

All those topics have been raised not just by the hon. Member for Hexham but by all the contributors who have spoken today. However, the Northern Ireland sheep sector faces specific challenges that are not replicated across the rest of this United Kingdom, but in which the Minister and his Government can play a part.

Our agriculture and veterinary industries are currently seeing major challenges in the future-proofing of the supply of veterinary medicines into Northern Ireland because of the protocol. That matter has been raised not just by the farmers’ union and farmers but by the British Veterinary Association. Anyone around here who has farmed and worked with sheep knows about the importance of regular dosing for the gut worm and all the rest of it, so access to medicines and veterinary products is crucial to the sustainability and the future-proofing not just of our sheep sector but of our agricultural sector in Northern Ireland in general.

Another thing that is possibly within the Minister’s remit is the ability to move livestock—I know the topic today is sheep, but I also mention cattle—between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the additional bureaucracy and challenges that farmers face in moving pedigree animals back and forth between not just sales but shows. I have a constituent who was present today for Prime Minister’s questions and who is here for this debate, and he has raised an important issue. He has pedigree cattle in Scotland at this moment in time that he has not been able to bring home to Northern Ireland since October because of bluetongue and the restrictions that have applied in respect of moving livestock even within this United Kingdom. Will the Minister look into that and see whether something can be done?

I do not want to finish on the challenges or the negatives, given the contributions that have already been made and that will be made. We have to look to the potential and consider the future-proofing of our agricultural sector in the United Kingdom. It is what this country was built on, it is what this country is based on and it is what we are good at. We produce good-quality food that we should be able to look to as the safe and sustainable food supply for the people of the United Kingdom. I thank the hon. Member for Hexham for moving the motion and look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

15:10

[Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) for securing this debate and herding us in.

As we are gathered here today, some 4,500 sheep and lambs will be sold at the community-owned and run Lewis & Harris Auction Mart in Steinish, which is outside Stornoway in my constituency of Na h-Eileanan an Iar. The sheep will end up with finishers across the UK, and represent the culmination of a year’s work for crofters in Lewis. They also represent the deep connection that we see here today between the Hebrides and Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland, which is probably best symbolised in this place by the Woolsack that the Lord Speaker sits on in the other House.

Wool and sheep are not worth as much as they used to be. I will not give you live market prices, but I know that with the main store lamb sales season in full swing prices are up. In Stornoway, prices were up by £11; in Dingwall, where Lewis lambs are sold, they were up by £6.85; and at Lochboisdale prices were up by £12. It is unfortunate that the corresponding lamb sale in Lochmaddy in North Uist has not gone ahead this year, but hopefully it may be restored. That shows the economic and cultural importance of sheep to my constituency and the Outer Hebrides.

Sheep have played and will continue to play a great role in keeping communities alive. I come from a crofting community. I grew up on a croft rearing and sheering sheep, sending them out to the moor to our common grazing land, and overwintering and feeding sheep. Ironically, the common grazing lands, which we no longer use so much for sheep, now house wind turbines that bring community profit to the tenant crofters in our area.

The crofting communities are in good shape, and they are in good shape because of sheep. Crofting is best described as small tenant farming, and it is the small tenant farmers who held together communities, towns, villages, language and culture across the whole north-west of Scotland and the islands. The backbone of crofting is, of course, sheep, but the sheep alone will not support us. The industry needs accessible and proportionate support to ensure its future.

A recent in-depth report highlighted the importance of crofting and agriculture to island economies, but it also revealed the extent of the decline in sheep farming in the Western Isles in the last 20 years. Sheep numbers in the Outer Hebrides have decreased by 52% in the last 20 years, down from nearly 300,000 to 143,000 in 2021.

[Ann Davies]

It is really interesting to hear from you when we are talking about crofting and tenant farmers. As other speakers have noted, when we are talking about access to land there is such an issue with farm business tenancies at the moment. The maximum term being offered is 10 years and the average can be as little as five to seven years.

Most tenant farmers work as well as keeping their holdings, as you will know, and over the long term, because of the incomes involved, that is unsustainable. We need an understanding and legislation that secures tenancies in the long term, offering our young farmers —we have talked about young farmers and the YFC movement—security when they start their farming careers. We do not have that at the moment with the current farm business tenancies, so we need to look at introducing legislation from this House.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Order. I appreciate that there are new Members present and not everyone may be aware of this, but I am being reminded by the Clerk that Members should not use the word “you”. “You” means me, because I am in the Chair. That is just a general reminder for all.

[Torcuil Crichton]

Forgive me if I made that error, Dr Huq. I appreciate what the hon. Member says about farm tenancies. We have the 19th-century land radicals and activists, who fought the crofters’ war, and this place, with the Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886, to thank for giving us secure, heritable tenancies in crofting, which play an important part in maintaining families and people on the land.

As I was explaining, sheep numbers have fallen in the Western Isles by about 52% in the last 20 years—I knew that I was in the middle of a depopulation crisis, but I did not know that it included the sheep stock as well! That fall in numbers can be explained, in part, by the decoupling of support from headage payments and the move to area-based payments. That policy has had a significant impact on agriculture in our areas because agricultural support payments have decreased by 20% in real terms between 2014 and 2022. That is despite policies that say that they are increasing support, because inflation has eroded their value.

The Minister will be aware that most crofting, agricultural and environmental policy is devolved, but it is important to make the point, which the Scottish Crofting Federation itself has made, that the Scottish Government’s recent Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Act 2024 was a missed opportunity 10 years in the making—a chance to redistribute support towards smaller producers. That is not a mistake that this new Government should repeat, and we should learn the lessons of that missed opportunity.

The research showing that decline in sheep numbers covered Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles. It also showed that, despite that decline, 21% of the working-age population in the Outer Hebrides is involved in agriculture. That shows that crofting and sheep farming still play a lively and vigorous part of our economy.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham mentioned rewilding and the balance between agriculture and the environment—whenever I hear the term “rewilding”, or read any correspondence about it, I always search the address and suggest that the wolves be released at that postcode first, before being released in our constituencies. However, there is a balance to be had. Some 31% of the land in the Outer Hebrides is of ecological significance, and much of it is managed by crofters. Crofters already manage their environment well and have done for generations. The balance can be made, and we do not have to choose between sheep and peat. Both can co-exist, and crofters can restore these habitats while still producing high-quality livestock.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Northumberland (David Smith) mentioned the future, and the future, of course, is in the next generation—in youth. I am glad to report that that same auction mart in Steinish that is holding its sales today also hosted an event for young crofters earlier this summer, which more than 200 young people attended—giving it the accolade of being the hottest dating agency in the Western Isles. That shows that there is a huge demand for people to get involved in agriculture; the land and managing the land well; rearing sheep and sheep husbandry—although I produced figures about lamb sales and meat production, looking after sheep really is husbandry— and that cycle of life that people are involved in in the countryside.

Once again, I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham on bringing this issue to the Floor and on allowing us to highlight the situation in Scotland.

15:18

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

I thank the hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) for bringing this important matter to the Floor. As has been clear from the contributions from Northern Ireland, sheep farming is a significant but, sadly, poor relation of farming because the lowest farm incomes in the farming sector arise among sheep farmers. That is an indication of an indisputable fact: what is needed in Northern Ireland, and particularly in a constituency such as mine, which has a lot of sheep farmers, is a sheep support scheme.

In Northern Ireland, we do have a beef support scheme —it is called the beef carbon reduction scheme—and we have a separate cow scheme. Those contribute to environmental enhancements on what used to be the single farm payment, now the direct payment. But there is no scheme for sheep farmers, and that is a lamentable failure on the part of the local Department. It has been sitting on a taskforce recommendation since early last year and has failed to move on that matter. Not only is that failure to move doing nothing to increase incomes, but it is going to decrease them. From 2025, sheep farmers farming only sheep are set to lose 17% of their basic payment unless they change to include protein crops and cattle. For many, that is just not possible, so there is an urgent need for action.

[Robin Swann]

The hon. Member talks about sheep farmers in Northern Ireland looking enviously on at beef farmers in Northern Ireland, but he will be aware that they also get to look across the border, where the Republic of Ireland Government have introduced a sheep support scheme that pays up to €17 to €20 a head. That puts our farmers in Northern Ireland at a further disadvantage.

[Jim Allister]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but it is actually worse than that. Yes, we can look across the border and see the advantage, but the problem is that, courtesy of the Windsor framework and the protocol, Northern Ireland farmers are subject to the same rules and regulations but none of the benefits. Members should never forget that the laws concerning farming in Northern Ireland are not made in this place or in Stormont; they are made in a foreign Parliament to which we elect no one. That is the ultimate constitutional absurdity of the Windsor framework: we have created a situation where, in more than 300 areas of law, the laws are foreign-imposed—colony-like—on Northern Ireland. The laws concerning the whole agrifood industry are made in Brussels, and that is an appalling constitutional and economic affront.

Because we are subject to the European veterinary regime, we now have a looming crisis: come 2025, our veterinary medicines, which are produced in Great Britain, will not be permitted to enter Northern Ireland, and up to 50% of our medicines will be excluded from Northern Ireland. That is a serious challenge, which the last Government did nothing about and which I trust this Government will do something about. This Government will need to stand up with vigour against the European Commission and insist that every part of this country must be entitled to have the same veterinary medicines as the rest of the country. It is time that we shook off our shackles and insisted on that.

Of course, it gets even worse. As has been alluded to, movements of livestock from Great Britain to Northern Ireland are subject to every EU rule that applies. We therefore have quarantine periods of six months for those wanting to bring in livestock, and of 30 days for the host farm it is coming from. Why? Because that is what EU rules, which we have been left subject to—serf-like—insist on. To take sheep farming, farmers need to constantly improve the genetic line; they need to bring in new rams, but bringing one in from Scotland or Wales, which would be our traditional sources, is now nigh impossible because of these quarantine rules. That needs to be addressed.

There are other dimensions. Reference has been made to the fact that hundreds of cattle and other livestock have been stranded on this side of the Irish sea since last year and cannot be moved to Northern Ireland, due to EU rules about bluetongue. We have the ludicrous situation that someone who buys rams in France or cattle in Sweden or elsewhere can bring them straight through GB to Northern Ireland, but if they buy them in GB, they cannot bring them to Northern Ireland, because GB is said to be a bluetongue zone. Even though the livestock is, in many cases, being bought from Scotland, which has no bluetongue difficulties, it still cannot be brought to Northern Ireland. Why? Again, because of the absurdity that we are subject to EU rules.

This House, far outside the framework of farming issues, needs to get hold of the fact that unless we deal with the constitutional imperative of restoring Northern Ireland to the rules of this House and this country, and not of a foreign jurisdiction, we will have these problems, which manifest themselves in our farming industry in the way I have described. It is not just a multifaceted problem, but a multifaceted problem with many deep issues that need to be addressed. The last Government had no appetite to address them—in fact, they deepened the problems with their Windsor framework. I trust that this Government, who have inherited the ludicrous situation of Northern Ireland being a condominium ruled in part by laws made in the United Kingdom and in part by foreign laws in a foreign jurisdiction, will address this issue. We cannot go on like this. Neither our sheep farmers, nor any other farmers, nor our citizens should be living in a colony-like situation where we are ruled by laws we do not make and cannot change.

