Grand Committee
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I am not expecting one, but if there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, the Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes.
Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2024
(2 months ago)
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Lord Hanson of Flint
That the Grand Committee do consider the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2024.
Relevant document: 3rd Report from Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)
My Lords, this order was laid before Parliament on 2 September. I thank the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which I shall, for the purposes of brevity, call the ACMD from here on in, for its detailed and thorough advice, which has informed this draft order.
The purpose of this draft order is to amend Schedule 2 to the Misuse of Drugs Act, known as the MDA. The draft order will control six substances, as well as introduce a generic definition for nitazenes, as class A drugs and control 16 substances as class C drugs. The draft order will also make an amendment to an existing class B drug to give further clarity by adding an additional common name and its International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry name to its entry.
I turn to 2-methyl-AP-237 and closely related substances. New synthetic opioids remain a current international and domestic public health threat. The ACMD has reported that, as with traditional opioids such as heroin, these can lead to dose-dependent adverse effects, including overdose risks, as well as the high potential for addiction and dependence. One of the 22 substances that I mentioned, 2-methyl-AP-237, was added to Schedule 1 to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs 1961 following the 66th session of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs. The UK is a signatory to that—I hope that Members have followed me so far—and we have an obligation to consider its introduction under domestic legislation.
On 27 March, the ACMD issued a report which considered the harms of 2-methyl-AP-237 but also provided advice to Ministers on closely related acyl piperazine opioids. The ACMD also noted the likelihood of further increases in their prevalence, as well as the potential health and social harms associated with specific acyl piperazine opioids. Following the recommendation from the ACMD, this draft order seeks to control four named acyl piperazine opioids and two chemically bridged acyl piperazine derivatives, which include 2-methyl-AP-237, as class A drugs under the MDA.
Under the MDA, there are several named nitazenes—another form of synthetic opioid—that are already listed as class A drugs. However, more needs to be done to reduce the opportunity for criminals to circumvent existing controls by making minor alterations to the chemical structure of these named drugs under control. As such, with this order we are trying to introduce a generic definition for nitazenes that has been recommended by the ACMD. The purpose of this is to future-proof the legislation by covering known and predicted variants likely to present a significant risk to health. The ACMD has already published four updates to address new structurally related compounds under the definition. As such, the draft order is designed to introduce a generic definition for nitazenes as a class A drug under the MDA.
I add for the Grand Committee’s consideration that many known benzodiazepines are used for medicinal purposes in the UK for the treatment of anxiety, insomnia and epilepsy, but more recently there has been an increase in the non-medical use of novel benzodiazepines and related compounds, which have been associated with significant health harms, including an increase in annual numbers of deaths where a benzodiazepine has been implicated.
The ACMD reported on benzodiazepines in 2020 but has since provided further advice on substances that are not controlled under the MDA. In the report dated March 2024—it obviously went to the previous Government—the ACMD recommended 15 benzo- diazepines for control, none of which is licensed as a medicine in the UK. As such, this draft order seeks to control those 15 benzodiazepines and related compounds as class C drugs under the MDA, in line with the ACMD’s advice.
We have seen an increase in the illicit use of xylazine, a non-opioid tranquiliser that has been approved for use in veterinary practice. Xylazine is being used to adulterate illicitly manufactured opioids, such as fentanyl, to produce a mixture known as “tranq” in the USA. In combination with other sedatives, it can dangerously lower a person’s level of consciousness. Again, these are recommendations to me, the ministry and the Home Office, and therefore, via the Home Office, to this House. The ACMD has recommended that the draft order should control xylazine as a class C drug under the MDA.
The order also looks at the entry for methoxphenidine, to add an additional common-use name and its full international standardised name, which will be covered by the order. This does not affect the existing control status of the substance as a class B drug. Instead, it will add clarity on exactly which drug is controlled, given that there are multiple common names.
I turn to the effect of this order. If it is made today, it will make the substances that I have indicated subject to controls under the MDA and associated offences. This will provide enforcement agencies, such as the police, with the appropriate powers to further restrict the supply and general use of the substances that I have mentioned. Unless exempt, these substances are likely also to be subject to the provisions of the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016, on which I fondly remember sitting in Committee in another place for many moons. Once controlled, they will be subject only to the provisions of the MDA and will no longer be covered by the Psychoactive Substances Act.
The MDA contains much higher penalties for the supply of these drugs and provides for a simple possession offence. Those who supply or produce class A drugs could face up to life imprisonment or an unlimited fine, or indeed both. For a class C drug, the penalty could be up to 14 years’ imprisonment or an unlimited fine, or both. Those found in unlawful possession face up to seven years in prison for a class A drug and up to two years in prison for a class C drug, or an unlimited fine, or indeed both.
Therefore, if this order is made, another statutory instrument will have to be introduced later, via the negative resolution procedure. This will seek to make amendments to the associated legislation, namely the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 and, if necessary, the 2015 misuse of drugs designation order. This negative statutory instrument will seek to schedule and designate these substances to ensure that they are appropriately available for legitimate use, which is important for this House to know and consider.
Although all these substances, and the generic definition of nitazenes, have been identified as having no recognised medicinal use in the United Kingdom, xylazine remains a veterinary medicine. As such, this will be the only substance placed under Part 1 of Schedule 4 to the MDR, to enable its continued legitimate use. All others will be listed as Schedule 1 drugs and will require a Home Office-approved licence for research and other special purposes. It is the Government’s intention that these amendments will come into force on the same date as this affirmative order in due course early next year.
I hope that I have not surrounded noble Lords with too much information or too many acronyms, but it is important to note that this draft order encompasses a number of recommendations, all of which have been made by the ACMD following detailed and independent assessment of the harms associated with these substances. Noble Lords will know that drugs can ruin lives and continue to affect society as a whole. This Government are committed to protecting the public against such dangerous substances and ensuring that appropriate controls are in place. I hope that the Grand Committee will agree with the Home Office’s recommendations and this draft order. I beg to move.
Baroness Doocey (LD)
My Lords, we accept the recommendation of the advisory council and support the tightening of these regulations. I shall add a couple of comments. In relation to synthetic opioids, given the continual emergence of new individual nitazenes, we are in favour of introducing a generic control for these substances. They can be much more potent than heroin, leaving users at a particularly high risk of accidental overdose. Nitazenes have already cost lives in the UK, and although there is little local evidence of the impact of the other six synthetic opioids named in the order, the potential harm they could wreak is abundantly clear, given the high risk posed for addiction and fatality, as outlined by the Minister.
The need to keep up with organised crime’s ability to synthetise new varieties of opioid is crucial at a time when the UK and European markets are especially vulnerable to their influx, given the noted drop in the supply of heroin and fentanyl. The market is shifting as people seek alternatives, so it is highly likely that the substances named will become much more prevalent. The advisory council’s report calls the individual controlling of these six named synthetic opioids “a short-term approach”. Will the Government consult on the introduction of a generic definition for these substances similar to that for nitazenes?
I also have real concern about the UK’s ability to detect these new substances in a timely fashion. I note that screening and chemical testing for them is extremely limited, that many laboratories do not have the resources routinely to check for them and that they are often not incorporated into police drug tests. Given the damage that we have seen synthetic opioid addiction wreak on parts of the USA, it is of the utmost importance that we have all the warnings we can get of what is emerging on the UK market and where.
The importance of this is underlined by another of the substances we are dealing with today, xylazine. The first UK death in which it was implicated came to light only thanks to the vigilance of a toxicologist who detected it at postmortem because they decided to investigate what they thought were strange results. Internationally, heroin and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl are increasingly being cut with xylazine, and we know it is increasingly present in fatal overdoses in the US where in some states it is present in more than one-quarter of all drug deaths, yet because xylazine is not included in standard UK drug testing we do not know how widespread its use is here. It is a not a nice drug. It leaves people like zombies and its continued use rots their skin from the inside. Back in 2022, there was also apparently no way of recording it in the UK drug deaths database. Is this still the case? Will the Minister address my wider concerns around testing?
The Liberal Democrats do not believe that criminalising individuals for drug possession is the answer, and we will continue to call for a better public health response to tackling the drugs crisis. Will the Government make any additional funding available to enable the consistent national implementation of pre-arrest and pre-prosecution police drug diversion schemes?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, the Conservative Party welcomes this order. It controls six substances, introduces a generic definition for nitazenes as class A drugs and controls 16 substances as class C drugs. These Benches believe deeply in the principles of law and order, personal responsibility and the protection of our communities. This amendment embodies those very principles by addressing the evolving nature of the drugs trade and reinforcing our nation’s commitment to keeping our streets safe.
In May, the previous Conservative Government accepted all five recommendations set out in the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs’ March 2024 report. I welcome the new Government’s continuation of our excellent work. These regulations will build on the previous Government’s work to mitigate the real threat of synthetic opioids across the UK by banning 15 new synthetic opioid drugs.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, for their contributions from both Opposition Front Benches.
I will deal initially with the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. She made an important point about consultation and the further discussions around a potential generic definition for the six synthetic opioids and for nitazenes. She will know that the original order has arisen because of the ACMD’s recommendation of 24 March that consultation be undertaken with various stakeholders. Consultation was undertaken with academia, the chemicals industry and the pharmaceutical industry on the introduction of the generic control in order to cover the points before the Committee today.
Following the consultation, the ACMD recommended that generic control be added to class A of the MDA, consistent with the classification of other potent opioids. We will certainly consider the noble Baroness’s suggestion that it would be appropriate to consult key stakeholders in due course. I assure her that that will be kept under review and that we will rely particularly on the ACMD’s future advice on that generic definition; however, as with the 24 March order, consultation will take place.
The noble Baroness rightly recognised the great harm done, particularly in the United States, by some of the drugs mentioned in this order. She also rightly highlighted the need to monitor drug deaths accordingly. Detections of xylazine in drug-related deaths are now recorded on the drugs death database, which is available through the Office for National Statistics. I accept that that is not necessarily the most user-friendly way of getting those figures, but they are available, open to scrutiny and open to comment from the noble Baroness. The HMG Synthetic Opioids Taskforce is currently overseeing and co-ordinating the Government’s strategic response to the threat of synthetic opioids—and threat there is. The task force will look at the prevalence and harms of xylazine and its co-use with synthetic opioids; I hope that that gives the noble Baroness some reassurance on that point.
The noble Baroness raised the important issue of the public health response. This is a drug response. As the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, mentioned, there is a criminal justice aspect to that response in today’s order, but it is important that we focus on the public health response as well. The noble Baroness will know that we are currently in the process of carrying out a financial review for 2025-26 and that the Chancellor is in a pre-Budget period, so it is difficult to discuss these matters generally, but I give her this commitment: it is the Government’s firm belief that we need to ensure that we divert people from illegal drugs through interventions, such as drug treatment services, to help reduce drug misuse, drug-related crimes and reoffending.
Before I came to this House or to the other place, I worked as director of a charity dealing with drug and solvent abuse. Interventions are key to prevention, in both family and individual support, by ensuring that they reduce access to drugs and reduce offending accordingly.
We support the use of drug testing on arrest and out-of-court resolutions to ensure that individuals who commit drug-related offences are given the opportunity to change their behaviour. Again, I hope that while this is a drug identification and criminal justice response, there is a wider agenda underneath to examine the points that have been made. I also put it to the noble Baroness that any substance capable of producing a psychoactive effect is likely to be captured by the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016, which will mean that the supply remains unlawful.
I am grateful also for the general support of the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe. He may well, dare I say it, have seen some of the information that relates to this when in a previous Government he held, with some great support, the post that I hold now. He will know that we will examine a range of mechanisms. The points that he raised today are extremely valid and supported, and we will certainly look at them as we take this matter forward. He particularly raised the generic definition of nitazenes. The ACMD has published four addendums to the generic definition and we, and the ACMD, will continue to monitor the position accordingly. If new compounds emerge, self-evidently we, as a Government with the advice of experts, would want to ensure that those were legislated on to protect the public and support individuals, in the same way that the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, mentioned earlier.
The noble Lord introduced—rather cheekily, if I may say so—the question of whether, if these penalties are approved, as they potentially will be in due course, there will be a potential impact on prison places. I should clarify that that approval will be by the Privy Council. He will know that my right honourable friend Shabana Mahmood, the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, is currently examining mechanisms to ensure that those serving short prison sentences find alternatives to custody in a positive way, while still paying a penalty to society and still being potentially under either house arrest or some other treatment order. That will depend on the reason why they committed offences in the first place.
I reassure the noble Lord that prison will be there for people who deserve it, but that there will be alternative sentences where deemed appropriate by the judiciary. We are trying, with the Ministry of Justice, to expand the potential examination of those issues. The noble Lord will also know that a sentencing review has just been announced under a former Member of Parliament from his own Benches, David Gauke. That will ultimately feed into a justice policy that I hope is fit for the next 10 years, as opposed to the last 14.
I clarify for the Committee that the amendments will come into force on the same date as this affirmative order, early next year. They will go to the Privy Council for approval and, once approved, as I hope they will be by this House as well as the Privy Council, will become law to tackle what are difficult issues, but on which I sense that there is an element of coterminosity between the three speakers in this debate.
Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (Juxtaposed Controls) (Amendment) Order 2024
(2 months ago)
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Lord Hanson of Flint
That the Grand Committee do consider the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (Juxtaposed Controls) (Amendment) Order 2024.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)
It is me and my colleagues again, but perhaps the noble Lord, Lord German, is in a tag team and working to have an input on this order. This order amends the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (Juxtaposed Controls) Order 2003—or, as I will now call it for short, the 2003 order—to support the Government’s preferred model for the French delivery of the EU entry/exit system, or EES, in Dover.
As noble Lords will know, EES is the EU’s new border entry system, which is driven primarily by the desire for greater border security and a more secure Europe. The UK Government are supporting the aims of EES, which complement our shared objectives on migration and secure borders. We have been working at pace and closely with our French and EU partners, as well as with industry and across UK government, to ensure readiness for the changes that will potentially be made shortly. I am grateful to all parties for their constructive approach to this.
For the benefit of noble Lords who wish to have greater clarity, the EES requires that non-EU citizens—excluding EU residents, visa holders and those protected by the withdrawal agreement—who wish to enter the Schengen area provide fingerprints and facial scans at EU borders to EU border officials and answer questions about their stay. This will increase the time taken to complete the Schengen entry process.
As immigration controls in Dover are juxtaposed, non-EU citizens, which includes most British nationals, will provide these details to officers of the French Police aux Frontières—PAF for short. PAF officers conduct Schengen entry checks in the control area at the eastern docks in Dover, which, as noble Lords will know, is a confined space with large volumes of freight and passenger traffic going through Dover, particularly at peak times. If this continues in the current format once EES is implemented, there is likely to be severe congestion or disruption at the Port of Dover; the very nature of fingerprinting and facial recognition take longer than the current system.
Therefore, the Government have engaged constructively with the French and the EU to explore mitigations. France has agreed—with our thanks—that its PAF officers should complete EES checks for coaches in an additional coach control zone at the western docks. This approach will ensure that there is sufficient capacity to conduct EES checks on coaches that is not available at the eastern docks.
To do this—this is the key part of the SI before the Committee today—France has requested two changes to ensure that PAF officers can operate the controls effectively. These are that PAF officers must be able to travel between the control zones with their service weapons, and that PAF officers must be able to escort any detained persons they have arrested following immigration examination in the new control zone at the western docks to the control zone at the eastern docks, where they currently carry out their immigration controls in full.
As your Lordships would expect, government officials have consulted relevant stakeholders, including Kent Police and a number of other agencies, on this requirement of the French authorities. Senior officers are satisfied that the risks are minimal and can be managed through appropriate safeguards and standard operating procedures. The French have agreed to these and the Government have approved France’s requests.
This order, therefore, creates what we are calling a “circulation area”, which will be a section of the A20 public road, approximately 1.5 miles long, linking the French control zone at the western docks with the existing control zone in Dover. It will also enable PAF officers to travel between control zones via the circulation area and will extend certain powers and provisions in the 2003 order, which are applicable only in a control zone and now to the circulation area.
Therefore, PAF officers will be permitted to travel with their service weapons, in the circulation area only, between control zones. Officers will also be able to escort detained persons between control zones. They will not, however, be able to arrest or detain anyone in the circulation area who has not already been detained by them in the exercise of their functions within a control zone.
When PAF officers escort a detained person in the circulation area, certain provisions will apply, just as they do when officers exercise their powers in a control zone. Specifically, PAF officers will be protected against acts or omissions committed against them that constitute offences under an immigration control enactment—for example, assault or obstruction—in the same way that British immigration officers are protected against these. They also cannot be prosecuted for any offence committed when they are exercising their lawful powers under the 2003 order in the circulation area. Additionally, procedures concerning the arrest of a PAF officer for acts performed in a control zone will also apply to PAF officers exercising the power to escort detained persons in the circulation area.
Lord German (LD)
On first sight, this would appear to be straightforward legislation and would obviously merit support. But, on closer reading and on listening to the Minister, there are three areas of interest that I would like to question him about. One of them has come about as a result of his introduction, so we can clarify that in a moment.
My first set of questions surround the issue of juxtaposition in Calais. We as a country are going to introduce our own entry system. I hesitate to ask when it is likely to be brought in but, in a similar manner that the one for the Schengen area has been slightly delayed, I suspect that we may not be very far apart in what the two countries are doing. The first question is: is an equal juxtaposition going to occur in Calais and will that be only at the ferry terminal? The other question is: is there anywhere else in the United Kingdom where there is a juxtaposition? There are clear examples of working at both ends of a ferry terminal. I can tell noble Lords of my personal experience of Ouistreham. The French inspected all the vehicles, including my own, and then, when we got to Portsmouth, the British inspected the same vehicles for the same purpose. There was obviously wasted energy there because one inspection would have done on behalf of both within the secure zones. Is the ferry terminal the only place where there is juxtaposition? If there are others, will there be an equivalent need for this legislation? Perhaps in answering that query, the noble Lord may say when the British are going to have their own scheme and whether they are likely to happen fairly close together in time for their introduction? We will need a similar facility at Calais.
My second concern relates to the circulation area. Having read the legislation and the Explanatory Memorandum closely, it would appear to me that the circulation area is a link between the facilities at both ends, the western docks and the eastern docks. Anybody who has been to Dover will know that the connection between those docks is either a road, an esplanade with beautiful gardens and a walking facility and bicycle path alongside, or a beach.
I presume that the intention, although it is not mentioned in the information, is that the PAF officers will move between the two by vehicle. If that is not the case—the Minister indicated that there would be a map—I hesitate to think that we would have armed French officials walking along the beach together with tourists who would be using the same facility. I therefore presume it must be by vehicle, but if it is not, I cannot understand how that connection could take place without some other form of assistance. That question has to be answered, because if we are calling it a circulation area, something must be done about the road, the bike path, the esplanade or the beach to designate it. Perhaps the Minister might tell Sue, who has a seafood operation on that esplanade, which is well used.
My third set of questions relates to the separation between the eastern and western docks. As I understand it, the Minister said that all coach transport will first call at the western docks, where people will be asked to get off and go through the required inspection checks, then people will get back on the coach and it will proceed along the esplanade to the eastern docks. Part of the problem is that, as those of us who have used this route know, if you come via Canterbury, the entrance to the eastern docks is via a dual carriageway which comes down into them. That means that coaches using that route would have to travel along the seafront to the western docks, be processed, turn around and come back again. Even without the entry system, much traffic builds up along that route along the seafront in Dover to the eastern docks, so there must be traffic implications somewhere in this.
Nowhere in the documentation before us does it mention that this is for coaches only, so presumably this legislation can be used for any passenger in any vehicle travelling to France on the Dover/Calais route. Since the legislation does not exclude cars, minibuses or foot passengers, there is nothing to say that that cannot be achieved. It would make more sense to use it just for coach travel, even though that will have some implications for local roads. However, since it is not mentioned in the legislation, this legislation could be used for foot and car passengers, which would be a nightmare. Whatever route you are taking into Dover, having to travel back and forth across the area would create an incredible build-up of traffic and passengers on that stretch of road.
Once people have been through the initial Schengen checks, they will carry with them some form of statement, agreement or whatever, or they can simply turn up at the eastern docks and say, “I have already got the biometric Schengen agreement”. That means that some people will be allowed entry into the eastern docks on their own and some people, perhaps even two of them sharing a car, will have to zigzag back and forward if one has and one has not. The legislation is not clear about precisely what will happen when people have the Schengen documentation available and what happens if they are in a mixed vehicle when one might have it and one might not.
This all predisposes that the legislation does not talk just about coaches. If it is to be coaches, I suggest that it should be amended to be clear that this does not apply to every passenger going through Dover.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, we welcome this order. I will be brief. I thank the Minister for his detailed explanation of the regulations, which was helpful. Perhaps I can help him by reassuring the noble Lord, Lord German, that, when I was in the Home Office, the rollout of the ETAs to which he referred was very much on track and was highly efficient—I am sure it still is.
My party does not have quite the same forensic interest in the geography of Dover as the noble Lord, Lord German, and it is content that the regulations will deliver what is expected of them. But I do have a couple of brief questions. According to the Explanatory Notes to the regulations, no impact assessment has been undertaken. Is there a particular reason for that, or a perfectly innocent explanation? As the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, is in the Room, I should say that I am asking this mostly because he used to ask me for impact assessments regularly when I was standing in his place.
I appreciate the detailed description of the powers of the PAF officers, but I did not hear the circumstances in which the use of firearms would be permitted. What are the restrictions, if any, on those officers? It may be that I just did not hear that.
Are arrangements in place to allow the employees of other foreign agencies to carry firearms when working in the United Kingdom? More generally, is this a reserved or a devolved matter?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful for noble Lords’ questions, which I will try to answer to help them understand the legislation and its impact—and hopefully to support it.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord German, that this is being undertaken and framed in this way because Dover carried 68,000 coaches in 2023, and 4,000 in the peak month of July. The noble Lord will know that the Schengen changes have been delayed to a date yet to be determined, and we do not yet know what their impact will be when they come in, but, undoubtedly, unless these measures are put in place, there will be longer delays for coach travel.
The noble Lord asked whether that is an issue for vehicles. He asked about cars. I hope I can reassure him by saying that the Port of Dover is looking at significant work, including reclaiming land in the port specifically for EES registration. Therefore, conversations are ongoing on the potential new area being used for car registrations as well as for coaches. The order does not preclude any particular type of vehicle, but the primary purpose at the moment, to ease any pressure in the event of the regulations being introduced by the EU, would be for the 68,000 coaches travelling through the Port of Dover each year.
The noble Lord mentioned the circulation area, which, as I indicated, is a 1.5 mile-long stretch of the A20 linking the French control zone at the western docks with the existing control zone in Dover. I reassure him—I hope this will help—that it will be for use just by vehicles by the French authorities and it is not envisaged or agreed that it will be undertaken by any means other than vehicles.
The noble Lord asked about juxtaposed controls generally. Dover/Calais is a classic example of where we need those controls in place. I hope I can reassure him by saying that we have juxtaposed controls in France, not just at Calais but at Dunkirk for ferry crossings, at Coquelles for the Eurotunnel, and at Paris Gare du Nord and Lille-Europe for the Eurostar. We also have them in Belgium at Brussels-Midi, and in the Netherlands at Amsterdam and Rotterdam, for train services. That is part of the general relationship that we have to have with the European Union in the post-Brexit era. We were never part of Schengen in the first place, so even under a pre-Brexit solution, that would still be a challenge that the Government would have needed to examine. I hope that reassures the noble Lord on those points.
Lord German (LD)
Does the Minister have a date for the introduction of the UK ETA scheme? The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, told us that it was going along admirably.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The noble Lord, Lord German, asks an interesting and pertinent question. The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, indicated that, under his administration, it was moving along swimmingly. Let me tell the noble Lord, Lord German, that it still is. I will leave it at that.
I shall answer a couple of the points mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe. First, he rightly asked—again, my noble friend Lord Coaker has asked this question many times—what the economic impact will be. I can tell the noble Lord—I hope that this also reassures my noble friend—that the estimated cost of this is minimal: around £3,052 over a 10-year appraisal period. It was therefore well short of any threshold that required a full impact assessment; in fact, any impact assessment would have cost more than its results. So that impact assessment has not happened, but I hope the noble Lord understands why that was the case.
The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, also asked why and how PAF officers would potentially need to use their service weapons in the UK if they were carrying out immigration checks only. I need not remind the Committee, I hope, that any individual at any time can be a danger to those checking border paperwork and looking at issues to do with the regulation of this area. We do not know at any particular time who is going to be there and what threat they may pose. It is a requirement for the French authorities that they carry weapons accordingly, but I assure the noble Lord that that will be regulated by French national legislation in accordance with their normal working practices. PAF officers are required to carry service weapons; they do so while carrying out their work at the juxtaposed controls in the UK, but they do so under the same strict regulation that we discussed earlier in the Chamber in relation to firearm control. I hope that that reassures the noble Lord.
With those comments, I again commend this order to the Committee.
Armed Forces Act 2006 (Continuation) Order 2024
(2 months ago)
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Lord Coaker
That the Grand Committee do consider the Armed Forces Act 2006 (Continuation) Order 2024.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)
My Lords, the purpose of this order is to continue in force for another year the legislation that governs the Armed Forces Act 2006. That body of legislation provides the legal framework for our brave service personnel to continue to operate throughout the world wherever they are needed. The act of yearly renewal reflects the constitutional requirement, which stretches back to the Bill of Rights 1689, that His Majesty’s Armed Forces may not be maintained without Parliament’s consent. Further, there is a five-yearly renewal by Act of Parliament, which is the primary purpose of the Armed Forces Acts. The latest Armed Forces Act was in 2021 and the next is required by the end of 2026.
However, between these Acts there must be an annual renewal by Order in Council. This is the purpose of today’s draft order, which is necessary for the Armed Forces Act 2006, as amended by the Armed Forces Act 2021, to remain in force until the end of 2025. If the Order in Council is not made before the close of 14 December 2024, the 2006 Act will automatically expire, effectively ending the powers and provisions to maintain the Armed Forces as disciplined bodies.
As a reminder to noble Lords—and as many noble and gallant Members of your Lordships’ House will already know—those serving in His Majesty’s Armed Forces do not have contracts of employment and, therefore, have no duties as employees. Instead, service- persons have an obligation as members of the Armed Forces to obey lawful orders as set out in the 2006 Act, which provides nearly all the provisions for the existence of a system for the Armed Forces of command, discipline and justice.
If the Act were not renewed, commanding officers and the court martial would no longer have the power to punish or discipline servicepersons for infractions of the rules, irrespective of how minor or serious the matter might be. Discipline is fundamental to the operational effectiveness and efficiency of any professional military force. It ensures team cohesiveness and effectiveness, efficiency in executing orders and confidence in the chain of command, while encouraging and reinforcing self-discipline. Such qualities have proved vital in underpinning the professionalism and capabilities of our Armed Forces.
I acknowledge that, as of today, we inhabit a world that is more dangerous than at any time since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, witnessing as it has the return of great power politics. However, that is not to say that we are less safe. After all, we have seen the growth and strengthening of the Euro-Atlantic alliance, with new and powerful NATO members welcomed into its ranks, while we continue to support, equip and train Ukraine in its fight against Russia, which has witnessed Putin fail in every one of his strategic aims in that country.
In the Middle East, we continue to work closely with allies and partners on aid deliveries to Gaza, supporting the Lebanese army, training the Iraqi security forces and ensuring freedom of navigation. In the Indo-Pacific, we have AUKUS and GCAP working alongside our allies to ensure stability in that region and provide a strong deterrence to would-be aggressors.
No Government can do this without the men and women of our Armed Forces and the civilian staff who support them. We also cannot do it without Armed Forces’ families, who sacrifice so much and move so often to support our national security. We should also remember our veterans. As a Government, we have committed to strengthen the nation’s contract with those who serve, their families and, as I said, veterans, including by putting the Armed Forces covenant fully into law and by appointing an Armed Forces commissioner to be a strong, independent champion for serving personnel and their families.
Therefore, we ask that His Majesty’s Armed Forces receive the full support of this Committee with approval of this draft continuation order. This will provide a sound legal basis for our Armed Forces to continue to afford us their indispensable protection. With that, I beg to move.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
My Lords—oh, I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith; I am so eager.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
Yes, there is obviously a certain choreography to this: the smaller opposition Front Bench is allowed to go first.
This time last year—or not quite this time last year, but when we renewed our commitment to the Armed Forces in 2023—we again had a rather small group of Peers speak in the debate. I note this tendency, despite the fact that, in 1688, the Bill of Rights found it so important that Parliament consented to having our Armed Forces that we had to give our consent. Now, we tend to have a very small number of parliamentarians discussing this vital matter and we are tucked away in Grand Committee. One noble Lord referred to this the other day, saying to me, “It’s a cupboard. Nobody takes any notice if we do things in Grand Committee”.
However, we clearly should take notice of the commitment to His Majesty’s Armed Forces that this renewal order gives and which all our Benches wish to support. Each year, we remind ourselves and others of the important role that His Majesty’s Armed Forces play in the security of the realm, which matters to each and every individual. The fact that so few individuals who are not service personnel, in their families or veterans, do not spend very long thinking or talking about His Majesty’s Armed Forces is perhaps a sign of how effective those forces are: we do not have to think daily about our security because the Armed Forces are doing that.
I note that the Explanatory Memorandum quotes the Bill of Rights, saying that
“raising or keeping a standing Army within the Kingdome in time of Peace unlesse it be with Consent of Parlyament is against law”.
Clearly, the United Kingdom is not in a state of war with any other countries but I wonder how we should interpret the idea of being at peace, because there are so many parts of the world where His Majesty’s forces are deployed. When I looked back at the debate we had last year, it turned out to have been 16 months ago. For some reason, the previous Government felt the need to have the 2023 renewal on 15 June 2023. That was in a slightly different context.
We were at that time already supporting Ukraine but the context of the Middle East now, referred to by the Minister in his opening remarks, was somewhat different. It was before the horrific attacks on Israel of 7 October 2023. Since then, the United Kingdom has been involved in the support of Israel, in particular the support of Israel’s Iron Dome. Questions have been raised about our own defence and security, so I will reiterate one of the questions that I raised last year when the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, was responding at the Dispatch Box. I said that His Majesty’s Armed Forces serve the United Kingdom incredibly well, but asked: do we serve our Armed Forces sufficiently well?
I welcome from these Benches the comments the Minister just made about the commitment to enshrine the Armed Forces covenant in law—I hope it will be made applicable to His Majesty’s Government, rather than just to certain councils and other bodies—and to having an Armed Forces commissioner. But does the Minister feel that we are doing sufficient to support our Armed Forces community, and should we be doing more in this time of heightened security concerns? I realise that his default position will probably be to say that we have a strategic defence review in the offing. Nevertheless, some commitment to ensuring that we have adequate resources for our Armed Forces in terms of their equipment and accommodation, but also service numbers, would be very welcome.
Finally, given that this continuation order is very much about service justice and that just last week we received the first report of the service complaints commissioner, do the Government feel that this new role and service justice are working well? In conclusion, we obviously wish to support the continuation of the Armed Forces and this draft Order in Council.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
My Lords, I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for my alacrity in wanting to contribute to this debate and for rudely seeking to barge in front of her.
I remember with pleasure having to move this annual order as a Minister. On the one hand, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, it is entirely process in character, and that perhaps caused some perplexity about what exactly we should be saying. On the other, the effect of the order could not be more important in keeping our Armed Forces legally constituted and, as has been said, compliant with the fundamental provisions of the Bill of Rights 1688.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for that invitation. I shall start with a general welcome for the points that the noble Baronesses made about the professionalism and dedication of our Armed Forces. The cross-party unanimity in support of that will have been heard. The noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, was right to highlight some of the achievements over the past year. No doubt there will be achievements and special events over the next year. I am grateful to her for doing that and I know the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, will be too.
The noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, mentioned HMS “Prince of Wales”. I was on that carrier yesterday and saw for myself the preparations for it to attain full operational capability. HMS “Dauntless” and other ships were around it. F35Bs demonstrated taking off to a cross-section of us who went to visit the ship. Yesterday morning, we flew out by Merlin helicopter from RAF Northolt to the carrier and flew back. It was a hugely impressive demonstration of UK hard power, and we know that when the carrier strike group goes to the Indo-Pacific next year, it will be with various allies. The co-operation with other carrier groups across NATO now and when it goes to the Indo-Pacific with further carrier groups is a credit to our nation. As the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, will know, the building of those two carriers was ordered under Gordon Brown’s Government, but their development and continuation was carried through under the previous Government and will continue under this Government.
I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, that when we ask whether we have done well by our Armed Forces, there are no doubt examples to which we can point of where we could have done better with equipment, the delivery of certain things or decisions that were made but, alongside that, we should do more to set out and praise the sort of things that I saw yesterday, which the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, mentioned in her opening remarks and which the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, will have seen as well.
Yesterday’s demonstration was impressive in front of the ambassador of Iceland, our French allies, the Norwegian ambassador and others. On the carrier, there were multiple nationalities. The ability of that strike group to go to the Indo-Pacific next year will be as a result of our international alliances. That is not a sign of weakness that says that we cannot do it, but a sign that this country can do it and wants to work with international allies to deliver the hard power projection that we want alongside soft power activity.
We should sometimes remember the things that we can do and perhaps highlight those a little more, alongside the challenges that we face. The reminder of this by the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, is not new. It has happened over our history, as mentioned by the commemoration of Operation Market Garden. I, too, went to watch that commemoration in Holland. The gratitude of the Dutch people for what happened there, involving our soldiers, the American soldiers and Polish soldiers, including paratroopers, was properly commemorated. It was a fantastic example of the sacrifice made in the past. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Evans, played a part by visiting many of those events, including the D-Day commemoration a few months ago. It is important to remember that, not to dwell on the past but as a reminder that our freedoms today have been built on the sacrifices of those who came before, including —perhaps I may say, because it is appropriate—my uncle, who was killed on D-Day. I am named after him. He lies in a grave in Ranville war cemetery near Caen. Those points are important.
On funding, the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, will know that the Government have committed to attain 2.5% of GDP spending as soon as possible. I will resist the political point that could be made alongside that. It is a long time since spending has been at 2.5% but, as the new Government, we will achieve that as soon as we can.
However, the overall tenor of her remarks and the support for the order from her and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, were points well made. The noble Baroness mentioned the small number of Peers here for this continuation order. That may be the case but a significant number of Peers are speaking in the debate on the US-UK mutual defence agreement tomorrow. Huge numbers of Peers are speaking on Friday in the Ukraine debate, and there will no doubt be many others for the Question tomorrow afternoon about the decommissioning of nuclear submarines. There may not be many attending this debate but there is knowledge, experience and interest, including that of my noble friend Lady Anderson next to me, who has taken a keen interest as an honorary captain in the Royal Navy. Huge numbers of our colleagues in the House of Lords take an interest and contribute to the debate and our awareness of these things. I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, but that should not be seen as reflective of the interest that your Lordships’ House takes. The only thing I can say about 1688 and now is that we are in different times and we act in a way that is appropriate legislatively.
On the point made by the noble Baroness about not being in a state of war and her asking what this says about this continuation order, someone—it was not me—said that the way the way not to be in a state of war is to prepare for war. There is the issue of deterrence and ensuring that people recognise that there will be a reaction as a result of anybody taking unilateral action. Ukraine is an example of where NATO was supposed to crumble in the face of the Russian assault, whereas in fact it was strengthened, with Sweden and Finland joining the alliance. Far from it being weakened, it was strengthened by what has happened. That is an example of our situation. Our Armed Forces travel all over the world in support of our allies, the defence of freedom, international human rights and the rule of law. All are things that we can be proud of.
We will search for the best way to do those things. We will discuss and debate what they mean and how we can do them. We have a “NATO first” policy; that is the priority for the Government, but it also means that we will take an interest in the Indo-Pacific. As I say, the GCAP is happening; the AUKUS alliance and the carrier strike group going there are really important.
What do we do about the High North, the global South and Africa? I will be going to South America in a couple of weeks. All these sorts of places are of interest to us all and will be debated in due course.
The noble Baroness asked specifically about the service justice system. It is an important issue. If the noble Baroness does not mind, I will read out a few paragraphs because it is important for us all to hear about that. An MoD spokesperson said:
“The experiences set out”
in the various reports looking at the subject of women in the Armed Forces, for example, are truly awful and
“totally unacceptable. No-one should be subjected to these incidents and any form of sexual assault, bullying, harassment, or discrimination will not be tolerated”.
We have done a great deal of work to raise awareness of sexual offending; the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, was a real champion of that when she had responsibility for it. The MoD said:
“All of this has been implemented alongside work to raise awareness of sexual offending, reporting mechanisms and implications to ensure that service personnel know that they will be believed and that we will act upon any allegation of an offence”.
That is not completely right yet, but it is the direction we will take.
A new tri-service investigative capability for all serious offending was launched in December 2022. Improvements in victim and witness care followed in March 2023 with the creation of an independent specialist unit. All of us would welcome an increase in reporting rates if it was indicative that our strategies were working in terms of raising awareness and improving willingness to report. A new statutory process for handling complaints about the service police was launched in June 2023, overseen by the Police Complaints Commissioner; consideration is being given to what further changes and improvements might be made with respect to that. In direct answer to the question, “Are we where we should be?”, I say no. However, is progress being made? I think we can all say that it is; we just want it to be faster.
I think I have answered or commented on the various points that noble Lords have made, but let me finish by saying again that nobody in this Room—whether it be the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, His Majesty’s loyal Opposition’s spokesman or the Government; indeed, whether it be any of us, here or in the other place—does anything but fully support our Armed Forces. There are discussions and debates around that, but we are proud of our Armed Forces. They do an outstanding job, not only in Europe but across the world. We are very proud of them.
Human Medicines (Amendments Relating to Naloxone and Transfers of Functions) Regulations 2024
(2 months ago)
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Baroness Merron
That the Grand Committee do consider the Human Medicines (Amendments Relating to Naloxone and Transfers of Functions) Regulations 2024.
Relevant document: 2nd Report by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Special attention drawn to the instrument.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Merron) (Lab)
My Lords, this draft statutory instrument proposes amendments to the Human Medicines Regulations 2012, which will expand access to naloxone, a life-saving medication that prevents death from opioid overdose. In addition, this draft statutory instrument makes amendments to keep the regulations current by updating references to Public Health England and the Health and Social Care Board, following the dissolution of those bodies.
We know the devastating impact that illicit drugs cause. Drugs destroy lives, tear families apart and make our streets less safe. Drug misuse deaths have doubled in number over the past 10 years, and we know that people who die from drug misuse often do so at a tragically young age, often in their 40s. Almost half of drug misuse deaths in 2022 involved opiates such as heroin. These deaths are avoidable. Dedicated drug treatment services provide the path to recovery and this Government are continuing to ensure that treatment is available and of high quality.
However, we also know that over half of people struggling with opiate addiction are not engaged in treatment. These are incredibly vulnerable people who often have multiple and complex needs; they are at increased risk of accidentally overdosing and dying. Tackling this issue supports the Government’s health mission. It will ensure that people can live longer, happier and healthier lives, and it chimes in with our collective efforts to break down barriers to opportunity and create a fairer society.
Naloxone is a highly effective antidote to opiate overdose. It can already be administered quickly and safely by anyone in an emergency, but current regulations specifically enable only drug and alcohol treatment services to supply it for future use without a prescription. That limits the reach of this life-saving medicine.
The draft instrument that we are debating today proposes two key UK-wide changes to existing regulations: first, to expand the list of services and professionals named in the regulations who can give out naloxone without a prescription. That means that professionals such as registered nurses and probation officers will be able to provide take-home supplies of naloxone where appropriate, should they wish to do so.
Secondly, it proposes to establish national registration services across the whole UK. This will enable other services and professionals who are not able to be named in the legislation but who come into contact with people at risk of overdose, including housing and homelessness services, to register and procure naloxone.