15:26

[Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Huq, and I thank the hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) for securing this important debate. Livestock, including sheep, are a big contributor to the south-west rural economy, but the sector is facing several challenges. Food production is worth more than £500 million in Somerset, and the industry provides employment for 8,500 farmers and food producers, which is the highest number for any UK county.

Farming, by its very nature, cannot be as responsive as other industries. Crops take time to grow and animals take time to rear. That means that farmers need the certainty to be able to create long-term plans and invest in their businesses, rather than making changes on the hoof, but the previous Government failed to provide that stability. From U-turning on actions to take land out of food production to the botched trade transition, and from direct payments to environmental land management schemes, their policies undermined farmers and have led to a collapse in their willingness to invest in their businesses.

Farmers need to be able to run their businesses with certainty. They need to know what funding is available, what standards are to be met and what support they are going to receive from the new Government. It is regrettable that this Government seem to have decided to continue in the Conservatives’ footsteps by refusing to commit to the agricultural budget. With over 55,000 agri-environment agreements in place this year, a big part of the industry has been encouraged to become reliant on Government payments. Unless the Government commit to the agricultural budget, those farmers will not hear whether those payments will continue at current rates until the spending review in the autumn, impacting on their ability to plan. It is no surprise that the National Farmers Union found that short and mid-term confidence is at its lowest level since records began in 2010.

I have spoken before in this place about how many farmers are leaving the industry because they do not have the confidence to continue and about the impact that that is having on their mental health. Ninety-two percent of farmers under the age of 40 say that poor mental health is the biggest hidden problem that farmers face today, and those pressures will likely be compounded further by yesterday’s report that the Government are going to slash the nature-friendly farming budget. Not only would that seriously threaten many farmers’ livelihoods, but it would result in at least 239,000 fewer hectares of nature-friendly farmland, according to research by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. The National Trust, the RSPB, and the Wildlife Trust warned before the election that the nature-friendly farming budget had to increase if the UK is to meet its legally binding nature and climate targets. Cutting it would be tantamount to ignoring our legal targets.

Livestock play a central role in my Glastonbury and Somerton constituency, so my constituents are particularly worried about the threat of diseases such as bluetongue and Schmallenberg. As the proud owner of a small flock of non-commercial pedigree Shetland sheep, I share those concerns. The pandemic showed us that Britain is capable of being a vaccine superpower. I call on the Government to again work with industry to prevent us from experiencing an outbreak of bluetongue like those we have seen in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. It is essential that DEFRA and the Animal and Plant Health Agency have learned lessons from the covid inquiry and previous inquiries into the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak, and have robust and tested traceability data processes in place to enable effective disease response.

There are also smaller, cost-free changes that would improve our ability to trace livestock and reduce the amount of bureaucracy that farmers face. For example, although farmers can report sheep movements electronically, they also have to use paper passports with the exact same information. If we want accurate tracking, which is essential for proper biosecurity, we need to incentivise the use of digital reporting and remove that outdated requirement. That small change would be a step in the right direction to transform livestock information services into a system that is fit for purpose and fit for the future.

The previous Government were woefully irresponsible for failing to protect British agriculture from Brexit and the botched trade deals. The new Government must give British farmers the tools they need to seize new trade opportunities and must introduce robust policies to protect them from uncompetitive imports.

Since leaving the EU, the food and drink industry has been burdened with additional friction and cost, often paying for checks on goods that have never taken place. It is essential that we give our farmers the ability to trade with our European neighbours with minimal need for checks by negotiating comprehensive veterinary and plant health agreements. The Government should support the country’s largest manufacturing sector by expediting their talks on this issue and improving our working relationship with our largest trading partner.

Similarly, the Government must ensure that sheep farmers can export breeding stock without delay by providing additional capacity for border control. We need to protect our markets from lamb and mutton from countries that have less rigorous animal welfare and environmental standards. If we do not, we risk undermining our farmers and the faith that consumers have in our meat.

As a Liberal Democrat, I believe that there needs to be fairness throughout the supply chain. Our ability to produce world-leading lamb and mutton is being constrained by a bottleneck at slaughterhouses caused by vet shortages. The British Veterinary Association believes that those shortages are worst in rural areas such as Glastonbury and Somerton. I am concerned about the impact that that will have on food prices, animal welfare, Somerset’s rural economy and vets’ mental health.

I have always been proud to represent this industry because we have a world-leading animal welfare system, but we need vets to maintain that. We have some of the best vets in the world, but the Government need to focus on retaining them. The UK’s chief veterinary officer, Dr Christine Middlemiss, said that almost half of vets who are leaving the profession have been there for less than four years. We must rise to that challenge by increasing the UK’s training capacity, which will require an increase in the amount of funding available per student and the introduction of a regulator.

We have many more Liberal Democrat MPs representing rural constituencies than ever before, because rural communities know that we understand them and will always fight for them. Farmers trust us to have their backs because of our track record and our policies, which include properly funding ELMs with an additional £1 billion a year, renegotiating the Australian and New Zealand trade agreements, and making the supply chain fairer by strengthening the Groceries Code Adjudicator. With farmers facing new challenges, there is a huge amount of uncertainty across all agricultural sectors, including sheep, and the new Government must take clear steps to support them.

15:34

[Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I thank the hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) for securing this really important debate. He represents a beautiful constituency in a county I know very well, having worked there for many a year. I welcome him to this place. I also welcome the Minister to his place in probably the best Department in Government.

Before I start, I want to thank our farming community, not only in my constituency of Keighley and Ilkley in West Yorkshire, but across the whole United Kingdom. We all know that farmers work tirelessly throughout the year in all weathers. Having lambed many a yow in the cold winter months up in Yorkshire, I know just how hard our farmers work.

I echo colleagues’ comments highlighting just how important the sheep farming industry is. It not only contributes £1.8 billion to our economy but provides the high-quality food on our plates and sustainable textiles on our backs—perhaps even Northumberland tartan, as the hon. Member for Hexham mentioned.

I support the National Sheep Association’s calls to maintain, if not enhance, the UK’s flock. I want sheep farming to be supported and developed, not cut back. So much of our natural landscape is as it is because of the hard graft of sheep farmers across our nation. We owe it to them to keep food at the centre of what we do in this place, in the knowledge that supported food production goes hand in hand with our duties to the environment.

During the previous Conservative Government, I was proud to play my part in making much progress in the sheep sector, both in my time on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and as a Minister. We made strong progress in cracking down on livestock worrying—a blight on our farmers, who have enough to deal with without having to worry about inconsiderate dog owners. I only hope the new Administration will pick up that legislation where it was left off and not scrap it, as is being reported in the farming press.

We also delivered the biggest change in a generation in how the Government work with farmers, following our exit from the European Union. Replacing the common agricultural policy with a framework that works for farmers, food producers and the country has been a huge task. Although I would be the first to accept that the sustainable farming incentive and other schemes are not perfect, they are major milestones in delivering a farming subsidy support scheme that works for sheep farmers and other farmers across the country as the basic payment scheme is phased out.

I was pleased that, at the National Sheep Association’s Sheep Event 2024, the Minister indicated that the new Administration will not overturn those schemes. However, it is now being widely reported in the media that the Labour Administration are intent on cutting the farming budget, which not only will have dire consequences for the farming industry, but will negatively impact our nation’s food security agenda and efforts to enhance the environment. Will the Minister confirm whether that is the case? Will he provide some clarity on his intentions for the farming budget? The farming budget needs at least to be maintained, if not enhanced, and be properly ringfenced and secured to provide certainty for our farming community.

The harsh climate of our upland farmland will always be a challenge for any business in the area, but that is why we must support our sheep farming sector, which is able to turn land that would otherwise be uneconomical into productive land that contributes valuable produce to the economy. I urge the Government to ensure that the new expanded offer for the sustainable farming incentive is quickly rolled out, and that much clarity and reassurance is provided through the extended offers that were announced.

I know from my time in Government that the DEFRA team and their officials have been working incredibly hard on this proposal. I thank the officials, including Janet Hughes, who has a huge amount of respect from the farming community. We all want reassurance and clarity to be provided on those extended offers so that they can be taken up in full.

With a new Government, we must look to the future and at how we can further support this dynamic and ever-changing sector. As a guiding principle, I urge the new Labour Government to trust the excellent sheep farmers across the country, who know so much about what they are doing and have the best intentions. They are keen to get on with the job, and we have a duty to support them without burdening them with unreasonable red tape.

A clear example of that is the ongoing efforts to combat bluetongue. It is in everybody’s interest to combat that disease, and I hope that the DEFRA team will deliver effective support for sheep farmers, particularly with regard to proper surveillance. I know that bluetongue is of deep concern to our sheep farming community. Like the National Sheep Association, I urge British farmers to remain vigilant for signs of bluetongue, as I am aware that around 50 suspected cases have been reported within a week, and restriction zones have been implemented in Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk to limit the spread of the virus. Will the Government support the development of a licensed bluetongue vaccine and work with the industry to deploy it as soon as possible?

Moving on to another area of concern, I am aware of the pressure in the farming sector to reduce regulation around carcase splitting. Of course, any Government’s first concern is rightly to ensure that food stocks in the UK remain safe for the broader public, but I urge the Government to look at regulation. I would be interested to understand their view on the issue and to hear whether they would consider rolling back carcase-splitting requirements so that farmers are able to maximise value.

Where the Government can really make a direct and positive difference is in the delivery of greater fairness in our food supply chain, to help sheep farmers run successful businesses. The industry-wide consultation in February 2024 provided compelling support for carcase classification. I urge the Government to pick up on that proposal as quickly as possible. It can only be right that, after doing the hard work of raising and caring for their animals, sheep farmers have certainty about the price they can expect to get for them. It is vital that transparency is applied right across the food supply chain, as we have seen in other sectors, including pigs and cattle.

As we look to our domestic supply chain, we must recognise the globalised world we live in and the opportunities and challenges that it brings. Last week, the Prime Minister unveiled the first step in his supposed reset with Europe. Much has been made of what the new relationship might look like. Although promises not to return to the single market or the customs union are welcome, it is possible that farmers could fall foul of EU law under any new arrangement, so I seek the Government’s reassurance about what the new relationship will look like. Complicated and bureaucratic EU animal welfare laws will only damage our sheep farming community, so will the Minister reassure me that none of the four nations across the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland, will be subject to additional rules, which we have spent much time since 2016 trying to remove ourselves from for the benefit of the sector?

[Jim Allister]

The shadow Minister says that no part of the United Kingdom should be subject to EU rules, but the reality is that Northern Ireland is subject to them. That is the problem: we were never delivered from them. His Government failed to deliver us from them. That is why we have the mess we have.

[Robbie Moore]

Of course, the Windsor framework was an element of trying to address many concerns, not only in the food and farming sector but in other sectors. Although it is indeed not perfect, I am interested to see what the new Government want to do on the specific issue that the hon. Gentleman raises.

There is much to do to support our sheep farming sector. It is vital that the new Government move quickly to continue the work of the Conservative Government and deliver a vision for upland and lowland sheep farming that will give businesses the ability to plan, produce and thrive.

15:43

[The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs (Daniel Zeichner)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dr Huq, and to follow the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore). I am sure that a number of us will spend a lot of time in Westminster Hall debating issues in the months and years to come. There was always a positive and constructive relationship, in particular with the junior Ministers at DEFRA, and I am sure that that will continue. I welcome the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke).

I was struck by how the debate covered all four countries of the United Kingdom. I have been to all four in the past few months to try to start the process of building a closer relationship, absolutely respecting the devolved Administrations and devolution settlements but also recognising the importance of the UK Government’s working closely with them.

Most of all, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) for bringing forward this debate and raising points of considerable importance to the sector in what I thought was an excellent introductory speech. I am very fond of his constituency; I remember being at the northern farming conference a few years ago. I look forward to working closely with him.

We have had some excellent contributions. Among those from Government Members, I particularly commend that of my hon. Friend the Member for North Northumberland (David Smith), whose points about the need for new entrants were very well made. Long-term parity is absolutely required by the sector. The land use framework has been long promised and we will be working on it with urgency.

I was also struck by the contribution from the Member for the Western Isles, my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton). I was in Shetland recently, where there are similar issues, I suspect. The points about crofters are very well made. I absolutely respect the role of the Scottish Government, while reflecting the points that I have already made about the role of the UK Government.

The UK Government are grateful to our sheep farmers. I echo the points made by Opposition Members: we commend sheep farmers for all their work to provide us with products that meet such high environmental and welfare standards and to support the domestic food supply chain and strong export markets. They play a very important role in supporting rural communities, with some 150,000 jobs contributing to economic growth.

Sheepmeat production was worth £1.6 billion in 2023 and is crucial to our food supply chains. Sheepmeat is a protein-rich food that is produced in often challenging environments that are not necessarily suitable for other livestock. Sheep farmers, I am glad to say, are experiencing record high prices: prices in June 2024 were up 24.4% year on year and 42.5% higher than the five-year average, with further benefits coming from stronger export markets, and with new markets such as the United States opening up.

Hon. Members made important points about past trade deals. I do not think we need to rehearse the arguments; certainly we on the Government Benches know what happened, and it is really important that we learn lessons for the future. Issues around our relationship with the European Union are very important as we go into renegotiations. Many of the points that have been raised would be dealt with by negotiating a better phytosanitary agreement, as this Government are very much committed to doing.

It is very important to make the supply chain work more fairly and to prevent shock rises in bills by tackling energy prices through GB Energy. We want to help protect farmers from flooding, through a new flood resilience taskforce. We will use the Government’s purchasing powers to back British produce. Overall, we will achieve a new deal for farming by listening closely to people on the frontline, in this case sheep farmers and everyone who has a stake in our food and farming system. The Government are looking at the data and will set out detailed plans in due course. I was delighted to attend the National Sheep Association’s 2024 event in Malvern, which gave me a chance to listen, learn and say a little about our plans for the future.

Several hon. Members touched on the farming budget and environmental land management schemes. I reiterate our full commitment to those schemes. I would not believe everything that one reads in the newspapers about budgets: there is a spending review process going on and announcements will be made in due course, but our commitment to the agricultural transition to a different form of farming is absolute. We will be trying to improve those schemes; as the shadow Minister acknowledged, there is room for improvement. We will make sure that they produce the right outcomes for all farmers, including sheep farmers, and the wider industry and that they ensure food security and nature recovery in a just and equitable way.

The schemes work across the country, supporting a wide range of grassland and moorland types, including action to support productive improved grasslands, extensive low-input grasslands and grazed priority habitats. They include a range of actions to support arable farmers, including the management of herbal leys and winter cover crops. They have been designed to support farmers who wish to reintroduce sheep and other livestock to their arable rotation, which is certainly a very salient issue in my part of the world, the east of England.

There are opportunities for sheep enterprises as part of sustainable farming systems to introduce livestock to some farms that have not had them for more than a generation. Anyone who goes around the east of England will see the evidence that there was a different farming system in the past. The expanded sustainable farming incentive also includes an improved offer, which has been much demanded—and, I hope, welcomed—by upland farmers, including sheep farmers. We hope that it will offer a wider range of actions and greater flexibility.

I have already touched on the trade and border issue. We are absolutely determined to make sure that our trade strategy promotes the highest food production standards. The UK is a net exporter of lamb and mutton; it exports approximately a third of domestic production. More than 90% of exports go to EU destinations. The Government recognise the continuing importance of the EU as one of the sector’s biggest export destinations and, as I have said, we recognise the importance of negotiating a new agreement to prevent unnecessary border checks while maintaining biosecurity.

We will also support our farmers by setting a clear target for half of all food purchased across the public sector to be locally produced or certified to higher environmental standards. In the supply chain, we absolutely recognise that fairness is important. We want farmers to get a fair price for their products and are committed to tackling contractual unfairness where it exists. We will continue to work closely with stakeholders from all sectors on how best to achieve that.

Jointly with the Welsh Government and in tandem with the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Government, DEFRA has consulted the industry on proposals for a new carcase classification and price reporting system; the shadow Minister raised a query about that. We understand the importance of the new system to the sheep industry in providing stronger price certainty by setting out a clear, consistent and robust scheme for carcase classification and price reporting. The consultation closed in March 2024. We are now looking at it and will make announcements in due course.

Welfare and disease issues are very important to this Government. We are alive to the challenges and threats posed by lameness and by diseases such as bluetongue serotype 3 and peste des petits ruminants. New controls suspending personal imports of certain sheep and goat commodities, such as unpackaged meat, were announced on 21 August to safeguard Britain’s sheep and goat populations from PPR.

The shadow Minister queried the work that we are doing on bluetongue. Clearly there were outbreaks in Norfolk some 10 days ago; we are deploying the tried and tested procedures for animal disease control, with which I am sure he is familiar, in response to the cases found in Norfolk and Suffolk. We decided to permit the use of the currently available vaccines for this virus serotype under certain circumstances. However, I am advised that they only reduce clinical signs; they will not produce immunity to the disease. Animal keepers will need to work closely with their vets to make a decision on usage.

The animal health and welfare pathway is live. It enables farmers with more than 21 sheep registered in England to apply for funding to improve animal health and welfare. That service provides diagnostic testing for priority diseases and conditions, alongside bespoke advice to improve health, welfare and biosecurity, supporting the responsible use of medicines, including antibiotics. DEFRA also continues to work closely with sheep sector bodies on plans to enhance the statutory sheep movement reporting service over the next 18 to 24 months; I think the shadow Minister raised a question about that issue.

Finally, DEFRA supports the sheep sector through conserving valuable genetic resources to help to increase sustainable food production and help breeders to adapt to climate change and new diseases. DEFRA research is also exploring how genetics can help farmers to increase productivity while mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.

I thank all hon. Members for their contributions. I expect that we will be having further discussions; I have to say that my experience of Westminster Hall debates on this sector is that there has always been a relatively small group of interested people. I am looking forward to building those relationships over the months and years ahead, and I am sure that we will all learn a lot from one another. My responsibility is to provide Members with answers to their questions. I will do my very best, and this afternoon is the first step in that process. Overall, the Government recognise the value of a thriving and productive sheep sector and look forward to working with Members and with the sector to achieve that.

15:54

[Joe Morris]

I thank all hon. Members who have taken part in the debate. It has been an incredibly valuable experience for me and for the constituents who have been in contact throughout the process of writing my speech and going to local agricultural shows. It has been heartening to hear the Minister’s response, the input from all colleagues and the collegiate tone of the discussion, particularly as we look to the uncertainty created by the cliff edge that some farmers face as payment schemes are phased out and new payment schemes are developed. I will continue to be as strong an advocate as I possibly can for the farmers across my constituency, as I am sure colleagues will be for farmers across theirs.

We are aware that farms do not exist in a vacuum. They are anchors of our community; they define who we are and define the very nature of our constituencies. They provide for so many people, provide local economic anchors and first jobs, and teach young people the importance of punctuality, timekeeping, hard work and resilience in countryside environments. It is incredibly important that as the constituency MP for Hexham, I continue to bring similar debates to this place. I look forward to doing so and to working with colleagues around the House to drive better outcomes, and hopefully better incomes, for our farming communities.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the future of sheep farming.

15:56

Sitting suspended.

SEND Provision: Hertfordshire and Central Bedfordshire

Wednesday 4th September 2024 Westminster Hall

16:00

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

As this is a 30-minute debate, I will call Alistair Strathern to move the motion, then I will call the Minister to respond. People can intervene on Alistair; that is the format for these debates.

[Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered SEND provision in Hertfordshire and Central Bedfordshire.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship today, Dr Huq. While I regret not being able to secure more time to discuss this important topic, I am very glad to see the keen interest across the House evidenced in the room today. I am particularly grateful to see many more Labour colleagues in this room than might have had quite such a geographical interest in the debate prior to the election.

I would like to start by welcoming the Minister to her new role. In my admittedly rather short time as an MP before the election, her energy, wisdom and reassuring positivity was a real source of comfort for me in what can be a pretty mystifying place to navigate. I have no doubt that young people across the country will be better off for her ability to bring exactly that same warmth and drive to her new role. As a former teacher and children’s lead, I am under no illusion of the scale of some of the challenges she will inherit. I am sure she will agree that fixing special educational needs and disability provision and the broken national system we have inherited is right up there with the biggest of them.

It is a near universally accepted truth that SEND provision across our country is simply not working. Indeed, the system had become so broken that, by the time of the election, the Conservatives’ own Education Secretary had to admit that they were presiding over a system that had become, “lose, lose, lose”. Vulnerable young people right across the country looking for the support they need to thrive at school are the ones who are losing.

[Andrew Lewin (Welwyn Hatfield) (Lab)]

When discussing SEND provision with families in Hertfordshire, the phrases that most often resonate with me are people describing their experience as a fight or a battle. This is a consistent pattern. Parents spend months or even years pushing the system to get the support and care their children deserve, at huge personal and financial cost to their families. The fight can take many forms: securing an education, health and care plan in the first place, finding an appropriate school, or even fighting for recognition from the council that their child has additional needs at all. There is much that must change. It is of paramount importance that we reform the system so it is no longer characterised by defensiveness, but becomes one of empathy and support. I hope my hon. Friend agrees.