There is a positive background to these changes. The Department of Health and Social Care consulted on them at the beginning of this year and received over 300 responses spanning a range of organisations and professionals from across all four nations of the UK. Of these responses, approximately 95% agreed with the proposals that are set out. This demonstrates the level of interest in this important issue and the breadth of support for the changes we are seeking to achieve.
These changes have also been called for by experts in the sector such as the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs in its review of naloxone in the UK. In addition, Dame Carol Black recommended naloxone provision as an important harm reduction measure in her two-part independent review of drugs.
Allowing more services and professionals to supply naloxone will mean easier access to it for people at risk, which in turn will mean lives saved. With the growing threat posed by synthetic opioids, which are often more potent and more deadly, the importance of this work only continues to increase as time goes on.
I want to provide reassurance that, with these changes, there is no compromise on safety. Naloxone is very safe and effective, even when administered by a layperson with no prior experience. It has an effect only if the person has been taking opioids and it is already widely used across the UK and internationally.
We are taking steps to mitigate against any very limited risks associated with wider access. We will provide updated guidance for services in scope, and we will set out robust requirements for training and safeguarding. I reassure the Committee that the intention of these changes is not to create additional burdens for services, particularly as we are aware that many of those in scope will already be facing pressures. These new powers are enabling, not mandatory. They provide an opportunity for increased provision, based on local need, but they do not make any requirements.
Finally, addiction is not a choice. It is often fuelled by wider issues, such as trauma and housing instability. This is a complex public health issue and must be tackled as such. We must change the narrative on addiction to one that is about the prevention of drug use, the reduction of harm and enabling recovery. The changes we are discussing here will save lives. On this basis, I beg to move.
Lord Scriven (LD)
I thank the Minister for setting out the rationale for this draft statutory instrument so well. I agree that this is a step forward in the ongoing battle against the devastating impacts of opioid overdoses. As she said, opioid overdoses have reached alarming levels, claiming thousands of lives every year. According to the latest statistics, opioid-related deaths have surged alarmingly in most regions. This is not merely a statistic. This is about the loss of lives, families shattered and far too many left to grieve, so it is important to take further action that is effective and wrapped in compassion. The temporary measures taken in Scotland show that the changes outlined in these regulations work and will save lives.
Naloxone, when used in the right place at the right time, is a life-saving medication. This draft statutory instrument will facilitate local supply networks, ensuring a broader distribution system and therefore more effective use of naloxone, empowering, among others, healthcare professionals, the police, prison and probation staff, and people in the youth justice system to facilitate the supply of this life-saving drug.
In response to one of the issues that the noble Baroness raised, a question occurred to me. As this will not be a mandatory provision across the country, how will the Government monitor lives that could be saved but that may not be saved because of a lack of take-up of this in certain towns, cities or regions? It could end up that a life will be saved if one body decides to do this, while a life could be lost in a neighbouring county, city or town if that does not take place.
One of the key provisions in this draft statutory instrument is the move to enable the friends and family of those at risk to administer this drug. Allowing those closest to individuals at risk to carry and administer naloxone creates a lifeline that will, literally, make the difference between life and death.
I listened to what the Minister said about setting up local naloxone providers and supply co-ordinators, and I have read the draft statutory instrument and the explanation—but I am still not clear about what regulatory oversight of these bodies will be in place. Who will be the regulator and what powers will they have to deal with the improvement or, indeed, withdrawal of such a service if it is deemed that the local provider is not carrying out the rules laid down in the draft statutory instrument?
Clearly, the broader implications of these amendments are not merely about the use naloxone but about standing with those who struggle with addiction, and their families. These amendments are an essential evidence-based response to the dramatic increase in opioid use and overdoses. By enabling greater access to naloxone, they will help to save lives.
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for setting out the provisions in the regulations before us so well. This debate touches on a vital aspect of this country’s public health. Opioids are a pernicious threat to our society, a destroyer of lives and a menace to our streets. The ONS reported that 2022 was the deadliest year since records began for drug-related deaths in England and Wales. Of those, opioids accounted for the largest number of mortalities, at 46%. That is 2,261 people dying every year from opioid toxicity. In Scotland, the statistics make for even starker reading. According to the National Records of Scotland, in 2023, opioids were implicated in 80% of all drug deaths.
So we have a problem, but we also have a solution. As noble Lords will be aware, naloxone is a highly effective treatment for opioid intoxication and has been successfully deployed to prevent death from opioid overdose. I am immensely proud that it was a Conservative Government who launched the consultation on proposals to expand access to this life-saving medication, which concluded in March. The regulations laid before your Lordships are the outcome of that process, and I welcome their positive measures.
I will take this opportunity to ensure that the Government have taken all the necessary considerations. As the second report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee pointed out, there is no indication of the costs associated with the instrument. The Department of Health and Social Care told the scrutiny committee that services that wish to widen the availability of naloxone would have to do so out of their own pocket, which, given the financial pressures already faced by such providers, may limit the efficacy of the provisions laid before us.
For these regulations to have the desired effect—that is, of course, to reduce opioid-related deaths—access to naloxone products must also be expanded. What is the point of increasing the number of people who can administer the drug if they are unable to procure enough of the medication? Furthermore, will service providers be able to afford the necessary training for the administration and storage of the drug? Would this not somewhat undermine the efforts of the regulations? In the light of these concerns, can the Minister confirm that funding will not impact the rollout of these provisions?
Although Regulation 8 does make provision for training, clarification is required. Naloxone can be administered by three different routes: intravenously, intramuscularly and by intranasal spray. Obviously, the first two require injection, which is a medical procedure for which specific training is required. The NHS, rightly, sets stringent guidelines on who is permitted to provide such services, so I think noble Lords could benefit from assurances that the IV and IM methods of administration are permitted only by medical professionals with full phlebotomy training.
Further to this point, I highlight that intranasal spray administration is, of course, the most effective method of widening access to the drug. Intranasal applicators can be used by the full range of providers specified in these regulations and can be easily distributed into the community. They therefore allow for a rapid response to an individual experiencing an opioid overdose and, I hope, should have a greater impact in reducing mortality rates. Can the Minister confirm that the Government will pursue greater distribution of the intranasal spray to complement this regulation?
I conclude by saying that we are pleased that His Majesty’s Government have continued the policy initiated by the previous Conservative Government by laying these regulations before us. I look forward to the Minister’s response to the questions I have laid out.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, who I do not believe I have had the opportunity of welcoming formally to his new Front-Bench role. I am delighted to do that today; he is most welcome. I very much look forward to working with him and hope that he enjoys his role. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Evans, as ever, for his contribution.
I am pleased that both noble Lords, on behalf of their Front Benches, have been so positive in welcoming these regulations. I certainly agree with the closing words of the noble Lord, Lord Scriven: in doing this today, we are standing with those who struggle with drug use and with those around them—the communities, their families and their friends. It is with that motivation in mind that we are doing this.
I will of course write to noble Lords if there are any points that I do not manage to cover adequately. To pick up some of the points, however, the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, asked who will regulate. As part of the legislation, as I said in my introduction, there will be training and data-reporting requirements attached to both routes for new providers. Those new providers could be the emergency services, for example, and they will have to report on levels of prescribing so that effectiveness and safety can be monitored. That will absolutely be required of them.
Lord Scriven (LD)
The Minister might not still welcome me to my place now but although I understand that, my point was: what powers do those whom they report to have in ensuring compliance? That is the bit I did not get from reading the regulations.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
That is understood. I am sure that the noble Lord will be delighted to know that this is to be established, but he is certainly quite right to raise that point. I will ensure that, once that detail is established, it is made known.
On the point about a potential additional burden on services, which the noble Lord, Lord Evans, raised, we certainly recognise the fact that there are challenges in the scope of these regulations. Our intention—I stress intention—is not to create any additional burden. I think I was quite clear in mentioning that these are enabling, not compulsory, requirements. That is important, because it means that no service or individual professional will actually be required to give out take-home naloxone as a result of these regulations. That potentially allows a more gradual introduction of this.
For example, I know that the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, mentioned that there may be differences in the level of take-up across the country. I suspect that may well be the case. It will be our job not just to encourage it to be taken up but to work out why it is not being taken up. We will not just bring in this instrument; we will seek to actively promote it. As I said, we are confident that there is a high level of support for these changes and we will continue to work closely with services and professionals to support them with provision.
The noble Lord, Lord Evans, rightly said that the previous Government undertook the consultation. I am most grateful for that because it has informed where we are today. That consultation under the previous Government received significant positive support from the sector, with the overwhelming majority of respondents agreeing with the set-up of the changes.
The noble Lord, Lord Evans, raised a question about costs. There is no direct cost to the Government associated with these changes since, as the noble Lord will understand, this is only an enabling provision. It will be for services to determine whether they use this power and give out take-home naloxone. At the moment, local authorities provide funding for naloxone, which is supplied through drug treatment services based on their assessment of local need. Although local authority public health services will want to support the wider provision of naloxone, I recognise that their resources are limited; I am sure that many of them will tell me that. This will potentially mean that there is an additional call on their resources and they may need to pay for it through their own funding streams. However, we will monitor demand and engage with services and local areas to understand where any pressures may be.
Another point here is that this is not a neutral act. There will be benefits, in relation not just to personal health and saving lives but to costs associated with dealing with overdoses. I hope that will be seen.
The noble Lord, Lord Evans, also asked whether the methods of administration are permitted only by medical professionals. It is already the case under current regulations that naloxone can be administered by anyone. I emphasise the point about high levels of safety and that it can be administered by a lay person.
I think I have picked up most of the points raised, but as I said, if I have not I shall be very pleased to look further into any other points and to write.
To summarise, the changes we are proposing will allow more services and more professionals to give out take-home supplies of naloxone without a prescription. As I said, it can already be administered by anyone but having more services with the ability to supply it will mean easier access for the people who are at risk of overdose. It will support them and those around them, as has been generously welcomed and acknowledged by the noble Lords, Lord Scriven and Lord Evans.
In short, these changes will widen access to a life-saving medicine. I am sure we can all agree that any death from an illicit drug is tragic and preventable, and we should take every step we can to reduce drug-related deaths; that is what we are doing today. On this basis, I hope that noble Lords will join me in supporting these important regulatory changes. I commend these draft regulations to the Committee.
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
I thank the Minister for her responses. In Australia, Canada and some states in the United States the nasal spray is available over the counter. Does the Minister have any knowledge of any plans to administer it via our pharmacies?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
I am waiting for inspiration, as the noble Lord will realise. In fact, I would rather write to him, as he has made an important point and I want to be quite clear on it. I thank him for reiterating the point.
Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Amendment) Regulations 2024
(2 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Merron
That the Grand Committee do consider the Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Amendment) Regulations 2024
Relevant document: 1st Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Merron) (Lab)
My Lords, these important regulations were laid before the House on 15 May 2024 by the previous Government, and one of my early tasks in post was to approve that this change in legislation be put before Parliament. I am pleased that we have secured this time today and grateful for stakeholders’ patience.
This legislation brings us one step closer to extending the chance to start a family. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 provides the legislative framework for regulating fertility treatments and the use of gametes and embryos in the UK. These draft regulations amend two aspects of Schedule 3A to the 1990 Act, which were inherited from the European Union’s tissues and cells directive 2006/17/EC.
The first issue we are seeking to address in these regulations is where “partner donation” is defined as being between a man and a woman who are in an intimate physical relationship, which excludes female same-sex couples. We are in an age where social attitudes to same-sex couples and family formation are very different and, alongside this advancement in attitudes, assisted reproduction techniques have developed that now allow both female partners to take part in the creation of a child. This is through reciprocal IVF where one partner donates her egg to make an embryo with donor sperm, forming a biological link to their child; then the other partner undergoes IVF, becomes pregnant and delivers their child.
Legislation has not kept pace at all with these advances. Currently, female same-sex couples who undergo reciprocal IVF as a non-partner donation are required to have additional screening for infectious and genetic diseases. This leads to an additional financial burden for female same-sex couples undergoing this treatment. It can cost more than £1,000 when compared to opposite-sex couples undergoing IVF using their own gametes, where there is no clinical reason for the screening.
The second issue we seek to address under the 1990 Act is where a person living with HIV cannot donate their gametes to create a family, unless it is with a partner in an opposite-sex couple. Thankfully, through the advances in the treatment of HIV, such as anti-retroviral therapy, the risk of transmission is now regarded as negligible through unprotected sexual intercourse and by extension, gamete donation.
The proposed regulations would allow people with HIV who meet certain conditions to donate their gametes to known recipients, where certain conditions are met. These are: that they have an undetectable HIV viral load of less than 200 copies per millilitre, shown by two tests prior to donation; that they have been receiving anti-retroviral treatment for at least six months prior to donation; and that the recipient knows of the donor’s HIV diagnosis and provides informed consent.
The proposed regulations will also modify the definition of partner donation to include female same-sex couples, allowing them to undergo the same testing requirements as opposite-sex couples. The regulations also create a new defined term of “partner donated egg” and exempt these donations from the requirement to comply with more stringent screening criteria. These policy changes have been adopted following advice from the Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, I am delighted to contribute briefly to this short debate for one specific reason. Back in 1990, when the defining Act was passed, it was at the end of a strenuous five-year battle of attrition, as certain Members in this Committee—in particular, the noble Lord, Lord Winston—will recall. The right honourable Enoch Powell had tried in 1985 to get a Private Member’s Bill, the Unborn Children (Protection) Bill, on to the statute book. It was hugely controversial; if passed, it would have prevented essential research into both infertility and avoiding certain hereditary disabilities, such as cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy. I should declare my own interests: we then had two boys who were alive with hereditary conditions.
This led to the establishment of the organisation Progress. Three of us were trustees: the late Jo Richardson, Peter Thurnham and myself. We were immensely indebted to advice and guidance from the medical fraternity, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Winston, people such as Robert Edwards and Michael Laurence, and a number of others. When that Bill was originally put forward by Enoch Powell in February 1985, it was passed in the House of Commons by 238 to 66 votes. By 1990, five years later, there had been such a sea-change in public perception—thanks to much of the work undertaken by the noble Lord, Lord Winston, and his colleagues—that the House of Lords passed what became the 1990 Act by 238 to 80 votes and, at Second Reading in the House of Commons, it was passed by 362 to 189 votes. It was an immense change in the public mood.
I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Winston, and his colleagues for their pioneering work. I also pay tribute to those who have done such great work over the past 35 years at Progress and its successor organisation, PET, which is an independent charity that improves choices for people affected by infertility and genetic conditions.
On these specific regulations, I wish to ask the Minister a couple of questions. First, can she confirm that the devolved regimes—in particular, Senedd Cymru —are fully in support? Although this is not a devolved matter, it obviously overlaps with responsibilities that are devolved. Secondly, can the Minister give some indication of the potential additional costs on clients, to which reference is made in paragraph 9.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum? Might these be punitive, or even prohibitive? Thirdly, is there any likelihood of costs escalating to over £10 million? If so, what would be the mechanism for a statutory review, as mentioned in the regulations?
I welcome this instrument but I would be grateful for answers to those specific questions.
Lord Winston (Lab)
My Lords, I am rather embarrassed after the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, has spoken so volubly and over-kindly about the work we did together. I have to say that when he was Dafydd Wigley MP his amazing attempts to help us subvert Enoch Powell’s Unborn Children (Protection) Bill meant sitting all night several nights running to prevent that legislation going through, even though there was a big majority in the House of Commons. It is a remarkable story that has never really properly been told, but perhaps it should not be told. I cannot divert the Committee now, but one of the extraordinary things was that by the end of that I had remarkable respect for Enoch Powell, which I never expected. He behaved in an extraordinary way and with great dignity, even when he was losing. He was not quite as prejudiced as people made out. I think he was intellectually challenged by what he was seeing in front of him.
I return to the amendment, the business in hand today, which is essentially the issue with HIV-positive patients. We were the first people in the world to treat people who were HIV positive back in the 1980s. We had a baby as early as about 1986, possibly 1985—I cannot remember. It was a long time ago. That was before the regulations. We were aware that there was a small risk of transmission, but with caesarean section and so on the risk was so minuscule that we felt it was worthwhile. It got a lot of adverse publicity, until it was copied by a lot of other people, and it went on to be accepted. However, I accept completely that what the Minister is recommending is safer, but there are just a few questions I would like to ask her.
First, what would happen if the recipient was already HIV positive? Is there some regulation? That was something we faced nearly 40 years ago. I should like her to explain because I am sure things have moved on with the legislation, and I am not now clinically in practice, although I am still active in research. Secondly, I am concerned that the Minister should argue that this is just a matter for private practice. That is not acceptable. This should be available under the health service. The fact that somebody has a problem with HIV should in no way discriminate against their getting or giving proper treatment to a friend, relative or other person. I regard that as an essential human right. I suspect that there might be some reason to question that.
Unfortunately, one of the terrible things that has happened in Britain is that at the moment human in vitro fertilisation has become colossally expensive. The Minister gave a figure of £1,000. I regret to say that in London that would be almost impossible. I suspect that most people getting donations of this kind would be spending far more than that, even though it may not be clear. Clinics do not declare what they charge. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority claims that it has no power to deal with the price of IVF. That is important to consider. I hope that the Minister will at least address that issue because undoubtedly—I beg her for obvious reasons because she will have sympathy—there is massive exploitation of women going through in vitro fertilisation. Every week, I get stories by email that suggest that what is happening not other than somewhat under the table, so that is the other issue.
The Minister made no mention of counselling. When the Bill was initiated back in 1990—it was passed first in the House of Lords, of course—there was a clear discussion during that debate about the need for counselling. It was repeated in the House of Commons as well—I see the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, nodding—and it was written into the workings of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. It is therefore important that proper counselling is part of this, and it should be written in in some way so that there is some understanding that it should be there.
The issues with HIV are always of concern, certainly in IVF. Suppose that somebody who was negative suddenly becomes positive again, which is not impossible, even though they may have had retroviral treatment in between. We ought to be aware of those things with this instrument.
Having spoken at great length on what seems quite a trivial matter, I have probably wasted the Committee’s time a bit. I am completely in agreement with the aim of what is undertaken here. I do not think there is any need to change the wording or anything like that, but what I am talking about must be considered. I thank the Minister, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, for his extraordinary work 40 years ago, which is still remembered and greatly appreciated.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, in following the noble Lord, Lord Winston, I disagree with him: he never wastes the Committee’s time with his knowledge and expertise in helping this field move forward. After listening to the noble Lords, Lord Wigley and Lord Winston, I think that this statutory instrument is not just a one-off regulatory update; it represents a continuation of the journey in the realm of reproductive rights, scientific progress and ethical standards in this part of healthcare. It is important that both noble Lords asked us to look at these amendments in the context of that journey.
The landscape of reproductive rights technology has evolved dramatically—particularly recently—with advancements in IVF, genetic screening and other reproductive technologies. We have the potential to transform countless lives in this field. I note that the noble Lords, Lord Winston and Lord Wigley, say that some people are perhaps debarred because of the lack of provision on the NHS. In a wider debate in a wider context, I am sure the Minister would want to take up the discussion and debate that when we have the time.
However, we must note that progress comes with challenges, especially regarding ethical considerations and access to these technologies. These amendments seek to address some of those concerns so that couples made up of two women and those living with HIV have a better chance, or a more equal chance, of accessing this kind of healthcare and technology. These regulations are a step forward in this area in health provision and help to promote equity so that more people can pursue their dreams of parenthood, notwithstanding the issue of where they get that provision, whether in the private sector or the NHS.
As the Minister said, it is essential that these regulations highlight the importance of supporting diverse family structures in 2024. These amendments recognise that families come in various forms and that reproductive technologies should be accessible to all families on an equal basis.
Over the past couple of days, I discussed what was coming before the House with friends, and some people raised concerns, interestingly, about the implications of the use of gametes from people living with HIV. Therefore, it is crucial to understand that the amendment does not advocate unrestricted access without proper oversight. It promotes a balanced approach that prioritises ethical standards while facilitating innovations in HIV medicine. Advancements in HIV treatment have not only significantly improved health outcomes for individuals living with HIV but have made it safe to include people living with HIV more broadly in these amendments.
These regulations champion access, ethical standards and innovation in reproductive health. Notwithstanding the questions asked by the noble Lords, I have no questions because we support this SI. We believe it not only empowers individuals and families but fosters a reproductive healthcare service that values inclusivity, diversity and ethical progress.
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
My Lords, when I came here today, I did not think I would be hearing about Enoch Powell. I think that, if he were here today, he would be very interested in what we have been debating. Enoch Powell’s consistency was Wolverhampton South West. In the 2010 election, a colleague of mine of Asian background, a Sikh, won by the same majority as Enoch won it by in 1950. I am glad to say that Mrs Enoch said that Enoch would have been delighted by my Conservative colleague Paul Uppal winning that seat. It shows that people change over time. I wish he were here to hear what I am about to say.
I welcome these regulations laid before us by His Majesty’s Government. They bring forward the plans from May this year that were established by the Conservative Government. Now, as then, we believe that equality under the law is a long-established principle in this country and any improvement towards this end is to be lauded. I am sure that can receive support from all noble Lords.
These regulations mark a further step towards ensuring equal access to IVF services for people living with HIV and for female same-sex couples. It is another stage in the process of ensuring that as many people as possible can fulfil their dreams of parenthood, and it builds on the incredible work done to reduce the stigma associated with HIV, which has for so long prevented people getting tested and seeking treatment. With these changes, we will make it clear that people with HIV can live happy and fruitful lives.
The conditions in these regulations limit donation to those with an HIV viral load of no more than 200 copies per millilitre, meaning that the infection is undetectable and therefore non-transmittable. This requires the donor and recipient to have a personal relationship with one another and ensuring that safeguards are in place to minimise any risks associated with partner donation from people diagnosed with HIV. This will benefit hundreds of couples who have been trying in vain to become parents, and it will also reduce costs relating to IVF.
I hope that His Majesty’s Government will continue in the steps of the previous Conservative Government with efforts to help those living with HIV to have equal access to healthcare services.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, I am glad to sense not just support for this draft statutory instrument but recognition in this debate. Following the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Evans, I acknowledge the contribution of my predecessor as Minister responsible for this area, who pressed on with the SI and ensured that it was laid. I am glad to be speaking to it today, as I know he is. I am also pleased to note that Adam Freedman from the National AIDS Trust is with us today. He is most welcome to the Committee. He has come to see the statutory instrument debated. He and his colleagues have patiently encouraged the previous Government and this Government in the right direction, and I thank him for that.
On the points raised by noble Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, asked whether the devolved Governments were content. I delighted to tell him that they are. He also asked about additional costs. A de minimis assessment was carried out, and it estimates £46,000 to £92,000 for the impact on the fertility sector. Obviously, as has been evidenced and described in this debate, there is a hugely positive impact from the measures within this draft statutory instrument.
I note what the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, said. I put down that he, along with the noble Lord, Lord Winston, and other parliamentary colleagues past and present, are veterans of change and of the Acts we are talking about. As the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, said, this is a journey—one that I suspect is not at its end, although I am pleased to take us further on that journey today. I also pay tribute to the contribution in this area of the noble Lord, Lord Winston, over many years, and to the contributions of other colleagues, who have given it their support and professionalism.
The noble Lord, Lord Winston, asked what the case would be if a recipient were HIV positive. The answer is that they will be able to get IVF. They are not actually affected by these regulations, which impact donors, not recipients. I assure the noble Lord that he was far from wasting the Committee’s time with his comments. I heard clearly his comments about counselling and the need for support. I will look closely at that with officials, following his remarks. I clarify that the £1,000 I referred to was not for IVF. It was an estimated cost for the additional screening required for female same-sex couples, which we are now seeking to correct.
On funding and the issue of availability on the National Health Service, as noble Lords will know, funding for IVF is devolved to ICBs. I am very well aware of the differential provision to different groups and individuals. I will consider future policy options, having picked up this part of the brief and spoken to a number of people about their concerns.
The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, also asked about access to IVF on the NHS. In addition to the point about consideration of advice that I will be getting about improving the service, I want to share his comment about this being just one more step in a positive direction. It is about supporting the fact that families come in all shapes and sizes. A family or a household is a family or a household, and parents are parents. They are there to support and bring up their child in a positive way, and we want to support that too.
I finish by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Evans, for reminding us that one thing that these regulations will do is take us a step on another journey—that of reducing the stigma for those who live with HIV. There have been so many medical advances, which is why we are able to bring this instrument forward today. But attitudes continue to be something to be challenged at times, and I am glad that noble Lords recognise the contribution of the legislative change we seek to make.
We want to ensure that those who want to start a family do not face barriers where there is no reason for those barriers. I place on record my thanks to the organisations who have pushed for and supported these reforms, particularly the National AIDS Trust, Stonewall, the Elton John AIDS Foundation and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. As I said earlier to the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, I thank all those parliamentarians and others along the way who have got us to this place today.
Government of Wales Act 2006 (Devolved Welsh Authorities) (Amendment) Order 2024
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent
That the Grand Committee do consider the Government of Wales Act 2006 (Devolved Welsh Authorities) (Amendment) Order 2024.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, before I move on to today’s business, I know that the thoughts of your Lordships’ House are with the family and friends of the man who lost his life in the train collision near Llanbrynmair, as well as the others involved. Our thanks go to the emergency services who have worked tirelessly at the scene. I also put on record our thanks to the train staff who have supported all the travellers affected.
I have the heaviest of colds, and this is a very technical amendment, so I plan to be short and sweet. The Government of Wales Act 2006 defines devolved Welsh authorities for the purposes of that Act. Section 157A defines a “devolved Welsh authority” as a public authority whose functions
“are exercisable only in relation to Wales, and … wholly or mainly … do not relate to reserved matters”.
A public authority is also a devolved Welsh authority if it is included in the list in Schedule 9A to the Government of Wales Act 2006. This list provides a partly confirmatory role to increase transparency by naming the authorities that meet the conditions in Section 157A. Section 157A(5) includes a power to amend this schedule by order so as to add, remove or revise entries in the list where necessary to ensure that it remains up to date.
The draft order before the Committee updates the list of devolved Welsh authorities in light of the Senedd’s Tertiary Education and Research (Wales) Act 2022. This Act established the Commission for Tertiary Education and Research, a new Welsh Government-sponsored body responsible for strategy, funding and oversight of further and higher education, adult education, and apprenticeships and training in Wales. The commission became operational from August of this year and took on the functions of the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, which has now been dissolved.
The Commission for Tertiary Education and Research meets the conditions of Section 157A of the Government of Wales Act 2006 and is, therefore, a devolved Welsh authority. This draft order inserts a reference in Schedule 9A to the Government of Wales Act 2006 to the Commission for Tertiary Education and Research, and it removes the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales.
In line with requirements in Section 157A of the Government of Wales Act, I can confirm that the draft order was approved by the Senedd on 18 June. I beg to move.
Baroness Humphreys (LD)
My Lords, I echo the Minister’s reference to yesterday’s train crash in Llanbrynmair and add my condolences to the family concerned.
This order removes the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales—HEFCW—from the list of devolved Welsh authorities in Schedule 9A to the Government of Wales Act 2006 and replaces it with the Commission for Tertiary Education and Research, or Comisiwn Addysg Drydyddol ac Ymchwil. However, this is much more than a change of name. The commission, which was set up by the Welsh Senedd in its Tertiary Education and Research (Wales) Act 2022, operates at arm’s length from the Welsh Government but is answerable to them. Its board operates within a strategic planning and funding framework established by Welsh Ministers and is responsible for funding and regulating all areas of post-16 education in Wales, including further education, higher education, apprenticeships, school sixth forms, adult community learning, and government-funded research and innovation. It therefore takes over the responsibilities of HEFCW, but much more in addition, as that list shows.
HEFCW, as it is almost affectionately called, has been so much a part of the Welsh education system and our educational vocabulary since 1992, when it was established, that it will be strange to think of the sector without the name in future. I am pleased that the commission has been given a more user-friendly name than its official title and will be known as Medr, the Welsh word for skill or ability, which seems absolutely appropriate. The official title appears below the Medr heading on its website and letterheads, so it will not be lost.
The board, which provides the strategic leadership, consists of 17 members appointed by the Welsh Government and includes four non-voting associate members representing learners and the education workforce. They all have an important task ahead of them as they navigate the new tertiary landscape in Wales, and I wish them every success in the future. On behalf of the Lib Dem Benches, I support the aims of this statutory instrument.
Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)
My Lords, I associate myself with the sentiments of the Minister regarding the dreadful accident in mid Wales. I also pay tribute to her in her new role and wish her well in it. It is quite an extensive role. It covers not just Wales but Northern Ireland, Scotland and lots of other things as well, but those are the three things that matter most.
I shall speak briefly about this order, which I support. It is a technical order in many ways, but it gives the Committee the opportunity to touch upon the points, as the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, just did. The commission is a brand-new body that takes into account further education and technical education. Before I entered the House of Commons in 1987, I spent 17 years teaching in Welsh further education in Ebbw Vale. I always thought that the distinction and differences between technical, further and higher education were very artificial. Eventually, as the years went on, that became quite obvious, so this is a natural progression in how the Welsh Government and the Senedd deal with post-16 education in Wales. I welcome that as well.
This order gives us an opportunity to mention briefly the issue that the Minister has been raising for some time: the importance of co-operation between the Government in Cardiff and the Government here in London. That is particularly significant on this issue because roughly 50% of students in Welsh universities come from outside Wales and roughly 50% of Welsh students go outside Wales to study, so there is a constant interchange between Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom. and beyond, for example, in America, where it is important for good co-operation. I hope that our Secretary of State, Bridget Phillipson, and the Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Education, Lynne Neagle—she is my Member of the Senedd—will be in constant communication, talking to each other about the importance of higher education and further education in both countries. I also hope that the Minister will take that message back.
The other point that I want to touch on concerns something that I was involved in about 14 years ago. At that time, the Welsh Government asked me to look at opportunities for Welsh students to go to Oxford and Cambridge, Russell group universities and, beyond that, Harvard or Yale, as some have done from Welsh schools. Incidentally, some of those students were from very deprived Welsh schools. That project became known as Seren in Wales. It is a system by which students in Wales can get access to opportunities to learn about different universities. In my view, it has been a considerable success, but it is also a good example of how the English education system could learn from what we do in Wales with regard to ensuring that people whose backgrounds mean that they would not normally expect to go to our top universities in England, Wales and elsewhere can do so. There is an opportunity for co-operation there as well.
I wish the new body and the new Government here in Whitehall good luck. I also wish good luck to the co-operation between the Welsh Government and the United Kingdom.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, who commented on this order. I will speak very briefly indeed.
On the last point made by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, about going outside Wales for higher education, I attended Manchester University. There were some 300 students from Wales at Manchester University, about 20 or 30 of them from Neath Grammar School alone. It was incredible. It was a gain for all of us who went to Manchester but, in some ways, it was a loss for Wales and its communities. So many who could have contributed did not, in fact, have an opportunity to come back. Therefore, there is a question about how within the expanded higher education responsibilities we organise some facility to help people get back if they so desire. This must fall jointly on the Senedd in Cardiff and government bodies here in Westminster.
The Minister opened her comments today with the Llanbrynmair rail tragedy. I add my condolences. I have, in fact—perhaps I can give notice to Government Ministers through saying this—approached the Lord Speaker to get a Private Notice Question tomorrow on it. I have a lot of interest in it because my father was born in Llanbrynmair and my wife’s father and mother were born in that council area.
I have a couple of questions about this order. I do so not least because no Plaid MP was selected to be on the House of Commons committee dealing with this specifically Welsh order; I trust that that can be sorted out in another place at another time. As has been said, this order allows the new body, Medr, to replace the former body, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales. Can the Minister confirm that Medr’s powers do in fact go beyond those of the funding council? I believe they do. Can she also confirm that, notwithstanding that, they are within the ambit of the Act 2006 on which the devolution model was predicated?
Secondly, the question of funding was raised by Nia Griffiths on 8 October. In column 5 of the Hansard report, she slammed the previous Conservative Government for considerably reducing the funds available for higher education. The question that I will naturally put to the Minister is can she confirm that the Welsh Government will now get more money in order to meet that shortcoming that has been highlighted?
Thirdly, I do not know whether the Minister has looked at whether Medr has any role in further education beyond the boundaries of Wales—particularly with regard to the types of students to which the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, referred—but, if there is that responsibility, I wonder whether the model defining the powers that Medr and the Senedd have can adequately cover that relationship. I would add that, if any students from Wales get the opportunity to go to Oxford or Cambridge, they should always take it, then come back enhanced by the education they got there; that is certainly the approach I would take.
Fourthly, in the context of Welsh students going outside Wales, particularly to England, I ask the Minister, please, to ensure—through other government departments, I suspect—that, when we come to the next census in 2031, we have questions asked of those people living in England who have a background in the Welsh language and Wales. That sort of information could be massively important in helping to develop the opportunities that they need to come back to Wales and those that others have when they are thinking of going outside Wales for their further education. It would help them to know that there is some landline with which they can maintain their connections with Wales. Those census figures could be very useful indeed.
Having said that, I of course support this order.
Lord Touhig (Lab)
My Lords, I had not planned to say anything but, following on from the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, let me just say this. A couple of days ago, I was talking to a friend of mine whose son went to Oxford as a result of the Seren project initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy. He is about to complete and is coming back to Wales to further his career. For our generation, education has always been a pathway out of poverty. We should never put barriers in the way of young people creating and getting opportunities for a complete, fulfilling life. We should do nothing to deny them that opportunity. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and I are totally as one on this. It is a great project. It shows that the co-operation between Wales and England, and England and Wales, has a huge benefit for all of us.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, I, too, begin by adding my condolences to the family of the person who tragically died last night in the terrible accident at Llanbrynmair.
I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, to her place as the Minister dealing with devolved issues. I am sure that we will have some interesting engagement in future.
I speak on behalf of the Opposition on this matter. I am grateful to the Government for bringing these regulations forward. They are simple and give effect to the Welsh Government’s decision to replace the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales with the Commission for Tertiary Education and Research.
I am bound to say from the Conservative Benches that, as a Conservative Government, we have had a strong record on education in England. Successive Governments have made significant improvements in this area. England now has the best readers in the western world, and the numbers of students going to university across the UK are at near-record levels. We on these Benches want to see students continuing to achieve good outcomes. We will be holding the Government to account on their record.
In particular, we are concerned that the Government do not choose to go down the path of the Labour Government in Wales, who have failed so comprehensively on education. The OECD’s head of education said that the education system under Labour in Wales has seen its performance decline and has “lost its soul”. Indeed, we have seen the attainment gap between students from poorer and wealthier backgrounds increase under Labour in Wales. The PISA results for Labour in Wales show that scores have decreased since 2018 in mathematics, reading and science, by 21, 17 and 15 points respectively.
I have two questions for the Minister. First, while I recognise that education is devolved in Wales, can she explain to noble Lords what practical steps the Government are taking to support the Labour-run Welsh Government to drive up educational attainment in Wales? Secondly, can she confirm whether Education Ministers have met their Welsh counterparts to discuss their plan to deliver better standards of education to students in Wales?
As I said, I am grateful to the Government for bringing this order forward. I look forward to the response to my questions.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their valuable contributions to this debate, which have been wide-ranging. I want to put on record the fact that I am the first person in my family to have gone to university. I am very clear—from having a single mum who lived on a council estate—that the pathway out of poverty is education. I will be forever grateful for the opportunities that were given to me by having an extraordinary mother who got me there. I therefore look forward to working with all noble Lords to ensure that, in any of the nations I apparently now represent, educational outcomes and attainment are fulfilled.
I thank everyone for their support, but before I move on I very much thank my noble friend Lord Murphy, who is mentoring me across several of my new responsibilities. I am beyond grateful for his support. I look forward to hearing more about the Seren project from him and my noble friend Lord Touhig.
In answer to the questions raised by my noble friend Lord Murphy, the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, and the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, many of the issues now are about co-operation between Cardiff and London. I think that was a theme of today. One thing I want to be clear on is that the benefit of having a Labour Government in Westminster and a Labour Government in Cardiff is that co-operation is more easily given. We are definitely working more closely with our colleagues in Cardiff than the previous Administration did. There are regular meetings and engagement, but I will write to provide more detail on that to the noble Lord.
As has been pointed out, this is a devolved matter and I therefore cannot comment in detail on the Senedd’s decisions. It is for Members of the Senedd and Welsh Ministers to decide how they will operate it and what they want to do, but we will do everything we can to provide support to all Ministers in the Senedd, which they may or may not want, and to seek their advice on occasion on how they can help us as we move forward.
On the specific questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, yes, Medr has taken on functions in many post-16 areas from the Welsh Government. I ask the noble Lord to bear with me because I am working my way through his list. On funding, I think he will be aware that we have a significant fiscal event happening in only eight days’ time. As much as I would love to be able to tell him what will be in the Budget, I think he, like me, will have to wait until the Chancellor of the Exchequer stands up next Wednesday.
On Medr beyond the boundaries of Wales, the Welsh Government’s budget for the commission’s responsibility is approximately £900 million. The commission receives a proportion in line with—this is what happens when you have to read someone else’s handwriting and it is a challenge. Sorry—I will write to the noble Lord.
On the questions about the census, the commission can regulate the activities of Welsh institutions in England. There is a consultation on questions that can be added in the run-up to each census. I will make sure that the noble Lord has the details and that we work collectively for the consultation on any new and additional questions.
If the noble Lord is successful with his PNQ, then I look forward to talking about it with him tomorrow. Investigations are currently under way by Transport for Wales, which is working with all the relevant authorities to understand how the incident happened. It would therefore not be appropriate for me to comment further while investigations are ongoing, so any conversation tomorrow would be limited because we cannot really discuss it.
As I outlined, this order will make changes to the list of devolved Welsh authorities in Schedule 9A to the Government of Wales Act to take account of the establishment of the Commission for Tertiary Education and Research and the dissolution of the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales. I close—so I can have a Lemsip—by again offering my thanks for the productive manner in which the Welsh and UK Governments have worked together in preparing this draft order, and for the Committee’s support today.
House of Lords
Oaths and Affirmations
Death of a Member: Lord Hanningfield
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, I regret to inform the House of the death of the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, on 20 October. On behalf of the House, I extend our condolences to the noble Lord’s family and friends.
Schools: Absenteeism
(2 months ago)
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Lord Young of Cookham
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to reduce absenteeism in schools.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, tackling absence is at the heart of our mission to break down the barriers to opportunity. If children are not in school, it does not matter how effective or well supported teaching and learning is; they will not benefit. That is why we are committed to working with the sector to provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school and rolling out breakfast clubs to every primary school.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
I am grateful for that. Does the Minister agree that Covid weakened the contract between parents and schools? As a result, we have over 150,000 children missing on average every other day, double the number pre Covid, as well as 1.7 million missing on average every other Friday, again double the number pre Covid. Against the policies that she has just announced, will she agree to have targets to reduce absenteeism for those two categories?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord is absolutely right to identify the scale of children who are both missing school and, in the case of those who are severely absent, missing more than 50%. We have seen those figures continue to rise, unfortunately. I am open to the idea of targets being the right approach, but I absolutely assure him that we are working extremely hard with a range of policies: the breakfast clubs that I have outlined, the specialist mental health professionals, the new guidance expecting close working between schools and local authorities, and the work on data and better analysis of those who are absent. That was started by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and we are absolutely determined to build on it to make sure that we bring those figures down.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I entirely agree with the Minister that we should ensure that children are in school and get the best possible learning opportunities. However, we have a system whereby any parent can take their child out of school and say, “I am home educating them”. We have no checks on whether that home education is taking place, on its quality or on whether children are safeguarded. After Covid, we have seen children go back to school, not like school and say, “Can I be home educated?” “Yes.” Is the Minister prepared to support my Private Member’s Bill on home education?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord is of course talking about a slightly different issue from absenteeism, which is where somebody is already on a school roll and is not attending. He makes a valiant plug for his Private Member’s Bill, which I am delighted to say I will respond to on 15 November. It is probably also worth saying that of course, through our children’s well-being Bill, we will legislate to introduce children not in school registers, to improve the visibility of children and young people who are not on school rolls, including those getting unsuitable home education.
Lord Laming (CB)
My Lords, the Minister will know that children in the care of local authorities have generally had very disturbed childhoods and, because of that, missed a great deal of schooling. Will everything be done to help them catch up?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord is absolutely right. Sometimes children in the care system have to move too frequently from one placement to another, which too often means that they have to move schools. They rightly get priority for admissions to schools but it is crucial that, through the work of our virtual schools and all corporate parents of children in care, we ensure that they have the stability to enable them to attend school and succeed.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, the main drivers of school absence are mental ill health and poverty, so it is very welcome that the Government will provide specialist mental health counsellors in each school. Hitherto where that has been provided, it has mainly been paid for from the pupil premium. Given that a number of those pupils now requiring assistance and counselling are not in receipt of free school meals, how will it be paid for and will it be the responsibility of the Department for Education or the Department of Health and Social Care?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My noble friend is right that mental health disorders among children are a growing problem. Working alongside the Department of Health and Social Care, we will provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, and develop new young futures hubs, which will include access to mental health support workers. Also, we will recruit an additional 8,500 new mental health staff to treat children and adults, to cut the unacceptably long time that children and young people have to wait for child and adolescent mental health services; that commitment is specific to the Department of Health.
The Lord Bishop of Leeds
My Lords, is there any causal correlation between poverty, particularly in the wake of the cost of living crisis, and absenteeism from school?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The right reverend Prelate is right to identify that. The data shows that those on free school meals are far more likely to be absent from schools than those who are not. That is why we need a wide-ranging approach to ensure that we provide both the school action and the home backgrounds that will enable children to attend school and learn. My right honourable friends the Secretary of State for Education and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions are working hard on the cross-government childhood poverty strategy precisely to address some of those issues.
Baroness Barran (Con)
What is the Minister’s assessment of the National Parent Survey 2024 published by the charity Parentkind, which showed that three in 10 parents are now more relaxed about school attendance? This aligns with the department’s excellent data, which shows a big rise in that group since the pandemic.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My assessment is that it is concerning that parents, for whatever reason are becoming relaxed about their children’s attendance at school. As the noble Lord suggested, this has partly been linked to the pandemic. We know that each day of lost learning can do serious harm. Days missed can add up quickly. There is a link between absence and attainment, and pupils who are persistently absent are less than half as likely to achieve good GCSEs as those who attend every day. We need to give that message loud and clear to parents who, in being relaxed about their children’s attendance at school, are fundamentally damaging their future prospects.
Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lords, numerous studies have demonstrated the positive impact of arts and creative programmes on attendance and engagement, which is especially true for pupils from at-risk populations, where absenteeism of course creates an even longer shadow. Will the curriculum and assessment review take account of this evidence in considering the value of arts subjects, and will the Government encourage more schools to take up Artsmark, given that 96% of Artsmark schools report positive improvements on attendance, punctuality and engagement?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Baroness is absolutely right that we need a curriculum in schools that will encourage all children to flourish and to be engaged. That is why, in setting up the curriculum and assessment review led by Professor Becky Francis, we have specifically asked it to consider how we can ensure that the curriculum meets the needs of disadvantaged pupils and those with special educational needs, and that it does that through creating space for exactly the sort of creativity for which the noble Baroness is a strong advocate.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
Has any work been done on working from home? I gather that this is a factor which is leading to some absenteeism. As we are likely to see a growth in the number of people working from home, could we see that, at least in the public service, part of the contract is that those working from home will give an undertaking that their children will go to school?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My noble friend makes an interesting point. In my response earlier to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, I was very clear that, to be honest, it does not matter whether you are working from home as a parent, or where you are working—your responsibility is to ensure that your children are in school every day. If you do not do that, you are disadvantaging their futures. I do not think my noble friend meant this, but I would not want there to be some idea that there is some sort of excuse because of the way in which there are—quite rightly—more flexibilities about the way in which we work. However we as adults work, we have a responsibility to ensure that our children are in school, because that is where they will learn and have the best chance of a successful future.
Social Housing: Awaab’s Law
(2 months ago)
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Baroness Scott of Bybrook
To ask His Majesty’s Government when they plan to introduce legislation to implement ‘Awaab’s Law’.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook, and with her permission, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in her name on the Order Paper.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Khan of Burnley) (Lab)
My Lords, first, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for her tireless work under the previous Government in introducing the enabling powers for Awaab’s law through the Social Housing (Regulation) Act. I also pay tribute to Awaab Ishak and his parents, and the family’s efforts in campaigning for Awaab’s law. Their constructive work with the Government on this crucial policy deserves this place’s thanks and recognition. The Government will introduce Awaab’s law in both the social and private rented sector. This will support tenants to secure faster repairs, reducing health and safety risks. We will bring forward secondary legislation for Awaab’s law in the social rented sector in autumn.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I understand that the Government have extended the timeline for implementing the secondary legislation that will set the standards that social landlords must comply with under Awaab’s law in order to also set out the rules that private landlords must comply with under the Renters’ Rights Bill. However, given that winter is approaching, bringing colder and damper days and nights, will the Minister commit to a more urgent timeline to ensure that no other child dies because of inhumane housing conditions?
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
The consultation received over 1,000 responses. It is important that we consider these responses in full before confirming the requirements of Awaab’s law. We intend to publish the Government’s response to the consultation and lay the statutory instrument for Awaab’s law in Parliament this autumn. Alongside it, the Renters’ Rights Bill will ensure that we have similar legislation for the private rented sector. The noble Baroness is right that we want to get this done as fast as possible. No one should ever have to lose a child because of the condition of their home. No one should have to suffer appalling living conditions. Nor should anyone feel powerless in the face of landlords who will not listen to them or who make them feel like they are the problem when they ask for help.
Lord Bird (CB)
Do the Government agree with me that one of the problems we have now is that many social housing associations are behaving like private landlords? Many of the problems that happen for tenants, including mould, are happening in the public housing sector. Maybe we need to think again about whether we need more council houses and fewer housing associations.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
On enforcement, seeking redress is important and tenants should challenge their landlords, whether it is a private landlord or the social housing sector. There are important ways to address this through the courts, but there is also the Housing Ombudsman. Tenants can challenge their landlord and if they do not get a satisfactory response, the Housing Ombudsman can address the issue, whether it is in the private or social sector. The noble Lord makes a valid point about the problems being widespread and not just in the private rented sector.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
My Lords, only last week, the Housing Ombudsman said that damp and mould complaints constitute half of all its complaints. It named and shamed 20 social housing providers to which it had served severe maladministration orders. It is clear to me that the sector is already struggling with the timescales involved in Awaab’s law. Can the Minister assure us that all parties are ready for this? Following the comments made about speed, does he agree with me that new legislation is valuable only if it is enforceable? If it will not work, and if the sector is already struggling to make it work, do we not need to listen to the sector for a little longer before extending this legislation to the private rented sector?
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, we are working with social landlord and tenant groups to consider the practical implications of the proposed requirements to be set through Awaab’s law. The Government’s response to the consultation, which will be published in due course, as well as subsequent regulations, will provide details on how Awaab’s law will work. We will issue guidance for landlords and residents on the new duties to be set by the regulations. The guidance will be published before the regulations come into force, to give landlords time to prepare and for tenants to know their rights.
Baroness Hazarika (Lab)
My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree with me that Awaab’s law is not just important to our housing policy but absolutely germane to preventing child poverty? A child’s life chances depend on having a home that is clean, safe and habitable.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
I absolutely agree with my noble friend’s excellent and eloquent point. It is for us all to learn lessons from what happened. She talked about the wider societal issues and unfortunate challenges we have to deal with, and I hope that we can work together across government to address them.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, in 1997, the Labour Government inherited damp and cold houses, and they had years to try to fix them. This Government have inherited from the previous Government 13 years of neglect. I welcome the measures that the Government are taking. Can the Minister introduce them as quickly as possible?
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
I note my noble friend’s point. There is a challenge ahead. There is a different set of economic circumstances in 2024 than there was in 1997, but we are equally focused to ensure that we can tackle this scourge in both the private and social rented sectors. We will work hard to ensure that, after the responses to the consultation, we can move on swiftly—which was the premise of the Question tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott.
Baroness Redfern (Con)
My Lords, what extra resources will be made to local authorities to provide stronger investigatory powers and, ultimately, to deliver swift enforcement action?
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
The consultation on Awaab’s law in the social rented sector invited views on the costs of the policy. The department has considered those views and will publish an updated impact assessment alongside the government response to the consultation. As we set out in our manifesto, we recognise that councils and housing associations need support to build their capacity and make a greater contribution to an affordable housing supply. We will set out our plans at the next fiscal event, to give councils and housing associations the rent stability they need to borrow and to invest in both new and existing homes.
Lord Best (CB)
My Lords, the Government are right to bring some pressure to bear on the housing associations and councils to get their properties up to scratch; it is essential if we are to prevent any more incidents like the death of poor little Awaab Ishak in his damp, cold and mouldy home. But those housing associations and councils need income to keep their stock in good nick, and that means not having reductions, caps and constraints on the rental income that they receive. Can the Government assure us that rents will be allowed to rise in line with costs and not be the subject of the constraints which have kept the income down and therefore the level of repairs and major improvements at a level that is unacceptable?
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for his question and pay tribute to the excellent work he has done in this area for a number of years. To reassure him, as proposed in the consultation, Awaab’s law includes a provision for social landlords to defend themselves against legal action if they have taken all reasonable steps to comply with requirements but it has not been possible for reasons beyond their control. There is no plan by the Government to have any rent controls.
Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)
My Lords, my heart goes out to the parents of Awaab Ishak and anyone whose children are living in those kinds of unacceptable conditions. Can I press the Minister on a timetable? The consultation on the social housing aspect was in January of this year. We are some months down the line, with no apparent date for the regulations. Would there not be merit in at least introducing this for social housing now, and maybe getting some of these homes updated urgently, while the Government rightly work out how to extend it to private landlords as well?
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
I note the point made by the Baroness, Lady Altmann, about timing. As I said at the start, we intend to publish the Government’s response to the consultation and lay the statutory instrument for Awaab’s law before Parliament this autumn. In relation to the private rented sector, which the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, also talked about, the provision will be brought forward in the Renters’ Rights Bill, subject to consultation. On implementation, we continue to work with the sector on this and will confirm the commencement date for requirements when we introduce the regulations and publish the Government’s response.
Child Poverty: Benefit Cap
(2 months ago)
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Baroness Lister of Burtersett
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the benefit cap on child poverty.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Sherlock) (Lab)
Child poverty is a multifaceted issue and the benefit cap is just one factor that can influence the level of financial support available to children and families. Comprehensive action is essential to address the root causes of child poverty. This Government are committed to examining all the ways to dismantle barriers to opportunity, alleviate poverty and help families move towards sustainable employment. The child poverty task force is driving forward this work and will publish its strategy in the spring.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, as my noble friend knows well, not only is the cap a driver of child poverty, especially deep poverty, but it undermines government goals with regard to homelessness and domestic abuse. Will she therefore impress on the child poverty task force the case for its abolition alongside the two-child limit and, in the meantime, do what she can to ensure that at least the cap is uprated in line with inflation as a matter of course so that some of the poorest families are not denied the protection of the annual uprating?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, the Secretary of State is currently in the process of reviewing the levels of social security benefits that are uprated annually, and a statement will be made in due course. When the benefit cap was introduced by the coalition Government in 2013, the legislation required that it be reviewed every five years. The next review is due by November 2027. However, I hear my noble friend’s comments about the challenges facing many families in poverty. The child poverty task force, which is getting to work already, is determined to use all available levers to drive forward short-term and long-term actions across government to reduce child poverty. It is taking evidence from families, activists, local government and people across the country, and I will make sure that her comments are conveyed to it.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s comments about the child poverty task force, but it is an urgent question and this idea is putting things into the long grass. We want to hear from the Minister how quickly this group will report and produce some action to stop children living in poverty in this country.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, as I said, the child poverty task force has already started urgent work to address this, and it will publish a child poverty strategy in the spring. Given that the Government have not been in place for very long, looking across the whole of government to produce a strategy by spring reflects a real sense of urgency.
Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (PC)
My Lords, in Wales children are more likely to be living in poverty than those in other age groups. Will the Minister tell us what tangible steps the two Labour Governments will take to eradicate child poverty in Wales?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for that question. I know that the Welsh Government take these matters very seriously. To make it clear, from the UK position the task force will work closely with the devolved Administrations. In fact, I can reassure her that the co-chairs of the task force have already written to the First Ministers to ensure that the strategy represents the interests of communities across the UK.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, I hope that the child poverty strategy group will urgently take advice in particular from teachers, who often find themselves at the forefront of attempting to alleviate the grinding poverty in which some of our children arrive in school, particularly because of the two-child cap.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My noble friend makes a very important point. I am very conscious that teachers are on the front line of this and that they see the day-to-day effects of the significant rise in child poverty we have seen in recent years. They are very much people who have things to say to us. That is why the strategy is being co-chaired by my boss, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and my noble friend’s boss, the Secretary of State for Education. Child poverty is not restricted to a single aspect of anyone’s life. It has many different causes and many different solutions. We will work across government, as a joined-up Government, to tackle this properly.
Lord Sikka (Lab)
My Lords, the Government have indicated the financial cost of abolishing the two-child benefit cap. Can the Minister indicate the social cost of keeping 4.3 million children in poverty?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I will be nerdy for a moment. We inherited two different policies. One is the two-child limit, which limits the benefits paid to any family to the first two children, except in certain circumstances; the second is the benefit cap we are talking about here, which limits the total amount that can be given to any family. I apologise—nerdiness over. One of the reasons this matters is that those problems have different solutions. One of the reasons we are having a child poverty strategy is that the different policies we inherited, the state of the social security system and the series of piecemeal changes all combine with rises in the cost of living, problems in social housing, problems with energy and problems across our society to produce the effects my noble friend is describing. That is why they have to be tackled together.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)
Last week the blast furnaces at Port Talbot closed and 2,700 people lost their jobs. That surely has a massive influence on the number of children in poverty in Wales. In consultation with the Welsh Senedd, what proposals do the Government have to make sure that those workers are re-employed?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I am so grateful to the noble Lord for raising that. One of the things we are determined to do is to revisit the way in which my department supports people into work. We need our jobcentres across the country to work closely with local, regional and devolved administrations to make sure we are addressing the problems in local labour markets and in local areas. In the near future we will publish a White Paper that sets out the new approach. But the noble Lord put his finger on it: we have to tackle the problems in communities to give people a chance of getting back to work. We need the country to be working—we want an 80% employment rate across our country. That is not just good for the economy or for the individuals; it is good for their children as well.
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
My Lords, we always welcome new initiatives to help unemployed people get back to work. With that in mind, will the Minister update the House on the current number of job vacancies?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
There is always something that you wish you had put in your pack when you stand up. Today it is that. I will write to the noble Lord.
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin (Lab)
My Lords, I do not think the Minister should apologise to the House for being “nerdy”. This is definitely an area where nerdiness is welcomed across the House. Can she reassure us that the work of the task force will be comprehensively supported by evidence looking across all aspects of the issue, with granularity around issues such as support for carers and people with disabilities? What has the experience of any exemptions been? How helpful has that been? We need to be sure that the work is not only comprehensive but evidence based and transparent.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I am very grateful to my noble friend for the absolution and for the thought that I am among friends. Nerds are my people.
She makes an important point. We have a lot of evidence, but there are real gaps in it. The commission will gather the evidence that is there, listen to how people are experiencing these things on the ground and look at the impact of policies across government. To give one small example, she mentions disability. In the benefit cap, households are exempted if they get a whole series of benefits. If they are getting universal credit because of a disability—if they are getting the UC care element, carer’s allowance, PIP or ESA—they are exempt from the benefit cap, but that does not take away the problem that there is still a massive disability employment gap. We want people to get into work. If we are to hit that 80% employment target, a challenge is to look not just at the kind of jobs that are out there but at how we close the gap between people who want to work and employers who want employees. That is part of what we will do in the evidence process.
Lord Laming (CB)
My Lords, in respect of child poverty, will the Minister do all that she can to ensure that estranged parents, especially fathers, pay their proper maintenance agreements?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
Absolutely, my Lords. It is not only an area of my responsibility in the department but one of long-standing concern. A significant amount of money changes hands already but we are looking at each stage—how do we make the Child Maintenance Service operate ever better than it does at the moment? An awful lot of money changes hands, mostly relatively smoothly. There are challenges with some non-resident parents and some who simply do not wish to pay, so the Child Maintenance Service is constantly updating the range of powers it has to go after them.
We all take the same view: you may separate from your partner, but you do not separate from your children. We need to find ways to make sure that both parents contribute. We have a consultation out, which we are looking at. We are also reviewing the child maintenance calculation. We are committed to making sure that the service works well and that the principles are up to date, but no one gets away from the fact that you may leave your partner, but you do not leave your kids.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, to continue the Welsh theme, 30% of children in Wales are living in poverty, according to the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, so I stress to the Minister the urgency of reducing child poverty across the UK.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
The noble Lord and I are as one mind on this. Child poverty is too high across the UK. It went up significantly under the last Administration. We are determined to bring it down, and we will do so.
Waste: Incineration
(2 months ago)
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Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb
To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they plan to implement the Climate Change Committee’s recommendation to pause permission for new incineration plants to allow for a review of the treatment of residual waste.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Baroness Hayman of Ullock) (Lab)
My Lords, the Government are committed to transitioning to a circular economy. We are considering the role of energy from waste in the context of circularity, economic growth and reaching net zero. As part of this, we are giving consideration to the Climate Change Committee’s recommendation. This year, Defra will publish an analysis of energy-from-waste capacity in England to inform future policy. We continue work to implement packaging reforms, drive up recycling rates and take material out of incineration.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
I thank the Minister, but I am deeply dissatisfied. This Government, in whom I had a lot of trust, have made the deeply irresponsible decision to allow the Portland incinerator to go ahead. I declare an interest as a resident of Dorset, although nowhere near Portland. Incineration and energy from waste is not a practical way forward; it is very damaging both in terms of public health and environmentally. I beg the Minister to speak to her department and suggest getting better advice on energy?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, it does say in the Companion that you should not thank a noble Member for their Question—so, on this occasion, I will not. The environmental permitting regulations prevent the incineration of separately collected paper, metal, glass or plastic waste, unless it has gone through some sort of treatment process first. Following that treatment, incineration is seen to be the best environmental outcome. We know that the recycling rate is too low, that we burn too much waste and that, for too long, recycling rates in England have plateaued. The way forward is to look at the whole big picture and our circular economy ambitions are designed to address this.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
Will the noble Baroness commit to looking not just at incinerators but at anaerobic digesters and accept that they have a powerful role to play not just in getting rid of residual waste, particularly household waste, which is a very vexatious challenge, but in heating people’s homes at a reduced rate? Will the Government keep an open mind on energy from waste, including anaerobic digestion?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
As I just mentioned, we are looking to do a review right across the piece on this, so anaerobic waste will certainly be part of that.
Lord Krebs (CB)
My Lords, it is all very well to incinerate waste, but does the Minister agree that a real priority should be to reduce the amount of waste that we produce as a country? The real way to deal with this problem is just to produce less waste.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
It is a really important point that the noble Lord makes. If we are moving to a more circular economy, as this Government want, we have to see less residual waste being generated —in fact, less waste as a whole. There is a statutory target to effectively halve residual waste by 2042 from 2019 levels, but there still will be an estimated 17.6 million tonnes of residual waste to manage in 2042. Therefore, we have to look at the bigger picture. How do we actually reduce waste overall?
Lord Lilley (Con)
My Lords, is not the biggest incinerator in the country the Drax power station? It receives eye-watering subsidies for burning wood that has been transported across the oceans, creating emissions, which has had to be dried and cut into chips, also making emissions, and which emits, on being burned, more CO2 than coal. This is justified on the grounds that, over the next half-century to a century, trees replanted in those forests will absorb CO2. If we can take this leisurely approach to reducing CO2, is there really a climate emergency?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I do not consider the Government to be taking a leisurely approach on this aspect. What is really important is that we look at how we decarbonise our energy from waste facilities going forward. We have consulted on expanding the UK Emissions Trading Scheme to waste incineration and energy from waste, and we are taking on board the responses to that and will bring forward detailed final policy in due course. We plan to include energy from waste under decarbonisation readiness requirements.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
Currently, we are incinerating over a million tonnes of food waste a year, as well as 64,000 tonnes of potentially edible food that gets sent to anaerobic digesters; the latter in particular is a clear violation of the WRAP food hierarchy. What will the Government do to re-energise the WRAP campaign around food waste, which, for a while, seemed to work really well but now is very much on the back burner, and food waste is going up. As a redistribution charity, we could really do with that food.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
The noble Baroness makes a very good point around food waste: it is a real challenge. I know from talking to my counterparts in the department that, as part of our review of how we manage waste going forward, looking at food waste is critical, because there are so many different complex aspects to it, such as what is included, what is not included, and how we work with supermarkets and with local government. She is absolutely right to raise that issue and I will be discussing it further with my department.
Lord Roborough (Con)
My Lords, in line with the Government’s climate commitments and, given energy from incineration is now our most CO2-intensive generation, will the Government consider prioritising incineration plants for their £21.7 billion package of carbon capture and storage funding? Is it not better to fix an existing problem than create new problems around hydrogen production to fix?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
Obviously, the noble Lord knows that we have the new CCS—carbon capture and storage—facilities open. We see that as a critical funding decision that we need to be working on to move forward in this area. It is also important to think about how we regulate in this area going forward and how we recover the energy from this. It a very big picture that DESNZ is working on to ensure that we have sufficient energy capacity in the future, particularly around industry, and that that energy capacity is produced in a way that fits in with the circular economy and decarbonisation, so that we can meet our climate change targets.
Baroness Humphreys (LD)
My Lords, when Conwy County Borough Council in North Wales switched to four-weekly collections of residual waste, this led to an 11% spike in the tonnage of recyclables collected and a reduction of 12% of residual waste. The council’s cabinet member put this down to residents being incredibly motivated to recycle and understanding the local and global benefits of recycling. How are the Government working with local authorities to improve awareness of personal responsibility in this area?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
We are working very closely with local authorities but also with devolved Administrations. One thing we see as a high priority is building constructive working relationships with the devolved Administrations and different tiers of government. It is only by working together and sharing best practice that you achieve the kind of results that the noble Baroness is talking about.
Lord Grade of Yarmouth (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I draw attention to my registered interests. In the race to net zero, and given the importance of reducing carbon footprints, how excited are this Government about our world-leading advances in small modular reactors—SMR nuclear?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
This Government, as I am sure the noble Lord is aware, have pledged great support for nuclear energy going forward. We need it as part of our future energy security, and small modular reactors are clearly a part of that nuclear journey.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, plastic waste is a major problem for the planet, yet plastic is eminently reusable. What action are the Government taking to improve and increase the level of reuse of plastic?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
That is a very good point: we talk about recycling a lot but we do not talk enough about reuse. That has to be a critical part of reducing the amount of waste that we have as a country. This is very much part of the discussions with local authorities, because they have a key role to play in this. Also, encouraging people on behaviour change is difficult and the Government definitely have a role to play in that.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords, considering that we are being nerdy, I wonder whether the Minister can share with the House the technologies that are being looked at to clean up the emissions from waste incineration plants.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
Unfortunately, I am not nerdy, so I am unable to answer the noble Lord’s question, but I am sure that we can get back to him in writing.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, some people do not like nuclear power and will not support it, and some do not seem to like any sort of generated energy proposals. But, after 13 years of neglect, it is right that the Government take a view that they will look to reduce pollution in the environment but also keep the lights on.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My noble friend is absolutely right. It is critical that we drive forward our energy policy as a matter of urgency. The last thing we want is not only to have power cuts and insufficient energy but to become too reliant on other countries for our energy all the time. We need to manage our own energy in this country, build the kinds of energy plants we want, work on CCC and nuclear and invest in the future for our long-term energy security.
Police: Firearms Officers
(2 months ago)
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Lord Hogan-Howe
To ask His Majesty’s Government, following the acquittal of a police officer charged with murder in the case of Chris Kaba, what steps they plan to take to review the legal position of firearms officers.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, for his question. As my right honourable friend the Home Secretary said in her response to yesterday’s verdict, this case has caused deep concern for communities and police officers—and, of course, for both families involved. It is important that those families are given space to process the verdict. The Home Secretary confirmed to Parliament in September that work begun under the previous Government on the police accountability system was important and would continue. She intends to set out further steps on that work in the Commons in the coming days. Of course, I will update this House when she does.
Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)
I thank the Minister for that reply, and I apologise to the House for not reading out the Question, as I believe I should have.
Obviously, this is a tragedy. It is a tragedy that a man died, and it is a tragedy for the family, for their son, perhaps for the brothers and the rest of the family. I realise that. But despite the fact that the jury in this case was unaware—as we all were until today—that Mr Kaba was to be charged and indicted for a shooting only days before he was shot dead, that he was linked to a person being shot in May of the same year, and that the vehicle in which he was traveling had been linked to a further shooting, it took a jury only three hours to find the officer in the case not guilty.
Police officers who carry firearms are very few. There are 67 million people in this country, but only around 3,000 who, on our behalf, are volunteers who must go forward to face someone who is armed or otherwise dangerous. They are paid no more for taking that awful responsibility. They do not go to work each day to kill anyone. It seems that the system does not give them the benefit of doubt that was given by the jury in this case.
Perhaps the Minister will consider in his reply today, or, if necessary, tomorrow, how the legal system can give the benefit of the doubt to these brave men and women, who on our behalf, in a fraction of a second, have to make the most awful decision they will make—perhaps never, but usually only once in a career.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The noble Lord will know that it is for the Crown Prosecution Service to determine what charges are processed. In this case, under current regulations, it determined to make those charges at this time. It is also for the jury to consider the evidence put before it, which it did in this case, and reached a verdict of acquittal within a short space of time. It is also for the Home Office to ensure that we support our police officers in doing a dangerous job upholding the law and protecting our society. All those aspects and the outcome of this trial will be assessed by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. As I have indicated to the House, and to the noble Lord, I will report back when we make the Home Office Statement in the House of Commons and, in due course, this noble House also.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, first, I thank all the armed police officers who serve, particularly those who protect us in this House. As the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, said, this is indeed a tragic situation. But yesterday Sergeant Martyn Blake was exonerated fully. As another accused and exonerated officer, Tony Long, writes today in the Telegraph:
“The public is only now finding out the whole truth about Chris Kaba”.
He says of Mr Kaba’s fellow gang members that
“they should have all benefited from anonymity, granted by the courts, while Martyn Blake was denied the same privilege, isn’t just ironic, it’s a national disgrace.
I agree. What steps will the Minister take to reassure current firearms officers so that they have the confidence that they can carry out their duties with the support and backing they deserve?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, for his contribution. He will know that the jury in this case made its assessment and gave its verdict on the evidence presented before it. Other matters on which he has commented were not presented to the jury and, therefore, the acquittal in this case was determined by the information presented by the prosecution and the defence.
The noble Lord will also know that it is important to thank the officers, who are voluntarily doing the task of being armed officers. This Government are certainly aware that we need to examine the regime and discussions around it in the light of this case and others that he has mentioned. Police officers are accountable to the law for their use of force and it is right that their powers are scrutinised robustly. It is also important that we commit to working with the police to strengthen officers’ confidence that they have the support of the Home Office in undertaking their task.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, I refer to my policing interests in the register. Of course, it is appropriate in any case where lethal force is used by the police that it is properly looked at, accountability is maintained and everyone can be satisfied whether or not that force was used appropriately. But why does it have to take so long? These cases drag out, often for several years. That is not appropriate and not in the interests of the family of the person killed or anyone else. What could be done to expedite matters?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I agree with my noble friend that it is in the interests of society as a whole, and of both the community and officers, that when difficult decisions are taken around charging following killings by police officers, these matters are resolved as speedily as possible. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary is reflecting on that; she and I will report to both Houses and consider those matters further.
Baroness Doocey (LD)
My Lords, for any family to lose a child is truly tragic, but it is absolutely dreadful to lose a child in such circumstances. When you add to this the deep distrust of the police in some communities, this can lead to all sorts of problems and suspicion. The police must never be above the law, but neither should they have to wait two years for a jury unanimously to find them not guilty of such a serious charge that has been hanging over them and their family. The situation is appalling. What steps are the Government taking to fix the criminal justice system, which is broken on all levels?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for her question. An individual lost his life in this circumstance. The jury made a decision based on the evidence before it. That is not to take away from the fact that an individual lost their life and that that has a big impact on the family. There has also been a major impact on the police officer who has been charged with, and now acquitted of, the offence initially suggested by the CPS. How long that takes is a valid question and I understand why the noble Baroness raised it. We will look at that in due course.
The noble Baroness said that the criminal justice system is broken. It has many challenges but this Government have not had stewardship of that system for the last 14 years. I did, in part, when I was a Minister in the previous Labour Government. There are challenges now about timing and a range of issues, which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Justice will be examining. Issues that relate to the Home Office and the matters before us in the Question from the well-versed and experienced noble Lord, Lord Hogan- Howe, will be examined in due course.
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, some police officers have been found convicted of appalling crimes but many others have given their lives in the line of duty, so there is a difficult balance to be struck here. It is of course right that police should be held accountable, but is the Met Commissioner not right when he says that if we crush the morale of the police, we make all of our society less safe? So, in considering the way forward, what discussions and consultation will the Home Secretary be having with those who work on the front line of policing in this country?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble and gallant Lord for his question. It is vital both that the police have confidence to exercise their duties, as demanded by this House and the Government as a whole, and that they do that in a way that is accountable but with proportion and under the rule of law. That is what we are going to examine: whether the experience of this case affects and impacts upon that particular aspect.
It is also important that the community has confidence in policing, and the two go hand in hand. We therefore need to ensure that we work through this, not just today but in the longer term, to build community confidence in policing and to ensure that the police themselves have confidence in their operational skills and that, for the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, they have confidence to discharge their duties. At the end of the day, they are protecting society and are given those powers by this House and the House of Commons to do so.
Lord McLoughlin (Con)
My Lords, I very much welcome the way in which the Minister is dealing with this. I had the privilege of meeting the armed section of the British Transport Police some years ago, and I was in awe of the responsibility that we place on police officers who are armed and on the front line for us. Obviously, this is a particularly tragic case, but it is also important that we say to the police that we give them our full support when they are carrying out their duty to protect the public.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his support and for his welcome. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary is continuing the accountability review that was established by previous Home Secretaries in previous Governments to examine the issues that are before this House in many of the questions raised today. My right honourable friend is reaching urgent conclusions on that and, as I have indicated today, will be reporting back to the House of Commons. My commitment to the noble Lord and this House is that, the moment she does so, I will be here to do the same, and I will be open to questions on the detail of any proposals in due course.
Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. A former armed police officer speaking on the BBC’s “Today” programme this morning—and I commend his contribution to noble Lords—asked whether an alternative akin to a military court martial could be used in such cases. Is that something the Government would consider?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
As with the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, brings great experience to this matter. He has made a suggestion that is worth reflecting upon, but I do not wish to give consideration to it today. There are areas that we are looking at in this whole process that I will discuss with this House in due course, but today I would rather reflect on the fact that we have confidence in our police to do the job, that the jury and the CPS came to a conclusion in the trial yesterday that respects the rule of law, and that the jury has been unanimous in its decision. We will reflect on how we approach the situation post today, if the noble Lord will allow it.
Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)
The Minister said that the jury was wholly unaware of the recent evidence that we have now been given in relation to the victim and various activities that he had been involved in. But, of course, the police will have been aware of all those matters; equally, the prosecution authorities will have been aware of those matters when deciding whether or not it was appropriate to charge and try the defendant. Is the Minister happy that, with all that information, it was nevertheless considered appropriate to bring this matter to trial?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
It is for the Home Office to make decisions on a range of issues. Rightly, I am not eligible to become the Crown Prosecution Service and determine what information it presents to a jury; nor am I in a position to be the jury in the trial because I have not been party to the information that was presented to it. It is for the CPS to charge and the jury to determine, and then—if a conviction takes place, which in this case it did not—for the judge to pass sentence and for the criminal justice system to manage that sentence in an effective and appropriate way. I hope the noble Lord will accept that his points are interesting but not for me.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-Afl)
My Lords, in 35 years as a serving police officer, many as a detective, I developed a very high regard for members of juries. I think we tend to not give them all the information. When I was the president of the Police Superintendents’ Association, we campaigned vehemently to change the law on the right to silence. Your Lordships may be surprised to know that when we interviewed prisoners who continually said “no comment”—noble Lords will probably have seen that happen on television —we were not allowed to give that information to the jury as it was felt that it would be too prejudicial. The law was changed and I think we have had a better justice system since then. Martyn Blake was acquitted—and what a catastrophe it might have been had he been convicted. Can the Minister say whether an appeal on the evidence we have heard today would have been put before the appeal hearing?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
Again, I know the noble Lord has great experience of policing, but he will also know that those policing matters, those charging decisions, that acquittal decision and any appeal decision are not for the Home Office. The issues that we will be examining are around police accountability and the issues that have arisen out of this case, but not this case. It is not for me to be judge, jury, CPS or, indeed, police. If I did all those things, this House would soon call me to order.
Liaison Committee
The Senior Deputy Speaker
That Lord Purvis of Tweed be appointed a member of the Select Committee, in place of Baroness Walmsley.
Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 4) Regulations 2024
(2 months ago)
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Baroness Chapman of Darlington
That the Regulations laid before the House on 5 and 12 September be approved.
Relevant document: 3rd Report from Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 21 October.
Support for Infants and Parents etc (Information) Bill [HL]
Tuesday 22nd October 2024
(2 months ago)
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Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Unless, therefore, any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of commitment be discharged.
Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 (Extension) Bill [HL]
Tuesday 22nd October 2024
(2 months ago)
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Baroness Smith of Basildon
That the Bill be now read a third time.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Smith of Basildon) (Lab)
My Lords, I have it in command from His Majesty the King to acquaint the House that His Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 (Extension) Bill, has consented to place his prerogative, so far as it is affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who spoke in the debate on the Bill and have otherwise indicated support and commented on the Bill. There have been no amendments throughout the Bill. I wish that could be said for many other Bills, but I suspect that may not be the case as we proceed. This is a straightforward Bill, limited in its scope, requested by the Church of England with the simple aim to extend by five years the arrangements in place for the appointment of Lords spiritual contained within the Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015.
I particularly thank the Convenor of the Lords Spiritual, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans—and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds for being here today—for his support during the passage of the Bill, along with other noble Lords who spoke and engaged in the debate.
Your Lordships will know that, as a result of that legislation six female Bishops have already been appointed to your Lordships’ House more quickly than would otherwise have been the case. In fact, we are about to see the benefits of this legislation in place again. Following the retirement of the Bishop of Worcester, the Bishop of Peterborough will replace him in the House of Lords in due course under this legislation. I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester for his 12 years of dedicated service in this place, and I very much look forward to welcoming another female Bishop to the Bishops’ Benches.
Finally, I thank my officials and those from the Church of England, who worked together on the Bill. I thank the Official Opposition for their support and other noble Lords too. I hope it will have as smooth a passage in the other place. In that spirit, I beg to move.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the fact that the Bill has strong support in the House, and that support includes these Benches. We are pleased to work with the Government in cases such as this where our objectives are aligned. I am proud of our record supporting women in this House, and our women Bishops have made many valuable contributions to Parliament since they first became Members of your Lordships’ House. As a frequent member of church congregations, I can confirm that this reflects the sterling work of female clergy right across the country.
Finally, I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, who is not in his place but has so eloquently led for the Bishops on this matter, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds. I thank the noble Baroness the Lord Privy Seal for her work on this Bill and I thank the officials involved. As she has said, I hope the other place looks upon the Bill favourably.
The Lord Bishop of Leeds
My Lords, I think it is down to me to thank the Government. All the other Bishops are at a House of Bishops residential elsewhere. I thank the Government for taking this on and thank those who contributed to the debate at different stages. This is a mechanism to allow us to make the progress which we need to make more quickly. I am grateful to the Government and the House for their support.
St Helena: UK Immigration
(2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)
My Lords, the following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Monday 21 October:
“The House is aware that a political agreement has been reached with Mauritius about the long-term future of the British Indian Ocean Territory. Once any treaty with Mauritius comes into force, following its proper parliamentary scrutiny, Mauritius will be responsible for any migrants who arrive there. However, we needed to find an interim contingency solution for the period before that agreement comes into force. Given that there is no permanent population, BIOT has never been an appropriate long-term location for migrants due to the logistical challenges of providing appropriate care in such a remote place without civilian infrastructure.
On 15 October, a new memorandum of understanding was reached with the Government of St Helena so that any new migrants arriving in the interim period will be transferred to St Helena. The intention is for that agreement to last until the treaty with Mauritius comes into force, recalling that, in practice, no new migrants have arrived on Diego Garcia since 2022.
We are hugely grateful to the St Helena Government for their assistance. Their Chief Minister has said:
‘This arrangement presents a unique opportunity for a British Overseas Territory to be in a position to assist the UK, and we are pleased to be able to work in close partnership with the UK Government towards a mutually beneficial solution’.
The UK Government have agreed to provide one-off funding of £6.65 million to St Helena to improve health and education outcomes, and upgrade government infrastructure. This is consistent with our long-term support to the community in St Helena, which is of course crucial. This is a long-term, consistent partnership. We will support St Helena by providing technical support and funding the transfer and subsistence costs for any migrants affected. Of course, this is not the first time that St Helena has supported the wider UK family. The agreement is testament to its integral place in our family. We thank it for its support”.
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. As noble Lords will remember, the previous Government were often criticised, sometimes justifiably, for making announcements in the media as opposed to making them to Parliament. It was therefore disappointing to see that this announcement was made by briefing to the media before Parliament was briefed on it.
As the noble Baroness said, an agreement was reached with the Government of St Helena. Does that mean that it was reached with the entire Legislative Council of St Helena and the residents who will be affected by this policy? Can the Minister say whether the Government are now in favour of offshoring asylum seekers while their applications are processed?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
As to whether the agreement was reached with the entire Legislative Council, we respect the democratic autonomy of St Helena. It is for St Helena to determine what consultation or engagement it wishes to have; it is not for the UK Government to take those decisions on behalf of St Helena, which has the right to take them and has chosen to handle this in this way. The Minister from St Helena’s comment is very clear.
On offshoring, I think the noble Earl is trying to probe how this may or may not relate to the previous Government’s Rwanda programme. Noble Lords will recall that that programme cost £700 million and returned four migrants, voluntarily.
Lord German (LD)
My Lords, it is good news that the Government have reached an agreement with Mauritius in principle, although there are of course still concerns about the involvement of the Chagossians in the process. Will any migrant who gets to these territories and is then transferred to St Helena have an opportunity to apply for asylum in this country, given the role we are playing in the interim period before Mauritius takes over its responsibilities? Will the Mauritius agreement be subject to scrutiny by the International Agreements Committee of this House? If so, when is it likely to come before us? Will the Tamil asylum seekers, who were kept in awful conditions on Diego Garcia without a solution being found until recently, be able to seek asylum in this country, even though they may have to transfer elsewhere in the interim? If so, what will be the timescale?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
These are theoretical migrants, as no migrants would be subject to the new agreement with St Helena. It is not an international agreement in the same way that our agreement with Mauritius is; it is an agreement with one of our overseas territories, so it is slightly different. In the very unlikely event that any new migrants arrive in the Chagos Islands, they would be removed to St Helena and it would be for St Helena to process them and make any decisions about their status. It is our position that Diego Garcia is not a suitable place for the current migrants; most have left, as we discussed a couple of weeks ago. They will not be subject to this agreement and will be dealt with separately.