[Alistair Strathern]

I could not agree more, because the sad reality is that Hertfordshire—a county we share—and Central Bedfordshire, which my constituency straddles, are far from exceptions to the national challenges we currently face. Both Central Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire face real challenges in SEND provision, which is letting down schools, families and, crucially, the young people the system is meant to wrap around. Rather than providing support at the earliest possible moment of need, all too often it is pitting them as adversaries against the very stakeholders that are meant to support them.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. He is right that every constituency in this place is affected by the issue. Does he agree that without more trained staff, facilities and enhanced funding, it will not simply be SEND children who struggle, but everyone in that classroom? Does he agree that resources to meet the need in a long-term funding stream need to be delivered for all, because they are all affected?

[Alistair Strathern]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing his keen interest to Hertfordshire and Central Bedfordshire today. He is renowned for that forensic insight across the House. He is, of course, quite right. When one young person in the classroom is let down, whatever their needs, the whole class is losing out. Putting that right is a fundamental challenge for our new Minister and new Government.

The Ofsted reports received by authorities in 2019 and 2022 across my constituency painted a damning picture of local provision and the challenges families were facing. It is important to acknowledge that since the reports were published, there have been some welcome steps forward. Increases in staff capacity were needed and are welcome. Moves to boost specialist school capacity, however delayed, have to be welcomed. The model that Hertfordshire is moving towards—a model of making SEND everyone’s business to ensure a breadth of ambition for those who look after young people with additional needs right across the partnership—is a novel and noteworthy approach. I am sure it is one that will be of interest to the Minister.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Member for securing the debate and for starting it so well. He is right to say that there has been recent progress in the delivery of SEND in Hertfordshire, but much of that has started only since the most recent damning Ofsted report. Back in 2021, I invited the then Conservative leader of Hertfordshire county council to attend a ministerial meeting with me to discuss the funding formula and he declined. In 2023, the Conservative group refused to invest an extra £1 million in SEND services at Hertfordshire county council, as the Lib Dems had proposed, and only backtracked after that Ofsted report. This year, the Conservative education portfolio holder apparently decided to join the f40 campaign, but only after I had written suggesting they do so. I am pleased to see that there has been some progress, but does the hon. Member agree that Hertfordshire children have been really let down, not only by the Conservatives in Government but by the Conservatives in county hall?

[Alistair Strathern]

I could not agree more. The way in which families and, crucially, young people in Hertfordshire have been let down typifies a challenge facing local authorities right across the country: in the context of a nationally failing system, how do we make sure our local leaders remain ambitious for our young people and do not become incredibly complacent about performance that cannot be justified? We saw that in Hertfordshire and, heartbreakingly, we see it today in other parts of the UK.

It is clear that even with the early signs of improvement there are significant challenges to address. Local statistics, including those published today by ITV Anglia, lay bare some of the shocking challenges that families and young people are still facing. It is evident that far too many young people are waiting far too long for an assessment, for the support that follows that and, shamefully, even for the school places that are most appropriate for their needs. Alongside that, far too many families are having to battle an appeals system just to secure confirmation of the support their young persons are clearly in need of and clearly entitled to.

[Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I declare an interest as a Central Bedfordshire councillor, which puts me in a somewhat awkward position. I thank the hon. Member for securing the debate. As my predecessor in Mid Bedfordshire, he knows all too well the challenges across the constituency, and I thank him for his work on the matter.

It is important for all the parents and grandparents in our constituencies that children with special needs get the right support, and I absolutely want to deliver that for the people of Mid Bedfordshire. I know there have been failures in the past; we need to move forward and find solutions. I want to do that in a cross-party way and I hope I can work with the hon. Gentleman, who is my neighbour, and with the Minister to do that. I think that is the right way to go. This has been too partisan for too long and some cross-party working would be valuable. The hon. Member has my support.

[Alistair Strathern]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention and for his commitment to working alongside everyone in the Chamber, whether in Central Bedfordshire or in Hertfordshire, to make sure our local authorities deliver the improvements in their gift and to make sure we support the new Government in finally getting a grip on the problems we have inherited.

I challenge anyone faced with the statistics we have been seeing over the past few months not to run the full gauntlet of emotions, all the way from despair to anger. For me, hearing the personal stories of the young people affected by the challenges has truly broken my heart.

[David Taylor (Hemel Hempstead) (Lab)]

Many of us have heard countless stories of families feeling dire frustration. For this debate alone I received more than 25 stories, each more harrowing than the one before. I will pull out a good example of a woman called Jane who has two children, both with SEND needs. One of them needs one-on-one support to catch up in English and maths, but the local authority has refused that. The consequence is that her son is now 14 years old and has not had an academic education for six years. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is an all-too-regular example of the challenges we are facing?

[Alistair Strathern]

I absolutely agree and I thank my hon. Friend for rightly drawing attention to our collective shame for the shocking way in which that young person has been let down. My office has been blown away by the number of young people and their families who got in touch after our call for evidence ahead of this debate to share their own personal testimonies about the struggles they have been facing and the way those struggles have impacted their lives.

As my hon. Friend alluded to, many children across my constituency have had a chaotic and uncertain time waiting for school places. Some of them—like James, who got in touch with my office—have been out of school for years while they wait for a place. Others, like Mary, had secured a place only to find in the last week of the summer holidays that it had been withdrawn. Just imagine how a child must feel to be out of school, week after week, month after month, and year after year. Just imagine how a young person must feel to be so excited about going to a school that has finally been allocated to them, because it is right for them, only to find out the week before they were due to go there that they did not want them. That shames us all.

We have also heard from parents such as Sophie, who have been driven to despair by a system that they feel all too often forces them to fight every step of the way just to secure the very basics of support that their young person needs. Often, they have to sink thousands of pounds that they can barely afford into private diagnosis, representation and support after completely losing faith that local provision will be able to meet their needs.

We have also heard devastating stories from young people who have been pushed to the brink by the lack of appropriate support, including stories of those young people whose mental health has spiralled to the point that many of them felt they could no longer be in day-to-day education. Devastatingly and particularly heartbreakingly, we heard from the parents of Alice who, after feeling isolated and alienated by the delays in getting the right support in place at school, felt that she had no option available other than to attempt to take her own life. What more damning indictment of our failure could there be?

I know that not one person in this room will consider any of these stories acceptable, and I want to reassure every young person and their family experiencing the sharp end of the failing system in my constituency that my office and I never will. It is truly impossible to do justice to all of the stories—there are over 100 in total —that I have received in the time that we have available to us today, but I want each and every one who has reached out and each and every one who is struggling at the moment to be assured that I will carry with me the pain and the urgency of their testimony every day as I champion the changes that we need to see locally and here in Parliament. To those elsewhere—whether in Central Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire or elsewhere; I am looking around the room—I can say that they will not be short of advocates either.

We all recognise that every day a child lacks the support they need to thrive at school is a day’s potential that will forever have been wasted. When that support is lacking, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) pointed out, everyone loses. Every time a parent has had to give up work to take on extra responsibilities because the state has fallen short on our promise to them is a moment when their career and indeed their whole family’s life has been forever narrowed by a systems failure. Every child who has given up hope that the system can ever work for them at all, and who has turned to despair or even worse, is a child we have all failed collectively to do right by.

I hope that colleagues here today will welcome Labour’s commitment to making sure that we finally put in place some of the actions needed to address this issue. There have already been early actions in this Parliament to bring consideration of SEND back alongside schools; we have announced potential reform of Ofsted to improve its approach to assessing inclusion, particularly around admissions; and we have ensured that we have an underlying commitment to a community-wide and reinvigorated approach to SEND. All of these actions suggest to me that we finally have a Government who understand the nature of the challenge we are dealing with.

However, as we move forward to tackle the system, I want to make sure that our approach shows that we have learned from some of the failings that are evident in the stories that we have heard locally. It is clear that our local systems were allowed to get to a truly dire place before action was prompted by Ofsted. As the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) pointed out, we have to do better. We have to make sure that our local partnerships are held accountable regarding the high ambitions we have for all of our young people regardless of the national context—that can never be an excuse for choosing to let people down day after day.

It is also clear in both the areas I have discussed that academisation has added to fragmentation locally and that we need to think through how we can resolve some of the challenges of creating a truly inclusive admissions system when the partnerships involved currently do not have the powers they need to compel all local stakeholders and all local schools to play their part. I am sure that there will be an important role for Ofsted to then hold schools accountable for delivering on their approach to inclusion.

In Central Bedfordshire, some of the challenges have been particularly exacerbated by the issues involved in the transition from a three-tier system to a two-tier system. This stalled transition has delayed the release of school capital sites, which are so important for us to be able to invest in localised specialist provision, meaning that sites that have been earmarked for much-needed special schools continue to be used in mainstream education for much longer than originally intended. I would welcome thoughts from the Department for Education about how it can potentially support Central Bedfordshire’s efforts to finally get this transition over the line.

More fundamentally, there is a big underlying question about how we can make sure that the funding formulas to allocate resource to match need right across our country, particularly in the two areas that I am talking about today, truly match the evidence of need that exists and address the challenges of doing so in a rural context. It is especially noteworthy that, in spite of all of the challenges we have been discussing, Hertfordshire still has one of the lowest high-needs block allocations in the country.

However, all the funding in the world would not make a difference without a trained workforce to deliver. Alongside thinking through how we best support local authorities and local partnerships to answer these questions, we need a workforce strategy to ensure that we are properly addressing the issues that we have been talking about. From educational psychologists to speech and language therapists, we just do not have the trained professionals to take on some of these vacancies currently.

In our patch, these challenges are exacerbated by the fact that our near-London context makes it even harder to recruit and retain for these specialties. Thinking through how we can make sure that we have a national workforce strategy, but with an eye to the specific challenges of outer London and near-London authorities, will be an important part of truly resolving the system for the young people we have been talking about.

Crucially, we must make sure that the heartbreaking stories of families and their children, and the painful misery of the appeals system, can finally be brought to an end. All too often, cases are appealed at great cost to everyone involved. Both Central Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire have spent eyewatering amounts fighting appeals only to concede and often lose. How can we possibly see this as a good use of anyone’s time and resource? We need to think through carefully how we can reform the system to ensure that incentives are there in the right place to address these at the earliest opportunity, and that mediation is used robustly, fully, in good faith and exhaustively to make sure that expensive appeals are only necessary as a last resort, rather than as the default, for managing demand in a broken system.

I know that this Government are very aware of the challenges they are inheriting. Along with so many others, SEND provision will fall to this new Government to put right. I want to thank the Minister in advance for the leadership I know she will show on this issue, and I want to thank colleagues across the House, too, for their attendance. Whatever party, whatever seat, I look forward to working with all of them to hold our local partnerships to account to deliver on what is within their gift, and to work with our new Minister nationally to deliver on Labour’s commitments to finally get on top of SEND provision.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I declare an interest as a Hertfordshire county councillor. It is an honour to speak under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. Hertfordshire receives the third-lowest high needs funding in the country. I know that the hon. Gentleman mentioned the need to increase that funding. Will he join with us cross-party to lobby the new Government to increase that funding? Hertfordshire deserves the right funding to deal with the SEND issues, which will help us to increase our workforce to deal with capacity issues in Hertfordshire. I want to place it on the record that this issue is very important to me. I have a brother and a sister who have special educational needs, so I have grown up in a family on the frontline and am pleased to speak in this debate. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on getting time to discuss this very important issue.

[Alistair Strathern]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention and for sharing that personal aspect of his story. In me, he will absolutely find an ally in ensuring that we get a funding formula that truly meets the needs of every authority, particularly our authorities. Many other hon. Members have pointed out some of the challenges of where the current formula is indexed, at a point where it was pretty clear that the local authority was not managing the full use of that budget to deploy and meet the very real needs that were already starting to build up underneath the surface.

I want finally to thank every young person, every parent and every teacher who is battling to do their absolute best across those two areas in a system that just is not set up to back them to succeed. A system that is letting down children with additional needs is a system that is letting down children full stop, and it simply should not be a system that any of us tolerate any longer.

16:18

[Kevin Bonavia (Stevenage) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern) for securing this debate on such a vital issue for all our residents. For the last few weeks, I have been running an online campaign to encourage residents in my constituency to tell me their SEND provision stories. One constituent told me:

“Despite constant concerns raised and referrals, I was left undiagnosed, unmonitored and untreated for ASC1 and ADHD for over two decades. In retrospect, I can see that many of the difficult experiences I had throughout school could’ve been so different.”

A local councillor told me:

“My constituent has a 10-year-old son with significant cognitive delay. He was placed in a comprehensive school with no SEND support capacity whilst stuck on a 90 child waiting list for a place at a suitable SEN school.”

A mother told me:

“My son with special needs was excluded before we were able to complete his EHCP application, then sent to a school an hour and a half away as the nearest option with capacity to meet his needs. Unable to cope with the daily taxis, we were then refused funding for a transition into a new school. He has been left without formal education for 5 years. I’ve been unable to make any contact to get help for years.”

Those harrowing accounts tell a clear story: the diagnosis and EHCP process is hard to navigate and too slow. It is easy to see such cases as just another piece of complex casework, but they are much more than that. There is clearly a systemic problem in Hertfordshire, as the recent Ofsted and Care Quality Commission report found. Every case is about the future of a child who deserves an education, just as much as anyone else, and all children are impacted by a failure to provide SEND support to those who need it. I hope these remarks have underlined the importance of fixing the fundamental flaws in SEND services to secure a dignified future for all affected. We must do better.

I am hopeful that Hertfordshire county council can turn things around. I ask the Minister to consider a fairer funding settlement for our county, so as to help deliver the support our young people need.

15:21

[The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you as Chair, Dr Huq. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern) on securing this debate on an incredibly important subject. His excellent speech set out in great detail the challenges that far too many face in his local area. He is a champion for children and families in his constituency, and he shares this Government’s vision of breaking down the barriers to opportunity and ensuring all children receive the best start in life and the right support, so that they succeed in their education and lead happy, healthy and productive lives. I thank him for his kind words in opening. I assure him that improving the special educational needs and disabilities system across this country is a priority for this Government, and that includes improving services for children and young people with SEND in Central Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire.

More than 1.6 million children and young people in England have special educational needs. We know that for far too long, as hon. Members on both sides of the House have set out, they have been let down by a system that is not working. The former Secretary of State for Education said that the system was “lose, lose, lose”, and she was right: far too many families have been failed. Despite high needs funding for children and young people with complex special educational needs and disabilities rising to higher and higher levels, confidence in the SEND system is low, tribunal rates are increasing and there are increasingly long waits for support. Far too many children with special educational needs fall behind their peers, and they do not reach the fundamental expected level in reading, writing and maths. Just one in four pupils achieved the expected standard at the end of primary school. Families struggle to get their child the support they need and, more importantly, deserve. That really must change.

Parents have felt frustrated for years, and there have been constant delays to the reform programme; we see time and again that there is a lack of trust in the system. This Government want to be honest with families. We are committed to improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools, and ensuring that special schools can cater to those with the most complex needs. Fundamentally, we want to restore parents’ trust that their child will get the support they need to flourish. Effective early identification and intervention can reduce the impact that a special educational need or disability may have in the long term. That is why, in July, the Government announced that the funded support for the 11,100 schools registered for the Nuffield early language intervention programme will continue for the year 2024-25. We know that extra support with speech and language is so important to help young people find their voice.

But there are no quick fixes for these deep-rooted issues. After 14 years, I have barely seen a system as broken. It is in desperate need of reform, so it is important that we fix it. I welcome the comments from the hon. Members for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson) and for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking), who recognise that this is an inherited challenge; so many of us in this House want to see it addressed.

Let me be clear: we have started work already. Fixing our SEND system is a priority for the Department, but I have to be clear that it will take time and Government cannot do it alone. We will work with our essential and valued partners in the sector to ensure that our approach is fully planned and delivered. We will work together with parents, schools, councils and expert staff who, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin rightly said, go above and beyond to support our children.

We are acting as quickly as we can to respond to the cost pressures in the SEND system because they are causing real financial problems in some local authorities, including in Hertfordshire and Central Bedfordshire. Before the parliamentary recess we announced a new core schools budget grant, which will provide special and alternative provision schools with over £140 million of extra funding in the 2024-25 financial year to help with the extra costs of the teachers’ pay award and the outcome of the negotiations for support staff. That is in addition to the high needs funding allocations for children and young people with complex special educational needs and disabilities.

Department for Education budgets have not yet been set for 2025-26. How much high needs funding is distributed to local authority schools and colleges next year will depend on the next stage of the Government spending review, due to be announced at the end of October. We are in listening mode to the challenges that are being set out today. That means that next year’s allocations of high needs funding have not been published to the normal timescales, but we are working across Government to announce next year’s allocations for Hertfordshire, Central Bedfordshire and other local authorities as soon as we possibly can.

We are acutely aware of the financial pressures that local authorities are facing, not just from supporting young people with complex needs, but from what we have inherited as a whole with the economic climate and the challenges around that. Resolving these problems will not be quick or easy, and it is important that we take the time to develop long-term solutions to ensure that we take a long-term approach to tackling these issues. I welcome the opportunity to hear Members’ thoughts on how we can do that together as we go forward. We need to ensure that we get better outcomes from our investment for young people. It is important that we have a fair education funding system that directs funding to where it is needed and can make the most impact. One aspect of that is the national funding formula and the way in which the high needs funding allocated to local authorities is used. We need to take time, if there are any changes to that formula, to ensure that we consider the impact and get it right.

As we know, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission jointly inspect local area SEND provision. Those inspections enable the Department to intervene in areas of significant concern, and work with local authorities and professional advisers to address weaknesses. I am concerned that the SEND inspections in Central Bedfordshire in November 2019 and in Hertfordshire in July ’23 found significant concerns about the experiences and outcomes of children with special educational needs and disabilities. Ofsted and the CQC revisited Central Bedfordshire in July ’22, and found that three of the six initial areas of weakness had improved. Central Bedfordshire produced an accelerated progress plan to address the remaining areas of weakness, and the Department continues to monitor those areas. The issues raised in the inspection reports are serious. The Government need to be confident that the local area in Central Bedfordshire and the local area partnership in Hertfordshire are taking the right actions to secure rapid and sustainable improvement.

We work alongside NHS England advisers, we meet every six months with local leaders and representatives from schools and colleges, and we have a parent carer forum to review and challenge progress on the accelerated progress plan. In Hertfordshire, the local area appointed Dame Christine Lenehan to chair an independent board to bring about rapid improvement. DFE officials, an NHS England adviser and a SEND adviser meet monthly with local leaders and Dame Christine to scrutinise and challenge the improvement plan. It is so important that that work is undertaken.

I am conscious of time. I want to do justice to the excellent speech given by my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin, but I fear I will not have time to address all the concerns that he raised; he went into quite some detail. I am keen to write to him with more details of the ongoing work in order to reassure him that many of the issues he raised are being tackled, and that the Department for Education is working to ensure that the improvement programmes are delivered. I thank him again for bringing this matter forward. We are all passionate about the SEND outcomes in his local area and right across the country. We recognise that the system needs to improve, we recognise the hardship that many families are facing, and we are determined that that will change. Like my hon. Friend, I thank everyone working in the SEND system to deliver better outcomes for all our children across the country.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

Security in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Wednesday 4th September 2024 Westminster Hall

16:30

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered security in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Huq, and I am pleased to introduce this debate on the issue of security, in its widest sense, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I am very grateful to many groups and people who have sent me information and advice ahead of it. I am delighted to see the Minister in her place; I congratulate her on her appointment and look forward to her reply. I am not totally aware of how many colleagues wish to speak, but I will try to ensure that my speech is sufficiently short so that everyone is able to get in.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

I think we have a fair amount of time. Two Back Benchers wish to speak and then there are the Front Benchers.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Okay.

First of all, the DRC is almost the largest country in Africa and it certainly has the largest amount of unexploited mineral resources. The sale of mineral wealth could have made it an incredibly wealthy place by now, but it is not. It is a desperately poor and divided country. It has been my pleasure to visit the DRC on two occasions: once as an election observer in 2006 and another time on a human rights delegation to Goma and elsewhere in the east of the country, where I met many women victims of rape, which was being used as a weapon of war.

The history of the Congo is long, brutal, sad and complicated. It was not taken as a European colony until the mid-nineteenth century, when Belgium—or rather King Leopold—took over in 1885 as a result of the Congress of Berlin, which divided up Africa in the interests of European powers. The Congolese people were not represented in any way there; they were merely chattels to be fought over by the rival European powers. For the next 20 years, Leopold ran the country as his own personal fiefdom in the most brutal manner possible, and there were the most appalling abuses of human rights, with enforced rubber collectors and enforced miners, as well as the continuation of the slave trade, which had gone on for certainly the previous two centuries.

The atrocities were eventually recognised globally, partly through the work of Sir Roger Casement, a British diplomat who was later executed for his part in the Easter Rising in Ireland, and of E. D. Morel, a shipping clerk in Liverpool who observed what was going on through his company Elder Dempster. The latter eventually became a Labour MP and a Minister in the Labour Government of 1922. Before that, the global objections to Leopold’s excesses were such that the Belgian Parliament effectively nationalised the Congo and took it for itself, and it was then run as a Belgian colony until its independence in 1960. During that time, Belgian mining companies made an enormous amount of money out of the Congo and did not invest very much in its infrastructure other than in railways to take the minerals to the sea and in shipping lines to take other minerals, timber and other products down the rivers. It was very much an exploitative and extractive economy.

On independence in 1960, Patrice Lumumba became the Prime Minister and made a very strong declaration of independence, including at the United Nations, but he was assassinated a few months later. The country then deteriorated into a degree of war, with the involvement of both big powers—the Soviet Union and the United States; it almost became a cold war by proxy. The background is pretty bad all around. There is not time to go into all of the history of the Congo, but I want to set the scene, with that as the background to all of the other Governments since 1961—Mobutu and others: the huge corruption that went with those and, all the time, the continuing poverty of many of the Congolese people.