Baroness Hooper (Con)
As I was recently in St Helena at a Commonwealth small islands conference, I was shocked to hear about this development. The education, health and other facilities for the small population of the island will be severely stretched. Can the Minister give us some idea of the numbers envisaged and the timescales, given the remoteness of St Helena and the transport difficulties?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I shall endeavour to reassure the noble Baroness, whose care for St Helena is clear in her question. Our hope is that no migrants arrive in the Chagos Islands during the 18 months that this agreement will be in place—it is either for 18 months or until the agreement with Mauritius is ratified, whichever is sooner. We hope that it is much sooner than 18 months and that nobody arrives and needs to be taken to St Helena. However, the noble Baroness is right to say that, regardless of any new migrants, St Helenians face health and education support challenges, and we are providing them with £7 million for that. We would also pay for the transport and subsistence of any new migrants, so we think this agreement is good for St Helena, which is why it has welcomed it so warmly.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, this is a substantial amount of money. Does the Minister agree with me that it could be much better spent on a comprehensive feasibility study of the practicalities of resettling the Chagossians on the outer islands? If that was successful and worked, surely the Sri Lankans currently on Diego Garcia could go to the outer islands.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
The noble Lord rightly says that £6.65 million is a lot of money, but I point out that the previous Government were spending £50 million every year on housing those migrants on Diego Garcia. We think that that is not an appropriate place for them to be, and we are going to work to make sure that they are more appropriately dealt with.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I agree with the Minister that Diego Garcia is not an appropriate place to house migrants; indeed, there were returns of Sri Lankans to Sri Lanka. But under the agreement, if people arrive during the 18-month period, what happens to those who are rejected for asylum after the processing takes place on St Helena? Secondly, will those who are entitled to claim asylum in St Helena be granted the same entry rights that St Helena’s residents are to enter the United Kingdom?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
It is important to note that there would be no automatic right to entry rights or citizenship. It is for the Helenian Government to make a determination about anybody who arrives and facilitate their removal.
Lord Empey (UUP)
How will people be physically removed? How will they get to St Helena? Is accommodation being provided for them on St Helena on their arrival?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
Again, we are not anticipating migrants arriving, and this is very much a contingency measure. But should that happen, transport would be provided and they would be accommodated, in line with all the obligations anyone would expect in terms of decency, far better on St Helena, where there is a civilian population and healthcare and education facilities. It is far better there than on BIOT, where no such facilities were available.
Criminal Justice System: Capacity
(2 months ago)
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Lord Keen of Elie (Con)
My Lords, I begin by thanking the Minister for engaging with me in correspondence last week, in which he calmly set out his reasoning for the present policy proposal. I express my deep sympathy to him for having to respond to questions on a Statement from the other place that is heavy in hyperbole and very weak on reasoning.
What is particularly surprising is that by this morning, the Justice Secretary, who made the original Statement in the other place, was conceding in an interview that this is not a problem you can build yourself out of.
Where did this policy originate? The last Labour Government, while recognising the obvious link between sentencing and prison capacity, decided to advance a policy that relied on prison capacity being predicted and adjusted to accommodate sentencing policy, rather than sentencing policy taking account of prison capacity. The Centre for Criminology at the University of Oxford described this “predict and provide” policy as flawed. The then president of the Prison Governors Association described the then Labour Government’s policy as
“an out-of-control demand met by the provision of little more than penal warehousing”.
The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, then chair of the prison policy group, described the policy as “simplistic”.
What did the then Labour Government do? They announced plans for the building of three titan prisons with massive capacity. What did they do next? They announced the abandonment of plans for three titan prisons with massive capacity and announced plans for the building of five new prisons. If we could find them all, we might utilise their capacity, but the fundamental issue here is not prison cells but penal policy. It is not only obvious but well established that if you increase sentencing powers, sentences increase. Magistrates, like science, cannot resist a vacuum. They will fill it. Increasing sentencing in the magistrates’ court may well relieve some pressure on the Crown Court, but it is liable to increase pressure on reception prisons and category C prisons.
What will that impact be? We have no impact assessment, but the means to carry out such an assessment are potentially available. During the pandemic, the sentencing powers of magistrates were temporarily increased from six to 12 months. It should be possible to correlate this with the impact on reception prisons and category C prisons. Why has that not been done?
I note the Government’s most recent decision, which is to appoint the former Conservative Justice Secretary David Gauke to carry out a review. I applaud their decision to call on his expertise and ability to properly inform them as to what they should do next.
I come on to the question of early release, which is connected to this proposal over sentencing. If the Government are to release more prisoners in the next few days, will they please try to release the right ones? Last time, they released dozens of prisoners who did not qualify for release and dozens of prisoners who had breached restraining orders and should never have qualified for early release. Of those who did qualify for early release, some were let out on licence without an electronic tag, which might have made it a little difficult to work out where they had gone.
In coming to a conclusion, I observe that the marrying up of social policy, penal policy, sentencing policy and prison capacity in the context of recidivism, extensive substance abuse, mental health issues and the requirements for care in the community and family support raises complex issues, particularly when the Treasury will rarely, if ever, invite the Ministry of Justice to the front of the spending queue. Those issues have to be addressed as a whole and, in my respectful view, they are not well served by a simplistic statement of blame, which was essentially what was delivered in the other place.
I conclude by thanking the Minister once again for his reasoned and calm engagement on this topic and I look forward to his response.
Lord Beith (LD)
My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, gave us some interesting historical context, but I had expected an apology—or at least a guilty plea, with the plea in mitigation that he chose to leave the previous Government before the ceiling really started to fall in. They left an appalling situation: overflowing prisons, a huge backlog of untried cases, record numbers of remand prisoners, and victims seeing no outcome or closure to what they had suffered. This Government now have to deal with that, and they are running out of their few options to do so. I welcome their decision to have a fundamental review of sentencing policy and to invite David Gauke to carry it out. I very much agree with the noble and learned Lord on that; he is a good choice and I wish him well in the task.
Why are we filling prisons with more offenders than any other western European country? Why are we failing to recognise that we are putting resources into a prison system that is institutionally ill equipped to do the kind of rehabilitative work that is clearly necessary? Unless we see a significant reduction in prisoner numbers, what hope is there that rehabilitation programmes can work in prisons?
With so few options available to them, it seems logical and sensible for the Government to make use of the available time of magistrates who are willing to sit on more serious cases, freeing up time in Crown Courts. However, last time, this was not found to be very effective; it led to an increase in the demand for prison places. The Lord Chancellor conceded in the Commons:
“That is what happened and what I expect to happen again”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/10/24; col. 1011.]
It is not even a temporary solution. Do these plans overlook the possibility that some defendants will opt for a jury trial when they no longer have the incentive that magistrates can sentence them only to six months? That means longer sentences and larger prisoner numbers. Will special training be provided to magistrates to try to ensure that good use is made of them in cases dealing with more serious offences that require a longer sentence, but that the new powers do not simply inflate sentences that would otherwise have been given to potentially shorter-sentence prisoners?
The Lord Chancellor has said, and I agree with her, that
“people have to know and believe there are consequences to breaking our laws”.
This is not achieved when prisoners are released without completing their sentences or any serious regard to why they were imprisoned for a long period. Neither is it achieved by using a significant part of our resources in a prison system which is ill equipped, ill resourced and ill prepared to rehabilitate offenders. If this announcement buys the Government some time, can we have some reassurance that it will be used for fundamental change?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede) (Lab)
I thank both noble Lords for their questions. I will first address some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Beith, and then turn to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen.
On the noble Lord’s final point about buying time, that is the Government’s objective with SDS40; the standard determinate sentencing going from 50% down to 40% is indeed to buy time. As he will know, there was a Statement in the House of Commons today on a sentencing review, which we are very grateful that David Gauke has agreed to chair. That Statement will be repeated in this House in due course, so we can debate the issues raised in it.
The noble Lord, Lord Beith, asked some specific questions, including whether increasing magistrates’ sentencing powers from six to 12 months will incentivise defendants to opt for jury trial. In the brief interlude when that happened before, there was no statistical data to say that might be the case, so on that particular example we are confident that there will not be any appreciable increase in the number of defendants opting for a jury trial.
As far as training goes, there will be refresher training available to magistrates. When I was in opposition, I personally did the training for the increase in sentences. It was not that long ago, but if some magistrates feel they want the refresher training then it will be available to them.
The central point that the noble Lord made was about filling up prisons. As my noble friend Lord Timpson often reminds me, if you do nothing then the prison population will go up by 80 a week. That is the reason we are initiating this review of sentencing, which will get under way very quickly.
The closing remarks of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, were much more acceptable than his opening remarks. In his closing remarks, he acknowledged the complexity of the situation, that there are many interacting factors in the situation we have arrived at today, and that there needs to be a multifaceted approach to try to turn the tide on the ever-increasing number of people we find in our prisons. I agree with the point he made in his closing remarks.
I think the noble and learned Lord might have been tweaking my nose with his other point. He said that magistrates cannot resist a vacuum, but he knows that that is absolutely not true. Magistrates sentence within the sentencing guidelines, as do district judges. The problem with magistrates and district judges is that they sentence quicker than Crown Courts, not that they sentence more harshly. I see that the noble Baroness, Lady Sater, is nodding her head, because she knows that what I have said is correct.
The overall objective of this announcement is to increase magistrates’ sentencing powers back from six to 12 months. I look forward to answering more questions from other noble Lords on that matter.
Lord Keen of Elie (Con)
Could the Minister perhaps respond to my inquiry as to why no impact assessment was carried out, given that there is potentially data available from the previous period when magistrates’ sentencing powers were increased from six to 12 months? If this is going to be an interim measure of some relief, we ought to know whether it is going to provide that relief or exacerbate an otherwise very difficult situation.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
This measure was unavailable to the previous Government, who had to reverse it because they ran the system so close to collapse. They left the backlog unaddressed and victims had to wait far too long for justice. The prediction is that we will see a slight increase in the overall prison population, but by bearing down on the remand population in our reception prisons we will create capacity where we need it most. However, I am confident that there is currently enough capacity in prisons to absorb the initial inflationary impact, and there is no evidence that magistrates send people to prison more or for longer. Because of how precarious the situation is, we believe that now is the right time to take this measure.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, before we move on to Back-Bench questions, let me be absolutely clear that this is 20 minutes of questions—short, succinct and sharp questions—not speeches.
Baroness Sater (Con)
My Lords, last month, 37 prisoners were mistakenly released from prison under the early release scheme. One was charged with sexually assaulting a woman on the same day that he was released. Can the Minister please explain what evaluation is given and criteria used when deciding whether a prisoner is eligible to be released under the early release scheme?
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. All prisoners who were released in error under the first tranche of releases are now back behind bars. I will write to her on her question but, broadly speaking, the criteria includes whether offences were sexual and violent or related to domestic abuse. I will write to her with the specific list; it is in my notes, but I am not sure that I can find it in proper time today.
Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)
My Lords, I can see why increasing magistrates’ courts’ sentencing powers may be necessary as a short-term measure to deal with the backlog of about 17,000 remand prisoners. However, will it not result in a great increase in the number of short sentences? We know that the reoffending rate for short sentences is around 50%, or even a bit more. Although it may be necessary as a short-term measure, how long will this last? If it lasts for too long, surely it will have a reverse effect and we will end up with the revolving-door syndrome that we have seen for short sentences over many years.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
I do not agree with the premise of the noble Lord’s question. It is not right that we will see an increase in the number of short sentences. Certainly, in my experience as a sentencing magistrate who gave short sentences, I gave them only to those who were already on community orders or suspended sentences. I cannot remember giving a short sentence to somebody who had a previous good character.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, can the Minister say a little more about training? I understood him to say that it would be available to magistrates who feel that they need it. Is it not better that there should be some supervision to identify which magistrates really need training? When will the training be available?
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
All magistrates were trained the first time these sentencing powers were put in place. Of course, there will be some new magistrates aboard and some who feel that they would like to retrain, so there will be online courses available either for refreshing or for magistrates who are relatively recently in post. The magistrates are regularly appraised—winger magistrates every four years and presiding magistrates every two years—so we can be confident that the standards are being kept up.
Baroness Mallalieu (Lab)
My Lords, before his death, the late Lord Ramsbotham regularly asked the same question of the Government: when will there be a royal commission on criminal justice? The mess in the prison system is highlighted by the Statement made the other day, but, as we know, there are nearly 70,000 cases awaiting trial in the Crown Court. Is it not time to stop applying sticking plasters and short-term measures, and instead have a proper look at how the whole system should work?
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
I thank my noble friend Lady Mallalieu for her question. I very much remember the noble Lord regularly asking for a royal commission. The reality is that we feel that we have a big job of work to do on reviewing sentencing and then managing the whole prison population and estate, so that it stops increasing. That is where our focus is right now. I will take back the question of a royal commission to my right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor, but, to be frank, I have not heard it spoken about in the time I have been in government.
Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)
My Lords, I support a smaller prison population, not just because there are not enough places for the people who have been sentenced but because there are too many people in prison. However, one of the consequences of releasing people early, at a quicker pace than one might have planned for, is that it will put more pressure on the police service. This Government made a manifesto pledge to increase the size of the police by around 4,000 officers, but we have not heard an awful lot about that since the Government took office.
Secondly, as has been mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and by the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, in passing, one of the measures for mitigating the recidivism of those who are released is tagging—normal tagging to determine where the person is and sobriety tagging, where alcohol is an aggravating factor, and now there is also drug tagging. Finally, the response to those tags when they are breached should go straight to the police, not to a private company to be emailed to the police to be dealt with some time later. Is the Minister able to respond to those points about resourcing?
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
I have just consulted with my noble friend Lord Timpson and I can reassure the noble Lord that we do have enough tags for the process which we are embarking on. I should also mention that both my noble friend Lord Timpson and I were fitted with a sobriety tag for a while to see whether it worked, and I can assure the noble Lord that it does work.
The noble Lord’s opening point was about more pressure on the police. That is right; there will be some more pressure on the police and also on the Probation Service and some social services such as housing. The philosophy underlying the Government’s SDS40 approach rather than the previous approach is planning down the whole pipeline, including people who will regrettably reoffend and how to deal with them. By managing this with a more planned approach, we hope and expect that we will reduce the chances of reoffending.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, can I refer the Minister to the recent quite appalling race riots that took place during the summer? I think everyone agrees that those involved in violence and incitement to violence, including online incitement to violence, deserved extremely harsh punishment. But the Minister will be aware that many of these people had no previous convictions and posed no immediate threat to the public and yet nearly all were remanded in custody, thus putting greater pressure on the Prison Service. Can the Minister comment on this point?
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
Of course, the matter of sentencing is for judges. My personal view is that the sentences I read about seemed entirely appropriate, but this is a matter for them. This was a particular situation where maybe the judges felt that even people who were of previous good character needed to be made an example of—but that was a matter for them.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
Speaking as a former magistrate who worked in a young offender institution, I can say that short sentences clearly do not work. To go back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, that it is preferable to have fewer people in prison, have the Government looked at the prison system in Holland? The Netherlands has managed to reduce its prison population significantly, such that it can even outsource prison spaces to other countries, but this depends on a lot of resources being put into the Probation Service and community sentences. Can the Minister respond?
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
I agree with every word the noble Baroness has said. My noble friend Lord Timpson has just whispered in my ear that he has been to Holland, so we are looking at that very closely. The other point he made is that they use a lot of tagging in Holland, so that is another factor when we are looking at reviewing sentencing as a whole, although of course the sentencing review will look at adult sentencing and not at youth matters.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I am worried about a public loss of confidence in the contradictions around sentencing. I think there was public disquiet about the high-profile case of a woman given a two-and-a-half-year sentence for a social media post, which the noble Lord has pointed out was possibly somebody being made an example of. Yet letting people out before their sentence is up for more serious crimes seems to contradict that. Also—dare I mention?—many IPP prisoners have served their tariff in prison. Will the Minister comment on whether some of those could be looked at to see whether, having done their time, they could be released earlier than their indefinite sentence? They have done their time for the crime they committed and yet they still languish in prison. It just does not seem to make any sense to the public.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for that question. In a sense, she exemplifies the difficulty of the various matters we are grappling with when trying to address the overall problem of having this large number of people in prison at the same time as the riots were happening over the summer period. I acknowledge that that is a difficult situation. Regarding the IPP sentences, the Government have set up an IPP action plan which they are working at full speed on, and proposals will be coming forward in due course.
Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the Minister described very well the process which he undertook when sentencing somebody, giving them a sentence of imprisonment only when other avenues had been properly explored. I was a recorder for some considerable time and that very much echoes my approach and, I suspect, the approach of most judges: a real reluctance to send people to prison unless there is no other alternative. However, during the last Labour Government, there was an enormous amount of legislation changing the sentencing powers of judges and magistrates—particularly judges—and not trusting the judges to make their own assessment of what the appropriate sentence was. When there is this review of the appropriate response to the prison crisis, can the Minister convey to his colleagues that it is not a good idea to fetter the discretion of a judge and prevent them coming to the right conclusion in the right case?
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
I think I can reassure the noble Lord. It is intended that we will have very senior former judges on the sentencing review, who I am sure will take to heart the noble Lord’s point.
Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)
My Lords, this measure is intended, in part at least, to take pressure off the Crown Courts, but can the Minister say something about the pressure on magistrates? Is it the case that the number of magistrates fell by 50% over the decade to 2021 and has not yet got anywhere near that number? Can he say something about the backlog of cases at magistrates’ courts, too, please?
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
I became a magistrate just under 20 years ago and at that point there were 30,000 magistrates in England and Wales. There are now about 14,000 and we are trying to get the number back up to 18,000. So, I accept the point the noble Baroness made on that. The other point is that in the youth court, magistrates have powers to sentence up to two years—I was a youth magistrate as well. The change is important and significant, but it is not such a big step change that magistrates will not be able to handle it in any way. I am confident that they will be able to handle it, and the backlogs in the magistrates’ courts are nowhere near as bad as those in the Crown Court.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, may I seek some further clarification from the Minister? I asked him about remanding in custody and, having worked in the criminal justice system as a barrister, I am well aware that obviously the sentencing is up to the judges or magistrates. However, remanding in custody is not meant as a punishment; it is meant to protect the public.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
Of course, I accept the point. The objective is not to change the number of people who are remanded in custody, because obviously that is a judicial decision, but to reduce the time those who are remanded in custody spend in custody. If we can do that through reducing the backlog, that will be a desirable effect. We think that some 2,000 days of Crown Court sittings could be saved by this change to the rules of magistrates’ sentencing powers.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
Can the Minister assure us that the training of magistrates covers the circumstances in which it is right for somebody to be remanded in custody? Following the riots, suspicions were raised that some people were being remanded without true consideration of whether they justified that treatment. It is rather an important issue, and I hope that the training does cover it.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
I absolutely assure the noble and learned Lord that remanding in custody is covered in magistrate training. When I used to oversee new magistrates, I said to them on their first day in court that remanding in custody is the most difficult decision they will make, both on the first day and on the last day. It is consistently a difficult decision to make and one that magistrates and the judiciary, I am sure, are fully aware of and trained in.
Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill (Lab)
Can my noble friend the Minister give some reassurance that with the increased number of cases before magistrates, they will have increased resources to receive pre-sentencing reports from the Probation Service? That is so important, particularly for women with family responsibilities, before magistrates consider the sentence.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My noble friend raises a good point. There has certainly been increased resource in probation, and we are recruiting additional probation officers. That is going very well, but it takes time to train those probation officers. The other factor is an increased number of legal advisers, who are often the unsung heroes of our court system. Again, recruitment is going okay but they need time to gain the experience so that the system can be in equilibrium with these new sentencing powers.
Lord Lexden (Con)
In due course will the Government bring forward proposals to improve the way in which prisoners are rehabilitated?
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
It is certainly our intention to do so. That underpins so much of what we are going to do. We are increasing the number of people in the Probation Service. Obviously, we want to increase the rehabilitation figures and reduce the reoffending figures. The spotlight will be on the Probation Service to try to deliver that objective.
Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)
My Lords, given the importance of employment in stopping reoffending, are there plans to increase the number of employers that will consider taking on ex-offenders? Will the Government provide any incentives for them to do so?
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My noble friend Lord Timpson has just whispered in my ear “Employment advisory boards”, of which he was a leading light and which we intend to increase. I accept the noble Baroness’s point that if people can get gainful employment when they leave prison, they are far less likely to reoffend.
Baroness D'Souza (CB)
My Lords, the Minister has already had a question about the rehabilitation of prisoners. A number of organisations are having quite good results in the rehabilitation of prisoners. Are the Government working with these organisations, and are they concerned with the lack of funding that many of these small organisations have? Could the Government outsource some of this work?
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
I acknowledge the noble Baroness’s point, and of course we value the contribution that they make. We all know these organisations. I remember working very closely with them when we were in opposition, and we continue to work with them in government. Many of them bring real expertise to the table. We want to work collaboratively to achieve our overall goal of turning around the ever-increasing prison population we have seen over the last decades.
Crown Estate Bill [HL]
Tuesday 22nd October 2024
(2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Crown Estate Bill [HL] 2024-26 View all Crown Estate Bill [HL] 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 5-II Second marshalled list for Committee - (18 Oct 2024)
Earl Russell
“Report on impact of this Act on the Sovereign GrantThe Secretary of State must, within one year of the passing of this Act and each subsequent year, lay before Parliament a report into the effect of this Act on the size of the Sovereign Grant.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to review the impact of this Act on the size of the Sovereign Grant.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, this amendment would simply require the Secretary of State to review the impact of this Act on the size of the sovereign grant. I have tabled it as I feel that, as part of our consideration of the Crown Estate Bill, it is important to look at the direct link between the future planned growth of Crown Estate activities and the increase in profits that will result directly from the partnership with GB Energy, and the interlinked direct impact these changes will also have on the practical workings of the Sovereign Grant Act 2011.
The Sovereign Grant Act came into force on 1 April 2012 and changed the arrangements for funding Queen Elizabeth’s official duties. It consolidated four separate sources of funding into one new sovereign grant. The grant is intended to be a more permanent system than the previous one, which was reign specific. The sovereign grant is paid annually by His Majesty’s Treasury at a value indexed as a direct percentage of the revenues from the Crown Estate. It was initially set as an indexed percentage of 15%. The percentage is reviewed every five years by the royal trustees, made up of the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Keeper of the Privy Purse. The level of the grant is protected by law from decreasing because of falling Crown Estate profits, as there were during the Covid pandemic. With annual accounts published by the Keeper of the Privy Purse and audited by the National Audit Office, the process promised to be more accountable. The level of the grant has risen in recent years to help fund, in part, a £369 million refurbishment of Buckingham Palace, which was approved by Parliament. After King Charles III’s accession to the Throne, the new King approved a statutory Order in Council to allow the existing sovereign grant provisions to continue throughout his reign.
This is all very well but, to come to the heart of the matter, my concern is the direct link between the profits that the Crown Estate makes and the calculation of the amount of the sovereign grant going forward. My request is that the direct link is discussed today, and I call on the Government to consider amending it. My amendment calling for an annual review was the closest wording I was able to table on this matter.
There is a world of difference between the direct binary link that we have now, where a set percentage of the Crown Estate’s revenues is used as the only calculation basis in determining the size of the sovereign grant, and the system that I would prefer, where the Government pay due regard to the Crown Estate’s revenues as part of the process of determining the size of the sovereign grant.
I have five areas of concern about the future of these arrangements after this Bill passes. First, my personal feeling is that the present calculation is somewhat obtuse and that the Sovereign Grant Act is not a particularly helpful or appropriate way of determining how, and at what level, we fund the Royal Family. The trouble with all this is that the attempt to link royal funding to the profits of the Crown Estate is a conjurer’s trick; it is an accounting sleight of hand. The two are not related at all. The Crown Estate’s profits are, and always have been, government funds.
I am not here to have a conversation about the role, purpose or future of the Royal Family; I am not anti-monarchy. Nor do I wish to discuss the appropriate levels of funding, as none of this is relevant to the Bill. Before us is a Bill that will see the Crown Estate allowed to borrow from the Treasury, subject to approval, and if all goes well this will result in rapid investment in, and growth at, the core of the Crown Estate’s business, that of leasing seabed plots for offshore floating and offshore wind developments. When the Crown Estate is at the heart of a rapid green energy revolution, and the sovereign grant is calculated as a percentage of revenue profits and reviewed only every five years, it is only sensible for us to take a moment to examine the potential impacts that this rapid growth will have on the calculation of the grant.
My second concern is that this rapid and exceptional period of Crown Estate growth was not foreseen when the 2011 grant Act was passed, and this makes future calculations more difficult.
Thirdly, I am worried that it may potentially put the King personally in a difficult position. Your Lordships should note that, in January 2023, the Keeper of the Privy Purse, speaking on behalf of the King, asked the Government to reduce the percentage used to calculate the sovereign grant so that the total did not include the income from new offshore wind leases, calculated to be worth £1 billion annually to the Crown Estate. The request was made by the King, out of his desire that the money described as a “windfall” could be best used for “wider public good” instead of funding the Royal Family during a cost of living crisis, which he had referred to only weeks earlier. In July last year, with further Crown Estate profits, the Government announced that the grant would be changed to 12% in the following year, down from 25%, while maintaining the same level payable.
It is my understanding that a further reduction is planned to come in through primary legislation following 2026-27. In the words of the Report of the Royal Trustees on the Sovereign Grant Review 2023,
“The Crown Estate’s Net Revenue Profits are expected to increase significantly in future years”.
The trustees’ projected figures show an increase from £442 million in 2022-23 to £1.05 billion in 2024-25. With predicted exceptional linear growth forecast for the foreseeable future, will we see newspaper headlines every year to the effect of “Exceptional growth in Crown Estate’s green energy brings huge profits to the King: the King kindly wishes that these are used for the public good”?
My fourth point is that the five-year review is inadequate in this period of exceptional continuous growth. I call on the Government to amend the 2011 Act to make the review annual.
My fifth and final point relates to what is a complex and confusing system that is not only poorly publicly understood but a hostage to fortune. The system is ripe for exploitation by those who are either against the energy transition, are supportive of the old energy architecture or simply wish to use the politicisation of the energy transition to spread disinformation and propaganda. This is my biggest worry. From the challenges to well-established basic climate science to deliberate attempts to undermine the transition to heat pumps and electric vehicles to miscalculations of costs, propaganda is, sadly, ever present. A system that can all too easily be used to link the green energy transition to extra funding to the Royal Family is ripe to be manipulated by those who wish to argue that the green transition will cost you more because all the benefits are funding the Royal Family. A highly effective government communications strategy that works in partnership, wins hearts and minds, extols the benefits and lower bills is essential to support the transition, and this link does not help with that.
The move to green energy and the financial support received by the Royal Family are uneasy bedfellows. I foresee this as an opportunity that will be exploited by those aimed against the transition. My humble opinion is that the calculation of the sovereign grant as a direct percentage of Crown Estate profits represents a weakness in the system that leaves us vulnerable to interference as we transition our power generation. My wish is simply that this Government consider amending the direct nature of this link and conduct an annual review of the sovereign grant during this period of rapid growth. My amendment is here simply to allow this conversation to take place. I look forward to hearing the opinion of your Lordships and the Minister’s response on these issues. I beg to move.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My Lords, I rise to speak briefly on this group. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is not in this place and so was unable to speak to his amendment. I understand why the noble Earl, Lord Russell, has tabled his amendment, and I am grateful to him for his exposition of the background to it. On these Benches, we recognise the unusual role that the Crown Estate has in the stewardship of the assets held in the right of the Crown. We recognise, too, that the revenues from the assets do not belong to the sovereign, nor is any part of them payable directly to the monarch.
The issue here is one of communication. It must be—it is absolutely essential—that there be no perception of any direct financial link between the sovereign and any amounts received under the sovereign grant and the amount of revenue generated by the Crown Estate. Upon the announcement of the partnership with GB Energy, there was a perception from some of the more excitable end of the media that the sovereign was somehow party to, and specifically approving of, the arrangement. I encourage the Minister and commissioners of the Crown Estate to ensure that information in the public domain about the operation of the Crown Estate, but also any further partnerships that may come down the track, cannot possibly suggest any direct involvement from the sovereign and, therefore, that there should be no undue benefit accrued.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Livermore) (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for his amendment and I will seek to address some of the points that he has raised. This amendment would require the Government, within one year of the passing of this Act and annually thereafter, to lay before Parliament a report into the effect of this Act on the size of the sovereign grant. The Government agree that it is important that there is transparency in how the sovereign grant is affected by changes in Crown Estate profits. Indeed, the Sovereign Grant Act 2011 includes a number of requirements that provide for regular effective review and reporting to Parliament.
As the noble Earl observed, under the Act, the grant for each financial year is set by reference to the profits of the Crown Estate. In broad terms, under Section 6 of the Sovereign Grant Act it is currently the higher of 12% of the Crown Estate profits two years previously or the previous year’s grant. For example, the level of the grant for 2025-26 will be set at 12% of the profits the Crown Estate reported in its annual accounts for 2022-23, published in July.
Section 7 of the Sovereign Grant Act provides for regular reviews of the percentage used in calculation of the grant to ensure the grant remains at an appropriate level. These reviews are conducted by the three royal trustees—the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Keeper of the Privy Purse. The trustees must lay a copy of the report of their review before Parliament. The last review concluded in July last year and concluded that the reference rate should be reduced from 25% to 12%, reflecting an expected increase in the Crown Estate’s profits. The next review will commence in 2026, with a view to making any change to the grant calculation for 2027-28 onwards. As with previous reviews, it will consider both the future funding needs of the Royal Household and the likely future path of Crown Estate profits—including, of course, the effect of the Crown Estate Bill that we are debating today on those profits—to determine the appropriate percentage to use.
I should note in this context that the grant for 2026-27 will include the final tranche of funding for the current 10-year programme of reservicing of Buckingham Palace’s infrastructure. The percentage for 2027-28 onwards will therefore need to reflect the significant downward adjustment to the household’s funding requirements. The Sovereign Grant Act currently restricts the level of the grant itself being reduced from one year to the next. That provision was written into the Sovereign Grant Act to reflect the view that many of the duties of the Head of State cannot be abruptly stopped, and therefore it would not be appropriate to significantly reduce funding in response to a sudden drop in Crown Estate profits. That will, however, constrain the ability to reduce the grant by the likely appropriate amount once the reservicing of Buckingham Palace is complete. In 2016, when the previous Government agreed to provide funding for the resurfacing programme, they noted an intention to bring forward legislation to reset the level of the sovereign grant to an appropriate level once the reservicing works have been completed. I can confirm that it is also the intention of this Government.
Those statutory reviews therefore provide Parliament with a report of the impact of this Bill on the sovereign grant. They also provide a mechanism to ensure that additional Crown Estate profits do not lead to excessive funding for the Royal Household. Where that is not possible under the Sovereign Grant Act, the Government will legislate accordingly.
On reporting requirements, the Sovereign Grant Act also requires two further reports on the grant to be produced and laid before Parliament each year. First, Section 5 requires the royal trustees to produce a report annually stating the level of the grant for the following financial year and how that has been determined in line with a prescribed method set out in Section 6 of the Act. This report must be laid before Parliament. Secondly, Section 2 requires the Keeper of the Privy Purse to produce annual accounts relating to the Royal Household, including the use of the sovereign grant. In common with other central government bodies, the accounts are prepared in accordance with an accounts direction issued by the Treasury, audited by the National Audit Office and laid in Parliament. The Crown Estate Act 1961 also contains a requirement for the Crown Estate to produce an annual report and accounts.
The Government therefore agree that it is important that there is regular reporting to Parliament on how the changes in this Bill will impact the sovereign grant. As I have detailed, there is already a considerable set of statutory requirements in this respect and beyond.
Earl Russell (LD)
I thank the Minister for his comments. I appreciate that there is information of which the Government are aware from the reports that come to Parliament on this. Some of my questions might have been answered had I had sight of the business case, so I look forward to that being published.
The only slightly outstanding issue for me is about our communications strategy around the green revolution, making sure that the Government are communicating properly and taking the public with them. I still worry that there is a bit of confusion between us. I will withdraw my amendment and thank the Minister for his response, which I will go away and consider.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
“Salmon farms on the Crown EstateAfter section 3 of the Crown Estate Act 1961, insert—“3A Salmon farms on the Crown Estate(1) In carrying out their functions under this Act, the Commissioners must assess the—(a) environmental impact, and(b) animal welfare standardsof salmon farms on the Crown Estate.(2) If the assessment under subsection (1) determines that a salmon farm—(a) is causing environmental damage, or(b) has significant animal welfare issues,then they must revoke the licence for the farm in question.(3) The Commissioners must assess the potential—(a) environmental impact, and(b) animal welfare standardsof applications for licences for salmon farms on the Crown Estate.(4) If the assessment under subsection (3) determines that an application for a licence for a salmon farm—(a) may cause environmental damage, or(b) raises significant animal welfare concerns,then they must refuse the application.””
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to move this very modest and uncontroversial amendment, which would place a duty on the Crown Estate, in carrying out its functions under the Bill, to assess the environmental impact and animal welfare standards of salmon farms on the Crown Estate. If an assessment determines that a salmon farm is causing environmental damage or significant animal welfare issues, it must revoke the licence for the farm in question. If assessments of the potential environmental impact and animal welfare standards of applications for salmon farms on the Crown Estate determine that they may cause environmental damage or raise significant animal welfare issues of concern, the Crown Estate must refuse these applications. Who could be against that, except people running salmon farms that do not meet those conditions?
I should begin by declaring an interest. I am a fisherman and my family own one week on the River Tay. I confess that I am absolutely bewitched by the glory of Atlantic salmon, which are now considered an endangered species alongside mountain gorillas and Siberian tigers. This is a really serious issue.
The Crown Estate commissioners on both sides of the border—I regret that the Bill does not cover the commissioners’ activities north of the border because of devolution, but I am sure that if England sets the standard then others will follow—have a responsibility to protect the seabed, which was owned by the Crown and has been vested in the Crown commissioners for centuries. The monarch is not involved, but the commissioners should have a clear duty to protect the environment and nurture the ocean’s wildlife, particularly given the commitment to those ideals of members of the Royal Family, in whose name they act.
I shall concentrate on the impact of farming Atlantic salmon, which has to be licensed by the Crown Estate. There are farming interests that have very high standards, but a wide variation of standards has been applied to salmon farming across the globe. All over the world, salmon farming has resulted in environmental damage to wild fish populations and threatened other species as a result of varying practices.
Salmon are often concentrated in large numbers in open-net cages and flushed with chemicals and antibiotics to combat disease and lice—lice that literally eat the fish alive if not treated. The death rate in the cages is appalling and would never be allowed for conventional farming. Some 20 to 40% of those salmon die and are dumped. Imagine what people would say if they were going past fields of cows or sheep and finding those sorts of casualty levels—there would be an outcry. But of course all this is unseen because it is below the surface of the water.
The list of various toxic chemicals that have been used to tackle lice includes organophosphates, which are highly dangerous, as we were often reminded by a former Member of this House. Other chemicals work by dissolving the bodies of the lice on the salmon, which are crustaceans. That results in the chemicals leaching into the sea and may very well explain why fishermen then start catching lobsters and crabs with half their shells dissolved. I urge anyone listening to this debate to look on YouTube at the horrific condition of salmon in some of these cages as a result of uncontrolled sea life predation. It is a horror movie that is widely available and very easily seen.
The feed that these salmon are given is fishmeal pellets, to which further chemicals are added, including in some cases dioxins and PCBs. These are all controlled, but to present this as a sustainable environmentally-friendly product stretches credibility. Other chemicals are included in the feed in order to change the colour of the flesh. If you are a supermarket, rather like when you want to paint your house, you can get a colour code and choose in which shade of orange or red you would like the fish on your shelves to appear—perhaps, as a result, misleading the customers as to what it is they are buying.
The importance of ensuring effective regulation and best practice hardly needs emphasising. The supply of pellets demands catching gargantuan quantities of small fish. Estimates vary, but those that I have seen are that between 3 and 5 kilograms of anchovies, sardines and other small pelagic fish are needed to produce just 1 kilogram of farmed salmon. That is a ratio, if you are being kind, of 3:1. To describe this as a sustainable business beggars belief. The scale is such that whole fishing communities have lost their livelihoods in west Africa, where the fish are taken by large vessels and turned into fishmeal, creating a lack of employment for local fishermen and a collapse in local economies.
There is also irreversible damage being done to the seabed as fish faeces, chemicals and uneaten food fall through the cages. All that lands on the seabed, creating a disgusting, vile brew on an industrial scale. There are vast numbers of fish. Even in a small tank there will be 20,000 salmon, with up to 90,000 in the larger cages.
Such high concentrations of salmon produce high concentrations of lice. These swarms of lice attach themselves to wild, migrating salmon, with fatal results. Escapees bring diseases to the wild population and whole rivers have been cleaned out of wild fish. Diseases include ISA—infectious salmon anaemia—and bacterial kidney disease. ISA is like AIDS for salmon but without any possible cure. There are many examples of how these viruses have been transmitted. In California, believe it or not, Atlantic salmon were being farmed using eggs transported from Norway. Those eggs contained the virus, which then took out the local population of Pacific salmon.
Some in the industry are in denial. The truth is that, when the salmon farms arrive, it seems that the wild population crashes. Examples include the loss of the sea trout runs on the Scottish west coast and the once-great salmon rivers in Norway. In British Columbia, on the Broughton archipelago, the wild pink salmon population was reduced by 80% by sea lice that came from fish farming. In Chile, ISA—that virus I have just spoken of—resulted in the collapse of the entire industry. Iceland saw huge protests, with about 1% of the population turning up to protest outside the Parliament about the possibility of fish farms being allowed to continue.
Wild fish interbreed, diluting the gene pool and reducing the ability of the progeny to make migratory journeys. This ability has been honed over hundreds of thousands of years by fish that are genetically unique to each river. They are breeding with the salmon from the farms. They are described as “Scottish salmon”. They are no more Scottish salmon than anything else. They are based on Norwegian salmon and are genetically modified to grow quickly. They are a million miles away in terms of their gene pool and structure from the fish that operate in the rivers of Scotland, each of which has a unique genetic identity and as a result is equipped to be able to run the river to spawn and to go out to sea and return after one or three years. If those fish interbreed with this alien species, the result is progeny incapable of making that journey and therefore the destruction of the population in the rivers concerned. And by the way, on the numbers escaping, in Loch Melfort in Scotland 48,000 fish escaped, dwarfing the wild population.
There is a growing realisation around the world of the environmental damage being caused. This is resulting in complete bans on fish farms. Alaska has had a ban since 1990. Argentina has introduced a ban. California has introduced a ban in state waters. In British Columbia, the plan is to phase out open-net farms by 2025 and move to closed systems.
Lord Strathclyde (Con)
My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Forsyth and have signed Amendment 37. We have now got to the stage of the debate where this amendment has been grouped with Amendments 37F and 37G from my noble friends Lord Leicester and Lord Douglas-Miller.
This is a really interesting debate, because much of what this involves is in Scotland. Of course, there are aspects of this which are devolved. It might be tempting for the Minister to say that it is nothing to do with him, but I think that would be unwise and unhelpful. I hope that the Minister is not tempted to do that, because Clause 3(1) states:
“This Act extends to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland”.
It would be helpful to know what discussions, if any, have taken place between the Minister’s department and Scotland Office Ministers about the kinds of issues that have been raised so eloquently by my noble friend Lord Forsyth. I say “eloquently” but I mean vividly as well and, in some cases, very movingly, too.
I am not one of those who has always been implacably opposed to salmon farms around Scotland. What I very much oppose is what my noble friend described and has described in his amendment as lowering “environmental impact” and lowering “animal welfare standards”. It must be in all our interests to ensure that these salmon farms, which provide so much economic activity in relatively marginal areas, should also be run in such a way that we can all be proud of what they are doing.
I look forward particularly to the speech on aquaculture that my noble friend Lord Douglas-Miller will make in a few moments, and that of my noble friend Lord Leicester on offshore energy installations and generation. In the meantime, I do not know whether the Minister will be able to accept my noble friend’s amendment—it would be great if he could—but what I suspect is more likely, and what I would like him to do, is to give a very positive encouragement to this amendment so that perhaps at a later stage the Government might come forward with their own amendment to put right what is clearly a wrong.
Viscount Trenchard (Con)
My Lords, I was unable to speak at Second Reading, but I am supportive of the Bill’s objective to enable the Crown Estate to continue to fulfil its core duty of maintaining and enhancing its value.
Amendment 37, as introduced so powerfully by my noble friend Lord Forsyth and to which I have added my name, is a massive improvement to the Bill. I also agree with what my noble friend Lord Strathclyde said in his impressive speech. I suspect that the main purpose of the Bill in the minds of its drafters was to ensure that the Crown Estate should continue to focus on activities which align with wider national needs, including energy security and sustainable economic growth, as the Explanatory Notes make clear. Indeed, the Bill specifically mentions its role as an enabler of offshore wind power generation.
Offshore wind power generation has a part to play in our energy mix, but it may receive too much emphasis as most offshore wind projects produce electricity too far away from where it is needed, and the costs of transmission and storage are often opaque. I would like to see more emphasis on small and so-called advanced nuclear reactors, which can be sited adjacent to data centres and industrial clusters where the energy is actually needed.
It would appear that the Government have introduced this legislation with only one major objective: to encourage and enable the Crown Estate to build more offshore wind farms. This is also evidenced by the announcement of the partnership with Great British Energy. I look forward to learning more about how GBE will operate; there are still relatively few details available. However, it is important in legislating to increase commercial activity in the seabed around our shores that restrictions must be placed on the development of salmon farms in England and Wales, especially given the damaging effects on nature and the environment resulting from salmon farms operated in coastal waters and sea lochs in Scotland. I declare an interest in that I fish in England on the River Tamar, as well as on the Rivers Laggan and Sorn on the Scottish island of Islay. We do not want to see the depleted populations of salmon migrating to English and Welsh rivers exposed to the additional threats posed by salmon farms.
Just over a month ago, my noble friend Lord Forsyth asked in Grand Committee what steps the Government were taking to protect wild salmon populations. I confess to having been underwhelmed by the reply to the debate given by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, especially on two points: the need to monitor more strictly the harmful activities of some salmon farms, and the quite ridiculous restrictions placed on river-keepers’ ability to control stocks of predators such as cormorants. She noted that some predators are themselves protected so we had to be
“careful about how and when such predators can be managed”.—[Official Report, 12/9/24; cols. GC 170-171.]
I think that the noble Baroness is unaware that the cormorant population has increased from some 2,000 in the 1980s to over 62,000 today. Each bird requires over a pound of fish a day; why are they still protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981? Why does the EU still protect them under the birds directive? Does the Minister know how many gamekeepers are employed by the Crown Estate and how many cormorants they are licensed to shoot each year?
In replying to the debate last month, the noble Baroness the Minister said that the Government recognised the need for higher standards to be maintained in fish farms. The problems of excessive sea lice escaping fish possessing a very different genetic make-up and a very different DNA construct compared with indigenous fish were raised by several noble Lords in that debate, and spoken to especially powerfully by my noble friend Lord Forsyth just now. What discussions has the Minister had with the Crown Estate about fish farms and about moving to more sustainable methods of farming salmon, especially land-based farms, which are completely isolated from the endangered wild salmon population? As my noble friends Lord Forsyth and Lord Strathclyde have already said, this amendment would very much improve the Bill.
It is fortunate that, until now, English river systems have been, I believe, free of open-net fish farms, but I worry that the encouragement, implicit in the Bill, for the Crown Estate to increase commercial activity might change that—and I believe that this amendment is therefore absolutely necessary. I hope that the Minister will accept it.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I rise to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth—words that I never thought I would hear myself speak. I was unable to attend the Second Reading but my noble friend Lady Bennett of Manor Castle did attend. After the previous day in Committee, I was approached by four different Conservative Peers who complained that a Green had not spoken on that day. One of those Peers was the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, who has consistently, over the 11 years I have been here, complained that Greens speak too much. I hope to hear him express his gratitude today to hear a Green speak.
I support the amendment because, although I am highly suspicious of Conservatives and their environmental credentials, I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is absolutely genuine in his care for salmon—and I support that completely. This is a very sensible amendment, and I cannot see any reason for the Labour Government not to accept it, so I look forward to the Minister’s explanation of why they will not.
These issues of environmental impact and animal welfare standards should be an overarching staple of any check on any Bill or policy that the Labour Government bring forward. I am afraid that these days I have my doubts about the Labour Government’s environmental credentials. We have seen some horrific decisions already in the first 100 days, or three months, so I sincerely hope that the Labour Government will accept this quite simple but, I think, very necessary amendment.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, I too rise in support of the very modest amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Forsyth. Woe betide any Government who fail to accept an amendment tabled by four such eminent Peers as the movers of this amendment. I hope that the Government will recognise that this very modest amendment is worthy of significant support.
I say that it is modest because internationally, as has been pointed out by my noble friend, salmon farms are banned in multiple countries—not only the countries that he has mentioned but Denmark and Australia, to name two more. The practices that have led to these bans differ. Some are concerned that, with thousands of fish in each pen, salmon farms can act as a breeding ground for diseases and pests, which is undoubtedly the case, particularly with sea lice. Almost half the salmon in Scottish salmon farms are said to be infested with the common salmon louse. The consequences of that were made very clear by my noble friend in his opening speech.
There is another reason. In Argentina the main concern was that a provincial government voted to ban intensive salmon fishing after campaigners successfully argued that it would wreak environmental havoc, close down local fishing fleets and threaten the nature tourism established there.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, I also support my noble friend, who recently sponsored an important debate in the Moses Room on this very subject. I inform noble Lords, if they had not spotted it already, that this is a very modest measure. It is not instructing the Scottish Environment Protection Agency or the local planning authority; it is simply instructing the commissioners of the Crown Estate and asking them to be more responsible in terms of outlook to the environment and, in particular, to the obvious evidence that is accumulating about the damage being done to salmon and sea-trout.
I want to reinforce what I hope the Minister is going to say by giving him what I think it is the really important example of the River Lochy on the west coast of Scotland near Fort William. That was once a very important salmon river with a prolific angling catch of well over 1,500. It has gone downhill quite catastrophically: the numbers have decreased; the number of staff employed as ghillies on the river has gone right down; and the impact of tourism on the economy has been very badly affected.
About seven years ago, the two fish farms in Loch Linnhe were both fallowed for a year. The following year, the number of grilse coming into the river went up very sharply and the angling catch went up by a factor of three and a half. That seems to me to be quite compelling and overwhelming evidence of the damage that is being done, which my noble friend described so eloquently. I hope the Minister will accept this amendment because it is a modest amendment and, as I say, it is not actually affecting any government or local government organisation; it is simply affecting the commissioners and giving them this extra duty. I support my noble friend.
The Earl of Leicester (Con)
My Lords, I declare interests as a trustee of the Burnham Overy Harbour Trust and president of the Wells-next-the-Sea RNLI station—I say that only because they both go out to sea. I apologise that I was not here at Second Reading on 2 September; I was in the Netherlands on business also relating to the environment. Like my noble friend Lord Trenchard, I agree that the main purpose of the Bill is to allow the Crown Estate to borrow and leverage against its assets and manage them in a way becoming of the 21st century.
I am astounded that the Crown Estate is not required to undertake the same level of environmental impact assessment that we do on the mainland. Amendment 37F is incredibly straightforward. It seeks to install in law a requirement for the Crown Estate to undertake an EIA, just like any other business on the mainland planning to undertake large-scale engineering works.
In preparation for this amendment, I spoke to a number of people in my local community on the coast of North Norfolk: Andy Frary of the Wells & District Inshore Fishermen’s Association; Bob Smith, the Wells-next-the-Sea harbourmaster; Leo Hambro, founder of Tidal Transit; and Professor Jenny Gill of the School of Biological Sciences at UEA—she is not really in my community any more, because she has just moved to Fife.
As the harbourmaster and I discussed, obviously the Crown Estate wants the rent, but this EIA needs to be rather more rigorous. If we insist that the Crown Estate will be required to undertake detailed environmental impact assessments, who will monitor that? Will it be the MMO? Bob Smith’s view is that the MMO is vastly removed from the coalfaces; it gives out the licences but has inexperienced staff and does not really understand local communities.
The fishermen I spoke to, the harbourmaster and I are very much for wind farms out to sea. We have marine protected areas and, ironically, once a wind farm is established, it becomes a sort of natural marine protected area. Rock armour is placed around the base of the wind turbines to protect them from big tides and scarring, et cetera. It then quickly attracts crustaceans—lobsters and crabs—and fish and there is a 50-metre “no fishing” rule for fishermen, who cannot get close to them. It is almost a sanctuary for all these crustacea. As they develop and thrive, they move out and the fishermen can then catch them.
There was also concern that giving licences to different companies for different wind farms was rather disjointed; they should be liaising on where their cables can come together out to sea so that they hit the land in one place. That has happened to an extent in North Norfolk, where they come ashore at Weybourne.
Professor Jenny Gill looks at this from an environmental point of view. The location of these wind farms is the most important thing. We need to avoid putting them where birds are—they are easier to monitor than fish and sea mammals. The concern is bird strike out to sea. Organisations such as the BTO and the RSPB have done a lot of work on flight heights of migratory birds and sea birds in relation to rotor speed and on whether bird strike is a big threat. Bob Smith surveys boats going out from Wells-next-the-Sea; maybe they are lucky and the wind farm they have been surveying is in the right place, but they come back and say, “We saw four birds today”. That damage is not happening.
In seeking this EIA, I am encouraging the Government to involve nature conservation organisations at an early stage so that they can be part of the planning process. Professor Gill mentioned that this is getting quite complicated. Beth Scott, professor in marine ecology at Aberdeen University, has worked on how tides work in open sea and form around tidal nodes and on whether putting static turbines on the ground changes the way tides work and the spatial way in which they move.
The big thing is making the planning process more transparent and getting conservation organisations at the table. They do not want to be adversarial; they are all at the green end of the scale and want to see a lot more of this renewable energy.
I had a very interesting conversation with Leo Hambro, of Tidal Transit. He operates crew transfer boats. I talked to him about the construction phase of these wind farms. He said that there have been improvements of late, in the last few years, including air bubble rings that are placed around the piling system which let out bubbles to reduce the sonic boom—which of course carries a long way underwater—therefore, we hope, mitigating damage to mammals. However, that has happened only recently.
When trenching, that is done either through some sort of underground machine that pulls a plough through the sand or, more often, through a large ship pulling a plough which turns over a trench a metre deep, into which the big cable is placed and then sand is placed back over it. If necessary, a few more rocks are placed on top of it. However, there really ought to be an EIA to decide which route these cables take. I suspect they probably take the shortest and cheapest route, but do they avoid mussel lays? They must avoid sunken ships, but off the coast of north Norfolk, in Cromer, we have a very important chalk reef, and it is important that that is protected.
To go back to crew transfer boats, Leo Hambro has seven of them. In fact, there are 200 around the UK and 700 around the world. Some 80% of them are in the UK and Europe because of the large-scale wind farms we have out to sea. To explain, these boats go out every day and take engineers to maintain and man the wind farms. The average stat for the industry is to use 1,500 litres of red diesel a day. In reality, he said they could use 2,500 to 4,000 litres a day, particularly if they are servicing a wind farm which is 45 miles away. He has to service East Anglia ONE from Lowestoft. These boats are going at 20 knots, so they are burning a lot of diesel.
It is not the case that when they get out there they switch their engines off. They have to spend up to two hours pushing against the turbine to make a safe platform for workers, transferring kit on and off the boat, et cetera. When they are then waiting for another three hours or so for the engineers to do their work, they have to stand off, but they do not drop an anchor and switch off; they have to run their engines to maintain generators and such on-board.
Leo Hambro is operating boats out of Wick, Grimsby, Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft. An interesting point to which I hope the Minister pays attention is that one of his boats is being converted to run on pure electric. That is being done in Great Yarmouth and should be ready for May 2025, thanks to DfT UK SHORE funding. It also includes offshore and onshore charging infrastructure, which I will come to in a second. The reason I mention these boats is that, for 200 boats using 2,500 litres of red diesel a day on average, five days a week, 50 days a year, that is 125 million litres of diesel.
That takes me to exhausts. AdBlue is added to the exhaust to reduce toxins, including nitrous oxide and sulphur oxide, and diesel particulates. AdBlue is made of synthetic ammonia—
The Earl of Leicester (Con)
My apologies—this is it. AdBlue is not made from green ammonia. All these marine exhausts omit their fumes below the water to keep the exhausts cool. AdBlue is depositing heavy metal poisoning into the sea. I will stop there.
Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)
My Lords, in addition to the amendment standing in my own name, I support my noble friend Lord Leicester in his amendment. I would add to it the requirement of the offshore wind industry to provide adequate funding to research and understand the cumulative impact of all these offshore wind developments on migratory birds and fish. By way of comparison, what we now understand with aquaculture is that one farm on its own makes no material difference to the wider environment. The problem is that the cumulative impact of all these developments is devastating.
Most regrettably, the aquaculture industry has no obligation to pay towards monitoring this impact on the environment or on wild salmon and other species, with the burden of proof left to the NGO and charitable sector to fund the science that demonstrates the terrible impact that aquaculture is having. Let us not repeat this disastrous situation again with offshore renewables. It should be a cost of business and a licence requirement for the offshore wind industry to fund independent, ongoing research into the impacts of individual and cumulative sites on migratory birds and fish, with the results of this work directly influencing future developments.
On the amendment standing in my name, I declare my interests as set out in the register and draw attention to my roles as a trustee of the Kyle of Sutherland District Salmon Fisheries Board, as the past chairman of the Atlantic Salmon Trust and as the proprietor of two salmon rivers in Scotland.
I also support the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Forsyth, who spoke so passionately about the issues of aquaculture. During a recent Question for Short Debate tabled by my noble friend on the parlous state of the UK’s salmon stock, many noble Lords raised serious questions about the impact that aquaculture, and in particular open-cage salmon farming, was having on salmon stocks and the wider environment. This is becoming a worrying theme. We have all seen the harrowing pictures of malformed and diseased farmed salmon held in very questionable conditions by bad operators in this industry.
What is much harder to see is the impact that the cumulative size of this industry is having on our wild salmon and the wider environment. However, any objective review of the science leads to the conclusion that there are a number of serious negative impacts from this industry. The three most serious are: first, the catastrophic impact of elevated sea lice numbers caused by a direct result of intensive open-cage salmon farming on juvenile wild salmon survival; secondly, the impact of intensive salmon farming on animal husbandry standards for fish kept in open-net cages in such density and the subsequent cross-contamination of numerous diseases from farmed to wild fish; and, thirdly, the impact of genetic introgression from genetically modified farmed salmon escapees interbreeding with wild salmon populations, rendering them unfit to survive the rigours of the natural world. These are serious issues that are having a profound long-term negative impact on the natural environment and on wild salmon stocks specifically.
Why is this relevant to the Crown Estate Bill? In simple terms, salmon farmers are there only because they get a licence from the Crown Estate. Without a Crown Estate licence, they would have no right to be there, and the cumulative impact of the industry, and the bad operators among them, would not be causing the levels of environmental damage and animal suffering that they are. Given the nature of this monopoly, it is surely right that the Crown Estate commissioners are enabled through the Bill to hold to account those to whom they have granted a licence, and that they themselves are held accountable for the outcomes that they enable. Without these amendments, the Crown Estate commissioners are unable to fulfil their duty of care to others with whom they share the coastal space to ensure that they are not adversely impacted. They are unable to prevent the negative animal welfare issues from continuing; unable to ensure that there is no detrimental impact on other species that live in this precious ecosystem; and unable to ensure that the wider environment is not damaged by the bad operators to whom they have granted a licence to operate.
These amendments seek to give the public and the environment a practical and sensible level of protection against malpractice and environmental damage, by giving those who enable these fish farm operators—namely, the Crown Estate—the tools to manage the cumulative impact and to remove the bad operators. They will also give the Government the power to hold the Crown Estate commissioners to account to ensure that they do this. We have all seen the devastating impact that can occur if we fail to hold those in a monopolistic position to account in areas such as sewage discharge, so let us not repeat the same mistakes here.
As it stands, the Crown Estate has no ability to influence or remove bad operators in the aquaculture industry to whom it has issued a licence. Crucially, the Government have no ability to hold the Crown Estate commissioners to account for any negative outcomes arising from the issuing of these licences. It is simply not right that the organisation that is in the sole position to enable an entire industry—and, incidentally, to make tens of millions of pounds from issuing these licences—can have no influence over, or responsibility for, any negative outcomes from its actions.
The simple measure of requiring the Crown Estate commissioners to report annually on the impact of aquaculture on the environment and animal welfare standards—and enabling and compelling them to remove licences from those operators that fall short of the required standards—must surely be a desirable and fair outcome for everyone. It would significantly reduce any negative impact on the environment and help to improve animal welfare standards. These amendments have substantial cross-party support, and I hope that the Government will accept them as improving the Crown Estate Bill.
Viscount Thurso (LD)
My Lords, I will speak to this group of amendments. I was not sure which one most suited the comments I wished to make, but I think it is probably Amendment 37F in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Leicester.
At the heart of all three amendments is a question about the relationship between, on the one hand, the economic activity that we wish to undertake, quite properly, and, on the other, the environmental and natural consequences that may take place. It is about the right balance between what we seek to do economically and what we seek to protect environmentally. I will speak to that general point.
Taking my lead from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, I should declare my interests. I too am an angler, although I do not get to spend nearly enough time on the river, and I also happen to own the river, which is rather nice. I am chairman of the Caithness District Salmon Fishery Board, which is currently very involved with Crown Estate Scotland on various issues. I may also be—I hope—the beneficiary of a number of renewable projects. I have every sort of interest that you could possibly have; I think that they are broadly covered by my register, but I thought that I had better spell them out.
As I said, the heart of the three amendments is about seeking to ensure that, when we set out to undertake an economic activity of any kind—and this is absolutely what happens on land—we make a proper and full assessment of what the impact is likely to be on the environment that we are putting that economic activity into. That includes the flora, fauna, fungi and everything else that you might find there.
I want to give one quick example; it is in Scotland but I think it is relevant. We on the north coast have four rivers which are all in very good health. On the Thurso we electrofish every year and for some years now we have known that you cannot get any more juveniles into the river, it is in that good order. So, at a time when most of Scotland has salmon stocks that are endangered, as the noble Lord pointed out in introducing his amendment, we have the one bit of Scotland that actually is in good order and producing good salmon—and long may that last.
The west of Shetland wind farm, which is going to go ahead in the not-too-distant future, and which I support as a piece of offshore energy, may have a problem for us in the fishing world, and that is that we do not know where our smolts go. When the salmon grow in the river, they come to a point where they smoltify and they take to the sea and off they go. They are then called “smolts” or “post-smolts” and we do not actually know where they go. There has been smolt tagging and tracking in the Moray Firth which discovered that the fish that come out of various rivers in the deep south around Inverness and places like that have a tendency not to do what you would expect, which is to scoot up the coast and head past Orkney. For reasons known only to them, they leg it across to Aberdeenshire, which I always thought showed a bit of a lack of taste. The point about that is they do not go through the Beatrice wind farm and that piece of knowledge is vital in being able to look at what you may need to do to mitigate.
Similar studies on the west coast show that Irish and west coast fish tend to go due north, as you would expect, and straight off to Iceland. We just do not know where our smolts are going, so we made contact with Crown Estate Scotland, which I have to say has been incredibly helpful on this, and the chairman put me in touch with various people. As a result, I believe that there will be a smolt-tracking project which will allow us to know where our smolts are going and we will therefore know whether we have a problem, so we can look at what can be done to mitigate it if we have.
That comes back to the point I was making that, without information, you cannot make a decision on the appropriate thing to do. Crown Estate Scotland on this occasion has been extremely helpful, as I said. It wishes to make sure that it does the least harm, which is wonderful, but it seems to me correct that, in forming any legislation, it is appropriate, as we do with the nuclear industry and a whole range of other things, to state what it is that people have to provide by way of information in terms of an economic impact assessment and what they will do to mitigate the inevitable downsides that occur when you have developments of these kinds.
So I am not sure whether I am supporting anybody in particular—noble Lords will have to make up their own minds on that—but I am supporting the principle that we need knowledge and information about what may happen so that we can then make an informed choice on what mitigation is required and how much damage we are prepared to accept for the value brought by the economic activity.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
I am most grateful to the noble Viscount for giving way and I am much heartened to hear that his rivers and fish are doing very well. I just wonder what his reaction would be if someone decided they wanted to put a fish farm in the track of his migrating smolts when he knows where they are.
Viscount Thurso (LD)
I suspect I would be pretty horrified, given all the information that I know about it, but I have long tried to stick to a principle in your Lordships’ House to speak about what I really know about and avoid the things I do not know too much about, so I hope the noble Lord will forgive me if I do not go down that road.
To come back to my central point on the need to get information, it is about the right duty that we should ask the Crown Estate to have and then the process it should follow to deliver it. So my request to the Minister would be to look at the obvious strength of feeling on all of these points and perhaps the Government should look at what their view would be as to the right process and the right way to put it into the Bill and come back with an amendment that would achieve that and would suit the Government.
The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register and in particular as a trustee of the Blair Charitable Trust. I will make two brief points, but generally I feel very supportive of both Amendments 37 and 37G.
The first point begins with the Defra food security statistics, as updated in October 2023, where it is noted that the production-to-supply ratio in the UK is 75%. That is essentially a measure of the number of calories that we produce on these islands that we need to eat. We need to import, therefore, a quarter of all the calories at least that we eat. In fact, it is more, because we export some of what we produce as well. No new land is being produced and we are chipping away at the existing farmland with forestry, development and a certain amount of rewilding, and the population is growing, so the number of calories is going up. Aquaculture is therefore a very obvious way of improving the situation and, while I fully accept all of the many problems that we heard about so powerfully from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, earlier on, we are going to have to face up to the fact that aquaculture is something that we will need if we are going to try to narrow the gap of the production-to-supply ratio.
As the Minister said in his Second Reading speech— I am sorry that I was not there—the Crown Estate is very rarely here in this Chamber; it last came in 1961. So it is important to prep the Crown Estate and do some future-proofing of it, and much of the Bill is about getting on top of energy and prepping it for energy as well. Again, we are going to need to grapple with the issues that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, raised, but on this visit to the House I think we must prep it for aquaculture as well. That means that we are going to have to have some amendments that are along the lines of Amendments 37 and 37G. I slightly prefer the width of Amendment 37G, but there are good things in both of them.
I move to my second point. There is a lot to learn from the experiences of Scotland in aquaculture, and English commissioners will certainly and inevitably face the problem faced by the trustees of the Blair Charitable Trust that a high financial offer for the use of something may come from a riskier and lower-quality bidder. The effect of Amendments 37 and 37G would be to give those commissioners an easier ability to turn down somebody who has offered a larger amount of money but has lower environmental standards and to say clearly, “No, your bid is not there, it is not in the overall interests of managing the land”—on behalf of all of us, I may say. That is a very important point.
A few years ago, I went to stay with some friends near Oban and they took us down to visit a bankrupt fish farm. I do not know whether anyone else has visited a bankrupt fish farm recently, and I know that “desert” is the wrong word when one is talking about a sea loch, but “desert” is quite a good word for describing what we saw. It was awful, and of course it goes a long way beyond all of the netting arrangements. It was dead and horrible and it smelled and there was waste everywhere and our friends told us of the great difficulty in working out who was going to clear it all up and who was going to pay for the clear-up, because Crown Estate Scotland had not put in place bonding arrangements —something those in construction would do because, if the construction company goes wrong, you can finish off the problem. It usually happens with shipbuilding, although not with Scottish ferries, but bonding arrangements are extremely important and they had not been put in place. I am glad to say that I went back a couple of years later and the area has improved, but it is not perfect. I therefore have direct experience of the horrors of things if you do not get it right, and I suspect there are many war stories—so if aquaculture comes, as I know it will, to England and Wales and Northern Ireland, people can learn from their Scottish cousins.
On my experience of charitable trustees worrying about potential land users, I went back and looked at some trustee board papers, and the process we actually follow in real life when we are considering letting land users on to the Blair Charitable Trust, which is quite big, is very similar to the two processes set out in Amendments 37 and 37G. That process has been going on for a long time on what is a very old-established plot of land. I therefore feel that these are tried and tested routes to something as well, and that they are very good. They have a long-term view built into them, as well as the fact that you must look to the whole environment, as we do at the Blair Charitable Trust. These amendments are therefore vital, and they will make the job of the Crown Estate commissioners much easier.
The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lords, this has been a fascinating debate to listen to. I had not intended to partake in it, but I was prompted to do so by the last two speeches, by my noble kinsman Lord Thurso and by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. This is clearly a much bigger problem than just salmon. From listening to the debate, it seems that we all want the offshore energy—we need it—and, undoubtedly, as the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, said, we will need aquaculture in the future in a much more abundant way than we have it at the moment.
It strikes me that it is very odd that those who operate our farms and our energy on land face very different hurdles to those who operate at sea. Can the Minister, who has quite a lot to take away and think about from this well-informed debate, look at this whole question? This is a rare opportunity for us to try to get this right for future generations. We do not want to solve a problem now by creating a further problem for the future. Let us get this right so that we take a holistic view of development at sea, whether it be fish farming, agriculture or energy, so that the right environmental standards and precautions are put into place before and after an event. As the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, said, at the moment it is all too easy for fish farmers to put themselves into liquidation and leave a mess for others to clear up. That cannot be allowed to happen in the future.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, I want to make a very brief intervention on the amendment in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, and I would like some assurance from the Minister on some important points that the noble Earl made.
One of the points the noble Earl made was that we need to look at offshore developments not one by one in sequence but holistically. We are moving now into new waters with floating offshore wind; I am particularly aware of the Celtic Sea development, but obviously there is also floating offshore wind further out in Scottish waters. I would very much like an assurance from the Minister that, before those developments take place, in terms of actual building and specific location, there will be an overall environmental assessment for the whole of the future developments as opposed to each one individually. We want to understand the total effect rather than those individual effects.
We also need to consider the issues around the landing of those electric cables and all the infrastructure. In the North Sea, we have had the issue of a spaghetti of energy cables coming into various places all around it, and now, far too late, we are looking at trying to change that into a rational grid where we can have greater interdependence and greater trading but also fewer landing areas in terms of environmental damage.
In an earlier group, I raised the issue of a potential conflict of interests between the Crown Estate wanting to have offshore wind and therefore doing its own environmental assessments for these developments to be oven-ready—to use that phrase so badly used in the past. I very much wish to be assured by the Minister that there will be that global view of future areas of development, particularly of floating offshore wind, rather than doing it piecemeal in the ineffective and rather damaging way that we have done in the past.
Lord Roborough (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friends Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, Lord Douglas-Miller and Lord Leicester for these important amendments. I first declare my interests as set out in the register as the owner of fishing rights in both Devon and Sutherland, as a developer and owner of renewable energy assets and as president of the South West Rivers Association.
Amendments 37 and 37G require the Crown Estate to take responsibility for the environmental impact of salmon and broader fish farming, as well as the welfare standards in those industries. This applies both to existing licensed salmon and fish farms as well as new applicants for licences.
We support sustainable farming of wild Atlantic salmon or any fish species when it is done with sufficient respect for animal welfare and with protection of the environment in mind. I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and recognise that it is critical that fish can be farmed so a growing global population can continue to include fish within its diet without putting unsustainable pressure on wild fish populations. We also celebrate that the United Kingdom is one of the few places in the world that has ideal coastlines and sea conditions, and that the industry can bring much-needed jobs to parts of the country with limited employment opportunities. Its contribution to those communities is important. However, the salmon farming industry should not be at the expense of the wild population that spawned it and was already occupying this coastline and these river systems for millennia before farming began, or at the expense of equally valuable jobs in managing the rod and line fisheries or indeed historic salmon-netting rights.
This Bill and these amendments target only England, Wales and Northern Ireland. As we all fully understand, the Scottish Crown Estate has been devolved. However, it is hard to debate these amendments without acknowledging the damage that Scottish salmon farms have done not only to the west-coast-of-Scotland rivers but to English, Welsh and Irish rivers. Migratory patterns of salmon and sea trout are still not fully understood, but it is clear that fish travelling to these rivers also have to navigate open-cage salmon farms in Scottish waters.
To my knowledge, there is only one fish farm in UK waters outside of Scottish waters, and that is in Northern Ireland. While these amendments will capture that farm, we also hope and intend that they will provide that any future development of salmon farms in our waters, or indeed any other aquaculture, is done with much greater scrutiny of the environmental implications and with full accountability for any harm caused and with the highest standards of animal welfare.
As my noble friend Lord Forsyth and other noble Lords mentioned, the evidence against salmon farms for their impact on wild Atlantic salmon and other salmonids has been well laid out: they are a reservoir of sea lice that prey on passing salmon; they are a reservoir and breeding ground of disease and bacterial and fungal infections; and there is the long-term existential threat, as farmed species’ genetics increasingly diverge from wild, that interbreeding with the wild species by escaped fish has on their continued viability in the wild. I note that it is thought that 5,000 salmon escaped from the Northern Irish salmon farm earlier this year.
There are other environmental impacts that have also been discussed: the amount of wild fish that are caught solely to be processed for fishmeal and fish oil to feed farmed salmon; the dead zones created on the seabed; and the chemicals that are used to treat diseases impacting on local wildlife. In addition, lumpfish and five species of wrasse have been used since the 1990s as cleaner fish in the industry to eat sea lice. The lumpfish are also farmed, and the industry is moving to farming of wrasse as well. What environmental standards do these have, as well as animal welfare standards?
There are also significant welfare concerns for the farmed fish themselves, as expressed during this debate—exposure to predation from sea lice; images of hundreds of tonnes of dead fish routinely being taken out of these cages and disposed of by incineration, burial and other means; and the apparent overcrowding of these fish within the open-cage salmon farms.
As my noble friend Lord Forsyth mentioned, Washington state chose to ban open-cage Atlantic salmon farming in 2018, and British Columbia plans to shut all its open-cage salmon farming by next year. That is not what is suggested by these amendments, which would ensure that the Crown Estate environmental and welfare obligations are explicit and that the entity is held accountable for any environmental damage or welfare issues caused on its estate. Better practice is available in the world; there are better techniques for farming Atlantic salmon that could be brought into operation to mitigate and even eliminate many of the causes of damage. We understand that these are all likely to add to the cost of production, but why should our environment and our wild Atlantic salmon subsidise this industry? Surely we have learned our lesson from the impact of the green revolution on native bird species and river system health?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords for the points raised during this debate and for powerfully highlighting such important issues. I will respond to the amendments tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Forsyth and Lord Douglas-Miller—who was the Minister for Animal Health and Welfare in the previous Government—and the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, which all touch on environmental and animal welfare protections.
These amendments would require the Crown commissioners to assess, on an ongoing basis, the environmental impact and animal welfare standards of, respectively, salmon farms, offshore energy installation and generation and aquacultural practices on the Crown Estate. Where that assessment determines that a salmon farm, a relevant offshore energy installation and generation, or relevant aquaculture is causing environmental damage or has significant animal welfare issues, the Crown Estate would be required to revoke the relevant licence. The commissioners would also be required to make the same assessment of any applications for new licences for salmon farms or the installation and generation of offshore energy on the estate. Where the commissioners determine that an application may cause environmental damage or raises significant animal welfare concerns, the Crown Estate must refuse the application.
The Government wholeheartedly support the objectives behind these amendments. It might help noble Lords if I set out the protections that currently exist in regulations and legislation, which apply regardless of the landlord. All aquaculture activity in England, including salmon farming, is regulated with the intention of ensuring that it is carried out in a responsible manner that respects the environment and protects consumer health and animal welfare, although I appreciate from the powerful speech by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, that this intent is not currently being achieved. At present, virtually all salmon aquaculture in the UK takes place in Scotland. As has been observed, the management of the Crown Estate in Scotland is a devolved matter.
The Government’s starting point is that these amendments may duplicate existing protections that already exist in legislation or protections that are required by regulators as part of the licensing process for aquaculture and offshore energy installations. Specifically, the Animal Welfare Act 2006 makes it an offence to cause unnecessary suffering to any protected animal. The assimilated Council Regulation No. 1099/2009 on the protection of animals at the time of killing requires that farmed fish are spared avoidable pain, distress or suffering during their killing and related operations. The Aquatic Animal Health (England and Wales) Regulations 2009 contain provisions to protect farmed fish from serious disease by introducing a system of authorisation for businesses involved in aquaculture.
To address a point on environmental impacts made by the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 require the competent authority—in this context, the Crown Estate —to determine whether a plan or project is likely to have a significant effect on a European marine site. If so, it is then subject to an appropriate assessment. If that assessment shows that the plan or project could have an adverse impact on the integrity of the site that cannot be mitigated, authorisation of the activity must be refused unless specific derogations apply. For marine areas that are designated as a marine conservation zone under the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009, a marine conservation zone assessment is carried out by the public authority to test activities that may hinder the achievement of the conservation objectives of the specific zone and decide from the assessments whether the application for an activity can be authorised.
The Crown Estate seeks to supports the regulators through the inclusion of necessary requirements on any leases and requires all practitioners to comply fully with all legal obligations, including animal welfare practices. When developing or managing its assets, especially in areas such as offshore wind farms, coastal management and urban redevelopment, the Crown Estate must comply with regulations that require environmental impact assessments. An example of this happening in practice was in February 2017, when the Crown Estate launched an opportunity for existing wind farms to apply for project extensions. Following a habitats regulations assessment, the Crown Estate confirmed that seven of these extension application projects would progress to the award of development rights.
The Crown Estate also received an application for an extension project where the majority of the site of the proposed extension sat within the Inner Dowsing, Race Bank and North Ridge special area of conservation. The plan-level habitats regulations assessment determined that it would not be possible to rule out an adverse effect on the integrity of the special area of conservation. Therefore, the Crown Estate decided that this extension project would not progress to the award of leasing rights as part of the 2017 extensions round.
On the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, about looking at impacts holistically, that is exactly what this Bill seeks, by enabling the Crown Estate to map the whole seabed and therefore improve the understanding of how to ensure benefits for nature for the long term.
I would be interested to know in due course whether noble Lords consider that these existing regulations and the legislation are inadequate or are currently being inadequately applied. I hope that, for now, the noble Lords, Lord Forsyth and Lord Douglas-Miller, and the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, feel able not to press their amendments.
The Earl of Leicester (Con)
Is the Minister able to address the issue of pollution from all these crew transfer boats? I mentioned 125 million litres of diesel every year. If we are to have many more wind farms out to sea, that amount of diesel may get very large. Can he comment on converting these boats to electric?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am afraid that is not something I know about, but I am happy to write to the noble Earl.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply, which was clearly written by Treasury officials who do not get out very much. The Minister has been kind enough to say that we should indicate whether we think the existing legislative requirements and regulations are working. We have just had an excellent debate, which has made it absolutely clear that wild salmon are being destroyed, not just in this country, but elsewhere, so the answer is: it is hurting, and it is not working. A very modest requirement on the landlords, the owners of the seabed to—
Lord Livermore (Lab)
Just to be clear, I wanted clarification as to whether the existing legislation could work, or, in itself, could not work.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
I would be very happy for the Minister to come back with an amendment that would indicate how it could be made to work, because it is not working. It seems to me a very modest measure that would say to the Crown Estate that it has given a licence to these people, so it is therefore under a duty to make sure that they act in accordance with all regulations and in a way which protects the environment for which they have responsibility. I cannot imagine why the Minister would reject that.
In view of the very inadequate response, I am very tempted to test the opinion of the Committee, but I will not because I hope that, perhaps in further discussions with the Minister, we can get an amendment which will actually offer some degree of protection to the hundreds of thousands of fishermen who are concerned about this, to the communities who are concerned about this and to the many, many people on a cross-party basis. I cite the example of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and I who are united; we are linked at the hip in our determination to make this happen.
However, I would like to thank everyone who has spoken in the debate in support of not just my amendment but that of my noble friend Lord Douglas-Miller, who made a very fine speech explaining precisely why things are not working. I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Trenchard, Lord Strathclyde, Lord Moynihan and Lord Caithness, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, of course, and the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull—it is quite a gathering. The Minister ought to go back and think about this again, and we will table a further amendment on Report.
I am most grateful to my colleague my noble friend Lord Roborough for the support that he gave to this amendment and his careful consideration. I have to say that I am not sure the Minister’s officials have shown the same diligence in looking at what is a major problem which, if not tackled with immediacy, will see the extinction of the wild salmon in this country. That is not something that any Government would want on their record. Given the response, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
The Earl of Kinnoull
“Report on differences between provisions of this Act about the Crown Estate in England and equivalent provisions in ScotlandThe Secretary of State must, within 12 months of the day on which this Act is passed, lay before Parliament a report assessing any differences between the provisions made by this Act for the management of the Crown Estate in England and equivalent provisions for the management of the Crown Estate in Scotland.”
The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)
Amendment 37D is a simple amendment that allows us the opportunity to discuss the lack of symmetry after the passing of this Bill. I should just say that, following the last grouping, I think I have the answer to the Minister’s question about why things are inadequate at the moment.
I discussed in the previous group how I view this Bill as being an opportunity to prep the Crown Estate for energy and agriculture. Clearly, it will improve things here, but not in my native land at the same time. I have had the benefit, in preparing this amendment, of quite a few discussions with the chair of Crown Estate Scotland and had help from his team, and I thank them for that.
Baroness Kramer (LD)
I will not try the patience of the Committee for very long on this issue. It is fairly rare that I do not support amendments that are moved by that powerful combination of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and the noble Lord, Lord Vaux; but, on this occasion, I am rather troubled by this amendment. I believe that we have to defend the principle of devolution. There are many who want the devolution in name but not in actual fact. I am afraid that when I heard the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, use the word “symmetry”, every antenna was raised. I have already argued in earlier phases of this Bill that we should have devolution of the Crown Estate to Wales—that is fundamentally important—and it is important that we reinforce and understand the importance of a genuine devolution of the Crown Estate to Scotland as established in current law. That is in our collaboration, partnership, sharing practice—
The Earl of Kinnoull
I am so sorry. I probably did not make it clear that the reason that I was talking to the Crown Estate Scotland was because it contacted me. It is very keen to have the symmetry, and I understand through the Crown Estate Scotland that the Scottish Government is also pretty keen to have it. I am not proposing anything that is not consented to by all parties. I am just worried that the parties will get busy doing other things and will not get on with it. The idea of the pencil in the back is to get consenting adults to get on with it.
Baroness Kramer (LD)
I appreciate that intervention from the noble Earl because I now understand his position better, but I do not think that is how this clause would be used. It would create a level of dissent, with each side saying, “We do it better than you do”, and “You need to copy us”. We can see the kind of constant pressures that come to—I am losing language; it is just so late—dilute the power of devolution.
On that basis, I do not support this language. Co-operation, partnership, looking at best practice—all those things are extremely positive, but let us be absolutely clear: the Crown Estate Scotland falls under the Scottish Government. Interestingly, it is often much more regulated than the Crown Estate back in England. I hope we learn from the Scottish experience not that each needs to mirror the other by rote, but that devolution works and should be extended to Wales.