The country now faces devastating levels of insecurity. Since 1996, some 6 million people have been killed in conflicts in the Congo. Just think about that figure again: 6 million have died since 1996. That is barely mentioned; we would have to dig hard to find any reference to the Congo in most of the world’s media.

Issues of illegal mining and mass displacement continue, with more than 7 million people being displaced in the eastern region alone. There are also endemic diseases such as mpox, malaria, tuberculosis and cholera, and the limited hospitals and health services are overwhelmed. There is food insecurity, malnutrition, gender-based violence, and a lack of access to clean water and necessities. There are very large numbers of refugees, either internally displaced or in Angola or other neighbouring countries.

We are looking at a very serious situation. There are more than 100 armed groups fighting for control of natural resources in the eastern region, most notably the M23 movement—Mouvement du 23 mars—which is financially backed by and has received training from Rwanda and other Governments. More than a third of the children of the Congo have no school to go to.

That is the background, which I wanted to summarise before I go into more detail. I will take a quote from Adam Hochschild’s brilliant book, “King Leopold’s Ghost”:

“On the whole continent, perhaps no nation has had a harder time than the Congo in emerging from the shadow of its past.”

He wrote that some time ago, but it still applies today. We have issues to deal with, with the conflict that got worse and was heightened during the Rwanda genocide of 1994.

Basically, the DRC is both blessed and cursed with an abundance of natural resources. That includes cobalt, coltan, diamonds, copper, tin and gold, as well as the other, more obvious natural resource of vast amount of timber from one of the world’s largest and most pristine rainforests. I once took a flight from Goma to Kinshasa, and we were flying seemingly for hours just over forest. It is incredibly beautiful—pristine and beautiful—but then we look underneath it and we see the levels of poverty and malnutrition. I think the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin), has probably also taken the same journey and had the same experiences.

The minerals taken from the Congo are the main factor in the present conflict. Congo has 70% of the world’s cobalt reserves. Cobalt is essential to almost every lithium-ion rechargeable battery, such as those used in phones and laptops, as well as in innovations such as solar power, which we see as necessary to deal with climate change. Therefore, our mobile phones and so much else are actually run with minerals that come from the Congo. In fact, much of the western economy simply could not work without the minerals that the Congo is forced to export. The armed rebel groups that have terrorised much of the country are actually usually involved in the mineral trade in some way or another. We have to face up to these issues.

Only two days ago, for example, the Congolese Government buried 200 internally displaced people who had died in various camps around Goma in North Kivu. They died in different circumstances, usually from hunger and diseases, but sometimes from violence. There has been heavy fighting between the Congolese army and the armed groups and the World Health Organisation has now declared mpox an epidemic in Africa.

A brief ceasefire in the summer was extended until August. There are, however, allegations of violations, and the situation in North Kivu remains very volatile indeed. The continuation of the ceasefire agreement signed in Luanda under Angola’s auspices, between the DRC and Rwanda, is significant. I hope the Minister will be able to shed some light on the possibility of that ceasefire being made permanent and of the establishment of an accountable force that could control what is at present a dangerous situation.

The resolution also authorised the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to continue operating in the eastern DRC, where it has been for quite a long time. Although the UN missions in the Congo have a rather chequered history, and are not universally popular there, most people recognise that without a UN mission life would be even worse than it is at present. This is the country that has suffered the worst sexual violence in war of almost any country in the world—a terrible thing to have to say. The number of victims of sexual violence is absolutely huge.

I have never forgotten arriving in Goma on a human rights visit with a colleague from Parliament. We arrived in the evening; it was more or less dark when we got there. We went to a refugee centre that was entirely populated by women who were victims of rape. They said, “Thank you for coming. It is great you are here. You are welcome. Thank you for telling the world about the plight we are in. Can you now give a speech to us?” What on earth can a western European man say to a meeting of 500 or 1,000 women, all of whom were victims of rape and many of whom had been made pregnant because of the rape they had suffered? What can we say to them other than that we want to give them all the support and comfort possible and try to understand the horror of their situation? Rape is being used as a weapon of war.

The health concerns are serious and getting worse. As Ebola, mpox, covid and others have shown, health concerns are impossible to isolate. If one part of the world suffers from a serious contagious disease, every part of the world is at risk because of the levels of transport and communication we now have. It is in everybody’s interest to provide healthcare and health support to the people of the Congo to get through the epidemics that they are facing. An act of charity it may be; an act of necessity it certainly is.

I turn to the future. Education in the Congo for most children is non-existent. For those who can get to schools, the schools are very limited. For many years the teachers have been paid sometimes, but sometimes not. Most of the education is done via the Church, but many children are simply not receiving any education at all. Again, that is in a country with vast mineral resources through which vast profits are being made all around the world. Those children are not getting an education, and too many become involved in the next thing I will talk about: illegal mining and the export of its products.

Conveniently, the products of the illicit and illegal mining in the Congo miraculously appear in another country, such as Rwanda or somewhere else. Those products are bought by global mining corporations, such as Glencore and others, and then appear on the world market, ending up in our mobile phones and batteries. Children as young as five are often forced to work in brutal conditions. In his very good book, “Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives”, Siddharth Kara writes:

“As of 2022, there is no such thing as a clean supply chain of cobalt from the Congo. All cobalt sourced from the DRC is tainted by various degrees of abuse, including slavery, child labour, forced labour, debt bondage, human trafficking, hazardous and toxic working conditions, pathetic wages, injury and death, and incalculable environmental harm.”

I advise anyone interested in the Congo to read the two books I have mentioned: Hochschild’s book “King Leopold’s Ghost” and Kara’s book on cobalt.

Al Jazeera recently published an article, “Blood and minerals: Who profits from conflict in DRC?” Its writers managed to speak to miners, a trafficker, an undertaker and a prostitute to understand the way of life in the mineral region. I will read from it. A 16-year-old miner called Inocence walked an hour to the largest coltan mine post in the country. As he was guiding the journalists to the mine post, they encountered several men carrying the body of a miner on a makeshift stretcher. Inocence told journalists,

“Sometimes the mountain caves in. The miners are buried for ever and people forget about them.”

The trafficker later explained that many miners work for 14 hours a day and get paid only about $1. The trafficker collects his merchandise from the miners by the river and goes on to sell the goods, earning around $2,000 a month. Traffickers who buy already screened minerals at the foot of the mine end up multiplying its value when they leave it at the border with Rwanda and Uganda. By the time the coltan arrives in the manufacturing districts of Shanghai, Ciudad Juárez in Mexico or other places around the world, the market price is between $470 and $540 per kilo. So we can see the multiplier effect: a child gets almost nothing to mine those vital products, which end up on the world market where they sell for enormous amounts of money.

Mining companies such as Glencore, which is based in Switzerland, have exploited the conflict for their own benefit. It was recently found guilty under Swiss law of “inadequate organisation” that led to corrupt mining deals, which included the bribing of officials. Public Eye filed a criminal complaint with the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland following the publication of the Paradise papers, which shed new light on the purchase of cobalt and copper mines in the DRC.

Glencore commissioned the services of a businessman, Dan Gertler, who is on the US sanctions list, to secure favourable mining deals. He brought about a staggering price reduction on behalf of Glencore in 2008 during negotiations with Kabila’s Government about the Katanga Mining company, and in 2011 acquired shares in the Mutanda and Kansuki mines from the Congolese state mining company at far below their market value. Four years of investigation by the OAG found that around $26 million had been paid from Swiss bank accounts to a close associate of the then President of the DRC. Glencore ultimately benefited financially from the deals, as the OAG’s judgment states.

Glencore had been ordered to pay $150 million, which is nothing compared with the loss that the Congolese people have suffered. There needs to be much sterner action taken by all Governments globally concerning this horrifying supply chain of vital minerals, which are mined at the expense of the living conditions and poverty of many people in the Congo, and could provide so much in the way of education and so much more for other people in the Congo.

The purpose of my debate today is to try to draw attention to the history of the Congo and the plight that many people are suffering at present, and to try to hear what the new UK Government’s view is on this and how we can take matters forward. The UN is involved, endorsing Security Council resolution 2717 in 2023, and experts are concerned that if MONUSCO withdraws, key components of early warning systems of human rights violations will no longer be operational, significantly limiting human rights monitoring, reporting and investigation. The UN has asked the Congolese Government to ensure the consolidation of the handover of security responsibilities in South Kivu. I hope those assurances will be forthcoming.

Lack of logistical and military support for troops and groups to defeat the M23 is hampering efforts. We have huge investment in groups in order to make other people very, very wealthy indeed. The role of the Rwandan Government, in facilitating M23 activities, has also been called into question. What action is going to be taken?

I will conclude with one point and a couple of questions. The UK ambassador to the Congo, James Kariuki, said in a statement to the UN Security Council only a few months ago in April,

“We also emphasise our commitment to a gradual, responsible and sustainable withdrawal. We call on the DRC government, through close coordination with MONUSCO, to assume its protection responsibilities for the civilian population in line with the joint disengagement plan.”

Can the Government elaborate on how they will emphasise this commitment to a sustainable withdrawal? While we have condemned the continued advance of UN-sanctioned M23 forces, external actors must withdraw as well, because they are part of the problem.

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

The right hon. Gentleman has mentioned the destructive effects and consequences of commercial organisations such as Glencore, and I think that can be traced through other commercial interests in France, Romania, Bulgaria and elsewhere. Does he acknowledge the disruptive implications of other external military forces such as the Wagner Group, which I recently encountered in north Sudan and which is prevalent in the Congo? It was once a proxy organisation of the Russian state but is of course now much more closely involved.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

It is to the bedevilment of the Congo that so many proxy groups turn up there to benefit from mineral exploitation, and it is the people of the Congo who suffer. Wherever they come from, they are wrong, they should not be there and they should go. I am absolutely clear about that.

I would like to ask some questions of the Government. What relationship do they have with the Rwandan Government, and what pressure are they putting on them? Are they able to increase humanitarian aid to the DRC, particularly in relation to education of both girls and boys? I know that priority was given to girls’ education by the Department for International Development, which is now part of the Foreign Office. I supported that, but I also made the point that if we want the next generation of boys to grow up and not commit the appalling sexual violence of their parents’ generation and previous male generations, they need education as well. It is not just girls who need to be educated but boys too. What support are we able to give to MONUSCO and the important work it does there?

I would like to finish by saying,

“The legacy of injustice can only be erased through the pursuit of truth and reconciliation.”

That is another quote from Adam Hochschild. Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has said:

“The insecurity is being fuelled by a seemingly impassable mountain of challenges: from large-scale corruption, to the unbridled race between multiple parties to take control and exploit the country’s wealth of natural resources, to ongoing violent land disputes.”

I will finish at this point, because I think I have taken up too much time, but I hope I managed to set out my concerns about the DRC.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

It is not a question of time; the right hon. Gentleman was completely within his rights, but we do have at least one vote in the House—we think two.