Lord Roborough (Con)
My Lords, I am afraid that I may not entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, on this. I agree with the intention of this amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and the noble Lord, Lord Vaux of Harrowden. While we also acknowledge that the Crown Estate in Scotland is devolved, the entity remains closely aligned in its nature and the objectives sought from it, with considerable overlap in the kind of assets that are owned and managed. The Bill before us creates considerable new powers for the Crown Estate of England, Wales and Northern Ireland. First among those is the power to borrow, with the benefits to investment and flexibility that that allows. It also creates new obligations—hopefully, to include taking full responsibility for the environmental impact of offshore energy and fish farming. Those are not present in the devolved Crown Estate of Scotland. As noble Lords have described, it may well be helpful if the Minister committed to providing clear information on those differences once the Act has been implemented in order to allow both entities to learn what is best practice. Oversight and transparency are desirable in all areas of government, and I am most interested to hear the Minister’s response to this amendment and debate.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
My Lords, Amendment 37D, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, would require the Secretary of State to lay a report before Parliament within 12 months of the day this Act is passed that assesses any differences between the provisions made by this Act for the management of the Crown Estate in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and equivalent provisions for the management of the Crown Estate in Scotland.
It is possible now to provide such an assessment, and I am happy to set that out. Section 36 of the Scotland Act 2016 inserted a new Section 90B into the Scotland Act 1998. Subject to certain exceptions, Section 90B provided for the devolution in relation to Scotland of the commissioners’ management functions relating to property, rights or interests in land in Scotland and rights in relation to the Scottish zone.
Devolution occurred on 1 April 2017 under, and in accordance with, the Crown Estate Transfer Scheme 2017. The relevant property, rights and interests are now managed separately by Crown Estate Scotland under the Crown Estate Scotland (Interim Management) Order 2017 and the Scottish Crown Estate Act 2019, as enacted by the Scottish Parliament. They do not form part of the Crown Estate as currently managed by the Crown Estate commissioners.
The relationship between Crown Estate Scotland and the Scottish Government is governed by a public framework document which sets out a broad framework within which Crown Estate Scotland operates, and certain financial aspects. Any changes to that framework document or the wider legislation that underpins it are a matter for the Scottish Government.
I turn to the principal differences and similarities. The Bill grants the commissioners of the Crown Estate a power to borrow with Treasury consent and provides the Treasury with the power to issue loans and financial assistance to the commissioners, including out of the National Loans Fund. The Bill also specifies that the Treasury may determine the rate of interest on any loan and requires the Treasury to pay any sums received in respect of the loan into the National Loans Fund.
In comparison, Part 2, Section 1.1 of the framework document for Crown Estate Scotland explains that
“Scottish Ministers may make grants and loans to Crown Estate Scotland”
and such grants and loans are
“subject to such conditions (including conditions as to repayment) as the Scottish Ministers may determine”.
Part 2, Section 2.1 requires that:
“All borrowing by Crown Estate Scotland … shall be from the Scottish Ministers in accordance with guidance in the Borrowing, Lending & Investment section of the”
Scottish Public Finance Manual.
On investment, this Bill clarifies the commissioners’ existing ability to invest by inserting into the 1961 Act that:
“The powers exercisable by the Commissioners in the discharge of their functions under this Act include powers to do anything which is calculated to facilitate, or is conducive or incidental to, the discharge of those functions”.
It also omits subsection (4) from Section 3 of the 1961 Act, which will broaden the commissioner’s investment powers.
In comparison, Part 1, Section 3.2 of the framework document for Crown Estate Scotland explains that Scottish Ministers are responsible for
“approving Crown Estate Scotland’s Corporate Plan”,
which includes their investment strategy. Part 2, Section 7.3 requires Crown Estate Scotland to
“undertake investment in line with its legislative duties”,
which are set out in the Scottish Crown Estate Act 2019, principally in Part 3, across Sections 7 to 21.
On the constitution of the commissioners, the Bill increases the maximum number of commissioners from eight to 12 and omits the requirement that the second Crown Estate commissioner, if any, be deputy chairman. It also simplifies the legislative process by which commissioners are paid, such that the commissioners’ salaries and expenses are paid directly out of the income of the Crown Estate, rather than out of money provided by Parliament, which comes from the return made by the commissioners to the Government each year.
In comparison, under Part 1, Section 3.5 of the frame- work document for Crown Estate Scotland, the board membership is limited to nine members, including the chair. On remuneration, Section 7 of the Crown Estate Scotland (Interim Management) Order 2017 makes it clear that
“Crown Estate Scotland … must pay each member such remuneration and allowances (including expenses) as the Scottish Ministers may determine”.
The differences between these two organisations reflect the fact that the organisations have formed in different ways. The 1961 Act, which, as I have set out, is the legislative basis of the Crown Estate in its current form, was fulfilling a recommendation of the government Committee on Crown Lands—as set out in its report presented to Parliament in June 1955—to appoint an independent board of commissioners to manage the Crown Estate, with provisions designed to enable Parliament and the Treasury to know how it is discharging its responsibilities. To briefly quote from the 1955 report:
“The board should be a public authority, but not a government department in the sense of an organ of executive government. … We do however respectfully advise that the board should be more, not less, independent than the present Commissioners and that they should be given defined powers and duties as trustees and allowed to work them out with the minimum of direction and control.”
In comparison, Crown Estate Scotland was created by the Scottish Crown Estate Act 2019, which makes specific provisions about the management of the Scottish Crown Estate and followed on from a process of devolution established by the Scotland Act 2016. Crown Estate Scotland is specifically required to align its aims and objectives with the Scottish Government’s published programme for government, and Scotland’s economic strategy and national performance framework.
I hope this assessment was helpful and that I have provided some clarity on the points raised.
The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)
It is very interesting that the Minister has not mentioned—unusually, because he is always incredibly well briefed—the Crown Estate Transfer Scheme 2017, which was the scheme under Section 90B of the Scotland Act, under which this was transferred. Schedule 4 of that is headed, “Protection of UK-wide interests”, which is quite a thing, and the subject we have been talking about this afternoon. I wonder whether he would comment on that and how it affects the assessment that he has just made.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am happy to write to the noble Earl on that point. In the meantime, I hope he will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
The Minister has not really addressed the fundamental point made by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull: fish and birds do not know where the border is between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom, and there are common interests. All he has done is read out a list of regulations and statutes that apply to the two commissions. I think the noble Earl was asking what provisions can be made, so that the two sets of commissioners are able to operate in the interests of the United Kingdom as a whole. As a unionist, he will surely appreciate the importance of that.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
What I read out was a response to the amendment tabled, which asked for exactly that; that is why I read it out. The noble Lord raises profound constitutional questions which I may not be the right person to address them to.
The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)
I asked a question as well: is the Minister going to afford every assistance to what is going on? This is something worth discussing. There is a danger here, and it is in the interests of all of us, as sub-owners of the Crown Estate, that the position is regularised. I am sorry if symmetry is too strong a word because they are differently enacted, but it is important to be in a position where they have very similar powers. It is in the interests of everyone in these islands that the two things can work together when required and that they have similar powers, so they can engage in the same energy deals and the same things in aquaculture.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am very happy to have that meeting. I do not know whether the noble Lord does want to join, but of course he is always welcome.
The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)
That will be a matter for the noble Lord. On that basis—and I very much appreciate the spirit and the smile on the Minister’s face as he said that—I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Roborough
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would prevent the Crown Estate Bill from coming into force until two months after the Framework Document has been laid before Parliament with a motion for resolution in both Houses of Parliament.
Lord Roborough (Con)
My Lords, I will speak also to Amendments 39 and 40 in my name.
These amendments concern the publication of a framework document and the partnership agreement and memorandum of understanding between Great British Energy and the Crown Estate. We must have the opportunity to see, and vote on, the framework document before the Bill can be passed. Amendment 38 prevents the Crown Estate Bill coming into force until two months after the framework document has been laid before Parliament and has been subject to a vote. Amendments 39 and 40 in my name similarly seek to ensure the partnership agreement and memorandum of understanding between Great British Energy and the Crown Estate is laid before Parliament before the Bill is passed.
It would be negligent to pass a Bill without consideration of such integral documents. We must see the framework document and partnership agreement with Great British Energy before we can accept this legislation and I express my deepest concern over the absence of these documents to date. We must scrutinise the framework document to understand and be confident that it is appropriate for the Bill. Currently, the details on the Crown Estate’s partnership with Great British Energy are similarly limited. As I propose with the framework agreement, we must also have sight of the partnership agreement and memorandum of understanding between Great British Energy and the Crown Estate and Amendments 39 and 40 demand that this will be laid before Parliament before the Bill is passed.
This is a major and unprecedented partnership. The Crown Estate estimated that it will result in up to 30 gigawatts of new offshore wind developments reaching seabed lease stage by 2030. Considering this, we must be given the opportunity to read, review and scrutinise the partnership agreement and memorandum of understanding between the Crown Estate and Great British Energy before we accept this legislation.
I agree with the sentiment of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, in her Amendment 41, and the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in his Amendment 42. I echo their concerns over the absence of the publication of the fiscal framework with Wales and its lease extension policy.
I hope the Minister will carefully consider the concerns I have raised and will confirm to the House that the framework document and partnership agreement and memorandum of understanding between the Crown Estate and Great British Energy will be published and laid before Parliament before this Bill is passed.
Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (PC)
My Lords, Amendment 41 in my name is included in this group of amendments and is supported by my noble friend Lord Wigley. This amendment would require the publication of an agreed fiscal framework between the Treasury and the Crown Estate before commencement of the Act.
During day one of Committee there were strong arguments made in support of the second group of amendments—a number of them seeking to write a fiscal framework. I believe that there is a shared view from around the Chamber that such a framework should have been drafted and published before Second Reading of this Bill. I am therefore grateful that the Minister, in his response to the second group of amendments, committed to publishing the framework before Report. If that is the case, I will not need to push for an amendment of this kind on Report.
However, I will take this opportunity to highlight some concerns regarding the possible content of the fiscal framework. I am concerned by the possibility of no hard cap on borrowing. I am led to believe that the framework will instead impose a loan-to-value ratio of 25%, which, as the Minister has already noted, would currently be around £3 billion and could go beyond that. To put this into perspective, the Welsh Government fiscal framework has a cap of £l billion on capital expenditure, with an annual borrowing limit of £150 million, which it can borrow from the National Loans Fund or a commercial bank. I ask the Minister: would the passing of this Bill as it stands, alongside a fiscal framework of a loan-to-value ratio of 25%, give the Crown Estate more or less borrowing power than the devolved Government of Wales?
I share the view expressed by the noble baroness, Lady Kramer, that the Crown Estate is no “cuddly” organisation. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to my question on how the proposed borrowing powers will compare to the current fiscal powers of the devolved Governments, particularly the Welsh Government.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 42 in this group. It is another attempt at putting a condition on the Government in bringing this Bill into effect, until the Crown Estate in my case has fulfilled the undertakings given on Report of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act: specifically, the commitment that it would publish its lease extension policy. I got an answer from the Minister’s colleague in July when I asked when this was going to happen. The answer was very interesting. It was that the Crown would act in accordance with the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 and the statutes it amended, subject to specific specified conditions—I do not know what specific unspecified conditions are, but we will leave that out—set out in the undertaking, and the expectation was that the Crown bodies would work with the tenants as they developed these policies.
The problem is of course that the specific specifying conditions referred to refer to the Isles of Scilly and the tenants there—about whom I have spoken to your Lordships many times—are suffering significantly due to their inability to negotiate leases of a reasonable length of time which would be allowed under the new Act.
I was told subsequently that this Crown statement cannot be made in advance of the relevant regulations under the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act being tabled, because that is the way it always is. But the worry I have is also that the Duchy of Cornwall and Crown Estate may publish them and there will be no opportunity for debating them and offering and suggesting changes to them. This gets back to my question last time we raised this: who is in charge? I was very pleased to get a response from Dr John Kirkhope, an expert on Duchy things, explaining that this is all because of the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall (Accounts) Act 1838. It is because the two Duchies got their revenue from George I and George IV and, before that, from being Electors of Hanover rather than Kings or Queens of England
I am told that, under Salic law, a female could not be elector of Hanover, so Queen Victoria suddenly thought that she was going to lose all this money. She persuaded the Parliament of the time to bring in this Bill, which became the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall (Accounts) Act 1838. I can read out the whole Act—it is not that long—but I think noble Lords would probably prefer that I did not. It required the two duchies to submit accounts to the Government every year for Parliament to approve.
When I tried to put down a Question to ask for how many years this had taken place, who could tell me which years those were and where the accounts were, I was told by the clerks that it was a bit unclear who was in charge. Was it Parliament, the Government or the Crown? I do not think it would be the Crown, because that would mean the Crown being in charge of itself, which is probably not very desirable and probably not true. I would be grateful if my noble friend the Minister could tell me over how many years these two duchies have submitted accounts and over how many years, if any, they have been debated in either House of Parliament.
My question to my noble friend is: when will the Government publish these Crown Estate policies? Do they have to wait until they have published secondary legislation on leasehold reform? When these special conditions are published, will the Government provide an opportunity for debate? I can see the Crown saying that it is in charge and that nobody can tell it what to do, and so we cannot debate them. The conditions applicable to the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act will be modified to the extent that the people of the Isles of Scilly, who suffer quite a lot, not just from rents but from transport and a few other things, will not have an opportunity to debate this and see whether the duchies are playing fair. I look forward to my noble friend’s response.
Baroness Kramer (LD)
My Lords, I confess that I was fascinated by the amendments put down by the shadow Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, whom I remember on many occasions defending Henry VIII clause after Henry VIII clause. She is now calling for extraordinary levels of accountability, but I suppose going into opposition somehow changes a perspective.
The documents that have been requested, which is the main content of this group of amendments, are, in essence, documents that I requested at the beginning of the process. The Minister has been generous, in a way that I think would not have happened in the past, to assure us that those documents will be made available before we reach Report so that, at that final stage of the process, we have enough information to know whether we need to challenge the content of the Bill or can accept it. I am satisfied to take his word for it, as his comments were made on the Floor of the House.
If the Minister can add anything about timing or content, that would be interesting. We had some confusion at one point about what is a memorandum of understanding and what is a framework agreement, but that has been clarified. I am satisfied that we are getting more information from this Government than, frankly, I ever could have hoped for, on similar issues, from the Government before.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
My Lords, I will respond to the amendments tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Vere of Norbiton and Lady Smith, the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and my noble friend Lord Berkeley, which all seek to alter the timing of the Bill’s commencement.
I start by addressing Amendment 42, tabled by my noble friend Lord Berkeley. This amendment would alter the commencement of the Bill, so that it comes into force either two months after the Bill has passed or after the Crown Estate commissioners have published the Crown Estate’s lease extension policy and a Minister of the Crown has tabled a Motion in both Houses to debate the policy—whichever is later.
Lord Roborough (Con)
My Lords, I offer another view to that of the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer: perhaps going into government also changes the perspective of Members of this House. I am grateful to the Minister for his response to these amendments and for his contribution to this debate. We have not really had the answers that we are looking for but, in the meantime, I am happy to withdraw.
Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [HL]
Tuesday 22nd October 2024
(2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [HL] 2024-26 View all Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [HL] 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Smith of Malvern
That the Bill be now read a second time.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
First, I thank noble Lords who contributed to the debate following His Majesty’s gracious Speech, when we first discussed this Bill. That was also my maiden speech, and it seems an awfully long time ago. I thank noble Lords who attended the recent open briefing sessions with me in this House to talk about the Bill and the work that the Government are doing in this area. Our central mission is to grow the economy. We have set out a modern industrial strategy with a primary objective of long-term sustainable growth in our highest-potential growth-driving sectors.
To succeed in our growth mission, we need to harness the talent of our people, meet businesses’ skills needs and break down the barriers to opportunity. Education is critical to breaking down those barriers, and we are focused on ensuring that all children and learners can achieve their ambitions and thrive in education, work and life, no matter their background.
However, I am sorry to report that this country’s workers still lack the skills they need. This means that businesses cannot grow and people are not able to make the most of the opportunities that come their way. For example, around 7.5 million working-age adults do not have even basic digital skills, despite most employers saying that these are vital for their businesses. As recently as two years ago, UK employers put over one-third of their vacancies down to skills shortages.
Our businesses have become overly reliant on importing skilled workers from abroad as they have not seen a plan to develop the skills they need in this country. Compared with other countries, our workers are underqualified. The OECD states that 26% of the UK workforce are underqualified for their job, compared with an OECD average of 18%. That underqualification is in part the result of a “missing middle” in our skills system. Not enough people attain post-school qualifications in sought-after disciplines.
Technical training at levels 4 and 5, between A-levels and undergraduate study, is low compared with other countries and with our own historical levels. In England only 4% of people have level 4 and 5 qualifications as their highest qualification, compared with around 20% in Germany and 34% in Canada.
Not only do we lack the skills we need today; our economy’s skills needs are changing, with 1.4 million jobs in new fields projected by 2035. England’s skills system has a crucial role in ensuring that businesses and individuals are prepared for the future, but the current fragmented skills system is preventing young—and older—people from seizing the opportunities that are out there.
That is the sorry state of the skills system that we have inherited from the last Government, a system that employers and individuals report is overly complex, where people cannot find the training opportunities that would help them achieve and which is holding back our businesses, our public services and our economy from accessing the skills they need to grow. After 14 years of tinkering with qualifications, introducing a levy that has seen apprenticeship starts fall, and a failure to look to the future needs of our economy, the skills system is failing individuals and our country. The skills system needs an overhaul. It needs to be strategic, creating opportunities for young people to get on and for adults to upskill and retrain, and delivering the skills that will help our businesses to grow.
The Bill is a crucial step towards creating a skills system fit for the future, enabling our growth and opportunity missions to deliver better life chances for all, meeting the challenge of our industrial strategy, supporting our NHS to have access to the people and skills that it will rely on, and delivering the skills to build the houses and infrastructure that we need and to support our clean energy superpower mission.
This Government have already begun to take action. In July the Prime Minister announced the launch of Skills England, which then published its first report in September. This new organisation will bring coherence to the system, ensuring that we have a clear assessment not just of where the skills gaps are now but of what we will need in the future to realise our potential in a rapidly changing world. It will use that assessment to ensure that there is a comprehensive suite of apprenticeships, training and technical qualifications for individuals and employers to access. At its heart will be employers working with trade unions, training providers across our further education, higher education and independent sectors, and local and regional government—a partnership raising the profile and impact of our skills system. Skills England’s strong board and chair will deliver the operational independence, external expertise and challenge to drive the change that we need to see. Its link back into government will provide the voice and the advice to ensure that skills sit at the heart of joined-up decision-making across government.
Skills England will transform our ability to determine and then deliver the skills that our country needs, giving it a key role as part of an even more ambitious programme of reform and national renewal. The launch of our industrial strategy will provide the firm foundation and confidence for businesses to plan. We are moving away from the chaos of recent years, where policy changed as quickly as Prime Ministers. Skills need to support this growth and investment rather than being the barrier that many employers highlight, so Skills England will work closely with the industrial strategy council to remove those barriers.
Skills England will work closely with the Department for Work and Pensions on our major cross-government effort to get Britain working and tackle deep-seated challenges in our labour market. It will work closely with the Migration Advisory Committee to ensure that we have a strong skills pipeline.
We plan further fundamental reform to support a vibrant and responsive skills and education system. We are creating a growth and skills levy to bring the focus and flexibility lacked by the last Government’s levy; a curriculum and assessment review to ensure that our schools are providing the learning to maximise all children’s chances to develop the skills, knowledge and creativity to make the most of their education; a youth guarantee to ensure that all young people have access to jobs and training; and a new national jobs and careers service to provide direction and support for people entering the workforce.
To create a single, unified body in Skills England, it is crucial that the functions that currently sit with the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education are folded into it. Skills England will build on IfATE’s role in securing the quality of technical qualifications and apprenticeships, and we are grateful for the role that IfATE has played in doing that—but, to pave the way for Skills England, the Bill will abolish IfATE. It will remove functions relating to IfATE’s current accountability to the Secretary of State and Parliament, transfer IfATE’s functions to the Secretary of State and amend five of them. It will allow the skills system to operate without organisational boundaries and administrative hurdles. Skills England will help the skills system become more agile and responsive by identifying what skills are needed where in the economy, supporting our industrial strategy and securing the availability of high-quality qualifications that meet those needs.
The Bill is narrow in scope and technical in nature. There are two main elements. The first part of the Bill, as outlined, will abolish IfATE and transfer its functions to the Secretary of State. These functions will largely be exercised by Skills England, operating as an executive agency. The Bill will also enable the transfer of IfATE’s property, rights and liabilities to the Secretary of State. The second part makes changes to some of the functions to be transferred. We have examined the functions carefully and determined that the way some of them are set out in the existing legislation is overly prescriptive and could hamper the responsive and agile skills system we need.
The Government therefore propose some changes to functions relating to apprenticeships and technical education to increase our responsiveness and allow the Secretary of State to make small and fast adjustments to our education and training programmes. This should provide the speed and flexibility the skills system needs. Clauses 4 and 5 remove the requirement for each occupational standard and apprenticeship assessment plan to have been prepared by an appropriate “group of persons”.
Employers will continue to be central to how technical qualifications and apprenticeships are produced. In the preparation and design of standards and apprenticeship assessment plans, while design by employers and others will be maintained as the default position, these changes will allow greater flexibility in scenarios where preparation by a group can be unnecessary or restrictive—for example, where training requirements are already tightly defined as a result of there being a regulator or an industry-recognised qualification, such as the dental hygienist occupation being regulated by the General Dental Council. Giving the Secretary of State the flexibility to consider whether to convene a group of persons in such cases will enable the skills system to be more agile.
Where the Secretary of State makes the determination not to use a group of persons to prepare standards or apprenticeship assessment plans, a high level of rigour and recognition of the value of external input will be upheld, for example by publishing standards in draft for stakeholder comment before they are finalised.
Clause 6 will retain the duty to maintain arrangements to review technical education qualifications, standards and apprenticeship assessment plans. But we will remove the duty to review these at regular intervals and publish information about these intervals. This change is necessary in light of there now being more than 700 standards, spanning a huge range of sectors and occupational specialisms. The frequency with which different standards should be reviewed and updated will depend on their performance, how widely they are used and the pace and extent of technological advancements resulting in changes to the type of tasks performed and expertise required. This change will therefore allow the Secretary of State flexibility to focus on reviews with the greatest need and impact.
Clause 7 will remove the requirement for a third-party examination of a standard or apprenticeship assessment plan to be carried out before approval. Again, we expect the default position to remain that standards and assessment plans will be examined by independent third parties. The Secretary of State will deviate from this only in a minority of instances, where appropriate. This change will allow flexibility where examination would add limited value—for example, in highly regulated occupations in the health and finance sectors where the assessment plan simply sets out the regulator’s requirements.
Clause 8 will allow the Secretary of State to grant an exception to Ofqual, which is currently prevented from exercising its accreditation power for technical qualifications. This amendment would allow Ofqual, where the Secretary of State deemed it appropriate, to be given the discretion to apply its accreditation power to specified technical education qualification types, subject to appropriate consultation. This change reintroduces the potential for technical qualifications to be accredited in the same way as general qualifications, so that learners and employers can be assured of the quality of the most high-stake qualifications.
These flexibilities reflect the calls from employers and others to ensure that the system is agile and flexible and can respond to rapidly changing needs. In developing Skills England we are already building the vital partnership I mentioned earlier through a series of engagement events. So far, the round tables led by Skills England’s interim chair, Richard Pennycook, have involved more than 100 key stakeholders, including a wide range of employers. These sessions have emphasised the need for greater flexibility in the skills system and more opportunities becoming available to shape technical qualifications and apprenticeships so that they best reflect the changing needs of industry, particularly in the most critical sectors. It is in this spirit that we bring forward the Bill.
The Bill makes vital, practical changes that enable us to deliver Skills England, to bring coherence to the skills system and ultimately to deliver the skills we need for the future. These reforms will sit at the heart of this Government’s missions to drive economic growth and to spread opportunity across all parts of this country. I beg to move.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, I look forward to hearing the maiden speech from the noble Lord, Lord Beamish. The apprenticeship model is a win-win that builds a skilled labour force while at the same time stimulating local economies and creating jobs. There are surely few better ways to foster innovation, enhance productivity and drive growth. IfATE was part of our commitment to deliver employer-led apprenticeship standards.
Since 2010, 5.7 million people have started an apprenticeship—our system is working, and we were on track to building a skills and apprenticeships nation. We would have increased investment in apprenticeships to £2.7 billion per year by 2025. Leading companies agree with our policy: Amazon, Specsavers and Premier Inn all make the most of their levy funds to recruit talent. In fact, 98% of the apprenticeship budget was spent over the last two years.
More than 690 apprenticeships are now available for a broader variety of jobs than ever before. We train nurses, lawyers and scientists, with around 750,000 people currently on apprenticeships. These apprenticeships are all designed by employers, so apprentices can be confident that they are learning skills valued by businesses. A national survey of apprentices revealed that 92% of respondents felt that the employer-defined knowledge, skills and behaviours they are required to learn through their apprenticeship would equip them to succeed in the future, while 80% said they felt empowered to have successful careers in their industry.
One has only to look to Preston in Lancashire, where BAE Systems has a vast college in which it trains apprentices on its fighter programmes, or to Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, where they train on submarines. BAE’s number of apprenticeships has nearly tripled since 2017. Higher apprenticeship levels 4 to 7, from foundation degrees to master’s level, increased from 27,000 to 112,000. These levels give apprentices the opportunity to earn a degree, combined with enjoying many years of work experience at top UK firms, and the benefit of avoiding taking on significant student debt.
In February this year, BAE Systems and the University of Portsmouth launched the UK’s first ever degree apprenticeship in space systems engineering. Not content with stopping at space systems, IfATE is also helping heritage industries such as stonemasonry. In 2020 just one person took up an apprenticeship. Last year, that number jumped to 53. In March this year, we pledged to create a new £60 million investment fund to enable up to 20,000 more apprenticeships, including for young people and small businesses.
Our record speaks for itself, so we have concerns around various proposals in the Bill. It is not yet clear whether Skills England will be established in statute as IfATE was, which raises questions about its independence from the Department for Education and its ability to galvanise other government departments. How will it be able to pitch for the money needed from the Treasury to fund the skills gap that we know we have? Can the Minister please enlighten the House on this?
Clause 4 gives the Secretary of State the power to prepare apprenticeship standards either herself or to commission others. It would therefore technically be possible for an apprenticeship standard to be prepared without the input of employers, providers or industry groups. The Secretary of State could even close down or fundamentally change Skills England without the consent of Parliament. Can the Minister explain what failsafe measures will be put in place to avoid this happening to the detriment of employees, employers and the many people who currently benefit from the apprenticeship programme?
There are concerns that the Bill may decrease the standards of technical qualifications because Clause 6 removes the IfATE requirement that reviews of approved technical qualifications should happen at regular intervals. The reason given in the Explanatory Notes is
“to enable flexibility to review standards according to priorities and employers’ needs”.
But how can the Government guarantee to maintain the high standard required if this clause is left in place? A regular review process significantly improves performance via proactive feedback, identifying areas for improvement and setting clear and achievable goals. We designed an apprenticeship programme to encourage personal and professional growth, which ultimately leads to enhanced productivity and job satisfaction. Will the Minister please explain whether there will be a guaranteed minimum amount of reviews per annum?
The Bill’s impact assessment states that there may be a drop in apprenticeship starts while IfATE’s functions are transferred to the Secretary of State and, ultimately, Skills England. It states that this will disproportionately impact adult apprentices and disadvantaged learners and regions. AI and technology are transforming the nature of work and the skills people need to be successful. Many older people need help to be better with technology. We have more than 5 million older workers in the UK who are thinking of retiring early and, of those, circa 500,000 said that they could not keep up with the skills needed. These are the people who will be hit, according to the impact statement. What assurances can the Minister give us that this negative impact will be mitigated as much as possible?
There are also concerns that the unions will have a disproportionate influence over Skills England, to the detriment of employers. The senior deputy general secretary of Prospect welcomed the launch of Skills England, but argued that it
“won’t achieve its objectives without engaging and involving trade unions at every level”.
What reassurances can the Minister give the House that there will not be undue involvement of the unions, to the detriment of employers and learners?
The Government have said that they will build 300,000 new homes every year, but we do not have the electricians, plumbers, bricklayers or roofers needed to build that number of homes every year. Their skills cannot be conjured up; they need training and apprenticeships, which take time.
In March this year, the current Secretary of State for Work and Pensions announced that Labour would fund 1,000 new careers advisers in schools and a number of employment advisers in new young futures hubs. The Government committed to 1,000, but what is the timetable for getting them all in place?
In the Government’s manifesto, they set out plans to reform the levy and allow businesses to use 50% of their funds for non-apprenticeship training. But analysis has shown that, if you allow employers to use half the funds for other skills training, you materially reduce the number of apprenticeships. Are the Government still taking this course of action and, if yes, why?
Apprenticeships and technical qualifications are the engine room of the UK economy. A successful programme leads to innovation, productivity and growth. This must work, so that everyone in the country feels the benefits. We very much look to forward hearing from the Minister on our concerns.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, I am looking forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Beamish.
It is an odd experience to find yourself looking at a document with a background that seems to agree with you. In the last speech I made in the previous Parliament on this subject I said that levels 4 and 5 needed tremendous support and encouragement. We now have a document which, in the policy summary notes, says more or less that. So I can sit down and say. “The Government are listening to me at last” and all will be right in the world.
But when you see something that is all going to the Secretary of State—their office, but really the person in charge—alarm bells start to ring. If the Secretary of State is going to do it, what happens if they do something which is slightly off? What is the warning construction? Does Skills England go back and say, “You’re wrong”? How would we resolve that? Would we actually find out if there was real disagreement? That is something we should have a long hard look at during this Bill.
We also have to make sure that we have a balanced approach to skills. Key to this is the approach—the previous Government did start this—to careers guidance. The two have to work together to get a decent result. We have to make sure that people know what the skills are and where you are going to start to apply them. I was never comfortable with the previous Government’s approach to the breakdown between the local skills structure and the national skills structure. We should get a better balance, especially for levels 4 and 5, with a big emphasis on the technician level. We have historically been bad at this—for decades we have been bad at this. When I first got into Parliament, I was told that we were bad at it.
If we are going to do that, where should that support come? Where are we going to look at that balance of getting a high technical level of training? It might be delivered by the higher education sector in places—indeed, it probably should be. One of the things we might have lost when we lost polytechnics was something that bridged that gap. I know that that battle was already lost before this came in, but how will we deliver that higher level of training? Apprenticeships are one way to access this, and colleges will be another. How do we balance these two things and how does Skills England take on this role? That is one of the important things we have not heard about in enough detail to pass judgment.
If we are being more flexible and removing barriers to flexibility, we are also removing potential safeguards. It is the trade off, balancing the two. How will we know when the Government have decided that something has gone wrong? And it will—there will be mistakes and misjudgments; all Governments make them. It is not making a mistake that damns you; it is not realising and not adjusting. How will they report back and let us know what is going on? How will they let the sector know that they are making changes? That will be vital to ensure confidence, which is once again a feeding-in point; if there is confidence across the sector, people will buy in. It is important that we hear that during the Bill’s progress. Our skill here will be tested with probing amendments, but we need to know what the Government’s approach is in more detail than we will get tonight.
I could speak for a long time but I do not think it is appropriate—I could try to work salmon into my speech but I think I will give that a miss. The final brick that will make this work is knowing where we will get the structure to examine what is being done, if it is all held in the department. This has got to talk to every other bit of government, and then all the bits outside government. If there is a central structure, how that is intended to happen and its capacity to change—how to extend bits that work well and what to do when bits do not—is what we are coming to.
The intention behind the Bill is basically good; it is the delivery that we should talk about. How do we bring in practical solutions, from inside and outside government—indeed, from inside and outside the Department for Education? The Department of Health, for instance, will know what it requires, and if those two bits of Whitehall can talk to each other, that is great. But anyone who has been here for any length of time knows that Chinese walls take a lot of kicking to get through. Everybody here has done that. Whoever is looking after trade or local government will have an input. If Ministers can say what they expect to happen, at least within Whitehall, I would be much more sanguine about the Bill. But we will have to find out how this works to have real confidence in the process.
I wish the Government well, because any sane person would, but we are not writing them a blank cheque yet. We would like to hear about the process behind this, because if it achieves success then that will be great, but knowing how they will recover from any mistakes and adapt to them—the cock-up school of history is one I agree with—would reassure me. I hope that the Government will be forthcoming about their plans. In that way, we will all be able to rest a little easier in looking at the training agenda.
Lord Aberdare (CB)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to talk about the importance of skills with many who we might think of as the usual suspects assembled here this evening, even at rather a late hour. I too look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Beamish.
I welcome this Bill, which is an important, if mainly technical, step towards a much-needed revamp of overall skills policy. Other elements of this include the establishment of Skills England, a new growth and skills levy to replace the apprenticeship levy, and the curriculum and assessment review addressing those two aspects of education. All this is in the overall context of the industrial strategy launched last week, which rightly includes a strong focus on people and skills.
Three of the Government’s five missions, on growth, net zero and opportunity for all, make specific reference to jobs, productivity or education, and the NHS mission also depends on skills. The skills system is a critical enabler of economic growth. Yet employers across virtually all sectors report significant skills shortages, combined with growing future skills needs. Meanwhile, the education system is failing to respond adequately to these needs, particularly for young people who are less academically inclined and do not aspire to university but are not made sufficiently aware of the alternative technical and vocational pathways available to them and the rewarding and fulfilling employment opportunities that those pathways can lead to. In her foreword to Skills England’s first report, the Secretary of State for Education highlights that we have a
“fragmented and confusing skills landscape that lets down learners, frustrates businesses and holds back growth”.
This Second Reading debate poses an unusual challenge: whether to focus on the Bill itself, which is relatively short and technical, or to address the bigger skills policy picture, of which the Bill is a harbinger. The Minister has managed skilfully to ride both these horses. By the way, it is very good that we have the Skills Minister in the House of Lords, and I wish her every success in her crucial role. Taking my cue from her, but possibly in another order, I shall address some provisions in the Bill before raising questions about other aspects of the Government’s overall skills plans.
The Bill transfers IfATE functions to the Secretary of State, with the intention that most of them will be passed on to Skills England when it is up and running. What can the Minister tell us about what criteria will be used to determine which functions will or will not be transferred?
Clauses 4 and 5 provide the option for standards and apprenticeship assessment plans to be prepared by the Secretary of State rather than “a group of persons”—typically a group of key employers. I have heard mixed reactions from employers to this: it is welcome if it speeds up the review process for minor changes so long as it does not become the default, but there are concerns if it results in employers becoming less engaged or even bypassed and the quality and consistency of apprenticeship being undermined. I was reassured by some of what the Minister said about the intentions.
Can the Minister confirm that both standard-setting and assessment plans will be transferred to Skills England to avoid inconsistent outcomes for the same apprenticeship if these functions are separated? In particular, will Skills England be required to work closely with industry skills bodies to ensure effective employer input?
The Bill’s impact assessment, as a previous speaker mentioned, recognises that there may be some delays in approving qualifications during the transition process. What is the Government’s assessment of the likely impact of these on learners and employers, and what steps are they taking to mitigate or minimise that impact? Together, the points I have mentioned come down to a single underlying question: what reassurance can the Minister give that the specific proposals in the Bill will not be used in a way that results in the influence and centrality of employers in the process being diluted?
I turn now to three broader skills policy issues. I could have covered many more, so I will try to keep to just the three. The first relates to the proposed growth and skills levy and how it might address the perennial challenge of persuading more small businesses to offer apprenticeships. Taking construction as an example, the Government are seeking to build 1.5 million new homes over the next five years which, according to the Construction Industry Training Board, will require the current workforce of the sector to increase by an estimated 30%, or some 152,000 people. Where are these people going to come from if not from SMEs, which account for 98% of the construction industry?
Yet the tight margins on which SMEs in the sector operate, exacerbated by issues such as cash retentions—about which noble Lords have regularly heard me complain—mean that they find it hard to invest in apprenticeships and other forms of training and lack sufficient incentives and support to do so. How will the growth and skills levy seek to overcome the challenges of funding and bureaucracy preventing so many SMEs, not just in construction, from offering apprenticeships? Might the Government be considering some sort of weighting in the allocation of growth and skills levy funds—for example, to prioritise apprenticeships in smaller businesses, or for younger people, or for higher priority sectors, or at lower levels, given that employer skills needs in construction are primarily at level 3 and below? Hitherto, it has been very unclear what the desired balance of apprenticeships in these areas might be.
My second issue concerns the limited focus, and lack of alignment and agility, of the education system in meeting the skills needs of the employment market which students will need to navigate. The Education for 11-16 Year Olds Committee on which I served last year, some of whose members are here today, found an alarming imbalance between the academic subjects required to obtain good GCSE results and the more technical and vocational options that develop the essential practical and life skills sought by employers, including digital skills, communication skills, such as oracy, which I wish I had learned, teamwork, problem-solving, resilience and creative skills. An effective skills strategy must be clear not only about the skills that employers in key sectors need, now and in the future, to boost productivity and growth, but also how the education system should be adapted to provide those skills. Will these issues be fully taken on board by the curriculum and assessment review, and how will employer needs be reflected in the review, given that there seem to be no employer representatives in its membership?
Finally, to pick up on what previous speakers have said, what can the Minister tell us about how Skills England, as a non-statutory—and “Why non-statutory?” I ask—executive agency within the Department for Education, headed by a chief executive at Civil Service director level, and with a range of detailed technical and regulatory functions to fulfil, will at the same time be able to co-ordinate skills needs across sectors and regions, building on local skills improvement plans and driving strategic collaboration across the whole of government, in partnership with sector skills bodies, unions, the devolved nations and others? That is an enormous task for any single organisation to fulfil, particularly at that level of government. How will the pieces of this complex puzzle fit together to create a coherent national strategy, fully integrated with the industrial strategy, to ensure that the identified demand for skills is matched by the provision from education and training at all levels, and who will be responsible for driving this process across government? To pick up on what the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, what tools will be available to identify and fix things that are not working, and who will exercise them?
The Government have set themselves ambitious and inspiring goals for skills policy, and I look forward to hearing more from the Minister about how they will be achieved and what part this Bill will play in what will be a long, complex and vitally important process.
The Lord Bishop of Leeds
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare. I realise that I stand in the way of the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, which I look forward to hearing shortly. I shall try to be brief.
I support the Bill in principle, and certainly the ambition behind it—and I certainly understand the logic behind it. A number of questions have already been raised about it that will need some careful addressing and answering if the House is to be confident about what is proposed. I want to focus on the FE sector, which has been facing some difficulty in recent years—facing the uncertainty while awaiting the outcome of the Government’s pause and review of level 3 qualifications, deals with FE pay being considered separately from the ongoing negotiations for the recently resurrected School Support Staff Negotiating Body, and faces up to the impact of sustained cuts and falls in funding in real terms. But FE is doing amazing work, particularly with particular sectors of our young people.
My questions relate to the move of IfATE into Skills England in relation to several issues. First, on young people, the apprenticeship levy has resulted in fewer young people undertaking apprenticeships, Young people in general, but especially those not in employment, education or training, form a demographic that stands to benefit immensely from apprenticeships, but it seems to me that we have seen a trend of employers choosing to spend their apprenticeship levy on older employees or career changers, as young people are sometimes perceived as harder to work with. How will Skills England incentivise the recruitment and training of young people through apprenticeships?
Secondly, on SMEs, small and medium-sized enterprises have not found the apprenticeship levy simple to navigate. It is much simpler for those with a turnover of more than £3 million a year, as they contribute automatically. Complexity and perceived uncertainty around a solution of co-investment has limited the take-up of apprentices by SMEs, which can disproportionately affect smaller or more rural communities, where larger businesses simply may not operate. How will the new structures around apprenticeships incentivise and support provision of apprenticeships by small and medium-sized businesses?
On the question of levels, the apprenticeship levy has had a much bigger impact on higher-level qualifications, such as higher and degree apprenticeships, and in turn therefore helps higher education institutions. But it is not improving the range and offer of courses available at lower levels, such as intermediate apprenticeships at levels 2 and 3, to anywhere near the same level. Arguably, that increases the options available to already more privileged or socially mobile apprenticeship candidates, while restricting the options available to those most in need.