16:53

Sitting suspended for Divisions in the House.

17:25

On resuming—

[Kate Osamor (Edmonton and Winchmore Hill) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq, and I thank the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for securing this important debate.

Today, I stand to discuss a crisis that has persisted for decades—a crisis that has devastated lives, including the lives of many of my constituents, destroyed communities, and destabilised an entire region. I am speaking, of course, about the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The DRC is a nation of immense potential, endowed with vast natural resources, including gold, diamond, tin, tantalum and cobalt, that are essential to the global economy. However, instead of being a blessing, these resources have fuelled conflict. Armed groups, both domestic and foreign, have fought to control these resources, using the profits from illegal mining and trade to finance their operations and perpetuate violence.

The DRC has been described as a paradox—a country so rich in resources, yet so poor in terms of development and human security. For over two decades, the people of the DRC have faced unspeakable horrors, from the wars of the late 1990s and the early 2000s, which drew in multiple neighbouring countries and claimed millions of lives, to the ongoing conflicts that plague the eastern regions of North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri.

The Congolese state has often been unable or unwilling to protect its citizens, maintain security or provide basic services, leaving communities vulnerable to violence and denying its people peace, stability and prosperity. We must confront the humanitarian consequences of this conflict. The human cost is staggering. Since the late 1990s, over 6 million people have died from conflict-related causes. Millions more have been displaced from their homes, with over 7.3 million people currently internally displaced. The violence has led to one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world today.

The conflict has also been marked by horrific human rights abuses. Women and children have borne the brunt of this violence, with systematic sexual violence used as a weapon of war. Entire communities have been traumatised, and the psychological scars will take generations to heal. The violence has disrupted access to education, healthcare and other basic services, deepening poverty and perpetuating cycles of suffering.

The international community must play a pivotal role in addressing the conflict in the DRC. MONUSCO has been present in the country for over two decades, working to protect civilians and support peace efforts. However, the challenges are immense and peace remains elusive. We must rethink our approach to peacebuilding in the DRC, because any solution to the conflict there must be inclusive and address the root causes of violence. That means bringing all stakeholders to the table—national and local leaders, civil society, women’s groups, youth and marginalised communities. Peace cannot be achieved through top-down agreements alone; it must be built from the ground up.

As I draw my remarks to a close, I would like to ask the Minister to address the following four points when she winds up. What are the UK Government doing to address the economic drivers of conflict and the illegal exploitation of natural resources, which is a major cause of the conflict? How are the UK Government strengthening state institutions and governance in the DRC? Peace in the DRC requires a strong and accountable Government that can provide security, deliver services and uphold the rule of law. What talks have the UK Government undertaken to enhance regional co-operation and stability? The conflict in the DRC is deeply intertwined with regional dynamics. Lastly, what are the UK Government doing to protect human rights and ensure accountability? Impunity is a major obstacle to peace. We must support efforts to hold to account the perpetrators of violence, whether they are members of armed groups, Government forces or foreign actors.

In conclusion, the conflict in the DRC is one of the most challenging crises of our time, but it is not a hopeless one. The Congolese people have shown remarkable resilience in the face of adversity. They desire peace, stability and a chance to build a better future for themselves and their children. It is our collective responsibility—Congolese leaders, regional partners and the international community—to stand with the people of the DRC in their quest for peace.

Let us be bold, united in our purpose and unwavering in our commitment to ending the conflict in the DRC. Together, we can help the DRC move from a cycle of violence to a cycle of peace, development and prosperity.

17:29

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship for the third time this afternoon, Dr Huq, and a real pleasure to be here. I genuinely commend the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for leading today’s debate. His insight, knowledge, direction and contribution in the Chamber today have been exceptional, and I say that with all honesty and graciousness. He and I have many things we do not agree on, but on this we are on the same page, and I want to put that on the record. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edmonton and Winchmore Hill (Kate Osamor) and to have heard her contribution. I thank her for that.

It is of great significance that we are discussing the security situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. My goodness, when I listened to the introduction, I realised that not everybody will know about the minerals and how important they are for companies across the world, but they are. When we have more insight into the matter, we see that its significance from a financial and world stability point of view is really quite incredible.

The importance of addressing this crisis cannot be ignored from a humanitarian and a regional stability standpoint, so it is good to be here to discuss what more we can do to offer support. My interest will always be more in the human rights issues, as I am particularly interested in that subject matter. As you and others in the Chamber will know, Dr Huq, I am also chair of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief. As a Christian, I will speak up for those with Christian beliefs, those with other beliefs and those with no belief, because I believe that that is the right thing to do, and that drives me in my contributions.

I eagerly anticipate the contribution from the Minister. She is an esteemed colleague who is always insightful and who is respected by many, and I know she shares our concerns about this matter. I also look forward to hearing the contribution from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin, who has had a deep interest in this region for a long time. I know that her contribution will be of equal importance—I say that without disrespect to anybody else—and I look forward to hearing what she has to say.

The humanitarian crisis in the DRC is staggering. More than 7 million people have been displaced within the country and more than 13 million require urgent humanitarian assistance, a figure that includes millions of children at risk of starvation. In the eastern Congo, half a million people have had to flee their homes. The DRC has the highest number of internally displaced people in all of Africa, and we have to remember what that means. I think that 98 million people live in the DRC, so the fact that it has the highest numbers of displaced people gives us an idea of what those numbers are.

Just recently, on 30 August, terrorists shot and killed 57 people in Goma. The right hon. Member for Islington North referred to Goma and some of the things that have happened over the last period of time, and they are very difficult to listen to.

I mentioned the APPG, and research says that 95% of the DRC’s population are Christian, 1.5% are Muslim and 1.8% have no religious affiliation. The churches that are combined to make up that 95% include evangelical Christians, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Greek and independent orthodox churches, other churches.

I give those figures because I find those terrorist attacks and the human rights abuses, such as the catalogue of sexual abuse to which the right hon. Member for Islington North referred, hard to contemplate. To tell the truth, I find them incredibly hard even to think about, and I know that the right hon. Gentleman, in his introduction, was finding them hard to contemplate and understand as well. His illustration of going to that camp—my goodness. If I were to speak with those people, I would have no idea what I could say that would be of any comfort—I would just feel inadequate. I know how he felt, because I would have felt exactly the same.

I also gave those figures because 30% of the human rights abuses—the rapes and sexual abuse, the killings, the looting and the desecration of churches—are carried out on the Christian population. In a population of 98 million, a figure of 30% gives us an idea of how many Christians have been persecuted during the conflict. That tells me this conflict is one of the worst terrorist conflicts that I could ever imagine across all of Africa, and I say that to have it on record.

Given the escalating violence in the region and the growing displacement of civilians, the support of our Government in the United Kingdom and the broader international community is more crucial than ever. The DRC has long been troubled by armed conflicts, yet it also holds tremendous potential due to its rich natural resources and strategic importance. However, those resources have often been a curse rather than a blessing, and I think those were the words used by the right hon. Member for Islington North at the beginning—that stood out in my mind because I put down the same thing. Those resources fuel corruption, violence and exploitation rather than the prosperity that they should. They could take all those people out of poverty and bring them up to a standard of living that is right.

I spoke about the sexual attacks on women and girls. For some of the monsters and vile people who carry those out, it does not matter what the age of the person may be—young, old or anything between. We have to address all these things. The international community, including the UK, must ask: what actions have been taken to alleviate the suffering in the DRC and have there have been any diplomatic efforts to encourage a peaceful transition of power in accordance with the DRC’s constitution? I ask those questions constructively of the Minister, and they are always meant to be constructive. What measures are being implemented to address the widespread human rights abuses, including the extrajudicial killings that I understand have been carried out by state agents?

The DRC is not only a humanitarian disaster but a potential powder keg for the whole region’s stability. Tens of thousands of refugees have already fled to neighbouring countries such as Uganda, Angola, Tanzania and Zambia, raising the risk of conflict spilling over into those regions. The South African Development Community, under South Africa’s leadership, has a vital role to play in bringing about peace and stability in the DRC. There is a role for South Africa in this, and I am keen to hear how we can work with South Africa and others to bring security about—I apologise to the Minister, because I would rather have given her notice of these questions to give her a better chance to respond.

I have many churches in my constituency that are active in the DRC and across Africa. I believe there is a role that they can play with the non-governmental organisations in terms of how they can do things better. Is that something that could be considered? The UK’s involvement in the DRC, whether through diplomatic efforts, humanitarian aid or support for the democratic process, is a matter of not just moral responsibility but strategic importance. A stable DRC could contribute significantly to regional stability and development, and benefit the broader African continent, as well as the global community.

In conclusion, what role can the UK play in supporting the DRC’s transition to a stable and prosperous nation? How can we ensure that humanitarian aid reaches those most in need, and that it supports not only immediate relief but long-term development? There is also the pressing question of how we can support credible elections in the DRC. Those are constructive questions, and addressing them is essential for restoring democracy and preventing further violence. I very much look forward to the Minister’s answer, as well as to the contribution from the shadow Minister.

17:34

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for securing the debate. He came from exactly the right position at the outset: it is about seeing the context from the perspective of the most vulnerable people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We all have our own statistics on the horror of what is going on. I have read that in 2022 more than 38,000 attacks against women and girls were reported in North Kivu province alone, and most of the women and girls were reported to be attacked by armed men and displaced men in camps for IDPs. What has been going on there is tragic.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke about British policy. We should think about UK policy and the difference it can make. In 2018, the Conservative Government said that more than 2 million people had been lifted out of poverty in the DRC since 2005, thanks to UK international development aid. It is good that DFID in particular had a positive effect on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but we should also think about how sometimes our support is conditional. Aid conditionality is not always beneficial to people on the ground.

We also have to think about how we support the neighbouring countries. The sanctions imposed on Rwanda by the UK and US Governments in 2012 were very effective in halting support by the Rwandan Government for the M23 militia group. Since 2021 we have seen the re-emergence of M23, but so far there does not seem to have been quite the same effort to put the brakes on Rwandan support for M23 in the DRC.

I am conscious that we should be thinking not just about international development, for which the Minister is responsible, but about joined-up government. In April this year, the then Government defended their so-called Rwanda plan: a transfer of £380 million to Rwanda for the so-called economic transformation and integration fund. No thought at all seems to have been given to what effect the Rwandan Government were having in the DRC with their alleged sponsorship of M23: if hon. Members want evidence of that, they need only watch the BBC “Question Time” clip in which the then Home Office Minister of State revealed that he was not even aware that Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are different countries. Very plainly, some of the thinking in the Home Office was not joined up with the thinking in the FCDO or the thinking in relation to international development.

Finally, it is very positive to see that the new Government have already been thinking about peace in the DRC. I read that Lord Collins, the new Under-Secretary of State for Africa, went to Angola in August shortly after the signing of a ceasefire agreement between Rwanda and the DRC as part of the Luanda process, so we have seen some positive steps in UK policy and support in recent months.