I shall give an example to illustrate my point. There is currently a crisis in care. Statistically, care-experienced young people are far more likely to study at FE institutions than HE institutions. Given the weaker social fabric supporting them, and the complexity of transitioning to independent adulthood after 18, which is challenging enough as they leave the care system, these young people should be the ideal candidates for apprenticeships and the training and salary or wages that they provide. However, they are more likely to need to undertake a lower-level apprenticeship in the first instance, and are seen by some providers as harder to work with, as I indicated earlier, and are therefore doubly passed over in favour of older and more experienced candidates undertaking higher or degree level apprenticeships, for which a young learner may not be eligible, depending on their prior education. How will Skills England use apprenticeship structures and incentives to make sure that our apprenticeship structures and technical education are making the most impact for our most vulnerable young adults and learners?
Lord Beamish (Lab) (Maiden Speech)
My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to give my maiden speech in your Lordships’ House. I begin by thanking Black Rod and her staff for their help and assistance since my introduction. I also thank the principal doorkeeper and other doorkeepers and other House staff for their welcome and advice, along with the warm welcome that I have received from noble Lords from across the House.
I also take this opportunity to thank my two sponsors, the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay of Cartvale, and the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. I have been friends with the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay, for many years. We served together on the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. On our many travels, she used to describe me as her unofficial Batman, as I carried bags through numerous airports around the world. However, it was a delight to undertake that role for such a noble Baroness.
The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has similarly been a good friend and, like me, is an early riser. We were both members for many years of the House of Commons tearoom breakfast club, which meets at 7.30 am every day. It is an opportunity to read the morning papers, and usually by 9 am the assembled masses have put the world to rights. I am also pleased to be reunited in your Lordships’ House with the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom. We served together on the House of Commons Defence Committee, but more importantly we have also worked for more than 15 years on the campaign to get justice for sub-postmasters affected by the Post Office Horizon scandal. Although we are of different political parties, we have worked well together and over the years have helped right a grave injustice. In your Lordships’ House I hope to continue that work on Post Office justice. The latest scandal is around a system called Capture, which pre-dates the Horizon system and has just been the subject of a report by the Department for Business highlighting a similar scandal that took place with that system. It is something that I think we now need to address.
I join your Lordships’ House having had the honour of being the Member of Parliament for North Durham for 23 years. Many people have inquired about the origins of my title, Lord Beamish. Many, including my good friend Gavin Robinson, the leader of the DUP in the Commons, asked me whether it is in honour of the famous Irish stout. No, it is not. It is one of the many villages that make up the North Durham constituency and, as those from the north-east know, it is also the site of the world-famous open-air museum. As your Lordships know, it is always difficult to decide which village or community to include in one’s title, but I drew the line at a village very close to Beamish called No Place—I did not think that being Lord No Place would have the same ring.
I am the third former Labour Member of Parliament from North Durham or its predecessor constituency to enter your Lordships’ House, the others being Jack Lawson—Attlee’s Minister of War in the 1945 Labour Government—in 1950, and Giles Radice in 2001. I know that many noble Lords will remember him with affection. In his maiden speech to your Lordships’ House in 1950, Lawson said that
“I have listened to the debates in this House for some weeks. I confess that from time to time I felt very much like David Copperfield on one occasion, when we are told he felt ‘very, very young’”.—[Official Report, 23/5/1950; col. 442.]
Being a 60 year-old, I think I understand what he was saying.
My maiden speech in the House of Commons in 2001 described North Durham as
“a rural constituency with urban problems”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/7/01; cols. 585-86.]
It is a former coal-mining constituency with beautiful countryside, and the sad thing is that the economic reason why most of the communities existed is no longer there: coal mining closed and industry moved away. The jobs now are mainly to be found to the north, in Newcastle, Sunderland and the A1 corridor. The communities are still very strong, but jobs are needed. The other thing that is needed is to raise the aspirations of many young people who live there. That is why I welcome the new Government’s commitment, as one of their key missions, to economic growth and concentration on skills.
There has been much debate about the need for capital investment but, unless we invest in people, the economic gains that we strive for will not be achieved. If your Lordships look around the world, the most successful economies are those that invest in their workforce. This Bill is a key step in that direction. As the Minister said in opening the debate, the skills landscape for too long has been fragmented. If Skills England is to succeed, though, it will need to be a genuine partnership between government, the education sector and the private sector. Government and the private sector will need to come together not only to identify the areas where skills are needed but to make sure that resources are directed towards them. I also argue that skills and Skills England need to be hard-wired into all government departments—they need to be thinking about skills when policies are developed.
I note that the policy publication for the Bill, produced by the Department for Education, refers to work with devolved Administrations, combined authorities and government department such as the Department for Energy Security, DWP and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology but does not mention other departments such as, for example, the Ministry of Defence. As many noble Lords know, defence has been one of my interests, as a former Defence Minister. According to ADS, aerospace, defence, security and space employ 427,000 people in the UK, from large primes down to small SMEs, and provide some 20,000 apprenticeships every year. It is therefore vital that the Ministry of Defence and groups such as ADS work in partnership with Skills England when drawing up strategies for those sectors.
As has been said in this debate, skills are important for the economic well-being of our nation, but I also argue that they are vital for our national security. As a former member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, I saw at first hand that if we are to defend our nation against those who wish to threaten us, whether they be nation states or not, we will need a new generation with computer and IT skills and mathematicians in the future. That is something that needs to be thought about. I also draw the Minister’s attention to the work that is going on at GCHQ with the neurodiverse community, tapping into a resource that is not only having great beneficial results for the individuals but helping it develop new programmes and ways to protect our country.
When government departments, particularly the Treasury, are awarding contracts, they also need to think about skills. Some 38p in every pound spent on a defence contract with a UK company not only comes back to the Government in tax and national insurance but helps grow the skills base of our country. This was clearly demonstrated in Philip Dunne’s excellent 2018 report Growing the Contribution of Defence to UK Prosperity. Sadly, the last Government completely ignored that excellent report.
I conclude by making a plea for what I call our traditional skills. There is still a need for stonemasons, glass craftsman and traditional carpenters, and I commend the work being done by the Beamish museum in giving apprenticeship opportunities to young people in those skills, which are in danger of dying out. If the Houses of Parliament ever decide to get around to the restoration and renewal programme of the Palace of Westminster, these skills will be vital.
I thank your Lordships for listening to my maiden speech. I look forward to making further contributions and taking an active part in the work of the House.
Lord Blunkett (Lab)
It is my great pleasure and privilege to follow my noble friend and congratulate him on an excellent maiden speech. We are very glad that he is here, bringing the experience he outlined, his cross-party campaigning zeal on the Post Office scandal and his work on defence. My noble friend on our Front Bench will very much welcome his expertise. I agree with him about craft skills, which my city was built on as well, and the collaboration between the public and private sectors that we will need if we are to make the skills agenda work. I appreciate that very much.
I knew about the Beamish open-air industrial museum. As my noble friend was making his maiden speech, I was thinking that he had moved from one museum to another. This is more like a natural history museum where the occasional dinosaur moves around the corridors—responsible, in part at least, for not changing the sitting hours of this House. So here we are debating something really important late on a Tuesday night, perhaps too late to do it justice. I will therefore cut my speech down. I declare my interests in the register on a wide range of issues relating to education.
I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on being able to ride the two horses—and Houses; she has been in both—referred to earlier of addressing the minutiae of this legislation and the greater vision of Skills England. I was proud to lead on the learning and skills proposals published two years ago from which Skills England, the growth and skills levy and much else have been drawn.
I am still struggling with the idea of being on the Government Benches rather than in opposition. After 14 years, it is quite hard not to make a remark like “This Bill is necessary but not necessarily sufficient” sound like a criticism. While the Bill is needed to transfer IfATE’s duties to Skills England, it is only a tiny part of creating a vision and pathway to generate the energy, drive and commitment of everyone involved to make Skills England a force to be reckoned with. Some of the questions already asked today arise directly from that.
Figure 7 in chapter 3 of the paper published on 24 September—the day the Prime Minister made a speech at Labour’s party conference—lays out the challenge of getting the right skills in the right places, not just now but for the future. That paper made some interesting comments that I strongly welcome and hope we can build on in Committee and in responses from the Government, as well as in wider workforce planning.
My noble friend Lord Beamish referred to using other departments as a template. He noted the massive investment of the Ministry of Defence. Defence procurement reminds me that we have an enormous opportunity that has not yet found its way into government policy: using procurement to drive apprenticeships as well as the necessary skills agenda for the future. When asked what consultation he had carried out on the production of his first car, Henry Ford indicated that, if he had bothered to consult anybody, their first thought would have been “faster horses”. In just the first 25 years of the last century, the proportion of movements by mechanical means moved from 5% to 95% due to the creation and development of vehicles. We are at a point where enormous change is happening as we speak.
That is why, as I imagine my noble friend will know, there is such controversy in Germany at the moment about where it is going on the skills agenda and investment for the future. We have always turned to Germany as an example of what we might have done in the past and might do today. I fear that the world is changing around us, sometimes leading us and sometimes giving us an example of how we have to skip a generation in what we are doing in order to be in the right place to deliver the skills we need for the future.
My noble friend mentioned dental technicians. I make a plea that we move very rapidly to decentralise the accreditation of industry standards to organisations such as the Construction Industry Training Board and the ECITB—both of which had a role in this area before 2016 when IfATE was created—to cut out the bureaucracy. Over the last eight years IfATE has undoubtedly developed a bureaucracy, but we owe it a debt of gratitude because it has had a thankless task. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McGregor-Smith, its chief exec, all its staff and Richard Pennycook, who has done an incredible but unsung job in a very short period of time to get shadow Skills England off the ground.
There are questions about the level of the post of chief exec, which I hope my noble friend will address not just now but in the weeks ahead. We have an incredibly powerful director-general in the Department for Education who has a reputation for delivery and is in a position to drive Skills England forward. However, we are talking not about individuals in a post but about whether Skills England will have a chair who can deal with business, trade unions and departments in an independent and vigorous fashion and advocate for the resources needed.
The apprenticeship levy—I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will say much more about it next week—is fundamental and should be expanded. The Treasury should stop top-slicing it and thereby diminishing the amount of money and resource available to deliver. Skills England can play an important part in making that advocacy work, but not if it does not have the clout or reputation to ensure that it can be done.
I was going to raise many other questions but, to respect those still to come on this late Tuesday night, I will end with this. We have to be really ambitious. Microcredits and modular learning will mean that in future we will need a learning passport; to answer a query raised earlier, we will need to reinstate the Union Learning Fund created in 1998. I was very proud of that, because along with it went learning representatives who advocated alongside management for learning in the workplace and beyond. There are many examples of how well that worked, such as the UK Commission for Employment and Skills.
Let us not reinvent the wheel; let us work out what worked in the past and what did not, and then build on it. Let us also rejoice in the fact that we have a Minister of State in this House with hands-on experience, who understands the economic and business needs required and who can be a great leader in ensuring, along with the Secretary of State, that we get it right. Tonight is the beginning of a journey that I hope we will be on together.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
My Lords, I am pleased to be speaking in tonight’s debate and I draw attention to my registered interests. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, on his maiden speech and very much look forward to his contribution to the House.
As this debate has already shown, across the House there is cross-party agreement on the importance of an effective skills agenda to develop a high-skill, high-productivity workforce that fulfils employers’ needs and provides the opportunities and training that employees need to thrive.
I, too, recently served as a member of the Education for 11-16 Year Olds Select Committee with a number of other noble Lords speaking today. While our focus was on the schools system, during our evidence sessions we heard time and again from witnesses about the need for an increased focus on skills and training to equip our young people for the world of work both now and in the future.
The data bears that out. Studies consistently highlight the importance of skills to growth, with around one-third of average annual UK productivity growth between 2001 and 2019 attributable to the expansion of skills in the workforce. As we have heard, it is estimated that there will be 1.4 million new jobs in the economy by 2035.
For instance, evidence to our Select Committee suggested that, over the next five to 10 years, more than 200,000 jobs could be created in the energy efficiency sector, with the retrofitting of buildings alone requiring the training of 45,000 new technicians a year. It is against this context of the changing skills demands of the economy that we are considering this Bill.
Yet the Bill does not tell us anything much about the Government’s approach to the challenges. As the Minister said in her opening remarks, the Bill is narrow in scope and technical in nature. That is certainly true and it raises some concerns.
The Bill abolishes the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, giving the Secretary of State significant powers as a result, but includes nothing at all about the new body, Skills England, that is intended to be at the centre of the skills landscape under this Government and absolutely fundamental to the delivery of their agenda.
Despite the department’s policy summary repeatedly referring to the role of Skills England, as the Minister set out in her opening remarks, the Bill itself does nothing practically to progress its establishment. Surprisingly, the organisation which is intended to be the “driving force” behind a
“much-needed upskilling of our economy in the coming decades”
is not mentioned once in the Bill. Instead, most measures transfer a significant number of powers and functions directly to the Secretary of State.
In its briefing on the Bill, CITB noted that this was
“contrary to the previous characterisation of Skills England that was outlined in the … King’s speech … and contrary to the vision for Skills England to be an independent body, established in law, with a cross-governmental role”.
In her introduction to the first report published last month by Skills England in its shadow form, the Secretary of State set out a number of responsibilities that will be invested in the new organisation: first, bringing together business, training partners and unions with national and local government to develop a clear assessment of the country’s skills needs and how they can be filled; secondly, working closely with the Industrial Strategy Council, the Migration Advisory Committee and across government to deliver the necessary skilled workforce required in the future; and, finally, shaping the Government’s response to skills needs by identifying key priorities, including advising on the new growth and skills levy.
In his foreword, Richard Pennycook, interim chair of Skills England, added a further list of actions the body will be taking, including working with providers in further and higher education to clarify and strengthen the skills landscape, and supporting schools in the provision of high-quality advice to students on career opportunities.
There is no question but that these roles are extremely important and need to be fulfilled, but there is no detail about any of this in the Bill. So we are being asked to abolish IfATE and give the Secretary of State significant powers, but with no legislative underpinning of what Skills England will actually do in practice, and no details about how it will fulfil its extremely important functions to achieve the laudable outcomes the Government want.
I am not sure how the Bill fits with the speech made by the Attorney-General last week, in which he said:
“Excessive reliance on delegated powers, Henry VIII clauses or skeleton legislation upsets the … balance between Parliament and the Executive. This not only strikes at the rule of law values ... but also at the cardinal principles of accessibility and legal certainty”.
The Labour manifesto itself made several very clear commitments about Skills England: that it would work with the Migration Advisory Committee, co-ordinate with local and regional authorities and determine which courses would be eligible for levy funding. So I would be grateful if the Minister could explain why at the very least these are not included in the Bill, with reference to the creation of Skills England.
The lack of a statutory footing for Skills England and the centralisation of powers in the Secretary of State in the Bill raise questions for many of us. With all the powers in the Bill passed to the Secretary of State, how independent will Skills England—and indeed the board—really be able to be in practice? Will they truly feel able to challenge Ministers if they believe that government policy is not delivering on the outcomes intended if they have no legal independence? How in practice and on what basis will their relationship develop with the Industrial Strategy Council and the Migration Advisory Committee? What role will they have in approving new qualifications or overseeing the system and what will be the extent of their responsibilities?
There are also important unanswered questions around how Skills England will be asked to oversee the apprenticeship system. Policy Exchange’s report, Reforming the Apprenticeship Levy, published last year, found a recurring complaint from employers of all sizes that standards were too inflexible for their needs. How will Skills England address this problem and what safeguards will be in place to ensure that powers taken by the Secretary of State are used appropriately?
Unfortunately, with the paucity of detail about the new body within the Bill, there is a very long list of questions. So, in conclusion, I believe the Bill raises more questions than it answers and I look forward to our more detailed discussions during its passage, when I hope the Minister will build on her opening comments to provide much more detail on the role and responsibilities of Skills England, and, perhaps most importantly, offer clear reassurances that it will have the autonomy, responsibility and flexibility to lead the revitalisation of our skills system that we all want to see.
Lord Hampton (CB)
My Lords, as ever, I declare my interest as a teacher in a state secondary school in east London. I thank the organisations that briefed us—there were a lot of them. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, on his excellent speech. I have to admit that I am rather sad not to be congratulating the noble Lord, Lord No Place—but that was maybe a good choice.
This is an interesting one. We get very little detail in the Bill, so this debate is more about a wish list than talking about the Bill itself. Through the Bill we get Skills England and its utopian dream: stronger, flexible, nimble, swerving, agile, breaking through barriers. This is less of an arm’s-length body and more of a job description for an England rugby fullback.
So here is the first question the Minister might like to answer. According to the Association of Employment Learning Providers:
“The remit of the IfATE had become bloated and not fit for purpose”.
Given the larger remit of Skills England, how will it remain nimble? Now that so much power will be vested in the Secretary of State, how is this agility going to work? I am not being flippant when I ask: does the department have the skill set for this new agile way of working?
As my noble friend Lord Aberdare quoted, in its first report Skills England said that over a third of the vacancies in 2022 were the result of skills shortages. It said that the qualifications landscape for employers was “opaque”; that, for learners, career paths were “not sufficiently clear”; and that the current skills system was not always equipping learners with the necessary skills.
There is work to do; we need to go back to fundamentals. We must not confuse skills with knowledge. Skills are practical abilities developed through practice and application. The knowledge-rich curriculum in schools has been to the detriment of skills. For too long, we have concentrated too much on getting the best maths results this side of Mars, while downplaying skills that employers want and need. By prioritising mathematics and engineering, the Government sought to boost innovation and competitiveness, but neglected the very sectors that have made the UK a cultural powerhouse: arts, music, design and literature. Obviously, an ability in maths and English is important, but not to the exclusion of everything else. The Empire is gone; there are no jobs for life.
As a teacher, I am constantly amazed that students can name every god in the major religions but cannot use Microsoft Office. Designing and populating a spreadsheet should be part of the basic maths taught in primary school. Every student should leave school having started at least one business, and I commend the work of Young Enterprise in this field. Every student should have the skills to build healthy work, social and sexual relationships, and again I urge the Minister to look at the work of the charity Tender if she does not know it. These are some of the many reasons why every child should be in school. Maybe by making the curriculum more relevant, we could tempt the abstainers and their families back into the fold—it might also be fun to teach—otherwise, I have no idea where the thousands of new teachers will come from.
I welcome the recent government Statement on the British film industry:
“Britain is open for business, and creativity is … at its heart”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/10/24; col. 317.]
That is great news given that successive Governments spent time downgrading creative subjects.
Can we say goodbye to Ebacc and Progress 8, which penalise schools and give them no credit for large amounts of high-performing creative subjects? Can the Minister expand on an answer she gave during Oral Questions earlier this afternoon, when she said that the “curriculum and assessment review” would be “creating space for … creativity”?
Qualifications are a mess. Apparently, Skills England will intervene “sometimes” in the award of technical qualifications. Clause 8 means that Ofqual may not decide whether there may be an accreditation requirement for approving technical education. Can the Minister explain the high-stakes qualifications and the specified technical education types? I am afraid that I still do not understand them.
I am member of the APPG on T-levels and I have chaired a conference on them. Time and again, we hear that they are too technical and that schools and colleges are struggling to find meaningful relations with industry. The Minister said in an answer yesterday that T-levels would be beefed up—great gung-ho language. Does she have more detail of the beef to be applied? I have taught both the unloved BTECs and V Certs, and friends of mine have taught unteachable V Certs. What will happen to those lower qualifications?
According to the CITB, each year 58,900 people either on a construction apprenticeship or an FE course fail to achieve their qualification or immediately progress into construction employment on completion of their qualification. The main reasons for this training wastage are the limited focus, the lack of alignment and the limited agility of the education system to meet construction employer skills needs, which are primarily at level 3 and below. Ultimately, this leads to low apprenticeship completion rates and unacceptable FE outcomes for the industry. The Minister mentioned the short qualification reform review; can she say how that is going?
Overall, this Bill is to be welcomed. Skills England talks a great fight, and if it can truly deliver the skilled workforce that this country so desperately needs, it will have achieved something monumental. However, this Government need to be brave, for Skills England can thrive only in an education system that is as agile and relevant as Skills England itself.
Lord Layard (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Beamish. I warmly welcome this Bill for two reasons. The first is economic growth. That is obvious, but equally importantly—I want to stress this perspective—skills are crucial for people and their individual ability to earn a living. For those two reasons, it is highly desirable that we have a well-focused system of skills development led by a single body. That is what this Bill will provide.
However, when I read the brief from the DfE for Skills England and the first report that it produced, I immediately noticed what seems to be an imbalance. It is concentrating entirely on the first of the two reasons I gave: the perceived needs of existing employers for labour and the estimates of the new types of jobs of the future. This is very important—it is crucial that we know all that in order to have the right balance of training that fits the pattern of future jobs—but there is also the other perspective: that of the individual.
If one were thinking about the need for a particular volume of training, that would lead one to ask how many young people need to be trained to earn a decent income. I have not seen them mentioned in the documents I have read so far. It is quite impracticable to say how many people should be trained just by adding up the estimates from employers and the estimates of new jobs. If you want to think about the numbers that have to be trained, you have to think about how many people are out there. The estimates from employers and the estimates of new jobs are vital for understanding the pattern of training.
If we want to think about the total volume of training, we should start with the very simple principle that it is in the national interest that every young person achieves the highest level of skill they can and wish to achieve. It is a prime duty of the state to get every young person off to the best possible start in working life. It is a much lower duty of the state to support lifelong learning, and indeed most in-service training should be, as it always has been, paid for by employers. By contrast, getting people off to a good start in life is central to the Government’s opportunity mission, but we are currently far from achieving that.
Where is the problem? The problem is not in schools. At age 15, our young people do better in the PISA tests than youngsters in France, Germany and most other European countries. However, by age 25, they are way behind, unless they are in the group who went to university. It is after school that the real barriers to opportunity exist.
For example, in the Government’s apprenticeship matching scheme there are three times more applicants than there are places on offer, so it is no wonder that at the age of 18 a third of our young people are getting no education or training. This is a shocking state of affairs. Let me break it down. There is the 14% who are NEET—not in education, employment or training—that we often talk about, but I think just as bad is the 20% who are in jobs without training and heading for a lifetime of low pay. It is this lack of training that I consider one of the biggest problems facing our country: the people who are getting nothing beyond the age of 17. It is completely extraordinary.
That is why I am encouraged that the Government are offering young people up to the age of 21 a Youth Guarantee of education, training, or help with finding work. That is good, but it is not nearly enough. What we need for these young people is, in addition, inside the Youth Guarantee, a guarantee of training if that is what they want and are qualified for, and I hope the Government can modify the Youth Guarantee in that way.
In 2009, the previous Labour Government passed an apprenticeships Act which obliged the Government to ensure that every young person who was qualified for a level 2 or level 3 apprenticeship could expect to receive an offer. That was repealed a year later. The guaranteed offer is, of course, what we do for people going down the academic route to university. They are pretty much guaranteed a place—not necessarily what they want but a place. We have never applied it to the other 50%, and that is why we have low productivity, low pay and inequality in our country.
To apply this guarantee principle would require a major administrative effort at the centre, working through local authorities, and, if necessary, an extra element of subsidy. I suggest that every local authority would be required to assess the number of young people likely to want an apprenticeship and it would then do its best to persuade local employers to provide these opportunities. The research shows that employers like the idea of an apprenticeship guarantee. They are not averse to it. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found that 85% of those surveyed supported the idea and 60% of them said that, if it was introduced, they would provide more places than they currently do.
This guarantee would be only fair to that cohort of young people, but also it is a very good investment, because, according to our calculations, within 12 years it would recoup enough in extra taxes and reduce benefits to repay the cost of the apprenticeship to the Treasury. The total cost of such a guarantee would in fact be no more than 40% of the growth and skills levy, so my proposal is that 40% of the growth and skills levy be ring-fenced for young people aged up to 21 taking an apprenticeship up to levels 2 and 3. These are mostly young people without A-levels and I think we have a prime responsibility, if we are looking for change, to focus above all on that group. Their claims must come before the claims of people doing levels 4, 5 and 6, who have already been helped through their A-levels and are now eligible for student loans.
The future of the levy is a crucial early issue for Skills England. I hope it will be interested in some of the arguments that I have put forward, but whether or not it accepts the idea of a guarantee and some ring-fencing of the levy, it is crucial that Skills England not only looks at what employers and the jobs of the future suggest but includes a serious study of the number of young people who are needed to acquire a skill—that is a crucial point. I hope we can continue to discuss that additional focus for Skills England in the later stages of the Bill. It is a vital dimension, because in the end the economy is for people and not people for the economy.
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, on an excellent maiden speech, which was both informative and entertaining, and I thank the Minister for her exposition of the rationale for this Bill. While I applaud the ambitions for Skills England—our country must obviously have the right skills to meet the challenges of modernity— I wish to provide some gentle warnings of the risks that I fear will inevitably arise with the Government’s approach.
First, I readily accept that, despite the previous Government’s best efforts, skills shortages remain a challenge for the UK, as for most developed economies. Despite record participation rates in higher education, a generously funded apprenticeship scheme and soaring levels of net migration, skills shortages remain. I sympathise entirely with the Government’s desire to act to shore up skills gaps.
The last Government had considerable success with their reforms to apprenticeships, and the Institute for Apprentices and Technical Education—IFATE—was set up as part of those reforms. Its purpose was to be independent of Government and to represent employers in setting standards for technical qualifications. It succeeded through instilling confidence in the integrity of apprenticeship standards. Employers are fundamental to the input of the qualifications they need in the workplace.
I pay tribute to the chair, the noble Baroness, Lady McGregor-Smith, and her team for the work of IfATE. It has, among other successes, created and maintained around 690 apprenticeships, which supported around 750,000 people on apprenticeships last year. It created 21 T-levels and 174 higher technical qualifications, and enabled 120 employer leaders to set strategic direction for skills in their sector. Perhaps the best assessment of IfATE comes from apprentices themselves. A national survey found a 90% satisfaction rate with IfATE from apprentices who had completed their apprenticeships—what other part of government can report a 90% satisfaction rate?
Established in statute, IfATE has an independent chair and a board that afford a certain distance from the Department for Education. The chair of IfATE is independent of the department, while ultimately remaining accountable to the Secretary of State. This governance arrangement has been key to instilling confidence among employers and being able to galvanise others in support of the standards that IfATE sets. However, Skills England is to be an executive agency of the Department for Education. Under the Government’s proposals, Skills England will report to a senior official in the DfE. In my view, this change in status is both critical and presents significant risks.
In all so-called arm’s-length bodies, there is a hand at the end of the arm. This hand exercises a certain amount of control depending on how the body is set up. The Bill will place far greater control in the hands of officials, rather than employers, in setting and ensuring the rigour of future standards.
This concern is borne out in Clause 4, which gives the Secretary of State, or the officials reporting directly to her, the power to prepare apprenticeship standards herself or to commission others to do so. David Kernohan, in a recent article, highlighted the issue thus:
“This tweak makes it technically possible for an apprenticeship standard to be prepared without the input of employers, providers, industry groups or indeed anyone. The Secretary of State could knock out an apprenticeship standard while bored on a train provided she is ‘satisfied that it would be more appropriate for the standard to be prepared by the Secretary of State than by a group of persons’”.
Such wide-ranging powers lead to genuine concerns that the Bill could decrease the standards of technical qualifications.
Clause 6 removes the IfATE requirement that reviews of approved technical qualifications should happen at regular intervals. The reason given in the Explanatory Notes is that this is
“to enable flexibility to review standards according to priorities and employers’ needs”.
Can the Minister explain why a statutory requirement for regular reviews of the suitability of qualifications is to be replaced by such a broad discretion? Would she also be able to provide some clarity on who will decide these priorities and how the decision-maker will determine “employers’ needs”?
As my noble friend Lord Effingham highlighted, the new skills foundation will give increased influence to trade unions, with Sue Ferns, senior deputy general secretary of the union Prospect, arguing that:
“Skills England … won’t achieve its objectives without engaging and involving trade unions at every level”.
Although trade unions play an important part in the workplace, they should not be allowed to push out employers and exercise a disproportionate influence on the standards and formation of qualifications. There is a very real danger that a successful organisation such as IfATE could be subsumed in a new Skills England and become merely a convening body for interested parties.
On the levy, Ms Ferns has called for flexibility and argued that it
“must extend beyond a demand-led model”.
While I appreciate that she does not speak for the Government, I wish to express my alarm that anything other than a demand-led model is appropriate for solving a skills shortage. Such an approach would imply that Skills England is at risk of taking on the role of a central planner for skills—an approach that Governments long ago experimented with and which I hoped had been consigned to the dustbin of history.
I close by acknowledging the scale of the challenge facing the Government. Skills shortages arise in almost every advanced economy and there is a wide variety of tools by which government can contribute to meeting this unmet demand for skilled workers. My fear is that Skills England assumes, philosophically, that the state knows best. One need look only at the alarming number of skilled vacancies within the National Health Service and the startling paucity of specialist skills within the Civil Service to recognise that the Government are not best placed to fill skills shortages among those they directly employ, let alone those they do not.
IfATE may not be perfect, but it has gone a long way towards remedying many of the underlying problems. I urge the Minister to give careful thought to whether a governance arrangement that places so much discretion in the hands of civil servants is one that is likely to best meet the needs of our economy.
Baroness McGregor-Smith (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, on his excellent maiden speech. I declare my interests as set out in the register in a number of businesses that would benefit from a strong economy.
My background is business and I am passionate about business and economic growth in the UK, but today it is a pleasure to speak to your Lordships in my capacity as chair of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, known as IfATE. I recently met with the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Malvern, in her role as Minister of Skills in the Department for Education, and we agreed that the progress and achievements made by IfATE offer firm foundations for Skills England to build on, and that they support the Government’s ambitions on growth and opportunity across our economy.
I am proud of all that IfATE has achieved. No arms-length body is perfect, but it has done some fantastic things to begin the reform of the skills system that is so desperately needed. The baton will now pass to Skills England, an organisation whose remit will be much broader and wider. What matters now is keeping employers’ voices at the heart of the skills system. This has been central to the successes that IfATE has had and should form part of Skills England’s DNA. Growth will be underpinned by employers getting the skills that they need.
I will take the opportunity to outline to this House some of the achievements that IfATE, and the thousands of employers who have worked with it, have had since 2017. Apprenticeships and technical qualifications in the UK are all now based on IfATE’s occupational standards, which have been created using expert input from employers across the economy, covering everything from nursing to aerospace engineering. These standards capture the essential knowledge, skills and behaviours that employers want within their businesses, increasingly including more and more technology and AI. They form a spine within our skills system, from which apprenticeships and technical qualifications can grow.
I am proud of the breadth and range of standards that we have, which demonstrates how employers from every sector have engaged in the development of the skills system. I am also proud of the recent prototype, the skills compass, which IfATE has been developing in collaboration with the Gatsby Charitable Foundation and Innovate UK. It will use labour market insights and AI to update rapidly these standards and capture changing skills needs. This is what we need in a responsive and flexible skills system.
IfATE has worked with employers to develop and approve over 700 apprenticeships, and 750,000 people participated in an apprenticeship in England last year. The estimated annual gain for employers from apprenticeships is between £2,500 and £18,000 per apprentice during their training, and many apprentices will remain loyal to their apprenticeship employers long-term. I am sure the many noble Lords who have met apprentices will know that they are so passionate and committed to what they do. I have been a big employer of them and am hugely proud of so many of their continuing achievements.
IfATE has set out occupational maps of career paths using apprenticeships and technical qualifications. They show everyone, from school leavers to employers, how you can progress in technical and professional careers. I am pleased to say that seven out of 10 of the mayoral combined authorities now use these maps and the back-office digital interface developed by IfATE to support their own careers guidance offerings. These maps are a real asset that can be transferred to Skills England as a result of this Bill.
IfATE has made great strides in working with employers to identify where existing occupations and apprenticeships can become greener, supporting sustainable growth and our net-zero targets for the UK. We have also supported the Government’s ambitions on T-levels. As we know, T-levels offer routes to professional careers, such as construction, nursing, agriculture and digital, with students able to progress to high-quality apprenticeships. They also offer an alternative route to university education, and 97% of T-level students who applied this year were offered a university place.
IfATE has approved over 230 technical qualifications at levels 4 and 5, providing a quality mark showing alignment to employer-led occupational standards, enabling learners to enter their chosen profession or progress to higher education. This is about expanding the opportunities that learners have to develop their careers and for businesses to get the high-quality skills that they need.
The list goes on. I wanted to share this picture to assure everyone that Skills England will inherit a skills system with the foundations in place. It still needs to be developed, but we are ready to realise the Government’s ambitions to reshape the economy and unlock growth. However, there is a lot more to do.
As well as translating the existing duties that IfATE has into powers for the Secretary of State, the Bill seeks to introduce flexibilities which will help to increase the pace at which we can deliver the skills that are needed by employers and learners. For example, the Bill sets out that groups of persons, currently in the form of employer groups known as trailblazers, may not always be required in the development of occupational standards and apprenticeships as is the case now. This provides the flexibility to make standards based on labour market data and information, and could avoid delays in revising and improving standards.
My view is that, while this flexibility is a sensible tool for the Secretary of State, we should still seek for the norm to be to combine this type of data-led insight with the views of groups of employers and other experts. This matters because it provides them with a direct stake and role in the shaping of the skills system. I would encourage the Secretary of State to make clear and publish her rationale for any exceptions where a group is not used in the development or updating of standards.
I also note that the Bill, in abolishing IfATE, removes the general duties that IfATE has with regard to the needs of learners and employers in exercising its functions. These are not replicated in the transfer of powers to the Secretary of State. I would welcome clarification from the Government on how they envisage Skills England will continue to ensure that those interests are considered under the system. In due course, strategic guidance to Skills England from the Secretary of State may be one helpful way of ensuring that these priorities are protected.
Before I finish, I want to thank my fellow IfATE board members, who represent many of the largest employers in the UK, and all the IfATE employees for all the outstanding work that has been done since 2017. I also thank Jennifer Coupland, the chief executive of IfATE, whom I really admire for her passion, expertise and leadership of the organisation.
In conclusion, I urge the Government not to lose momentum on the work that IfATE has done since 2017—there is too much at stake for everyone involved in the skills system—and to always keep the employer voice central to the development of apprenticeships, qualifications and flexible skills training. We should not forget that, as our workplaces are changed beyond recognition by further advances in technology and AI, we have to ensure that the entire country’s workforce still has the opportunity, under any new system, to constantly reskill.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, this looks such an innocuous little Bill, but there is so much more to it than meets the eye. It is a precursor to the arrival of Skills England, which we all hope will bring together the myriad of agencies operating in FE and skills to ensure quality and accessible education and skills for 100% of the population, as the Association of Colleges so heartily wishes, along with all of us who really care about technical and vocational skills and the well-being of the further education sector.
However, the Bill does something that those of us on these Benches will always be wary of, as my noble friend Lord Addington has set out and other noble Lords have alluded to. It transfers powers from IfATE, a body made up of professional people who know and care about apprenticeships and vocational education, to the Secretary of State. It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady McGregor-Smith, who has chaired the board of IfATE so successfully. I add my congratulations, too, to Jennifer Coupland, the chief executive, and the other key members who have shown knowledge of, and dedication to, the further education sector and work-based qualifications.
Alas, they are to be replaced by a here today, gone tomorrow Minister, almost certainly university-educated, with little direct knowledge of, and, sadly perhaps, even less interest in further education colleges and the work-related training and qualifications which they so brilliantly deliver. In a democracy, we should never aspire for unlimited power to be given to politicians. The Minister may argue that this is an interim stage, but it appears that Skills England, when it comes, will not have a statutory basis—as many other noble Lords have pointed out—and will be at the whim of the Secretary of State, who could fundamentally change it.
Skills England will legally be part of the Department for Education, so not as notionally independent as IfATE was. The Education and Skills Funding Agency is also an executive agency, and as such could be easily abolished without parliamentary debate. So what will happen to IfATE’s “employers first” approach to developing policy and qualifications, which could well be at risk if the Education Secretary of the day prescribes a different policy?
It was hoped that Skills England would be able to work across departments, have recourse to employers and be flexible enough to be responsive and approve standards to ensure that work-based qualifications were always employer-led. As I know from my days at City & Guilds, work-based qualifications have always been employer-led. This was by no means true at first with T-levels, which were always billed as different because they were employer-led. Will that be the case when it is set up?
As we have heard, the impact assessment states that there will be a drop in apprenticeship starts while functions are transferred from IfATE, which will disproportionately impact adult apprentices and disadvantaged learners and regions. What will the Government be doing to minimise this? We know that the numbers of young people starting apprenticeships are already disappointing. If these changes make the position worse, what steps will the Government take? What steps are being taken to ensure that apprenticeships under the growth and skills levy will be available to learners of all ages and at all levels, and how will the growth and skills levy do a better job than the apprenticeship levy?
Lifelong learning matters now more than ever. Can the Minister say what steps are being taken to incentivise flexible lifelong learning? What assessment has been made of the lifelong learning entitlement and its introduction from 2026? It is crucial to improving the UK’s economic growth. Supporting and encouraging adults to upskill and reskill will help with increasing productivity and filling skills shortages in growth areas of the economy. Flexible study is also essential in allowing people to fit their studies around busy work and family lives and in allowing people to access higher-level skills in the local area where they live, even if there is limited face-to-face provision. However, over the last 15 years, the number of adults aged 21 and over accessing higher-level skills courses has fallen dramatically. Policy and funding interventions are now long overdue for flexible higher education provision.
This little Bill could hide a very damaging move to overpowerful politicians overriding experts in the field. We shall monitor this with great care as this Bill and the Skills England Bill proceed. Of course, we all hope for the best, because this is a vital area, but we shall be watching carefully for the independence of Skills England if it really is to fulfil its ambition.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I offer my congratulations to my noble friend Lord Beamish on an excellent maiden speech. It is clear that he is going to be a real asset to your Lordships’ House.
It is probably not unfair to say that there have been few more uncontroversial Bills presented to your Lordships’ House than the one we are discussing this evening. That is not at all to denigrate this Bill, which is an important cog in the wheel that will power the development of the skills needed to drive the economy in the uncertain years ahead.
There is little that I want to say about the Bill itself, other than perhaps to ask my noble friend to say a little more about the additional powers being given to Ofqual around accrediting technical qualifications for the first time. The Secretary of State will have the power to ask Ofqual to do so, and it would be helpful to have some clarity as to when that power might be exercised. There is another issue that I want to raise, which I will speak to later.
Skills England is not mentioned in the Bill, but I follow other noble Lords in using this as a convenient means of welcoming the formation of a new body and considering what role it might play in a future likely to be dominated by AI. I envisage Skills England being key in developing a new post-16 skills strategy, co-ordinating engagement across government with key agencies and devolved bodies.
I must say that it is a pleasure to be on this side of the Chamber for a change when debating skills provision. Several noble Lords, not least the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, who is here today, were involved three years ago when the skills Bill was making its way through your Lordships’ House, demonstrating to the then Government that we felt their plans lacked the breadth and depth needed to address the shortfall in providing for training and skills development.
At that time, local skills improvement plans were identified as the means of achieving the spreading of opportunity more evenly across the regions. Many noble Lords, including some on the then Government Benches, submitted amendments to the skills Bill. They highlighted that, with a disproportionate role given to employers, existing structures were being ignored, such as metro mayors, combined authorities—many with democratic accountability for local skills and economic regeneration —local enterprise partnerships, trade unions, universities, FE colleges and training providers. All were originally excluded, and only university and training providers were eventually allowed a meaningful say. It is refreshing that the current Government appreciate the contribution to be made by a wide range of bodies and are willing to empower them to coproduce local plans in recognition of their unique feel for priorities and skills development in their areas.
I like the description given to Skills England by the Association of Colleges in its briefing to noble Lords for this debate. It describes it as a “new social partnership body” bringing together business, FE colleges, training providers and unions with national and local government to ensure we have the highly trained workforce needed to deliver the industrial strategy announced last month.
On the subject of FE colleges, if they are to be able to play their full role in delivering the Government’s missions and in helping to ensure that Skills England is a success, it is vital that the long-term underfunding of the sector compared to schools and higher education is addressed. With that in mind, I was one of a number of Labour peers who wrote recently to the Chancellor emphasising that point and asking that greater funding for the FE sector be a feature of the Budget.
Following the UK’s departure from the EU, skills shortages are a major problem. Indeed, one third of all job vacancies are due to the lack of people suitably skilled to fill them. That is an indictment, surely, of the previous Government’s record, and it is not acceptable simply to cite the pandemic or exiting the EU as reasons.
Skills England has not allowed the grass to grow beneath its feet. The organisation had been in existence for just two months when it published its first report. Its title, Driving growth and widening opportunities, is certainly relevant and it included an index, ranking the demand for each occupation across the UK labour market.
I studied economics, but I had never come across something called an SSVD—a skills shortage vacancy density. Worryingly, the report revealed that the sectors with the highest vacancy density are construction, information and communications, and manufacturing, with health and social work and education not far behind. All those sectors are pillars of any economy, essential in achieving the growth everyone is searching for.
That report noted that much of the UK economy is dependent on skills gained in higher education. Future job projections suggest that occupations requiring higher education are expected to see the most employment growth over the next decade. Addressing shortages in higher-level skills is therefore essential to achieving government missions to drive growth and widen opportunity, making universities critical delivery partners to Skills England. What role does the Minister envisage for universities in the development of Skills England?
Also critical to the effectiveness of Skills England will be the re-shaped growth and skills levy. I echo the point my noble friend Lord Blunkett made about the money that goes back to the Treasury from the existing apprenticeship levy. A means has to be found to use money that has not been spent in whatever the period is—currently two years—so that it stays within the training budget and is not just returned to the Treasury, where it will be spent on anything the Treasury deems then appropriate.
Since the introduction of the levy, there has been a steep decline in apprenticeship starts for young people and a shift in starts from the most deprived parts of England to London and the south-east, as well as a decline in starts in sectors where skills challenges are most acute. Added to that is a growth in management and leadership courses and a decline in starts for those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. It is to be hoped that Skills England will address the effects of those trends by bringing greater transparency, especially in how the growth and skills levy is spent.
Apprenticeships are essential for ensuring that young people from a diverse range of backgrounds can access high-quality training. They can also tackle skills gaps, particularly in the public sector. Across the apprenticeships landscape, almost two thirds of those who started a degree apprenticeship in the health, public services and care sector in 2022-23 were aged 25 and over, including 93% on the social worker programme and a large number of those on the nursing programme. Apprenticeships must be available to learners of all ages and at all levels to enable them to upskill and reskill, which I know is the Government’s aim.
Open University students tend to be older compared to the rest of the sector, and that is a good example of flexible lifelong learning, which is crucial to improving economic growth. Can the Minister say what steps are being planned to incentivise flexible lifelong learning? Linked to that, of course, is the lifelong learning entitlement. Can she also reveal what assessment has been made of it and its introduction, we understand, from 2026?
I turn to my final issue today as the only Scot taking part in this debate. I have given notice to my noble friend that I would raise questions relating to the assumption that, as education and skills are devolved matters, the Bill applies only to England and Wales. However, as set out in Clause 10, that is not the case. That is because the remit and responsibilities of Skills England will feed into UK-wide policy and funding agendas, resulting in both direct and indirect implications for the post-16 skills landscape and higher education in Scotland.
Both the Skills England report to which I referred earlier and the Government’s industrial strategy are UK-wide in scope. Skills England is responsible for identifying where skill gaps exist and, as my noble friend said in her opening remarks, is expected to work with the Migration Advisory Committee to address them. The MAC is, of course, UK-wide in scope.
The same applies to the growth and skills levy. The apprenticeship levy is collected at UK level by HMRC, and Scotland receives a proportion via the Barnett funding formula. The Scottish Government then have discretion as to how the levy is distributed north of the border. Without going into detail, I will just say that they do it differently.
Can the Minister say what engagement the UK Government have had with the Scottish Government on the creation of Skills England? What mechanisms are the Government considering in order to ensure strong connectivity between Skills England and the Scottish Government—indeed, all the devolved Administrations —where the work of Skills England feeds into UK-wide agendas such as the industrial strategy and the recommendations of the Migration Advisory Committee?
Ensuring that the country has a sound base of the skills needed for the demands of a fast-evolving economy should not be seen as a cost. It is clearly an investment in the future and an essential part of driving economic growth. I welcome the establishment of Skills England as a decisive step in that direction.
Lord Ravensdale (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interests as a chief engineer working for AtkinsRéalis, the chair of Midlands Nuclear and president of the Sustainable Energy Association.
I deal with skills challenges on the ground every day. I work in business and my industry, the nuclear industry, is undergoing a significant period of growth. We currently have around 83,000 people in the sector but, to meet growing demand and replace people leaving, we need to fill around 40,000 new jobs by 2030. My business in Derby has some really specialised technical skills that are difficult to find on the market, which is acting as a brake on our ability to grow our business and contribute to the Government’s economic growth goals, as well as the national goals of clean power and the defence of the realm. For example, software engineers, electrical, control and instrumentation engineers, and process engineers are very difficult to find. The Minister will be aware of the Nuclear Skills Taskforce and the resulting nuclear strategic plan for skills, which are a great first step in meeting these opportunities.
In that vein, I welcome the intent of the Bill in taking a more integrated and joined-up approach to skills across the country, particularly in better considering regional needs. I will concentrate my remarks on how Skills England will work from a regional perspective.
First, local skills improvement plans—LSIPs—were set up as part of the previous Act, to which noble Lords have referred. I was grateful to the Minister for speaking at a recent Cross-Bench meeting where I raised this issue. Overall, LSIPs have been a welcome development in helping to set out plans to meet local skills needs and provide better join-up between local businesses and skills providers, but we have sometimes found limited join-up nationally. This can result in them being fairly generic or overlapping, in some cases. Can the Minister provide more detail on how Skills England will help set the strategic direction for LSIPs and other potential reforms to these plans?
Secondly, on regional partnerships, in the Midlands where I live, we are now blessed with two combined authorities. We have the East Midlands Combined County Authority and the West Midlands Combined Authority, but these cover only a relatively small part of the region. How will Skills England operate regionally and deliver for those areas not covered by combined authorities?
For me, part of the answer is in the regional partnerships—for example, the Midlands Engine and the northern powerhouse. I am currently chairing an energy security task force for the Midlands Engine that is all about how the region can seize the opportunity of the energy transition. One of our offers to the Government is to work right across the region to collaborate, test and scale a skills-hub approach to address the technical gap in the region’s clean energy and manufacturing sectors, intervening where the markets currently cannot. In fact, following a meeting earlier this year with the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, we are setting up a regional nuclear skills hub, which will start to reap some of those benefits. Such hubs could provide specialised training and school-level engagement, foster innovation, support workforce transition, and encourage collaboration between academia, industry and local communities, leveraging the region’s wealth of universities and colleges. I would be grateful if the Minister could say how Skills England might work at a broader regional level to ensure that the overall skills picture and demand is being considered.
Finally, following on from the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, on better linking up schools’ under 16 education with regional opportunities, there is a real opportunity here for the Government, and that is something else that we in the Midlands region are considering carefully. There are lots of successful opportunities, such as the Science Summer School of the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, and Professor Brian Cox. In many regions across the UK, it is doing a great job of linking up schools with broader opportunities. As the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, said in his excellent maiden speech, this all feeds in to raising aspiration in many areas across the country and getting young people excited and enthused about contributing to the national goals that the Government are pushing. I very much look forward to working with the Minister and her team on this important Bill.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interests in the Good Schools Guide and as a member of the council of City & Guilds.
It is good to see a skills Bill here so early on and being tackled with such impetus—it gives me great hope for what this Government might achieve—although I celebrate IfATE’s achievements and our own achievements, and I join the noble Baroness, Lady McGregor-Smith, and my noble friend Lord Effingham in what they have said about that. But this Government clearly think we must do better—a phrase I recognise from my school reports.
I hope that the Government will start by taking the advice of their own excellent Science Advisory Council and the Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor Viner, and establish from the outset of this change a set of metrics that will enable them to know how well they are doing and assemble the evidence of what works, understand where the gaps in that evidence are and what they are going to do about it, and fundamentally evaluate the process that they are setting out on, from the start, so that whatever happens we end up with a really good body of knowledge as to how to improve the skills system in this country.
I hope that the Government will work back through the conclusions they arrive at on skills in their schools policy. I have been gently disturbed recently by some of the cuts made in science spending in schools. I share with the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, the thought that there are some basic skills that we are not teaching in schools at the moment which are pretty fundamental to the subsequent skills agenda. At a time when we are reforming the Civil Service—the future fast stream will be 50% STEM rather than 10%, as it is at the moment—we need to look right back into our school system to see where these skills are going to be coming from. I hope too that the Government will take a critical look at our qualifications landscape. I like T-levels, but we need BTECs alongside them because we are not providing for anything but the brightest students if we insist on T-levels.
I hope we will look at university courses that say they are teaching skills. If you go back a few years, the Next Gen. report showed that 80% of the courses at universities which said that they were something to do with the computer games industry were rubbish and just using that in their titles as a way of seducing students. The same situation pertains. If you are looking—as doubtless many noble Lords have—to help your children choose a university course, the titles are there but there is no information as to what children go on to do afterwards. Is this a good course for getting into the industry that it says it is about? Is it actually teaching what those industries want? The information is not there. Given how much students are investing in their education, we really owe them better information on which to make those decisions.
At the other end of the scale, I hope the Government will pay attention to the developing world of micro- credentials. The idea that you can pick up someone, give them a relatively short bit of training and have them ready to go and be useful is the structure of training in a lot of industries—it certainly is in IT and a lot of the creative industries. We need to work out how to work with that. What IfATE has done to help bring the bigger qualifications up to speed more quickly is admirable, but the world is changing so fast—for instance, in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity—and we need to understand how to move at that pace and how to offer pastoral support to people whose careers start to be made up of an accumulation of bits and pieces that there happens to be a demand for at the time.
To pick up on what the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, said, I hope that we will see an emphasis on local skills, but somewhere in my town of Eastbourne there is a nuclear engineer, and that will never be picked up by a local skills policy. We need to understand the needs and talents of children and young people and not just the needs of the local industry, and make sure that we are offering the education that our children need, rather than just the education that their employers are after.
I turn to the abolition of IfATE. I very much support all that the noble Baroness, Lady McGregor-Smith, said about it. I saw the previous Government on several occasions do the exact opposite, but it is hugely important to preserve the network of relationships that has been built up by an institution which is being supplanted. It takes a long time for these personal relationships to subsist; they exist at not only the senior level but the junior level. Those relationships need to be preserved; you do not want to have to rebuild them from the base up. We also need to build a structure—which is not easy in the Civil Service—where such relationships can be maintained. We cannot have endlessly rotating civil servants responsible for maintaining long-term relationships with industry. A sense of career and institutional memory has to be built into this.
A last question for the Government is this: how does the Careers & Enterprise Company fit into this?
Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, I am delighted to speak at the Second Reading of this Bill. It gives me the first opportunity to welcome my noble friend the Minister to her place. I should have had that opportunity last week, in Thursday’s Questions, but unfortunately illness prevented me attending the House. I thank my noble friend Lord Watson of Invergowrie for asking the Question on my behalf. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Beamish on an excellent maiden speech and an introduction to the open-air museum which brings the history of north-east England to life. I note that we have an excellent open-air museum in south Wales, St Fagans, and I highly recommend it to your Lordships.
I am sure that many noble Lords will be familiar, after my time spent in debates such as this, with the fact that education is at the heart of my lifetime’s experience: I served as a teacher for almost 35 years. I know that education is at the centre of Labour’s mission to spread and expand opportunity. From our earliest years through to learning or retraining as adults, gaining knowledge, skills, qualifications and exploring our interests and abilities, it enables us to build the lives that we want and the society that we wish to share.
Labour will track progress on its education mission through three stages of education. These are: to boost child development, with 500,000 more children hitting the early learning goals by 2030; to see a sustained rise in young people’s school outcomes; and to build young people’s life skills, with an expansion of high-quality education, employment and training routes so that more people than ever are on pathways.
The ONS, which is based in my home city of Newport, released updated data this summer. The percentage of all young people not in education, employment or training in April to June 2024 was estimated at 12.2%, up 0.9 percentage points on the year. It is clear evidence that over 14 years the former Tory Government did not develop the appropriate apprenticeships and skills pathways that allow youngsters to develop, coupled with an inability for adults to reskill and upskill throughout their lives. The result is that we have too few people with the skills we need for growth.
The former Government’s levy saw millions of pounds that should have been used for skills training going unspent, even as businesses reported growing skills shortages. Labour’s plans, giving businesses flexibility, would ensure that money could be best spent on a greater range of training courses, including basic English, maths and digital skills, so that businesses can fill those gaps and people can gain new skills. The Bill’s technical changes set out what is needed to begin to redress this serious imbalance in our opportunities for growth in the economy. The transfer of IfATE’s powers to the Secretary of State will enable closer integration of employer input with broader government strategies and policies.
Skills England has been tasked with driving forward a national ambition to meet the skills needs of the next decade. This will be driven by pushing power and decisions on skills spending out from Westminster to local communities, so that those communities can better match up skills training with their local business needs and grow local and regional economies. It will transform the skills system to make it truly world-leading. It will help to build a high-skill, high-productivity workforce that is matched to employers’ needs, and ensure that everyone, regardless of their background, can access the opportunities they need to thrive, and deliver change by bringing together formerly disparate functions into a single organisation, with a single feedback loop into government.
It will be an executive agency. It will be legally part of the Department for Education and will have a role in convening education providers, employers, unions and regional and national Governments, which is the sort of social partnership approach that sector bodies have been pushing for over many years. It also changes the overly prescriptive functions, and the DfE believes it can make the skills system more responsive. It is about speeding up the amendment or introduction of standards and assessment plans, bypassing what can be an arduous exercise of lengthy reviews involving employers, awarding organisations and multiple layers of officials. We cannot afford to continue to let overly complex bureaucracy stand in the way of growth and opportunity. I draw on my previous experience as a senior A-level examiner when developing new specifications. I remember the level of detail and delay that went into such changes. A minimal tweak could delay the introduction by a whole academic year.
People are ambitious for their futures. They want to learn new skills to get new jobs. We will reverse the trend of the past 14 years and give businesses the flexibility they need to train people up with new skills, from digital technologies to the green skills needed to tackle climate change. Understandably, there are always concerns in the sector when any changes are proposed, but the department has noted that any possible temporary disruptions affecting learners and apprenticeships during the transition would be limited and has promised to address the impact. From digital skills and green skills to childcare and social care—this Labour Government will harness the talents and abilities of the British people so that we can strengthen our economy and break down barriers to opportunity.
I was extremely pleased to read last month’s first report on Skills England and to note that Richard Pennycook, the interim chair, said that while it is called Skills England, the UK skills needs do not change or stop at Chepstow or Carlisle. Skills England intends to work closely with colleagues in the devolved nations to ensure that students and employers have a seamless experience across the UK. Indeed, the whole relationship between the UK Government and the Welsh Government, in terms of engagement, has been transformed in the last three months, notwithstanding the establishment and successful first meeting of the Council of the Nations and Regions just two weeks ago.
Let us harness the changes needed in the education system by changing those persistent skill mismatches. Let us change the high proportion of the working-age population who lack essential skills for work and redress the undersupply of highly technical training.
This Government will provide more training opportunities so that people can gain new skills, access better jobs and grow our economy. That is the difference we will make, and the technical changes in the Bill begin an important and necessary part of the journey.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I thank all the organisations that sent excellent briefings. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, on his maiden speech. I was fascinated by his final comment about traditional skills, which we often forget. I know that Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral is desperate for masons to repair the sandstone blocks. When I drive round Cumbria, I always wonder where we are going to get the skills to repair those dry walls.
The Minister kicked off this Second Reading by referring to harnessing opportunities for our young people. I thought we would all be agreeing with each other and was quite surprised that that was not the case. However, on reflection, we did in our own ways agree with each other, albeit from different angles. My noble friend Lord Addington talked about what to do when things go wrong and how to make sure that they are put right. The buck will stop with the department that takes all these powers.
The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, referred to things being rather cosy, with Skills England, the director-general and the Civil Service, which does not have any public profile and operates behind closed doors. Where is the grit in this figurative oyster? That was also picked up by the noble Baroness, Lady Evans. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds talked about apprenticeship levies and how it was difficult to navigate around them. I shall come back to that in a moment.
The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, was very sure that Skills England needed the independence, the force and the fundamental clout to make things happen, although there are two powerful Ministers in charge of delivery—a Minister in this House and a Secretary of State.
I am always fascinated when the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, talks, with his knowledge of state education. He went off-script a little bit and rightly asked where we were going to get these 1,000 new teachers from. My mantra has always been that one thing that is holding back the creative industries has been the wretched EBacc. We were promised that T-levels would be a practical opportunity for some young people, and perhaps they are too technical.
I, too, pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady McGregor-Smith. Perhaps the title IfATE, given what its fate was to be, was a bit ironic. She talked about apprentices being passionate about what they do, but foundations are being put in place there that are going to be hugely important to the future and where we go.
My noble friend Lady Garden was, as usual, in her own inimitable style, very direct. She talked about the potential power of Ministers in this regard, and rightly raised the issue of lifelong learning, which matters now more than ever, and what will happen to lifelong learning entitlements.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, started off by saying that, like me, he thought this was one of those few uncontroversial Bills, and like me he was quite surprised by the tenor of some of the comments made. I thank the noble Lord for raising the issue of Scotland and Wales. I scratched my head about that and thought, “Is this yet again a purely English thing?” But I did not know about Clause 10 of the Bill—so I thank him for raising that.
The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, talked about the jobs that we need. Not just in his sector but in all sorts of sectors across the UK, there is a huge skills shortage and jobs shortage. He wanted to know how Skills England would operate at a regional level.
I was absolutely fascinated by the point that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, made that the Government need to set up metrics for how well we are doing so that we can evaluate progress. I want to come to that at the end of my contribution. I hope that, if they do that, that metrics or evaluation will be published on a regular basis.
As a nation, we develop and prosper by nurturing, educating and training our young people. We have been very successful at developing those young people of an academic disposition but less so for those young people who want or need to follow a vocational route. At a time when we need people with particular skills and have skill gaps in many industries and businesses, we seem constantly to wrestle with the problem, slow in identifying the skills needed and even slower in providing the training and opportunities for those skills.
I am still scarred by Objective 1 in Merseyside in the 1970s. Merseyside was one of the poorest regions in Europe, measured by its GDP, and as a result it received literally millions of pounds from the EU. But in terms of training, Objective 1 money was spent on hairdressing and beauty courses. Why? Because those courses could easily attract and enrol students and give a much-needed income stream to the FE college. The college that needed the revenue did not have the financial security to develop courses that would provide the skills for the developing industries. That is, I hope, a lesson that we have now learned. I relate that historic situation because it shows that FE needs to have resources, finance and flexibility to provide skills not just for today but also for tomorrow.
We are probably not aware of the skills that are required for the future. We were not aware of AI five or 10 years ago. We probably thought that it was a Geordie expression, “Wey aye, man”. That did not go down well—I shall refrain from doing jokes; it is not my forte. We are not opposed to the Bill, but we have concerns and we would like reassurances. We also have ambitions that could be picked up by this Bill.
Currently the institute is responsible for bringing employers together to develop the apprenticeship standard and what apprentices need to learn—in short, the apprenticeship plan. They are good at this and the employer input is very important to ensure that consistency in training, assessment and outcomes. I ask the Minister: who will set the apprenticeship standard and who will regulate assessment plans developed by awarding bodies?
We need to avoid inconsistencies of outcome. We need to be reassured that Skills England develops a partnership with business skills bodies to secure that quality and consistency of apprenticeships and that there is a partnership involving employees, giving industry skills bodies a formal role in the skills system, to set standards and assessment requirements.
We were getting to the position of seeing the regions working with FE, understanding the needs of industry and understanding SMEs. We have to be sure that the new arrangements do not lead to unintended consequences and that the progress and working relationships that are beginning to be successful are not lost.
The Government need to invest in skills and training. Any business will tell you that the apprenticeship levy does not work. They often cannot get the funding they need to train staff and the ridiculous situation whereby hundreds of millions of pounds of training funding goes back to the Treasury at the end of the year if it is not spent is absolutely crazy.
We also believe that the lower minimum wage for apprentices should be scrapped and that they should be paid the same minimum wage as those other employees of their age. Apprenticeships are critical for social mobility and ensuring that people from a diverse range of backgrounds can access high-quality training. They can tackle skills gaps and help learners of all ages to upskill and reskill. The Open University, interestingly, carried out a survey that found that 72% of apprentices received a pay rise on completion, and 71% gained promotion.
When the apprenticeship scheme was conceived— I think it was by the coalition Government—it was aimed very much at 16 to 18 year-olds. But, over the years, the number of 16 to 18 year-old apprentices dropped dramatically, and they are often the ones in the most vulnerable situations. I hope that the new Government will try to ensure that there are plenty of opportunities for that age group.
To go back to the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, at the end of his contribution he made the point that if the Government got this right and delivered what they said, it could be one of the major successes of this Government, which will be lauded for generations to come. We want this to be successful. We are not here hoping that this will not work, we want it to be successful and, never mind turning around the health service, it would be absolutely amazing if they could turn around the skills sector and the skills shortages. It would be something that would be remembered for years to come.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, as I rise to speak at Second Reading, I say first how much I enjoyed the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Beamish. I look forward to the insights he will bring to your Lordships’ House.
The goal of improving our skills system and meeting skills gaps is not a new one. Indeed, today, as my noble friend Lady Finn said, it is an international one. Under successive Governments, we have seen work to simplify the system, achieve parity of esteem with academic qualifications, place employers at the heart of the system and improve the quality of skills-based qualifications. In their manifesto, His Majesty’s Government committed to establishing a new body, Skills England, to deliver their skills strategy, but unfortunately this Bill merely abolishes the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education and transfers its functions to the Secretary of State; in effect, absorbing them into the Department for Education. We have no details on the plans for Skills England itself, nor on how the Government’s proposed changes to the funding of skills-based qualifications will work in practice.
On these Benches, we have three main concerns. First, we do not believe that the proposed machinery of government changes are likely to make the difference that the Government hope they will. In the last 50 years, there have been no fewer than 12 skills agencies, or 13 including Skills England. If the creation of a new body was alone enough to address our challenges in this area, surely one of the earlier iterations would have been the answer. Secondly, as we have heard across the House, we believe that the powers of the Secretary of State created by this Bill are too wide-ranging, have little accountability and will risk directly damaging the status of these qualifications. Thirdly, we have real concerns that these changes will lead to harmful delays in addressing some of the most important strategic issues in skills development that the Government face and have set out.
Given that all noble Lords want the most effective approach to developing our skills system, it is important to recognise the achievements of the last Government and the key challenges that remain so that the new Government benefit from the institutional memory of this House and avoid repeating any past mistakes. The last Government delivered on a major simplification of the system in relation to T-levels, higher technical qualifications and apprenticeship standards. We raised the value of skills-based qualifications in the minds of students and employers, particularly in relation to apprenticeships, which we put on a statutory footing for the first time.
The noble Baroness, Lady McGregor-Smith, spoke eloquently about the importance and effectiveness of putting employers at the heart of the system, which IfATE brought as well as the creation of local skills improvement plans, which linked employers and providers for the first time. We improved the quality of qualifications across the board, including for the missing middle which your Lordships have referred to, and we laid the foundations for lifelong learning through the skills Act and the lifelong learning Act of 2023 so that options for training and retraining were available at every stage of a person’s career. I hope the Minister will confirm that the Government will not discard the progress of the past 14 years but build on it and focus on the key challenges of the future.
If we look at the challenges of improving our skills system, I am genuinely baffled as to why one would start by creating a new agency within the DfE and abolish IfATE. I am not sure how this helps build demand for newer and less well-established qualifications such as T-levels and HTQs. I am not sure how it addresses the workforce pressures in further education or the decline in investment in training by employers or how it will help the Government realise the potential of the lifelong learning Act. How does it quickly set out the plans for the new growth and skills levy which the Government promised in their manifesto, so that we avoid a hiatus in skills development and investment, as alluded to in their impact assessment? Can the Minister explain why the Government could not have achieved their goals of co-ordination with the industrial strategy council and the Migration Advisory Committee through IfATE rather than placing Skills England within the DfE, with all the time, cost and reorganisation that would have avoided?
If we had a blank sheet of paper—in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, perhaps a sheet of paper that was nimble, agile and other good adjectives—and had to choose between an independent, employer-led body and an internal team within a government department to create the best skills system, I am pretty sure that most people would naturally assume that the former would be more effective. It would help if the Minister could give the House examples of where such centralisation of power has actually delivered on the Government’s aspirations.
We are also really concerned about the powers of the Secretary of State and expect to come back to these in Committee. In the King’s Speech, the Government committed to creating a new body, Skills England, but as noble Lords have noted, the Bill does not do that. Far from simply replacing the institute, the Bill abolishes it, leaving the Secretary of State in control. We now understand that Skills England will not be on a statutory footing and therefore will unquestionably be less independent than IfATE.
The Bill gives the Secretary of State sweeping powers to prepare apprenticeship standards and plans, either personally or by commissioning others. Clauses 4 and 5 make it possible for the Secretary of State to bypass industry groups and employers entirely. In her opening speech, the Minister helpfully set out some examples to reassure the House about some of the limitations on how those powers might be used, but can she explain what the barrier is to putting them in the Bill if the Government are clear on what those limits are?
Secondly, we should be concerned about the potential impact on the quality of technical qualifications. Clause 6 removes the requirement for reviews of technical education qualifications, standards and apprenticeship assessment plans to be published at regular intervals. What will the arrangements be to do this in future, and why has the duty to publish been removed? This flexibility is supposedly to align qualifications with employers’ needs, but we know that without rigorous and independent oversight, standards can slip. Can the Minister tell the House how she plans to ensure that we have standards that are recognisable and high, without that regular independent review?
There is the further risk of dilution of quality via Clause 7, which removes the requirement to have a third-party examination of a standard or apprenticeship assessment plan before approval, leaving the power for the Secretary of State to appoint one if she sees fit. What should we expect from this? How often does the Minister expect this power to be used and under what circumstances? It would also help if the Minister could clarify under what circumstances the Secretary of State would use her powers set out in Clause 8 in relation to Ofqual.
Clause 9 is also of concern, as my noble friend Lady Evans of Bowes Park pointed out, quoting the Attorney-General. Through regulation made by statutory instrument, it allows for the Secretary of State to make provision that is consequential on other provisions in the Bill. This is a very broad Henry VIII power, applying to existing and future legislation passed in this Parliament. I would be grateful if the Minister could give an example of how Clause 9 would be used. Perhaps she could commit to listing the existing legislation where Clause 9 will apply.
The assumption of power by the Secretary of State reverses the reforms of the Enterprise Act 2016 and risks severely eroding the parity of esteem between academic and technical qualifications. Imagine the outcry if A-level standards were directly controlled by the Education Secretary—I hope your Lordships see the point I am making. Yet the Bill gives ministerial control over all technical qualifications, which risks undermining their credibility and status.
Leaving the specifics of the Bill, we are genuinely concerned that Skills England will not achieve its goals. The Government are actually creating not one but three new bodies with an interest in skills: Skills England in the DfE, the Labour Market Advisory Board in the DWP and the new Industrial Strategy Advisory Council. How will these three—or four, if we include the Migration Advisory Committee—potentially competing bodies work together?
This approach raises so many questions. Can the Minister reassure the House about the level of seniority the head of Skills England will have? How will Skills England, sitting in a corner of Sanctuary Buildings, have the authority to influence other government departments? How will it work with the devolved Administrations and the mayoral combined authorities? How will it interact with the Office for Students? It is of great concern and regret that the objectives and limits of the new body are not clearly set out in statute, and we will seek to gain as much clarity as possible on these points during the passage of the Bill. I ask the Minister again: where is the evidence that such an approach has ever worked in this country before and will be successful now?
My belief is that, if His Majesty’s Government were serious about progressing quickly with the urgent strategic issues around skills reform, they would build on the success of IfATE, rather than dismantling it. The real risks here are, first, that the Government will unwittingly create confusion, lower standards and erode trust in technical qualifications; and, secondly, that the time and cost involved in creating yet another overcentralised agency in the DfE delays addressing the big opportunities and challenges that need to be grasped in this area and leaves us with an unwieldy, unaccountable and ineffective approach.
The Bill threatens to undo much of the progress made under successive Conservative Governments in building a world-class apprenticeship and technical education system. I have no doubt that the Minister wants the best for our skills system and those who learn and work in it, but I have grave doubts that this Bill will deliver the system that the country needs and that she wants. I hope very much that the Minister will listen to these concerns and act to address them when the Bill reaches Committee.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions and acknowledge the many passionate and informed speeches that we have heard and the expert knowledge that this Chamber has brought to the debate.
I particularly welcome and give a special mention to the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Beamish. He and I served together in the other place. I remember the breakfast meetings that he used to have in the tea room—particularly when I was Chief Whip, because no Chief Whip likes to know that there is plotting going on in the tea room. My noble friend was a steadfast colleague and a strong supporter of the Government. As he outlined in his maiden speech, he used his real enthusiasm to challenge the Government on issues relating to defence and to protect those affected by the Post Office scandal. Based on his maiden speech and what I know about his history, I know that he will certainly play a very important role in this House, and I am very pleased to welcome him.
The Government’s first mission is to grow the economy. To succeed, we need to harness the talents of our people. A skills system fit for the future can enable people to learn the skills that they need to seize opportunity and businesses to access the skills in the workforce that they need to grow. I join the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, in celebrating both those who are taking part in apprenticeships and those who are delivering them. There is excellent work going on across the country, which I often have the opportunity to celebrate, where providers and employers are providing a splendid apprenticeship opportunity.
The noble Earl asked me, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, to celebrate the last Government, but I have to point out that apprenticeship starts peaked in 2015-16 at 509,360 and in the most recent year were at only 337,140—in other words, a 34% reduction on the levels seen in 2015-16—so I do not think it is enough for us simply to rest on what the previous Government have done. In fact, we need a fundamental change in our skills system if we are going to ensure the potential of our people and our economy.
On the specifics of the debate, I will start with the number of contributors who have asked questions about how we maintain an employer-led approach to the skills system. The noble Baroness, Lady Finn, the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, asked questions about that. I reassure noble Lords that employers will continue to play a central role in the design and delivery of apprenticeships and technical education. Indeed, it is crucial that apprenticeships and technical qualifications reflect the needs of employers and that employers have confidence in them. That is why, through Skills England, we will ensure that there is a comprehensive suite of apprenticeships, training and technical qualifications for individuals and employers to access, all of which will be informed by what employers and other partners tell us that they need.
The default will be that employers will set standards and assessment plans—I hope that responds to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Storey. It is not the case that this legislation enables the Secretary of State to rewrite a standard on a train, even if she were to have the time to do that. Employers remain fundamental. In fact, regarding standards and assessment plans, the legislation states that the Secretary of State will be able to prepare these only where she is satisfied that it would be more appropriate than using a group of persons. Each time the Secretary of State does this, she will need to make such a consideration and she will not be able to proceed without doing so. That approach will be taken in only a minority of circumstances where there is a clear rationale for doing so, some of which I outlined in my opening speech and all of which I will be very happy to go into more detail on in Committee. I think the important point was made by my noble friend Lady Wilcox, who, using her experience, identified some very good examples of the need for flexibility in the system, as was also recognised by others in the debate.
My noble friend Lord Watson asked about the Ofqual amendment. This amendment will ensure that, should the Secretary of State wish to in the future, she could grant an exception so that Ofqual can consider whether it is appropriate to accredit certain types of technical education qualifications. It will therefore reintroduce in a managed way the potential for Ofqual to exercise its accreditation power for technical education qualifications. Where the Secretary of State deems it necessary to maximise the quality of and confidence in technical education qualifications, it will become possible for the full suite of regulatory options to be applied to them, helping to put them on an even footing with other academic and vocational qualifications.
On the specific point about Clause 9 raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Barran and Lady Finn, these are not sweeping powers. This is not an undermining of the correct exhortations made by the Attorney-General on the use of delegated powers. Clause 9, in introducing Schedules 2 and 3, details the primary legislation that we are amending simply to remove references to IfATE as a result of its abolition. We have attempted to identify all the primary legislation that will need to be amended as a result of the Bill and the Henry VIII power that is included in the Bill exists solely in case we uncover any other Acts in need of consequential amendment after the passage of the Bill, so there is no way that this could be called a sweeping use of delegated powers.
To return to the nature of Skills England, at its heart will be the role of employers, alongside an important partnership to ensure that we are developing the most effective skills system. The noble Earl, Lord Effingham, questioned whether trade unions should play an important role in that, but my noble friend Lord Blunkett rightly identified the enormously important contribution that trade unions have made to the development of skills for their members, citing in particular the important work done by the Union Learning Fund. We make no apology for including trade unions in our work to improve the jobs and skills that their members will get. It is also a feature of high-performing systems across the world that trade unions are involved.
My noble friend Lord Watson talked about the role of higher education. We certainly believe that it has a very important role to play in this partnership with Skills England.
The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, talked about regional flexibility and the excellent work that he identified. Skills England will collaborate with combined authorities as well as with equivalent bodies in places which have devolution deals but where there is no combined authority present, and it will also work with a wide range of regional organisations as well as other local and regional partners, such as employer representative bodies. It will support them to construct skills systems which reflect and feed into both local and national priorities. That is the partnership that Skills England will bring together to deliver the impact we need to see in our skills system.
I turn to the charge made by several speakers in the debate that, somehow or another, as an executive agency Skills England will not have the independence or, frankly, the oomph that it will need. That is wholly wrong. As an executive agency, Skills England will have operational independence from the department. A permanent chair and board members will be recruited to oversee Skills England. I am glad that my noble friend Lord Blunkett recognised the status, experience and impact that the current chair, Richard Pennycook, is already having in this role, and I can tell noble Lords that we have had several hundreds of applicants for the board of Skills England—clearly, people understand the significance of that role and the impact that it will have.
I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, did not mean to suggest that I was a “here today, gone tomorrow” politician with no clue about what I was doing, despite the fact that that is what she said.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
I assure the Minister that it was not personal.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Okay. I do not note any other Ministers in the Chamber—but anyway, in that case I will not take it personally.
The important point here is that, once in place, it will not be Ministers who decide the day-to-day activity of Skills England; the board will provide scrutiny that Skills England is operating effectively within the agreed framework and will provide assurance functions as well as leadership and direction.
However, while operationally independent, it is critical that Skills England, for many of the arguments made in the debate, has sufficient proximity to government to directly influence and inform policy decisions, as many have argued for. This will allow Skills England to use its insights to influence skills policies and funding decisions. It is important that they are retained by the Secretary of State, but Skills England will have a crucial role in informing them.
For further reassurance, I say that we do anticipate the relationship between the Department for Education and Skills England will be set out in a publicly available format and updated periodically. I expect us to talk about this more in Committee. People have argued that we know little about Skills England and its functions —the noble Baronesses, Lady Evans and Lady Barran, for example—but having been set up only in July, Skills England has already produced a report which, as others have mentioned, outlines its functions and ways of working. That is how we expect Skills England to operate in the future.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McGregor-Smith, for the excellent work she has done in leading IfATE. I echo her thanks to the board and the chief executive for that work. In talking about how employers will remain at the heart of Skills England, I hope to learn from the way in which IfATE has done that. However, bringing the functions currently held by IfATE into Skills England is essential to address complexity and fragmentation in the skills system. The majority of IfATE’s functions will be transferred to the Secretary of State but will be exercised by Skills England unchanged, so we will be able to ensure continuity of skills delivery through the transition process. My officials are working very closely on this with IfATE’s senior leadership team. The noble Baroness, Lady McGregor-Smith, has been very clear about this, as she was when we met. She has been very engaged in ensuring that there is a transition plan which will ensure minimal disruption to learners, employers, providers and IfATE staff, and which will safeguard the good elements of the work that IfATE has already done, which she outlined.
It is absolutely not our intention to allow the transfer to cause a delay or drop in apprenticeship numbers. We will mitigate the risk of that through the transition plan I have talked about. On the point raised by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds, any approvals by IfATE will transition and will not have to be redone as a result of this legislation. These decisions will continue to stand until such time as the occupational standard, apprenticeship or technical qualification in question is reviewed under successor arrangements and a new decision is taken.
The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, also raised points about the sharing and transferring of IfATE’s functions. We have been clear that we expect the functions of Skills England to include broad continuation of the core work IfATE does with employers. I will be very happy to talk more about that in Committee. My noble friend Lord Watson asked about the engagement between Skills England and Scotland on UK-wide organisations such as the Migration Advisory Committee and the Industrial Strategy Council. We have had close collaboration with devolved Governments, as was recognised by my noble friend Lady Wilcox. This is critical to ensuring that there is an effective skill system regardless of where in the UK you live, work and train. We have had regular meetings with senior officials from all four nations to share best practice and approaches and their long-term strategic goals. These relationships will be important to Skills England’s success, as has already been set out by Richard Pennycook in his role as the chair.
My noble friend Lord Layard and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds rightly talked about the significance of young people and how we can ensure that we improve our skills system for them. This is where our commitment to developing a youth guarantee is very significant, and my noble friend Lord Layard once again made his strong call for the apprenticeship guarantee, which I have discussed with him on numerous occasions. He is pushing us further as a Government than we are able to go at this time, but he continues to make a strong case and I will continue to listen to him.
However, we have of course already started to think about how we reform the apprenticeship system to ensure it better serves young people, who have particularly seen the numbers of apprenticeships fall off. That is why we recently announced that we would develop foundation apprenticeships to provide a route into apprenticeships for young people who have not been able to benefit from apprenticeships up to this point.
We have also heard calls with respect to the growth and skills levy. Our reformed growth and skills levy will deliver greater flexibility for learners and employers, including through shorter duration and foundation apprenticeships in targeted sectors. We will want Skills England and the employers it engages with to have a crucial role in determining how that skills levy is spent. I also recognise the significance of the role of further education, as outlined by my noble friend Lord Watson and others in the discussion, and I can assure him that we will continue to do more than perhaps has been the case for FE previously to raise the status and significance of that sector, because it is so important for young people. We will include more about our overall role in the post-16 strategy, which we are currently working on.
The role of schools is really important, as my noble friend Lady Wilcox and the noble Lords, Lord Aberdare, Lord Hampton and Lord Lucas, outlined. I can assure noble Lords that the curriculum and assessment review will look at the significance of digital skills, creativity and how enterprise can be developed in our schools.
If we are to meet the skills gaps that persist in our economy, we must address the fragmentation in our skills system. To respond to the challenge of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, I do not believe we can do that by simply building on IfATE. We need, with Skills England, to make sure that we do more than the excellent work that IfATE has done. We have to make and maintain an authoritative assessment of national and regional skills needs in the economy, now and in the future, combining the best possible insights from employers and other key stakeholders.
This legislation will enable Skills England to build on IfATE’s work but will also enable us to build that broader partnership and assessment that will help us to transform our skills system. This Bill is an important milestone in the delivery of the Government’s manifesto commitment to establish Skills England. I look forward to further discussion through the passage of this legislation.
Baroness Smith of Malvern
That the bill be committed to a Grand Committee, and that it be an instruction to the Grand Committee that the bill be considered in the following order: Clause 1, Schedule 1, Clause 2, Schedule 2, Clause 3, Schedule 3, Clauses 4 to 13, Title.