17:43

[Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) on securing this debate. It is so important that this Parliament shines a light on situations like this one and the situation in Sudan that we debated yesterday. It was an honour to listen to the speeches of the hon. Members for Edmonton and Winchmore Hill (Kate Osamor), for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who spoke with such passion, and for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord), who certainly articulated why this is such an important issue.

As Minister for Africa in Theresa May’s Government, I had the privilege of going to the Democratic Republic of the Congo several times. My first visit was to Kalemie on Lake Tanganyika to see how UK aid was helping children who had fled terrible situations to stay in education. I saw how important it is to keep the focus on making sure that children are educated. In Kananga, I saw that UK aid had helped build a health clinic for newborns. On a later visit, I went through Goma and to Butembo during the Ebola outbreak to see how UK aid was helping with the vaccination of so many people. The city of Goma has had its freshwater system provided by UK aid over the years.

Over many, many decades, we have recognised how important it is that we try to help those fleeing the terrible conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I do not need to repeat that it is very worrying, because we can see how much of the population is facing food shortages as a result and how many millions of people are being displaced by the conflict. It is very disheartening to hear that in recent months the conflict and the displacement have intensified, and it is particularly distressing to hear the further reports of sexual violence.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has had a troubled history, as we heard from the right hon. Member for Islington North. It has suffered terribly. Nevertheless, it is an incredibly important place, not just for the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo but for the whole planet. With its virgin forests, it is one of the great carbon sinks of our planet. We all want to see the important natural resources getting into the supply chains legally, and to see the people who mine them being fairly rewarded for their work.

It is concerning that the withdrawal of MONUSCO at the request of the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo appears to be throwing up unexpected challenges, including potentially exacerbating the terrible humanitarian situation. The work of peacekeeping troops remains very important. Attacks against them and against international non-governmental organisations operating in the region have reached almost triple figures since the start of the year. They are despicable, and I am sure that all colleagues here roundly condemn them.

I hope that the new Government will continue to support British NGOs in their important work. I want to single out the work of Tearfund, which lost two members of its team in July in an attack on a convoy arriving in Butembo from Lubero. Can we take a moment to remember those individuals, who are so brave, and their families and all those who risk their lives delivering all-important aid?

As the withdrawal of MONUSCO continues, I urge the new UK Government to continue encouraging the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to step up their protection responsibilities for civilians against armed rebels and their engagement with the all-important political process in Luanda and elsewhere. The humanitarian truce and ceasefire earlier this summer appear to have somewhat lowered tensions, and any progress is to be applauded, but we are concerned to hear the suggestion that supply routes, including for food, continue to be disrupted. The UN Security Council resolution in August is warmly welcomed: it unanimously agreed to increase co-operation between MONUSCO and the Southern African Development Community mission, which will be tasked with much of the work of security and stabilisation of the country.

I want to touch briefly on the recent mpox outbreak, which is intimately linked to the conflict across the country. I put it on the record that the shadow Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), recently spoke to Dr Tedros, the director general of the World Health Organisation. He emphasised the importance of an international response to the virus so that we can contain it. During the time my party was in Government, we pledged $126 million of funding for a three-year humanitarian project; I would be interested to hear what the new Government are planning to do in that area.

I will end by asking about British International Investment, which is one of the organisations that has been able to make really good investments and create jobs in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I appreciate that things may have changed since 2018, so I would be interested in an update. Again, I urge the new Government in the UK to support the political solutions in Luanda and Nairobi that are really the only long-term solutions to advancing peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

17:50

[The Minister for Development (Anneliese Dodds)]

It is a real pleasure to take part in this important debate with you in the Chair, Dr Huq. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for securing what has been a very important and rich debate. I thank everybody who has taken part in it.

This debate has global significance, and it has direct significance for those living in our country whose family and friends have been impacted by the concerning situation. I know that that is particularly the case for my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton and Winchmore Hill (Kate Osamor) and the right hon. Member for Islington North.

The security situation in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo is dire and deserves our attention. The right hon. Member for Islington North was absolutely right to say that it has received insufficient global attention. It is very rare that one sees coverage of this issue, unfortunately, in the UK media. When one looks at the figures, which many speakers have detailed, that is surprising. More than 7 million people have been displaced, and more than 23 million people are in need. Ultimately, the DRC is facing one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises.

The new Government are determined to ensure that the UK will play its part, and I am going to talk about how we are determined to do that in the remainder of my remarks. Of course, I acknowledge that that is against the backdrop of previous Government activity, as the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin), rightly referred to. Overall, the UK has contributed a £114 million humanitarian programme for the eastern DRC that is delivering life-saving emergency assistance right now to people in need.

In the context of our commitment to building lasting partnerships with African countries, it is critical that we continue our engagement with the issues that we have been talking about in this debate. Some questions were asked about our ODA contribution and the continuation of that, as well as about the role of BII. That has been significant and there are some exciting developments that show the potential that was referred to. I am sure Members will understand that those decisions are kept under review. I very much heard Members’ representations on this, but we have a spending review coming up, as I am sure Members will understand.

On the specific issues that were raised around conflict prevention, I underline that that is one of our top priorities as a new Government. That includes fostering peace and supporting mediation efforts in the DRC and the wider great lakes region. I was grateful to hear about the shadow Minister’s visits to the DRC when she was in her previous role. She is clearly passionate about these issues. The new Government have been determined to engage as much as possible.

I am grateful to the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord), for acknowledging the fact that Lord Collins has been in the DRC. He has also been to Angola, and he is currently in Rwanda. I hope that demonstrates the significance of our commitment. While in Rwanda, Lord Collins met President João Lourenço to discuss Angola’s pivotal role in mediating peace in the DRC. He congratulated the President on his recent successful efforts to negotiate a ceasefire, which have been referred to by other Members. Across the region, Lord Collins has encouraged all parties not only to fulfil their obligations under that ceasefire agreement, but to respect it in spirit, not just in letter, and to continue to seek to find ways to build on that progress to bring lasting peace. He has conveyed that message right across the countries that he has been present in. That is the regional engagement that my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton and Winchmore Hill also asked about.

I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for his kind words. He talked about the need for broader regional engagement, and he is right about a whole range of countries being involved. He mentioned South Africa, but other nations in Africa are deeply concerned about the situation. The instability is having a broader regional impact. There is also the African Union. I know that Lord Collins is keen to ensure that we use those relationships to, as I said, try to bring the lasting peace that is the right of the people of the DRC.

While recent steps have been encouraging, we cannot lose sight of the conflict’s history. As has been mentioned, it has persisted for almost 30 years, but the escalations of violence that we have seen over the last two years have been particularly concerning. The UK Government strongly condemn the actions of all armed groups, including the UN-sanctioned M23 and the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda—the FDLR—and I reiterate the UK’s support for the regionally led Nairobi peace process and the Luanda peace process.

Peacekeeping was also referred to. It is a crucial part of international efforts to promote peace in the eastern DRC, and MONUSCO plays a vital role in protecting civilians. The UK has deployed three military staff officers to support MONUSCO’s planning and performance, and contributed £48 million to its budget in the last financial year under the previous Government. However, MONUSCO is operating in very challenging circumstances. The shadow Minister referred to attacks on peacekeepers and UN property, which she described as despicable. We certainly share that assessment; they are unacceptable. To answer the question about what actions are being taken, the UK is continuing to push for accountability and responsibility for those who have conducted those despicable acts.

We also recognise the importance of regionally-led peacekeeping initiatives. As such, last month, the UK supported the adoption of a UN Security Council resolution that mandated limited targeted support from MONUSCO to the Southern African Development Community mission in the DRC. We will continue to work closely with MONUSCO and UN Security Council member states to alleviate the conflict and its appalling humanitarian consequences. On the issue of withdrawal, we will continue to work closely with the DRC Government towards a condition-based withdrawal that ensures a smooth transition and, above all, the protection of civilians.

I want to be absolutely clear: ultimately, it is a political response, not a military one, that will deliver the peace that is so desperately needed. As I said, Lord Collins has been urging all sides to engage particularly with the Luanda process and deliver on the commitments made already. The impacts of the conflict on civilians are widespread and devastating. The shadow Minister talked about the impact on humanitarian workers, which indeed has been dreadful, including some particularly concerning recent instances. Our solidarity and sympathy go to the families of those affected. And, of course, conditions in the east increase the risk of sexual violence, malnutrition and disease.

The DRC has been hit by multiple life-threatening outbreaks in recent years. Ebola was mentioned, but there have also been outbreaks of cholera and measles. It is now also grappling with deeply concerning outbreaks of mpox across the country—particularly in the east, where the new strain emerged, and where displaced people, particularly children, as well as women and men, are living in appalling conditions. It is vital that the international community works together in this context to control the spread of the virus and save lives. That is why, while he was in the DRC, Lord Collins announced more than £3 million in funding to UNICEF to tackle the ongoing mpox and cholera outbreaks. I also assure hon. Members that the new Government have met with Dr Tedros—I have met him personally as the Minister for Development, as has the Foreign Secretary, and Lord Collins will be meeting him soon—including to talk about these issues.

The issue of those living in IDP camps was also mentioned. They have been subject to direct consequences of the conflict. The hon. Member for Honiton and Sidmouth rightly referred to the prevalence of sexual violence, which is very concerning for those in IDP camps. Disturbingly, we have also seen the bombing of IDP camps in May this year, which I condemn in the strongest terms. The UK has repeatedly raised the inviolability of camps in multilateral fora, and has consistently called for all parties to respect international humanitarian law, including by positioning heavy artillery away from camps.

I pay tribute to the invaluable work of humanitarian workers in this context, and I will briefly touch on their important role in delivering the food security that is so desperately needed, which was rightly referred to by the hon. Member for Strangford in his powerful and compassionate speech. The UK is signing a new agreement with the World Food Programme, committing a further £7 million to tackle food insecurity in the DRC, because we are aware of that need.

The subject of women and girls was rightly referred to many times. The DRC is a priority country because women and girls there face some of the highest rates of sexual violence in the world. The right hon. Member for Islington North stated that he met some of the survivors; the vivid picture he painted is one that others referred to and that I will remember. As an important global south partner on this agenda, the UK and the DRC have collaborated on action to tackle conflict-related sexual violence, including as members of the International Alliance on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict, and partners under the platform for action promoting rights and wellbeing of children born of conflict-related sexual violence. It is particularly difficult for those children who have been born, for example, out of conflict-related rape.

We are determined to boost the resilience of civil society partners, as was raised by many Members. That includes ensuring that we are providing support to NGOs that are supporting survivors of sexual violence, particularly TRIAL International.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Order. The Clerk is telling me we need to pull the plug.

[Anneliese Dodds]

I will write to Members about the other issues that they raised. I am sorry that we ran out of time; the Division disturbed this debate. I am grateful to everyone for their participation.

18:01

Motion lapsed, and sitting adjourned without Question put (Standing Order No. 10(14)).